In what verbal tense is "were"? Could it be considered conditional? Or a preterite in subjunctive mood?   The best way I can explain it to you is by saying that, for a second or two, I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the center of the earth.
If I was... If I were...   When is it correct to use "If I was" vs. "If I were" in standard English?
To show that $\sum a_nb_n$ is absolutely convergent How can I search within a manpage? I must be missing something with regards to setting up PostgreSQL. What I'd like to do is create multiple databases and users that are isolated from each other so that a specific user only has access to the databases I specify. However, from what I can determine, any created user has access to all databases without any specific grants being given.  Here is what I do on an Ubuntu Server 12.04:   apt-get install postgresql sudo -u postgres createuser -DRSP mike1 (Specifying the password for the new user) sudo -u postgres createdb data1 psql -h localhost -U mike1 data1 (Specifying the password for the user mike1 to login)   It seems that new user "mike1" has no problem connecting to database "data1" and creating tables etc. And this without running any GRANT command at all (and the owner of "data1" is "postgres" since I didn't specify an owner in step 3). Is this really how it is supposed to work?  What I'd like to do is grant mike1 full access to data1 and then repeat this for more users and databases, making sure that the users only have access to one (or possibly several) databases of my choice. How does conservation work in wormholes? My questions might seem naive as I haven't plunged into the mathematical descriptions, but wormholes are interesting even if I don't actually know them :)  First of all, is wormhole making two possible paths betwwen points (like the tunnel in most visualisations) or is it just making two points beside each other like in the game Portal? Of course, second case can be bent into a tunnel, but there would be nothing special about tunnel part and no preferred way to divide into "normal" and "tunnel" part of spacetime.  My main questions are these:   Is momentum conserved? Is kinetic energy conserved? How does potential energy work?   To elaborate... In the game Portal you can fall into floor and fly out of the wall or floor elsewhere with the same speed, but another direction (normal to the portal). So momentum is not conserved, but kinetic energy is. Is that how it would actually work? Where does the momentum go then?  And does it really allow you to increase your potential energy while retaining kinetic? It would seem fair to take away some kinetic energy if you are put in a region where you have more potential energy.  Either way is the change in energy non-continuous like in the game and discussion that's linked below? Or are there just more than one way to move through but the change in potential energy is smooth in any of those? That would mean more potential equilibrium points though...  Similar questions has been discussed , is it correct about how the falling guys gets a lot of energy (in form of a potential one) by draining it from the mouths? What's the correct way to do division using a backslash? If I write $a/bc + d$, will that be equal to $(a/(bc))+d$?   Basically, if I place a slash, will I divide by what's directly behind the slash $(b)$, the term that's behind the slash $(bc)$, or everything after the slash $(bc+d)$? SQL function as default parameter value? I tried changing a default parameter value with this:  ALTER PROCEDURE [dbo].[my_sp] @currentDate datetime = GETDATE()   and all the SQL pre-compiler gave me was this error:     Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Procedure my_sp, Line 8 Incorrect syntax near '('.   I have already created the procedure. (I'm not sure if that's relevant.) I was using a null default value and checking for that later, but that doesn't seem proper. Can I do this in one line?   Update: I was going off of :      [ = default ] Is a default value for the parameter. If a default value is defined, the function can be executed without specifying a value for that parameter.            Note:     Default parameter values can be specified for CLR functions except for the varchar(max) and varbinary(max) data types.         When a parameter of the function has a default value, the keyword DEFAULT must be specified when the function is called to retrieve the default value. This behavior is different from using parameters with default values in stored procedures in which omitting the parameter also implies the default value.   Am I reading this wrong?  Many thanks. How do you integrate $e^{x^2}$? I know that $\int{\frac{1}{x}}dx$ is simply $\ln{(x)}+c$ (-which is clearly unrelated to the problem but I just thought I would share anyway) but I am not sure how to approach $e^{x{^2}}$. Perhaps a substitution? jQuery get all divs which do not have class attribute Maximal ideals of polynomial rings in infinitely many variables Let $k$ be an algebraically closed field. Nullstellensatz states that the maximal ideals of the polynomial ring $R=k[X_1,\dots,X_n]$ are precisely those of the form $\langle X_1-a_1,\dots,X_n-a_n\rangle$, with $(a_1,\dots,a_n)\in k^n$.     What if we are working with infinitely many variables, say $\{X_i\}_{i\in I}$, being $I$ an infinite set? Again, the ideals of the form $\bigl\langle\{X_i-a_i: i\in I\}\bigr\rangle$, with $(a_i)_{i\in I}\subseteq k$ are maximal (even if $k$ is not algebraically closed), but what about the converse? After a very long time will we see more stars (due to the fact that more light is get to us) or less stars (as the universe expends and light have to pass larger distance)? In general, can stellar objects go outside of the scope of the observable universe or is it only growing with time? Calculations are always better than just discussion. Does it have any connection to dark matter? Midpoint-Convex and Continuous Implies Convex Given that $$f\left(\frac{x+y}{2}\right)\leqslant \frac{f(x)+f(y)}{2}~,$$ how can I show that $f$ is convex. Thanks.      Edit: I'm sorry for all the confusion. $f$ is assumed to be continuous on an interval $(a,b)$. A formula for the roots of a solvable polynomial Let $F$ be a field and $p(x)\in F[x]$ a separable polynomial, denote $K$ as the splitting field of $p$ and assume that $K/F$ is Galois with a solvable Galois group.  I don't understand if this imply of any formula (in radicals) for the roots of $p$ (however, I do understand how a formula would imply that $p$ is solvable by roots).  Is there some kind of a way to obtain the roots of a solvable polynomial ? I have the following problem illustrated by a simple example: If I cite the paper of an author T. Coven in my document, the outcome is 'Coven (2004b)'. If I cite the appendix to this paper, the outcome is 'Coven (2004a)'. Now the appendix pops up much less frequently than the original paper, therefore I would like to reverse the order (exchange 'a' and 'b' in the citations). Is this possible?  I am using Biblatex. Here is the bib-file of the above example (named: lib.bib):  @article{co:2004, author = {T. Coven}, title = {Title A}, journaltitle = {The X Journal}, date = {2004} } @article{coapp:2004, author = {T. Coven}, title = {Appendix to Title A}, journaltitle = {The X Journal}, date = {2004} }   MWE:  \documentclass[a4paper, 12pt, headsepline, headings=small,]{scrreprt} \usepackage[backend=bibtex8,     style=authoryear-icomp,     dashed=false,     autocite=footnote,     maxcitenames=3,     mincitenames=1,     maxbibnames=100,     firstinits=true,     sorting=nty     ]{biblatex} \bibliography{lib}  \begin{document} \cite{co:2004} and \cite{coapp:2004} \end{document} Python does not find packages installed without Anaconda What is the difference between a "proof by contradiction" and "proving the contrapositive"? Intuitive, it feels like doing the exact same thing. And when I compare an exercise, one person proves by contradiction, and the other proves the contrapositive, the proofs look almost exactly the same.  For example, say I want to prove: $P \implies Q$ When I want to prove by contradiction, I would say assume this is not true. Assume $Q$ is not true, and $P$ is true. Blabla, but this implies $P$ is not true, which is a contradiction.  When I want to prove the contrapositive, I say. Assume $Q$ is not true. Blabla, this implies $P$ is not true.  The only difference in the proof is that I assume $P$ is true in the beginning, when I want to prove by contradiction. But this feels almost redundant, as in the end I always get that this is not true. The only other way that I could get a contradiction is by proving that $Q$ is true. But this would be the exact same things as a direct proof.   Can somebody enlighten me a little bit here ? For example: Are there proofs that can be proven by contradiction but not proven by proving the contrapositve? I wanted to change my own password (as an admin) so I did the following command:  sudo passwd   and then it prompted for a password but when I tryed to relog, my password was not changed. I'm now wondering what password did I changed since it did prompted me to enter a password but I'm not sure what password did it changed exactly.  I know that if I do sudo passwd &lt;MY_USER&gt; it works, I'm just wondering without a user what happens.  Thank you Use Data From Class Without A New Init How do you create grass? ls: cannot access .gvfs: Permission denied Whenever I run an application in terminal as root (such as sudo gedit  /etc/default/varnish) , subsequently when I open another terminal I get "ls: cannot access .gvfs: Permission denied" error at top line of terminal.   I found a solution on the net     umount /path/to/.gvfs   rm -rf .gvfs   but it only fixes problem temporarily.  It appears that I have two mounted instances of gvfs in my system    $ sudo mount |grep gvfs     gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=33)     gvfsd-fuse on /home/****/.gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)   I don't know if it's related to, a few months ago I had to change permission in my home folder like     sudo chown -R $USER:www-data   Would you please help me fix it?  EDIT: After I unmount /run/user/1000/gvfs I don't get that error. I want to burn a Windows ISO to a USB device in Ubuntu. How do I do this?   I know how to burn a Ubuntu ISO into a USB device, but with a Windows ISO it's not the same.