In this example:  The instrument can be used to apply pressure to the subject. The instrument can be used for applying pressure to the subject.  Are both correct? Are there any nuances between the two?
Someone edited my message on StackOverflow, but it really bugs me out.  I'm not sure what's wrong with it:   As you see, the bigger the circle becomes, the more vertices I need for hiding the straight lines. As you see, the bigger the circle becomes, the more vertices I need to hide the straight lines.   The latter (corrected) sentence just bugs me out for some reason. It would sound better if there was a comma after the word "need", perhaps, but I guess that would be even worse in means of grammatical correctness.  Can someone explain why is the first sentence bad and the second sentence correct? And could there even be better solution to fix the first sentence?
I'm getting a PC with Windows and I want to dual boot using Ubuntu as my primary OS.  I want to create a Home partition to store all my files and hopefully be able to access them on Windows 7 without having to manually mount the partition or anything.  I want to know what kind of partition should I create and if I can share my Home partition to simplify matters.  Thanks I have a Mac that runs Snow Leopard and I intend to upgrade it to Mountain Lion and sell it on ebay. However, I only have one hard-drive, and I'm sure I can't use something in my OS to delete my OS and all user data.  Is there something for this that's built into the firmware that I can do on boot, or otherwise?   I have source code on my Mac for multiple corporations' proprietary software and I can't risk somebody gaining access through the use of any sort of disk recovery tool. I plan to use a 7 pass erase rather than simply deleting the directory. $G/Z$ cannot be isomorphic to quaternion group How to saveHTML of DOMDocument without HTML wrapper? Detach (move) subdirectory into separate Git repository Something weird is going on with my login on at least one site Auto-sort column Google Spreadsheet on incoming Google Form response How can I get the Google Spreadsheet to automatically order the incoming form responses alphabetically (2nd column)?   I know how to do this manually or by going in and editing a cell, but cannot get it to do this as an onevent for incoming response. I (as a middle-school student) was wondering how virtual particles even conserve energy of the entire system? I don't mean just the particle's energy, but conservation with respect to the surroundings?  Let me explain more, Einstein proved that $E = mc^2$ and equivalently, we can say $m = \frac{E}{c^2}$ . We however know mass causes curvature in space-time (gravity well). Now that statement being completely valid we can use Quantum Fluctuation, implying energy and time can be related by the relation:  $\Delta{E}\Delta{t}\approx\frac{\hbar}{2}$ and by that simple relation we can make the following points:   As the energy increases, the time allowed to be "borrowed" decreases, before it gives it back to the universe. As time increases, the energy allowed to be "borrowed" decreases.    These are completely satisfactory points I've made, I believe.  Now, I have read that the vacuum is filled with constantly bubbling virtual particles that get created from the energy "borrowed" by the above relation and is destroyed again, which satisfies the energy conservation laws.   This seems to imply that  in the short time the virtual particle exists, they must have a very small mass which is: $m_{1} = \frac{\Delta{E}}{c^2}$ and using basic classical mechanics rather than GR (for sake of simplicity) we calculate that the gravitational force mediated by this short-lived virtual particle;  $F_{g}= G\frac{m_1 * m_x}{r^2}$   where $m_x$ is an particle\mass in question. Nevertheless since we know the force set upon an object moves the object in a direction, we can say it would increase its kinetic energy by this factor: $F_g = \frac{1}{2}mv^2$ which is equal to $G\frac{m_1 * m_x}{r^2} = \frac{1}{2}mv^2$.  Surely, this implies that every time quantum fluctuations happen, energy of real-particles\masses increases and therefore violates energy conservation, but what prevents this violation from taking place?  If virtual particles are not really present and interact with objects like I thought, how can Hawking radiation (currently a large concept in black hole physics) then be accepted in physics community? What is the subject of this sentence I've seen this sentence in someone's facebook status but it sounds unnatural to me.     I'm the Rumplestiltskin who spins straw into gold   I thought it should be spin because the subject is I, but I'm not sure. Which one is the subject in this sentence, I or Rumplestiltskin and why? Create an Application without a Window How would you program a C/C++ application that could run without opening a window or console? How to install multiple versions of the same software? I manage phone systems for multiple clients. Each system uses the same administrator software, but it runs on different versions depending on what version of firmware is installed on the system controller.   The software is downloaded directly from the system controller so it's the right version. For example, if the controller runs on version 5.0.2, you have to run version 5.0.2 of the administrator software. You can't administrate a 5.0.2 controller with a later versions of administrator software.   Bottom line, you have to have the right version of software to log into the controller. The software is not executable on its own, you have to install it. So every time I want to log into a different controller, I have to reinstall the right software.   Any way to get around this?   I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise x86. Ban "What have you tried?" links in comments Recently on SO, I've been noticing a lot of link-only comments on (admittedly bad) questions.  The typical comment looks like this:        Now, my first instinct is to flag the comment as "not constructive" or "too chatty", but the fact is that the blog post linked to is actually good advice.  On the whole though, the way it is being wielded like a blunt instrument comes across as—at best—lazy arrogance in my opinion and is not adding anything to the network.  Can we ban "What have you tried?" links like we did with ?  An example:    To be clear, I'm not proposing that we stop people asking for clarification or expecting askers to explain themselves properly. I just don't think comments like these are particularly constructive. I havent used my Ubuntu for quite a long time.  Today, when I booted Ubuntu (14.04 LTS), the software updater and Software &amp; Updates (from Settings) are not working.  The software updater's window will show up for around 1 sec, but it will close automatically. Software &amp; Updates is never shown, no matter how many times I click the icon. Note that neither of them show any error message.  Those 2 features were working perfectly the last time I used Ubuntu. I want to do some system upgrade and update.  For now, I use sudo apt-get update &amp;&amp; sudo apt-get upgrade. This command runs very fast, meaning (I think) my Ubuntu is not updated properly. The update from software updater always has a big size hence the download should be slower.  What should I do?   Can I just uninstall and reinstall both of them? If I can, how to do it?  Just to clarify, I don't want to upgrade my Ubuntu version (I want the LTS one), I just want to upgrade the software/packages I used.  Thanks for your time. I like to know when a dying star collapsed into a black hole, is there anything inside or on the event horizon that is interacting with higgs field? Why are there two sets of the Ctrl, Alt, and Shift modifier keys when only one of each is necessary? So I understand what a static method or field is, I am just wondering when to use them. That is, when writing code what design lends itself to using static methods and fields.   One common pattern is to use static methods as a static factory, but this could just as easily be done by overloading a constructor. Correct? For example:  var bmp = System.Drawing.Bitmap.LoadFromFile("Image01.jpg");   As for static fields, is creating singelton-objects their best use? How can I sort a string of text followed by a number using LINQ Shortcut for "null if object is null, or object.member if object is not null" I have a 64-bit (amd64 a.k.a. x86_64) Debian or Ubuntu installation. I need to run 32-bit (i386/i686) programs occasionally, or to compile programs for a 32-bit system. How can I do this with a minimum of fuss?  Bonus: what if I want to run or test with an older or newer release of the distribution? Clarifications about Gstreamer I'm a bit confused about what Gstreamer does.   Does it come installed by default with Ubuntu ?  If so which version  is the default for 14.04?  Does it provide hardware accelerated video playback (decoding) ?   If so does it work with VA-API and VDPAU or is it an alternative to those?    Thanks for your help