How to articulate abbreviated words when the original word articulation conflicts the pronunciation of the word?  For example, I would say     A Facebook campaign for Donald Trump   But abbreviating Facebook to FB makes it difficult to keep the articulation intact     A FB campaign for Donald Trump   or      An FB campaign for Donald Trump   Which one is correct?  Second one seems easier to read
99% of the time, I'm clear on when I should use "a" versus "an." There's one case, though, where people &amp; references I respect disagree.  Which of the following would you precede with "a" or "an," and why?   FAQ FUBAR SCUBA   [Note: I've read the questions  and , but the rules given there don't necessarily apply here.]    [Edited to add]  Here's a shorter (and hopefully clearer) version of the question…  In written English, which is correct (and why): "a FAQ" or "an FAQ"?  Some references with differing opinions:   an: the  and  a: the Microsoft Manual of Style for Tech Publications, 3e either: the  and
Algorithm to see if two voxels are interconnected Do we use abstract algebra in real life? Do we use abstract algebra in real life?   Is there any application of abstract algebra in real life? Order and degree of a differential equation Here is a question in my book  Find the order and degree of the differential equation $$y=1+\frac{dy}{dx}+\frac{1}{2!}{\left(\frac{dy}{dx}\right)}^2+\frac{1}{3!}{\left(\frac{dy}{dx}\right)}^3+\cdots$$  At first sight we can conclude that the order is $1$ and the degree is undefined as  as the power of $\frac{dy}{dx}$ continues to increase and has no limit.However  my book gives the following solution  Rewrite the DE as $$y=\exp\left({\frac{dy}{dx}}\right)$$ $$\implies \frac{dy}{dx}=\ln y$$ whose order and degree is 1 .  Now ,I completely agree with this solution however I find it rather counterintuitive to my first line of thought .If the book is correct how can it be justified to prove my intuition was wrong? Find and replace text within a file using commands How can you accelerate without moving? I know this question has been asked in other forms, generally regarding the balance of forces.  This time I want to focus on motion.  I've got a laser accelerometer on my desk.  It tells me that I'm accelerating at $9.8~\rm m/s^2$.  For the first experiment I'm travelling in space.  I pick a nearby star and discover that I move about $490$ meters in $10$ seconds from that star.  For the next experiment I'm on the surface of Earth.  I measure the same acceleration with my laser accelerometer.  I pick a spot (the center of the Earth) and discover I don't move at all in $10$ seconds.  How is acceleration without motion possible? "many a time" means "many times"? Why can't you say don't instead of won't? Our textbook says,     A: "I have to go shopping this afternoon."   B: "Don't forget the bread."   A: "No, I won't."   About the last sentence, why can't you say "No, I don't."?  i.e. Why is "No, I don't." not acceptable in this case: The question is if you have a situation where one of the singular values is equal to 0 in a singular value decomposition of a matrix, how to do you procede to find the column vector of U corresponding to this singular value?   Usually I found the columns of U with this relation, so let's say that we refer to $\vec{u_2}$ as the U column vector corresponding to singular value equal to 0:  $\vec{u_2} = (1/s_2)Av_2$  Now the as we can see the 0 is in an illegal place, since you can't divide by zero. But if you move it to the left side, I still can't quite see how to find the column of U corresponding to it. Any suggestions?  Here is an example of a matrix that provided this specific challenge  $ A = \left(\begin{array}{rrr} -3 &amp; 1 \\ 6 &amp; -2 \\ 6 &amp; -2 \end{array}\right). $  $ \lambda{_1} = 90$,  $\lambda{_2} = 0$,  $s_1 = 3 \sqrt{10}$,  $s_2 = 0$,  How can one find $\vec{v_2}$ when $\lambda{_2} = 0$? In this case, you know that the eigenvectors of $A^{t} A$ are orthogonal, solve for $\lambda{_2}$ and find the eigenvector if it's orthogonal to the eigenvector corresponding to the first eigenvalue you have your solution.  So we end up with the following normalized column vectors for V, which we can see are orthogonal:  $ \vec{v_1} = \left(\begin{array}{rrr} -3/\sqrt{10} \\ 1/\sqrt{10} \\ \end{array}\right). $  $ \vec{v_2} = \left(\begin{array}{rrr} 1/\sqrt{10} \\ 3/\sqrt{10} \\ \end{array}\right). $ How can I switch between keyboard layouts by pressing a keyboard shortcut like on Windows? Possible Duplicate:          On Windows I am able to switch between keyboard layouts by pressing Alt+Shift. Is there a similar keyboard shortcut in Ubuntu? How to get the file name and a line number of a function call? Extending the User model with custom fields in Django What's the best way to extend the User model (bundled with Django's authentication app) with custom fields? I would also possibly like to use the email as the username (for authentication purposes).  I've already seen a   to do it, but can't decide on which one is the best. Why is pressure in a liquid the same in all directions? I'd like answers both in the more intuitive side an on the more precise side.   Thinking of water as "cubes" of water, for example, would allow pressure in the z axis to be independent of the y or x axis. Choosing other "shapes", like a  triangular prism, yield different results. Will this fact, then, be dependent on the format of the molecules of the liquid ?  I've heard of the rotational symmetry of liquids. What is its precise statement ? Why is it true ? Is there an easy way to calculate the residue at one of the poles of a rational expression of the form $\frac{1}{1+z^n}$?  I end up having to add a bunch of polar-form complex numbers in the denominator which I have no idea how to do except to convert them to rectangular coordinates, which becomes really messy.  I feel like there ought to be simple pattern/rule for such a canonical expression. Can't use enter key shortcut on Google search results anymore Up until last week, Google used to place a blue arrow on the first search result. Using the arrow keys, one could select different results. Finally, pressing enter would enter into the selected result. For the past few days, these keyboard shortcuts are no longer there. How do I re-enable them? I search on Google every 10 minutes and can't afford to waste 2 seconds each time pointing my mouse at the desired link. Get list of all tables in Oracle? Which are the standard commands available in every Linux based distribution? I have recently noticed a huge (>3.5GB) file in the DCIM/.thumbnails folder. I have tried deleting it, but the next time I open the Camera app it rebuilds the file (and locks up the phone, sometimes displaying a "media scanning in progress" message, in the process.)  The total file size of all the (approximately 2,000) photos displayed in the Gallery is around 500MB. There are in addition around 35,000 images in folders which contain .nomedia files to instruct Android to ignore the media therein. The total file size of these is around 1.5GB. The Gallery app is correctly ignoring these images, but I wonder whether the Camera app is misbehaving and actually processing them.  I think this problem has emerged since the ICS upgrade ... either when the phone (Samsung Galaxy Note) was first updated from Gingerbread or at some later date.  Any ideas, please? Fermions, different species and (anti-)commutation rules My question is straightforward:  Do fermionic operators associated to different species commute or anticommute? Even if these operators have different quantum numbers? How can one prove this fact in a general QFT? How can I get a reference to a method? Why is spectrum obtained by sunlight, said to be continuous? My teacher spoke about atomic spectra today, and he explained that, unlike the spectrum obtained by analyzing the sunlight, the spectra of atoms are not continuous.     I have a question about this - even the sunlight has the radiations emitted by the atoms of the elements which compose the sun, still spectra is continuous, which is in opposition to the statement that atomic spectra is discontinuous. So, spectrum obtained by sunlight is continuous even though it atomic spectra. In order to account for spectrum obtained by the sunlight to be continuous and atomic spectra to be discontinuous, can we confirm that sun consists of all those elements (sodium, helium, neon, mercury, etc) which emit the colors of frequency belonging to visible region?