@tomleslie I got the same weirdness with the numeric indices as you did. 

@baharm31 Note that a least-squares solution is not a solution (in the ordinary sense of the word) nor even an approximation to a solution. It's just values of the variables that (locally) minimize the sum of the squares of the residuals.

@baharm31 No, but the presence of a trivial solution makes other solutions more difficult (though not impossible) to find because most methods will converge on this easy solution. 

@AHSAN Why do you want to use an arcane method such as false position when you could just use fsolve?

Your equation has two free variables, lambda and k. So, it's not clear what you mean by "solving" the equation. And even if you clarify that, there's no hope of doing it with an iterative numerical method.

@emendes If there are no multiple copies, and we retain one copy of the target expression, then what is being removed?

@acer Another alternative is that there be a time limit on the withdrawal: For example, if a thread has been unchanged for a month, no withdrawals can be made.

This is my fear: There are thousands of long-dormant accounts on MaplePrimes. Presumably a great many of those have weak passwords that are easy to guess. Someone could be hacking into those accounts to remove the votes that those users gave.

The last I counted, there were (I think) 3,240 accounts with reputation > 10. This is the criterion that determines whether a user can vote.

@ecterrab When I lose points, I wish that I were able to see which Answers were having points withdrawn. Prior to the 3rd week of January, I was always able to see that by reviewing my last dozen or so Answers. But in this recent spate of attacks, the Answers must be so old that I can't find them! So, it's very suspicious that a huge number of points are disappearing from Answers that are very old.

@emendes Sorry for the delayed reply. I didn't reply yet because I now understand even less than before! I'm trying to figure out how to ask you the right questions so that I can understand. Four things that will help:

1. If I ask you a question, please consider it word by word and answer it as precisely as possible. Please answer every question that I ask, even if you need to say "I don't know." Please indicate precisely which of my questions you are answering (perhaps by quoting it).
2. I know virtually nothing of the mathematics underlying your project, and please don't try to explain it to me. So, terms like "symmetric" and "dynamics" should not be used. I understand sets, lists, intersections, combinations, etc.
3. Please use the best English usage and spelling that you can manage.
4. Ask about small actual-use cases rather than contrived examples.

Here's why I now understand less:

1. abc is a set/list of exactly one copy of every possible 3-combo from parms.
2. conds takes as input an n-combo and outputs an n-combo.
3. You Search for the output of conds in abc. Because of point 1, it will necessarily be found exactly once! Where are these multiple copies that we're supposed to be removing?

Making the axes three different colors really helps with seeing the animation. Great idea; vote up.

@vv I was only referring to lines here because that's what the OP asked about. I am well aware that 2D objects (polygons) are laid down before 1D objects (curves). I mentioned that in the original post that I made about this topic nearly 20 years ago (in some other Maple forum). Indeed, I also covered 0D objects (points, text), which are laid down after 1D objects, and axes, which are laid down last. At the time of my original test, all objects of each dimension were laid down in reverse order. Apparently, that has changed for lines.

@acer Amazing timing difference between DEtools:-phaseportraint and odeplot + fieldplot.

Did you mean theta= 0..2*Pi rather than theta= 0..16?

@Kitonum All the extra lines are controllable. I find this a good compromise towards reducing extra lines:

axiscoordinates= polar, labels= [`\tr`,theta](t), axis[1]= [gridlines= false],
axis[2]= [gridlines= [subticks= 0], tickmarks= [subticks= 3]]

@nm People like you too; you've got a lot of Vote Ups. I will be very upset if you stop posting.

I've lost hundreds of reputation points in similar mysterious circumstances since about the 3rd week of January. When I look, it is not because of the withdrawal of vote ups from recent postings.