I like music. I like the music.   I know the difference between the previous two sentences is that 'the music' is specifically talking about a music.  Is there any more difference in meaning? Can you tell me some cases where the definite article isn't required?
I can’t for the life of me figure out where to use a and where to use the — and where there is no article at all. Is there a simple rule of thumb to memorize?   The standard rule you always hear:     “If a person knows which item you are talking about then use "the"   . . . doesn’t clear things up for me, as I have no idea whether or not they know.
Javascript Closures and 'this' I have a problem with an object I have created that looks something like this:  var myObject = {      AddChildRowEvents: function(row, p2) {         if(document.attachEvent) {             row.attachEvent('onclick', function(){this.DoSomething();});         } else {             row.addEventListener('click', function(){this.DoSomething();}, false);         }     },      DoSomething: function() {         this.SomethingElse(); //&lt;-- Error here, object 'this' does not support this method.     } }   The problem is that when I am inside the 'DoSomething' function, 'this' does not refer to 'myObject' what am I doing wrong? "In and of itself" is a phrase I find myself using all the time. But in and of itself, the phrase "in and of itself" has no meaning. That is, the individual words don't seem to contribute to the whole meaning of the phrase. Help with null hypothesis Make a div fill the height of the remaining screen space I am working on a web application where I want the content to fill the height of the entire screen.  The page has a header, which contains a logo, and account information. This could be an arbitrary height. I want the content div to fill the rest of the page to the bottom.  I have a header div and a content div. At the moment I am using a table for the layout like so:  CSS and HTML    #page {     height: 100%; width: 100% }  #tdcontent {     height: 100%; }  #content {     overflow: auto; /* or overflow: hidden; */ } &lt;table id="page"&gt;     &lt;tr&gt;         &lt;td id="tdheader"&gt;             &lt;div id="header"&gt;...&lt;/div&gt;         &lt;/td&gt;     &lt;/tr&gt;     &lt;tr&gt;         &lt;td id="tdcontent"&gt;             &lt;div id="content"&gt;...&lt;/div&gt;         &lt;/td&gt;     &lt;/tr&gt; &lt;/table&gt;     The entire height of the page is filled, and no scrolling is required.  For anything inside the content div, setting top: 0; will put it right underneath the header. Sometimes the content will be a real table, with its height set to 100%. Putting header inside content will not allow this to work.  Is there a way to achieve the same effect without using the table?  Update:  Elements inside the content div will have heights set to percentages as well. So something at 100% inside the div will fill it to the bottom. As will two elements at 50%.  Update 2:  For instance, if the header takes up 20% of the screen's height, a table specified at 50% inside #content would take up 40% of the screen space. So far, wrapping the entire thing in a table is the only thing that works. pgAdmin to display multiple result sets Splitting a semicolon-separated string to a dictionary, in Python I have a string that looks like this:  "Name1=Value1;Name2=Value2;Name3=Value3"   Is there a built-in class/function in Python that will take that string and construct a dictionary, as though I had done this:  dict = {     "Name1": "Value1",     "Name2": "Value2",     "Name3": "Value3" }   I have looked through the modules available but can't seem to find anything that matches.    Thanks, I do know how to make the relevant code myself, but since such smallish solutions are usually mine-fields waiting to happen (ie. someone writes: Name1='Value1=2';) etc. then I usually prefer some pre-tested function.  I'll do it myself then. I am looking for a YA book about a boy who learns to use powers from a mind-adept, in a seemingly abandoned house. The adept helps him open his mind by using a cube. One of his powers, I believe, is to go into dreams of people that  he knows. He helps his young female neighbor friend by doing this, opening a door in her mind. He tries to open the mind-door of a local older bully, but finds out the young man can't be helped because he has been abused mentally and physically. I don't believe the book I read is past 1995. It might have the word "adept" in it. I need to get UTF-8 working in my Java webapp (servlets + JSP, no framework used) to support äöå etc. for regular Finnish text and Cyrillic alphabets like ЦжФ for special cases.  My setup is the following:   Development environment: Windows XP Production environment: Debian   Database used: MySQL 5.x  Users mainly use Firefox2 but also Opera 9.x, FF3, IE7 and Google Chrome are used to access the site.  How to achieve this? Let's assume we have a table where it has two columns, one an ID and one an hstore column, which stores key/value pairs.  You could query that column as such:  SELECT name, attributes-&gt;'device' as device FROM products WHERE attributes-&gt;'edition'= 'ebook'   Can you create a view for this table where the keys/values appear as columns in the view instead of all in the hstore column?  Example: I have an hstore key where it might have the key of amenity.  I want to create a view showing the the ID and the amenity values in a new view. Trigonometry Olympiad problem: Evaluate $1\sin 2^{\circ} +2\sin 4^{\circ} + 3\sin 6^{\circ}+\cdots+ 90\sin180^{\circ}$ Find the value of   $$1\sin 2^{\circ} +2\sin 4^{\circ} + 3\sin 6^{\circ}+\cdots+ 90\sin180^{\circ}$$   My attempt  I converted the $\sin$ functions which have arguments greater than $90^\circ$ to $\cos$ but I have gone no where with it!  I also tried using double angle formula for the angles which are even. What theorems can I use to prove this? wpf combobox binding Proving the given quadratic form is chi-squared $k$ Suppose $\underline{X}$ is an $m$-dimensional vector following multivariate Normal distribution i.e. $\underline{X}$~$N_m(\underline{\mu},\Sigma)$ where $\Sigma$ is positive definite. Let $B$ be a symmetric $m$ by $m$ matrix, having the following properties:  $B\Sigma B=B$  $\underline{\mu}'B\underline{\mu}=0$  $trace(B\Sigma)=k$, where $k&lt;m$   Prove that $\underline{X}'B\underline{X}$ follows chi-squared ($k$).  I proceeded a lot but got stuck in one last step where I think linear algebra is troubling me. Kindly have  a look at my &quot;solution&quot;.  The second condition can be written as $\underline{\mu}'B\Sigma B\underline{\mu}=0\implies B\underline{\mu}=\underline{0}$ as $\Sigma$ is Positive definite. Then after a little algebra and considering condition 2, we can write $\underline{X}'B\underline{X}=(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})=(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B\Sigma B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$ But $\Sigma$ is positive definite hence we can have a symmetric matrix $\sqrt{\Sigma}$ defined such that $\sqrt{\Sigma}\sqrt{\Sigma}=\Sigma$. Using this, we can write $(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B\Sigma B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})=(\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu}))'(\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu}))$ We want to show that this follows chi-squared ($k$). Now, it is obvious that as $(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$~$N(\underline{0},\Sigma)$, $\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$~$N(\underline{0},\sqrt{\Sigma}B\Sigma B\sqrt{\Sigma})=N(\underline{0},\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma})$ Now, $trace(\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma})=trace(B\Sigma)=k$ and $\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$ is idempotent (verified). So its eigenvalues are only $0$ or $1$. Since its trace is $k$, there are $k$ eigenvalues with value $1$ and other $m-k$ eigenvalues are $0$. Now here is the thing I want to prove: I want to show that$\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$, which is the covariance matrix, is diagonal and has only $k$ $1$'s and remaining $m-k$ diagonal entries $0$. The reason is, then I will be able to say that $k$ components of $\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$ are independent standard normals whose sum of squares is our quadratic form and thus it follows chi-squared ($k$). But I really could not show that $\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$ has the desired property i.e. it is diagonal with rank $k$. But this is crucial, it is the finale. If this does not happen, then some components will be correlated with each other and we cannot say that our quadratic form has chi-squared ($k$). I would really appreciate if someone helped me to prove this final part. Is the differentiation operator an open mapping? Consider the vector spaces $C([0, 1])$ and $C^1([0, 1])$ with norm, \begin{align*} \displaystyle \|f\|_\infty=\sup_{x\in [0, 1]}|f(x)|, \end{align*} and let $T:C^1([0, 1])\to C([0, 1])$ the operator given by, \begin{align*} \displaystyle Tf=f'. \end{align*} Is $T$ defined this way an open mapping? If it's, how to prove it? I need to purchase my first ever lens. So far I've only used lenses that were built into a camera. This specific lens is for the BlackMagic Deign Pocket Cinema Camera (a video only camera, but one that uses photography lenses). I would prefer this to be a prime lens.  I have tried to find the exact way to calculate the focal length of the lens I need but I have not been able to find a good resource to make this simple enough for my limited optics knowledge. Can you please explain a simple way to calculate the focal length of a lens given the following inputs as an example:    I would prefer a simplified mathematical explanation so that I may use it to make similar determinations in the future using a "" method.  I have . Using that method, I came up with:  Required lens focal length = 7.02mm sensor height x (77in / 36in) = 15mm   Is that correct? Why don't applications update by calculating difference? How to include PDF pages without a newpage before the first page? From the man page on git-merge, there are a number of merge strategies you can use.     resolve -  This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and another branch you pulled from) using 3-way merge algorithm. It tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities and is considered generally safe and fast. recursive -  This can only resolve two heads using 3-way merge algorithm. When there are more than one common ancestors that can be used for 3-way merge, it creates a merged tree of the common ancestors and uses that as the reference tree for the 3-way merge. This has been reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without causing mis-merges by tests done on actual merge commits taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development history. Additionally this can detect and handle merges involving renames. This is the default merge strategy when pulling or merging one branch. octopus -  This resolves more than two-head case, but refuses to do complex merge that needs manual resolution. It is primarily meant to be used for bundling topic branch heads together. This is the default merge strategy when pulling or merging more than one branches. ours -  This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the merge is always the current branch head. It is meant to be used to supersede old development history of side branches. subtree -  This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and B, if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to match the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at the same level. This adjustment is also done to the common ancestor tree.   When should I specify something different than the default?  What scenarios are each best for? On the photos where the lens flare is present, my Nikon D7000 is drawing strange labyrinth-looking artifacts. Here's an example.  The first image is a screenshot of a little part of the original photo zoomed 2:1 in Lightroom.  The second image is the same photo with Lightroom's contrast, clarity and sharpening set to the maximum to make the labyrinth pattern more visible.      This affects only some of the photos presenting lens flare. Here, for instance, the lens flare is present and light conditions are very close to the first photo, but there is no labyrinth pattern, only usual noise (screenshot of a part of a photo at 1:1 with contrast, clarity and sharpening set to the maximum):    Notes:   I can see this pattern only on some of the photos when the sun is in the frame or nearly in the frame. It is present with any lens I tested. The actual photo was shot at f/8, ISO 200, 1/640 s. I've seen this pattern in photos shot at ISO 100 as well. The photo is in RAW format, so this is not a JPEG artifact.   What is that? How do I avoid it? Sum of $\frac{1}{(2n)(2n+1)}$ from $1$ to infinity