6.30.2 Greatest hits from previous weeks

6.30.2.1 Elegant operations on matrix rows and columns
6.30.2.2 Positioning axes labels
6.30.2.3 How to create word clouds?
6.30.2.4 How do I clear all user defined symbols?
6.30.2.5 What does # mean in Mathematica?
6.30.2.6 How to manipulate 2D plots?
6.30.2.7 How to make an inkblot?
6.30.2.1 Elegant operations on matrix rows and columns

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=3069

Question 
 
The Mathematica tutorial has a section 'Basic Matrix Operations', describing operations like transpose, inverse and determinant. These operations all work on entire matrices. I am missing a ... 
[list-manipulation] [matrix] [array] [faq]
 
asked by sjdh https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=515 180 votes
answered by Mr.Wizard https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=121 61 votes
6.30.2.2 Positioning axes labels

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=87388

I need to change the position of my axes labels such that the y-axis label is in the middle and parallel to the y-axis. I'd also like the x-axis label to be in the middle of the x-axis rather than ... 
[plotting] [graphics]
 
asked by John_dydx https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=7849 15 votes
answered by Virgil https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=27697 16 votes
6.30.2.3 How to create word clouds?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=2334

Word clouds are rather useless fancy and visually appealing plots, where words are plotted with different sizes according to their frequency in a corpus. Many applications exist out there (Wordle, ... 
[graphics] [computational-geometry] [generative-art] [packing] [word-cloud]
 
asked by István Zachar https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=89 145 votes
answered by Heike https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=46 119 votes
6.30.2.4 How do I clear all user defined symbols?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=850

Is there some way to do this other than going to  Evaluation -> Quit kernel  and firing a new one up? 
[variable-definitions] [symbols] [faq] [clear] [persistence]
 
asked by niklasfi https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=82 97 votes
answered by Artes https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=184 95 votes
6.30.2.5 What does # mean in Mathematica?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=19035

I asked Mathematica to compute the following 
 
 Solve[c (1-x)^2-x^(1/4) == 0, x] 
 
 
and it returned this: 
x = Root[#1^8 c^4 - 8 #1^7 c^4 + 28 #1^6 c^4 - 56 #1^5 c^4 ... 
[syntax] [core-language]
 
asked by ronanymous https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=5730 38 votes
answered by Dr. belisarius https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=193 64 votes
6.30.2.6 How to manipulate 2D plots?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=7142

When it comes to visual analysis, large datasets or data with intricate internal details often makes plotting in 2D useless, as the outcome is either just a fraction of the full dataset, or no details ... 
[plotting] [graphics] [dynamic] [gui-construction]
 
asked by István Zachar https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=89 134 votes
answered by István Zachar https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=89 154 votes
6.30.2.7 How to make an inkblot?

https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=question&id=3345

How to effectively create a polygon that looks like a realistic inkblot? So far, I could come up with this (borrowing from Ed Pegg Jr.'s Rorschach demonstration): 
 
... 
[graphics] [performance-tuning] [image-processing] [generative-art]
 
asked by István Zachar https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=89 86 votes
answered by Sjoerd C. de Vries https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/landing/r/digest?cta=user&id=57 51 votes