Mathematica: Derivatives involving absolute values

Use ComplexExpand. e.g. D[ComplexExpand@Abs[x-1],x]

Source: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/47100/derivative-of-the-absolute-value-function-in-mathematica-looks-very-different-fr

Interesting Reads: Nick Brown smelled bull

http://narrative.ly/pieces-of-mind/nick-brown-smelled-bull/

Interesting Reads: Making of Crash Bandicoot

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/

Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin, creators of the original Crash Bandicoot released in 1996, details the makings of the game, over a series of 13 blog posts.

Product Review: Rotating 360 Leather Case for Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 SM-T700/SM-T705

Bought from here.

Pros:
- Does its job, protects the Samsung galaxy tab.
- Cheap, about $12

Cons:
- Rotating 360 isn't as useful as it sounds. No real need to put in portrait mode. The fact that it can be put it both landscape and portrait mode makes it less structurally sound.
- It has two slots to hold the tablet. The most upright position isn't very stable. It has fallen down more than once when playing games in this position.
- Inside cover gets dirty easily. So when you close the cover, the screen itself will also get dirty.
- After two and a half months of use, fabric has started to wear and tear out at the part where the cover bends.

Additional comment: To keep the cover on the tablet, an elastic strap is used to hold it in place. This mechanism slightly bends the cover at the edges.

Bolded text in pdf

Problem: After compiling latex, pdf containing images have text bolded. Problem only occurs within Adobe Reader

Solution: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/141/why-are-some-pages-in-my-pdf-coming-out-bold

To remove transparency in photoshop, Layer-> Flatten Image. Save the image, and recompile latex file. pdf should now look normal in Adobe Reader.

Installing Cygwin

1. Grab the installation package from https://www.cygwin.com/
2. Install any packages you require. Common packages include: vim, gnuplot, x11.
- vim is a text editor.
- gnuplot to generate plots
- x11 to open up new windows. Need to use this for gnuplot

• Attempting to open the gnuplot directly from the cygwin terminal won't work. Have to type in "startxwin", which will open another window. From this window, gnuplot will work.

• To change the home directory from the default location of c:\cygwin64 to something else, say, your dropbox account, follow instructions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjxEH_tr7e0

• Default vim will have problems as outlined here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18115644/vim-has-many-ui-bugs-on-cygwin-on-windows-8
  To fix this, do the following: type into the cygwin terminal "vim _vimrc". This will create a file. Into this file, type "set nocompatible" and on the next line, "set backspace=indent,eol,start". Save the file. Problems listed in link above should be fixed.

Frédéric Chopin - Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, 3rd movement (Funeral March)
https://mega.co.nz/#!aJAjGShZ!IoeFePsHD4DmDf9PTexlmWNLBqAB_cUgWJ6vYTsRnb0
Played by İdil Biret.

More often a change of self is needed than a change of scene - Benson