I got a rather unsatisfactory answer on Stack Overflow but the subsequent discussion with the answerer (in the comments below) was helpful. Should I accept his answer? Or is there a way to accept a specific comment?
I'm trying to go through and provide answers to every unanswered question (search &quot;closed:0 answers:0&quot;), somewhat following the spirit that was blogged about at  .  However, I'm finding this much more difficult than it needs to be, as many of the questions have already been answered without the use of an &quot;answer&quot; - but instead, in the form of a comment by either the OP or another poster. I wouldn't mind reading through and skipping these, as long as there was some appropriate action I could take to at least assist with preventing these questions from being seen again from the same query - either by myself or another SO member.  Is there such an appropriate action?  Should we vote to close?  If so, using what reason? Even if I vote to close, what are the chances that 4 other users will also view the question and also vote to close?  (i.e., will my individual vote even do any good?  Is there any report to show recent close votes, so that others may also review and contribute supporting close votes?) Should we post some sort of an answer - even just something to the effect of &quot;this was already answered by the OP's own comment to his answer (above)&quot;? Would something like this be appropriate to flag for moderator attention, and let the moderators deal with it?  (Or would this be considered too trivial?) Should we rename the question title to something standard that can be used in a search exclusion?  (Maybe &quot;SOLVED:&quot;?)  Basically, how can I help to denote questions as &quot;This question is no longer in active search of an answer - though better answers may still be appreciated.&quot;? I've already reviewed , which was closed as a duplicate of  - but this requires effort on part of a user who may very likely no longer be active. Otherwise, is there something I should be doing to improve my search to filter out these types of questions? I've run across this many times, so I don't consider it to be a rare issue.  However, the last question like this I just ran across, prompting this question, was .  In this case, the question was self-answered by the OP in the form of a comment, this question is the OP's only question, the OP has no other visible activity on SO, and the OP hasn't been seen on SO since he registered and posted the question 5 months ago. Another one I just ran across is .  However, here the &quot;answer&quot; comment was posted by a reputable and recently active SO member.  Should I leave a comment directed at him, asking him to re-post his comment as an answer, or should I post my own answer echoing his comment?  (Or something else?) Yet another is .  Interestingly, the OP actually self-edited the question to include the &quot;SOLVED:&quot; prefix on to the question, instead of posting his resolving comment as an answer (and ideally accepting it) as he was asked to do by another comment.  This brings up another good idea - is there a &quot;standard&quot; we should use to rename the titles on these &quot;resolved but unanswered&quot; posts that could be used as a search exclusion?  (Also added to the above list.)
Step to step how to install Cinelerra I have some problems installing cinelerra on my Ubuntu.  How do I install it? How do I add polygons to fill a face? trying to recreate this Elijah bottle. I have two sides, one of which is outlined in red. How do I fill that face with polygons so I can then grab the center (that red square dot) to pull it outward thereby creating the slight outward bowing of the bottle? What color would you see if you place 2 mirrors in opposit when one is a one way mirror How can I detect the encoding/codepage of a text file In our application, we receive text files (.txt, .csv, etc.) from diverse sources. When reading, these files sometimes contain garbage, because the files where created in a different/unknown codepage.  Is there a way to (automatically) detect the codepage of a text file?   The detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, on the StreamReader constructor, works for UTF8  and other unicode marked files, but I'm looking for a way to detect code pages, like ibm850, windows1252.     Thanks for your answers, this is what I've done.  The files we receive are from end-users, they do not have a clue about codepages. The receivers are also end-users, by now this is what they know about codepages: Codepages exist, and are annoying.  Solution:    Open the received file in Notepad, look at a garbled piece of text. If somebody is called François or something, with your human intelligence you can guess this. I've created a small app that the user can use to open the file with, and enter a text that user knows it will appear in the file, when the correct codepage is used.  Loop through all codepages, and display the ones that give a solution with the user provided text.  If more as one codepage pops up, ask the user to specify more text. Dimensionality of null space when Trace is Zero This is the fourth part of a four-part problem in Charles W. Curtis's book entitled Linear Algebra, An Introductory Approach (p. 216).  I've succeeded in proving the first three parts, but the most interesting part of the problem eludes me.  Part (a) requires the reader to prove that $\operatorname{Tr}{(AB)} = \operatorname{Tr}{(BA)}$, which I was able to show by writing out each side of the equation using sigma notation.  Part (b) asks the reader to use part (a) to show that similar matrices have the same trace.  If $A$ and $B$ are similar, then  $\operatorname{Tr}{(A)} = \operatorname{Tr}{(S^{-1}BS)}$  $= \operatorname{Tr}(BSS^{-1})$  $= \operatorname{Tr}(B)$,  which completes part (b).  Part (c) asks the reader to show that the vector subspace of matrices with trace equal to zero have dimension $n^2 - 1$.  Curtis provides the hint that the map from $M_n(F)$ to $F$ is a linear transformation.  From this, I used the theorem that $\dim T(V) + \dim n(T) = \dim V$ to obtain the dimension of the null space.  Part (d), however, I'm stuck on.  It asks the reader to show that subspace described in part (c) is generated by matrices of the form $AB - BA$, where $A$ and $B$ are arbitrary $n \times n$ matrices.  I tried to form a basis for the subspace, but wasn't really sure what it would look like since an $n \times n$ matrix has $n^2$ entries in it, but the basis would need $n^2 - 1$ matrixes.  I also tried to think of a linear transformation whose image would have the form of $AB - BA$, but this also didn't help me.  I'm kind of stuck...  Many thanks in advance! Run Unity on external monitor with Bumblebee Is there evidence that adding salt to water prior to boiling can damage a stainless steel pan? Hide trivial comments "More clear" vs "Clearer": when to use "more" instead of "-er"? In iOS 6 and below I could double tap the home button, tap and hold an app, and  click the red - to close an application(s).  In iOS 7 this does not work. How can I restart an app that's exploding without resetting the entire OS? Ignore python multiple return value Say I have a Python function that returns multiple values in a tuple:  def func():     return 1, 2   Is there a nice way to ignore one of the results rather than just assigning to a temporary variable? Say if I was only interested in the first value, is there a better way than this:  x, temp = func() Suppose f(m,n) is a double sequence in $\mathbb R$. Under what condition do we have $\lim\limits_{n\to\infty}\sum\limits_{m=1}^\infty f(m,n)=\sum\limits_{m=1}^\infty \lim\limits_{n\to\infty} f(m,n)$? Thanks! I understand if you travelling in or to the US, you can lock your luggage using the TSA Luggage Lock. (Immigration is still able to open your luggage using their own special keys)  How about Europe? Especially Heathrow + Charles de Gaulle?    If the TSA Lock is not acceptable in Europe, are there any other alternative precautions I could use instead?  (FYI, information about the ) Per the title, does $\displaystyle\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \sin(\pi(2+\sqrt{3})^n)$ converge? Converge absolutely?   I'm stuck on this question, not sure how to approach it.  Thank you! Time travel film: character with male and female reproductive organs is taken back in time by a barman who turns out to be themselves I have had a friend give me a rough description of a film and I'm curious to find out what it actually is. I don't know very much. I understand this will be difficult, especially since every time my friend explains the tale it's different so this description is likely to contain some inaccuracies.  The film's plot begins with a recounting given by the main character, who had both male and female reproductive organs but had one set removed (not sure which, think male ones were removed). The main character is narrating this tale to the barman in a bar. The barman then takes the main character back in time, where they make love to themselves and produce a child.  The child, once born, is abandoned by the mother in the past - but the barman takes the child to the orphanage and leaves them there, ensuring their survival. Eventually it is revealed that the child was the main character themselves, and so was the barman.  In other words every major character introduced up to that point was the same person who had severely messed with their own timeline. Simultaneous collaborative editing of a LaTeX file If I am shooting the 8-ball for a win, and my opponent has a ball near the pocket I'm aiming for, can I call something like "8-ball off the 2 ball into the corner pocket"?  I thought this was allowed, but a friend says this is an automatic loss and that the 8-ball must never touch another ball before going into the pocket.  Various pool rules aren't clear for me on this scenario. I messed up my system earlier, I was greeted with a black screen, when booting in to Ubuntu. When I started up my laptop, I selected the recovery option from the grub menu, and chose fallback at root terminal. I saw that I was able to use the add user command, with it, I probably could use to create a privileged user on my machine.   Isn't that a security issue?  One could have stolen my laptop and at startup chose recovery and add another user, I'm fudged then. Including my data.  Come to think of it, even if you somehow remove that entry, one could boot from a live-CD, get a chroot up and running and then add another user, with the right privileges that allows it to see all my data.   If I set the BIOS to boot at my HD only, no USB, CD/DVD, Network startup, and set a BIOS password, it still wouldn't matter, because you'd still have that grub recovery startup entry.  I am fairly certain that someone from China, Russia can't hack my Ubuntu Trusty Tahr, from the network, because it's secure like that. But, if one has physical access to my - your - machine, then, well, that's why I'm asking this question. How can I secure my machine so that hacking through physical access is not possible?    Bug Report: What rules govern forced removal from flights (due to overbooking)? I was recently surprised to see  because his flight was overbooked.  He was reportedly a doctor who needed to see patients the next morning, so he did not really want to get off, justifying the use of force.  I knew that airlines could overbook flights and deny boarding to some passengers, but I thought that kind of boarding denial would happen at the gate and that once folks had been let on, those denied boarding would be those arriving later to the gate.    Why or in what conditions is this kind of forcible removal considered OK?    Clarification following close votes from people who think this question is primarily opinion-based: By "OK" I mean the sense of "legally OK," "officially accepted," "instantiated as policy," "sanctioned by authorities," or "OK according to the regulations and policies and laws and whatever other formal rules govern forced removal from flights due to overbooking." Whether or not you personally consider it socially acceptable does not matter as an answer, unless you have formalized that into a citeable adopted form that governs what happens and want to explain the reasoning behind that rule. BibTeX handling of the Dutch "van" name prefix with natbib