Can "individual" be referred to as "it"? Or only he/she/they?
I would like to treat a user as a non-gender noun and refer to it with the gender-neutral pronoun, it. E.g.,     The user defines two variables, x and y. It then multiplies each variable by a prime number.    However, on  I found this:      The word "it", however, has an extremely impersonal connotation, even offensive, in common usage and is rarely used in English to refer to an unspecified human being or person of unknown gender. This is because the word "it" connotes that the person being specified is inferior to a person or is an object.   Is to appropriate to refer to a person of unknown sex as it?  Should I rephrase my sentence as follows:     The user defines two variables, x and y. The user then multiplies each variable by a prime number.
Modular exponentiation by hand ($a^b\bmod c$) Use of definite article before phrases like Heathrow Airport, Hyde Park, Waterloo Station, Edgware Road and Parliament Square How to Expand , Resize "extended partition"? How can I expand/resize my extended partition (sda3) with unallocated free space to the left of it? I want this to be able to expand my / partition (sda5). I'm new to inequalities in mathematical induction and don't know how to proceed further. So far I was able to do this:  $V(1): 1≤1 \text{  true}$  $V(n): n!≤((n+1)/2)^n$  $V(n+1): (n+1)!≤((n+2)/2)^{(n+1)}$  and I've got : $(((n+1)/2)^n)\cdot(n+1)≤((n+2)/2)^{(n+1)}$ $((n+1)^n)n(n+1)≤((n+2)^n)((n/2)+1)$ "#include" a text file in a C program as a char[] Is there a way to include an entire text file as a string in a C program at compile-time?  something like:   file.txt:  This is a little text file  main.c:  #include &lt;stdio.h&gt; int main(void) {    #blackmagicinclude("file.txt", content)    /*    equiv: char[] content = "This is\na little\ntext file";    */    printf("%s", content); }    obtaining a little program that prints on stdout "This is a little text file"  At the moment I used an hackish python script, but it's butt-ugly and limited to only one variable name, can you tell me another way to do it? Scheduling a team based activity with 10 different teams and X different games. Every team must meet each other ONCE but never twice, Hi there I am planning a ”Scavenger hunt”-like activity (I have no other words for this event), and I am having trouble creating the schedule.   The idea of this hunt/run/game/competition is that 10 teams will battle each other at X different mini games. The games on are team vs. team based, meaning that there will always be two teams on each post and one winner and one loser.  I require that every team fights every other team. Meaning that team 1 will have to meet team 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, and team 2 will have to meet team 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 (and so forth). The amount of mini games must be so, that every team only meets the other teams ONCE each, but still they have to meet every team.  How many posts do I need to create, and how could I schedule the overall activity? (A table of rounds and teams would be much appreciated). What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? Right now  is fairly broken -- it's a simple descending sort by views. As Joel said , it is &quot;a self-fulfilling prophecy.&quot; But this is not intentional, it's only because we haven't had time to improve it yet! As I sit down to write a better algorithm, I thought you guys might have some insight into what would make a good formula to determine the &quot;hot&quot; questions -- over the last 24 hours, the last week, the last month, and all time. Here are the variables we have to work with:  Votes [aka Score] Views Answers Answer Votes [aka Score] Whether the question has an accepted answer or not Time question was originally asked Time of last activity on question Reputation of asker Reputation(s) of answerers  Joel cited the reddit formula as an example, but I think our site is a little different than just a basic link submission site. Plus, we have more variables and data to work with. I found a  describing a few formulas: Y Combinator Hacker News  (p - 1) / (t + 2)^1.5 p = votes (points) from users t = time since submission in hours  Reddit  t = (time of entry post) - (Dec 8, 2005) x = upvotes - downvotes y = {1 if x &gt; 0, 0 if x = 0, -1 if x &lt; 0) z = {1 if x &lt; 0, otherwise x} log(z) + (y * t)/45000  Thoughts? Ideas? I don't want to overthink this; I just want the &quot;hot&quot; questions to be relevant and useful to us. So the simpler the algorithm the better! Based on my analysis of the above and the comments so far, here's the second version of what I have implemented so far. This might suck. I don't know:  (log(Qviews)*4) + ((Qanswers * Qscore)/5) + sum(Ascores) -------------------------------------------------------- ((QageInHours+1) - ((QageInHours - Qupdated)/2)) ^ 1.5  Note that accepted answers weight not at all in hotness. This is intentional, as I feel accepted answers are a fine social contract, but not a good data point for question or answer quality. This algorithm will heavily favor questions with LOTS of answers, as the sum(Ascores) are now included -- one assumes if there are lots of answers, there will be a lot more voting on the answers, too. Update: Note that this formula is what is used on the  linked from the homepage of each site. It is not the formula used to determine the  list. See . P.d.f of the absolute value of a normally distributed variable I came across this question as an exercise, had a brief idea, but didn't know how to proceed.     Let $X \sim N(0, 1)$. What is the p.d.f of $|X|$ ?   I know the final p.d.f looks just like the right half of the original pdf, but extended vertically for a factor of 2.  Could someone please show mathematically what the p.d.f of variable |X| is going to be, and explain briefly? Thank you. Stack Overflow has successfully borrowed at least one XBox feature (Achievements).  I'd like to see another feature borrowed as well. Let's say I'm playing Halo online and another player is being a bigot.  I have the option to add him to a list of ignored users.  After doing that, all the racist things he says will never be heard through my headphones anymore. Now, on Stack Overflow, I'd like the ability to add a user to a list of ignored users.  This would hide all of that user's comments, and maybe his questions and answers as well (not sure if hiding questions/answers is necessary). This serves multiple purposes:  It would make it easy for users to avoid other users' flamebait. It would give users a more appropriate response to flamebait. The ability to start flame wars would be reduced, since fewer users would see those comments. Users would now have an incentive to be more diplomatic, as there is now a negative consequence to the behavior (the silent treatment). Administrators could review which users are the most often ignored, which would be a strong indication that someone should be  or even locked out of their account. Administrators wouldn't have to spend as much time dealing with complaints about abusive users, since users would have a better way to respond.    makes a good point in a comment to an answer, that I thought should get more visibility:  I had a problem, reported it and got the response &quot;not bad enough to do anything about, sorry&quot;. Which is kind of true, because the only options available to the mods are the nuclear one (penalty box) and the zero-effect one (do nothing). We need a middle ground option where abuse can be handled for you without also being handled for everyone. Sketch complex curve $z(t) = e^{-1t+it}$, $0 \le t \le b$ for some $b>0$ When do relativistic effects need to be explicitly included? Sum of derivatives of a polynomial Our group has determined that buying (almost exclusively) money and points is the way to go.  Most kingdom cards are ignored, or are bought very sparingly. This has lead to games feeling 'samey' and has taken a lot of the fun out for us.  What strategies should we use to counter ""?  Or are house rules needed here? Why doesn't calling a Python string method do anything unless you assign its output? Anyone seen this one yet? Vote too old to be changed, unless post is edited My vote was only a few hours old. Then I realized the answer was wrong. Updated my question and went to remove the vote. Even after updating question I still have the issue. Small issue, but frustrating.  See also: Proof of matrix norm property: submultiplicativity I've been searching for the definition of the submultiplicative (I think it has multiple names from what I've seen) property in proof form. Some books define it as part of the properties that define matrix norms, and some include it as an additional property. I still haven't been able to work it out for myself or find it anywhere.  Let $A$ and $B$ be $n\times m$ and $m\times l$ matrices respectively, prove that:  $$\begin{align} \|AB\| \le \|A\|\|B\|  \end{align}$$ From  by Richard Brualdi  We have a chess master. He has 11 weeks to prepare for a competition so he decides that he will practice everyday by playing at least 1 game a day. To make sure that he's able to take a couple of breaks, he also decides that he wont play more than 12 games per week.  My question is, how do you prove/dis-prove that there will be a succession of (consecutive) days in which he will play k games, $k \geq  22$?  Specifically, I don't quite understand the use of the pigeonhole principle here.  Thanks in advance! :D  EDIT  I'll try to clarify what I'm asking:  The goal is to prove that for every possible practice schedule that the chess master makes, there will always be a consecutive sequence of days such that he plays exactly k games.  So for example, if k = 22, how do you prove that no matter what his schedule is like, he will always play exactly k games in r days, $1 \leq r\leq  77$.  My main question is: what is the general method for proving different values of k? Are there values of k (from 1 to 132 inclusive) that are impossible to obtain?  Note that he does not necessarily have to play 132 games within 77 days! Also, keep in mind the bounds of k. What is a serialVersionUID and why should I use it? Eclipse issues warnings when a serialVersionUID is missing.       The serializable class Foo does not declare a static final   serialVersionUID field of type long   What is serialVersionUID and why is it important?  Please show an example where missing serialVersionUID will cause a problem. Story about a trip to a Valley of Sound I read a short story, can’t remember if it was part of a larger narrative or just on its own.  It was about a crew that was taking a bunch of space tourists to a planet that had plants with seeds in glass-like structures that make certain sounds. The main character in this story feels connected to this planet because there’s a Valley of Sound, where there’s a large number of these glass plants that make all sounds imaginable.  People can almost pick out a loved one’s voice for instance. I absolutely love this concept but can’t for the life of me remember what the story/book was called! What is appropriate to use here, who or which?       There are around 50 companies who/which deliver scanning services to private and business consumers.