this is my first question, so please be nice :-) I'm having a python list and want to merge the items to other list items in a certain size. For example: old_list = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] item_size = 2 - some code - new_list = [[1,2],[3,4],[5,6],[7,8]]  Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks a lot in advance!
I have a list of arbitrary length, and I need to split it up into equal size chunks and operate on it. There are some obvious ways to do this, like keeping a counter and two lists, and when the second list fills up, add it to the first list and empty the second list for the next round of data, but this is potentially extremely expensive.  I was wondering if anyone had a good solution to this for lists of any length, e.g. using generators.  I was looking for something useful in itertools but I couldn't find anything obviously useful. Might've missed it, though.  Related question:
I am wondering if there is away (possibly a better way) to order by the order of the values in an IN() clause.  The problem is that I have 2 queries, one that gets all of the IDs and the second that retrieves all the information. The first creates the order of the IDs which I want the second to order by. The IDs are put in an IN() clause in the correct order.  So it'd be something like (extremely simplified):  SELECT id FROM table1 WHERE ... ORDER BY display_order, name  SELECT name, description, ... WHERE id IN ([id's from first])   The issue is that the second query does not return the results in the same order that the IDs are put into the IN() clause.  One solution I have found is to put all of the IDs into a temp table with an auto incrementing field which is then joined into the second query.  Is there a better option?  Note: As the first query is run "by the user" and the second is run in a background process, there is no way to combine the 2 into 1 query using sub queries.  I am using MySQL, but I'm thinking it might be useful to have it noted what options there are for other DBs as well. How to delete Windows.old in Windows 8 It seems to be a common thing that a Windows Update creates a Windows.old folder under C:\Windows.old My question is now, can it be deleted with Windows 8 and how can I do that?  If I try to manually delete it in Windows Explorer it does not let me, a permissions issue. What happens if you call erase() on a map element while iterating from begin to end? In the following code I loop through a map and test if an element needs to be erased.  Is it safe to erase the element and keep iterating or do I need to collect the keys in another container and do a second loop to call the erase()?  map&lt;string, SerialdMsg::SerialFunction_t&gt;::iterator pm_it; for (pm_it = port_map.begin(); pm_it != port_map.end(); pm_it++) {     if (pm_it-&gt;second == delete_this_id) {         port_map.erase(pm_it-&gt;first);     } }   UPDATE: Of course, I then  which I didn't think would be related but answers my question. I want to convert a std::string to lowercase. I am aware of the function tolower(). However, in the past I have had issues with this function and it is hardly ideal anyway as using it with a std::string would require iterating over each character. Is there an alternative which works 100% of the time? How do I find the right size of filters for a lens? I was looking to get a circular polarizing filter and an UV filter for my Canon 550D, 18-135mm lens. When I checked online I found these filters came in different sizes, like 62mm, 67mm, 72mm, 77mm. How do I know which is right?  Also, will there be any degradation of photo quality if I put both these filters on the lens? How we can show every permutation is either even or odd,but not both......I can't arrive at a proof for this ..... Can anybody give me the proof...  Thanks in advance... How can I get back to Blender's default theme? Even though I am relatively new to Blender I am recording a tutorial for a Blender exporter. I have been advised that I should use the Default colour scheme (for the UI). I have no idea which one that is. Can anyone tell me? On iPhone it's very easy to clone an app (running multiple copies of the app on the same device); e.g.:    Is it possible to do this on Android? Alternative proof that $(a^2+b^2)/(ab+1)$ is a square when it's an integer Let $a,b$ be positive integers.  When $$k = \frac{a^2 + b^2}{ab+1}$$ is an integer, it is a square.    Proof 1: (Ngô Bảo Châu): Rearrange to get $a^2-akb+b^2-k=0$, as a quadratic in $a$ this has two values: $a$ and $kb - a = (b^2-k)/a$. (The second root is determined in two different ways from the expansion $(x-r_1)(x-r_2) = x^2 - (r_1 + r_2)x + r_1 r_2$.)  Now suppose we have $a,b$ such that $k$ is an integer but not a square, by the investigation about roots we have that the second root is a nonzero integer since $k,b,a$ are integers and $k \not = b^2$, futhermore it is positive which is easily seen from its defining equation.  WLOG assume $a \ge b$ so that the second root is strictly smaller than $a$. This leads to a decent, replacing $a$ with the second root.    Proof 2 (Don Zagier): Apply reduction theory (specifically, Sätze 1 and 2 of Section 13 of my book on quadratic fields) to the quadratic form $x^2 + kxy + y^2$, which is the unique reduced quadratic form in its equivalence class.    Note that Proof 2 is pretty much the same as Proof 1 when written out in explicit detail, but I could not read Zagier's book because I cannot read German.  I would like to know more approaches to this and other alternative proofs of this result if possible! Thanks in advance.  I would also be interested in related problems (especially easier ones of a similar nature) and texts which cover the reduction theory in English. Proof for $e^z = \lim \limits_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left( 1 + \frac{z}{x} \right)^x$ Q1: Could someone provide a proof for this equation (please focus on this question):   $$e^z = \lim \limits_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left( 1 + \frac{z}{x} \right)^x$$  Q2: Is there any corelationn between above equation and the equation below (this would benefit me a lot because i at least know how to proove this one):  $$e = \lim \limits_{x \rightarrow \infty} \left( 1 + \frac{1}{x} \right)^x$$ Is Cesaro convergence still weaker in measure? A variation on the induced topology (subspace topology) Is it possible to tell when statistics were last accessed by a query using T-SQL? I'm trying to ascertain what statistics are involved in a query, I know I can check the visual query plan but I wondered whether there was a table (or tables) with this information. Baking lots of bread - keeping a yeast starter I'm looking for a library in Python which will provide at and cron like functionality.  I'd quite like have a pure Python solution, rather than relying on tools installed on the box; this way I run on machines with no cron.  For those unfamiliar with cron: you can schedule tasks based upon an expression like:    0 2 * * 7 /usr/bin/run-backup # run the backups at 0200 on Every Sunday  0 9-17/2 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/purge-temps # run the purge temps command, every 2 hours between 9am and 5pm on Mondays to Fridays.   The cron time expression syntax is less important, but I would like to have something with this sort of flexibility.   If there isn't something that does this for me out-the-box, any suggestions for the building blocks to make something like this would be gratefully received.  Edit I'm not interested in launching processes, just "jobs" also written in Python - python functions. By necessity I think this would be a different thread, but not in a different process.  To this end, I'm looking for the expressivity of the cron time expression, but in Python.   Cron has been around for years, but I'm trying to be as portable as possible. I cannot rely on its presence. I am a relatively recent graphic design graduate. I have been working at a small printing house for about two years, but will soon be interviewing for a different position in another city.  My question is about what to include in my design portfolio. When I was in school, my professors all insisted that work included in a portfolio should be 100% original: my original photography, my original logos, my original layout, my original written content etc. However, at my current office, we rely heavily on client-supplied logos, type content, and photography—and stock photography (shutterstock, etc).  What do other designers include in their portfolios? Has anyone else had this issue and can I reasonable include these more recent projects in my portfolio if I label them appropriately (something like "layout design")? Statistical saturation attack on block ciphers I was wondering if anyone around here could give me some explanation on this type of attacks. Pretty much the only thing that I could find is .  What I really need is basic explanation of the attack itself with a small example if possible such as any basic block cipher that you could come up with with 3-4 rounds. This is for my personal understanding so any input is more than welcome. Aligning multiple points to line in QGIS? I would like to align multiple points to a line, or lines within a layer, using a specified tolerance or buffer around the line objects. Please refer to the sample sketch attached.  For the sake of this example, the points closest to the line in the BEFORE picture are within 5 map units of the line, while the outermost points are over 10 map units away. I would like to snap the closest points onto the nearest line, using a tolerance of 5 map units to achieve the result in the AFTER picture. How can I have colored and underlined links with hyperref? I would like the internal hyperlinks generated by  to be colored and underlined.    Reading some of the package documentation, I know that these \hypersetup keys exist:   colorlinks: when true, color the link; when false, draw a border around the link and color that. linkcolor: the color of the link (requires colorlinks=true to have any effect) linkbordercolor: the color of the link border color (requires colorlinks=false to have any effect) pdfborderstyle: keys for the pdf borderstyle dictionary.  I don't know what keys and values exist for this dictionary, but I do know that pdfborderstyle={/S/U} or pdfborderstyle={/S/U/W 1} can change the link border from a box to an underline.   But it seems impossible with this key structure to have colored links (requiring colorlinks=true and colored borders (requiring colorlinks=false.)  Here is a minimal (non)-working example ():  \documentclass{article} \usepackage{xcolor} \usepackage{hyperref}  \hypersetup{colorlinks=false,linkbordercolor=red,linkcolor=green,pdfborderstyle={/S/U/W 1}}  \begin{document} \section{To See}\label{tosee} \vskip2cm \hyperref[tosee]{just to see} \end{document}   With colorlinks=false (the default), the text is black and the border is red.  With colorlinks=true the text is green and there is no border. How do I find out which folder an app is in in iOS 11? In older versions of iOS, if I searched for an app with Spotlight, it would tell me which folder the app was in. (E.g., this feature still works on my iPad, which is running iOS 9, but not on my iPod Touch, which is running iOS 11.)  This feature seems to have been removed at some point. When I search for an app under iOS 11 using Spotlight, it will find the app and let me run it, but it doesn't tell me which folder it is in.  How can I find out which folder an app is in now?