In my daily work I communicate with a lot of people in my company that I have neither encountered in person nor heard them on phone. The conversation is usually e-mail or online chat. Some of them have ambiguous first name. I would like to know if they are male or female so I know if I should refer to them as "he" or "she" when talking to other members of my team (for example explaining conclusion of the communication with the person). Is there a preferred polite way how to ask?
If you, for example, have to add a person to an application whilst that person is on the phone, how do you politely ask for that person's gender if the voice and/or name has not proven decisive?  To clarify why I posted this question on this site: I was looking for an answer within the context of the English language and usage. The given answers have proven that this question really isn't off-topic, other languages know different distinctions that are relevant to addressing this issue.
WPF Binding to Grid Column Width I'm attempting to bind a DependancyProperty in one of my usercontrols to the Width property of a Column in a Grid.   I have code similar to this:  &lt;Grid x:Name="MyGridName"&gt;     &lt;Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;         &lt;ColumnDefinition x:Name="TitleSection" Width="100" /&gt;         &lt;ColumnDefinition Width="*" /&gt;     &lt;/Grid.ColumnDefinitions&gt;      &lt;Grid.RowDefinitions&gt;...&lt;/Grid.RowDefinitions&gt;      &lt;GridSplitter x:Name="MyGridSplitter" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" ... /&gt; &lt;/Grid&gt;   In a separate Usercontrol I have the followingDependancyProperty defined.  public static readonly DependencyProperty TitleWidthProperty = DependencyProperty.Register("TitleWidth", typeof(int), typeof(MyUserControl));  public int TitleWidth {     get { return (int)base.GetValue(TitleWidthProperty); }     set { base.SetValue(TitleWidthProperty, value); } }   I am creating instances of the Usercontrol in code, hence I have a binding statement similar to this :  MyUserControl Cntrl = new MyUserControl(/* Construction Params */); BindingOperations.SetBinding(Cntrl , MyUserControl.AnotherProperty, new Binding { ElementName = "objZoomSlider", Path = new PropertyPath("Value"), Mode = BindingMode.OneWay }); BindingOperations.SetBinding(Cntrl , MyUserControl.TitleWidthProperty, new Binding { ElementName = "TitleSection", Path = new PropertyPath("ActualWidth"), Mode = BindingMode.OneWay }); /* Other operations on Cntrl */   The first binding defined works fantastically, although that is binding to an actual UIElement (in this case a Slider), but the Binding to "TitleSection" (which is the ColumnDefinition defined in the Grid) fails. Putting a breakpoint in the code and doing a watch on "TitleSection" returns the expected object.   I am beginning to suspect that a x:Name'd ColumnDefinition can't be bound to. Can anyone suggest how I might be able to bind to the changing width of the first column in my grid?  EDIT #1 - To answer comments  The databinding 'fails' in the sense that with a breakpoint set on the setter for the TitleWidth property, and using the GridSplitter control to resize the first column, the breakpoint is never hit. Additionally, code I would expect to be fired when the DependancyProperty TitleWidth changes does not get executed.  The usercontrol is being created and added to a Stackpanel within the Grid in the Window_Loaded function. I would expect that the Grid has been rendered by the time the Usercontrols are being constructed. Certainly the x:Name'd Element TitleSection is watchable and has a value of 100 when they are being constructed / before the binding is happening.  EDIT #2 - Possibly something to do with this?  I've been having a sniff round the MSDN pages for the Grid ColumnDefinition documentation and have come across  but I can't get my head around how I can use this in a binding expression. I cannot use the associated GridLengthConverter as a converter in the binding code as it does not derive from IValueConverter.   I am leaning towards somehow binding to the ActualWidth property of one of the cells in the Grid object. It doesn't seem as clean as binding to the column definition, but at the moment I cannot get that to work. I am looping through a text file, using 'while read'. I read three variables from each line - two filenames and a decimal number. I know that this works in a vanilla setup (loop, read line, echo line, extract variables, nothing else), because I have tested it on my input file.  I am getting an odd result, though, once I add in the meat of my routine - which is a call to ffmpeg to merge the audio and video streams represented by the filenames. Successive 'read' operations omit leading characters from the line. I read  that calls for 'read' input within a 'while read' loop can cause problems, and wonder if the ffmpeg call is doing something that confuses bash, but this seems unlikely and bizarre! NB: I don't really understand the ffmpeg call - I got it from an answer to another question.  Any help would be appreciated!  The first 'read' works as expected (and the ffmpeg command completes):  LINE  1 vidsNeedingSound/448£generic@06_10_16-09_30_47.mp4 soundToAdd/448£generic@06_10_16-12_11_54.wav 6.988354 V: vidsNeedingSound/448£generic@06_10_16-09_30_47.mp4   A: soundToAdd/448£generic@06_10_16-12_11_54.wav   D: 6.988354   The second 'read' loses 36 characters from the beginning of the line (and the ffmpeg command fails because the file represented by the variable V which takes the first item of the line doesn't point at a file):  LINE  2 6-09_30_47.mp4 soundToAdd/452£generic@06_10_16-12_11_54.wav 9.64663 V: 6-09_30_47.mp4   A: soundToAdd/452...   The third 'read' works as expected (and the ffmpeg command completes):  LINE  3 vidsNeedingSound/452£left@06_10_16-09_30_47.mp4 soundToAdd/452£left@06_10_16-12_11_54.wav 9.862118 V: vidsNeedingSound/452£left@06_10_16-09_30_47.mp4   A: soundToAdd/452...   The fourth 'read' loses 37 character (one more than the last fail) from the beginning of the line (and the ffmpeg command fails):  LINE  4 09_30_47.mp4 soundToAdd/452£right@06_10_16-12_11_54.wav 9.431392 V: 09_30_47.mp4   A: soundToAdd/452....   That's the pattern. When not preceded by a successful call to ffmpeg, the 'read' works as expected. After each successive successful ffmpeg call, characters are omitted from the beginning of the line: 36 characters to begin with, then 37, 38, 39...  The clincher is that when ffmpeg fails after a 'successful' read (due to another problem), the following 'read' works as expected.  CONCLUSION: a successful ffmpeg call results in a read fail on the next iteration through the loop.  Why does this happen, and how can I stop it?  Here's my code: ...  # Loop through lines in the merge file IT_COUNT=1 while read MERGE_LINE                do              echo "LINE " $IT_COUNT     ((IT_COUNT+=1))     echo $MERGE_LINE   # testing use     read VID_FILE AUD_FILE DURATION &lt;&lt;&lt; "$MERGE_LINE" # Get the data from each line     echo "V: $VID_FILE   A: $AUD_FILE   D: $DURATION"         # testing use ....     # add audio to video     ffmpeg -i $VID_FILE -i $AUD_FILE -filter_complex "aevalsrc=0:d=$AUD_SHIFT[s1];[s1][1:a]concat=n=2:v=0:a=1[aout]" -c:v copy -map 0:v -map [aout] $FILE_OUT -hide_banner  done &lt;$MERGE_FILE     Thanks for looking! Exterior power "commutes" with direct sum I know that for vector spaces $V, W$ over a field $K$, we have the following identity :  $$ \bigoplus_{k=0}^n \left[ \Lambda^k(V) \otimes_K \Lambda^{n-k}(W) \right] \simeq \Lambda^n(V \oplus W) $$ which holds in a canonical way : for $0 \le k \le n$, the maps  $$ \Lambda^k(V) \times \Lambda^{n-k}(W) \to \Lambda^n(V \oplus W), \\ (v_1 \wedge\cdots \wedge v_k,w_{k+1} \wedge \cdots \wedge w_n) \mapsto (v_1 \wedge \cdots \wedge v_k) \wedge (w_{k+1} \wedge \cdots \wedge w_n) $$ factors through the tensor product's universal properties, which gives us a map $\varphi_k : \Lambda^k(V) \otimes_K \Lambda^{n-k}(W) \to \Lambda^n(V \oplus W)$, and since the category of $K$-modules has biproducts, we get a canonical map  $$ \varphi = \bigoplus_{k=0}^n \varphi_k : \bigoplus_{k=0}^n \left[ \Lambda^k(V) \otimes_K \Lambda^{n-k}(W) \right] \longrightarrow \Lambda^n(V \oplus W) $$  What if I replace $K$ by a (commutative ring with $1$) ring $A$? Does this map have a kernel? I know it is surjective (it suffices to "look at it", i.e generators of the codomain are obviously all hit by $\varphi$). I don't know if it helps, but I am working in integral domains. In the field case, this is obvious if $V$ and $W$ are finitely generated, since one can use dimension arguments. I wouldn't mind if the above identity held only in the finitely generated case either. If it worked in general it would be cool though.   Note that when trying to compute the inverse map with the universal property, there seems to be a problem... my guess would have been $$ (v_1 + w_1,\cdots,v_n + w_n) \mapsto \bigoplus_{k=0}^n (v_1 \wedge \cdots \wedge v_k) \otimes (w_{k+1} \wedge \cdots \wedge w_n) $$ and this map is obviously $A$-multilinear, but there is a problem with the alternating property ; I get some terms left. I'm guessing this is the wrong map... if there is one. SQL MAX of multiple columns? How do you return 1 value per row of the max of several columns:  TableName  [Number, Date1, Date2, Date3, Cost]   I need to return something like this:  [Number, Most_Recent_Date, Cost]   Query? Suppose I have this:   $\frac{6^{666}}{2^{6}}$ (mod $125$)  I saw it is possible to reduce only the numerator's power modulo Euler's phi function. Can someone explain why is that possible?  It is essentially this:   $\frac{6^{666 \space (mod \phi(125))}}{2^{6}}$ (mod $125$) I am trying to pickle some mangoes the Indian way. I boiled the jar in hot water, dried it and then added the mixture of spices, salt and mangoes to the jars after the mixture had cooled. I made the mixture in a frying pan to try and remove as much water as I could. After it was cooled, I put it in the jar and heated some mustard oil till it just barely started smoking. I let that cool and poured it over the mango spice mixture.  For the first three days it was fine. On the fourth day, I opened it to test the taste and ended up adding more salt. Now, there seems to be gas forming in the jar. I've noticed it a few times now. When I open the jar, I hear a whooshing noise as air escapes. It's quite a lot, since I opened the container about 3 times in a 10 hour period and each time gas escaped. Has this pickle gone bad? Or is this something that's normal? What are the use cases for different scoping constructs? Prove $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ is not isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}_4$ How to prove that $z\gcd(a,b)=\gcd(za,zb)$ I need to prove that $z\gcd(a,b)=\gcd(za,zb)$.    I tried a lot, for example, looking at set of common divisors of the two sides, but I can't conclude anything from that. Can you please give me some advice how I can handle this problem? And $a,b,z \in \mathbb{Z}$. TikZ: Having circle borders only grown to the outside Interprocess communication in .NET I have a core .NET application that needs to spawn an abitrary number of sub processes. These processes need to be able to access some form of state object in the core application.  What is the best technique? I'll be moving a large amount of data between processes (Bitmaps), so it needs to be fast. Lebesgue density theorem in the line System.Exception: Too many SOQL queries: 101 I am getting a Too many SOQL queries: 101 error on a trigger when I am trying to deploy another trigger.  I am posting the trigger which is causing the error.  trigger rollupAccountShowings on Account (before insert, before update) {    if (trigger.isinsert) {       for (Account a:Trigger.new){           a.No_of_Viewings__c = 0;        }    } else {      for (account a : [select                   id,                  (select id from pb__Showings__r)                  from account                   where id in:trigger.new LIMIT 1]) {           trigger.newMap.get(a.id).No_of_Viewings__c = a.pb__Showings__r.size();      } }   Can anyone correct me where I have gone wrong and suggest me the changes.  Thanks Preview Breaks with Invalid Tag Name [tag:+] In the formatted preview for Questions &amp; Answers, typing a tag link with an invalid tag name "crashes" the preview. As soon as you type the following the preview stops updating and an error can be observed in the Javascript console.   [tag:+]   Observed in Safari 7 and Chrome 31.   seems related to the business rule of not allowing certain characters in tags, but it sounds like a different bug. The work done against gravity is $mgh$, well at least that's what my textbook says. I have a question: I can apply a force say 50N, so total work done = $mgh + mah$. Where $ma$ = Force. But the truth is irrespective of the force applied, the work done against gravity is always $mgh$. Why?  For example, when I move an object with a force, the work done is more, so work depends on the Force. But in case of gravity it always depends upon the weight Email Templates: Conditional Greeting Based on Time of Day Using global variables in a function How can I create or use a global variable in a function?  If I create a global variable in one function, how can I use that global variable in another function? Do I need to store the global variable in a local variable of the function which needs its access? I marinated chicken five days ago in lemon juice, seasoned salt, and garlic powder, is it still safe to cook in the oven? How to get coloured terminal over ssh? When I connect over ssh to remote hosts everything is just a single font/color. I would like to have colours like I do locally e.g. green for executable and blue for symlinks etc. And such that when I run $ git diff on the ssh host it shows me diff with colours =) I'm working with  that has X Y coordinates. They are akin to '3672187.92698000, 534175.72095400'.  I would like to convert them to longitude latitude so they are more like '-90.097017, 29.963176'.  I've seen this  however I don't have that software. I was able to download and install  but I am unfortunately perplexed by its complicated interface. Would like to do the conversion with it, if possible.