"I chose the USA because I love speaking English and am good at it"is this correct? "I chose the USA because I love speaking English and am good at it"  It's for a past event, should it be "I loved....and was good..." instead (even though it's still true today)?
Present or Past tense to describe a past condition which is still present? Scenario: My friend John has a personality disorder, intensely paranoid for example.  Can I say:     There were three events last year that told me John had a problem.   or can I say:     There were threee events last year that told me John has a problem.
A secretary with ____ good knowledge of English: "a" or no article? I'm trying to pass a test on "Articles exercise" as they call it . Reviewing my answers I got stuck about the two I posted on the picture below.  As I understand both words are uncountable (according to the ), so it looks like (or said for example ) I can't say a/an with an uncountable noun.  But this test says the opposite. Is there some trick? Or am I just dumb? Please help me to understand why I need to use "a" article in these cases?        We need a secretary with ____ good knowledge of English.          a  (marked as the correct answer)   the     a / the     no article is needed (the answer I think is correct)        We're having ____ terrible weather.         a (marked as the correct answer)     the     a / the     no article is needed (the answer I think is correct) Can we show new/anonymous users more Q&A? With left nav, responsive design, and various new-user notices, this is what an anonymous user currently sees (browser window here is 1090px wide):    I realize that a lot of this content -- code of conduct, new-user intro, cookies notice -- is important.  And I get that the left nav is an important design element, and responsive design dictates the width of the right column.  But when you add it all up, Q&amp;A -- what the site is about -- gets a distressingly small portion of the screen.  Can we do better?   Maybe we can make that intro/mini-tour shorter? Maybe we can hide the right column for anonymous users? Maybe some things can wait until the user's viewed a few pages? Maybe other things I haven't thought of?   My concern is that anonymous users -- people coming from Google, people who were referred to a site by users hoping to recruit them, or others who find their way to us but aren't invested in us -- will turn away before seeing how rich and helpful our sites are.  Which would be a real shame, because our sites are awesome.  First impressions matter.  When I'm asking a rabbi to check out Mi Yodeya or a professional chef to check out Seasoned Advice or my vet to check out Pets (all of these have happened), I want to make a good impression.  I want the person to see more than 2.5 questions; I want to increase the chances the person will see something interesting or say "oh I can answer that!" and dig deeper.  Yes, the other stuff is important, but maybe not now?  Is there a better way to "stage" all this information for people we haven't yet hooked? Read echo'ed output from another PHP file I'm toying with the jQuery plugin  to implement a branching wizard for a web application. The problem I'm struggling with right now is how to deal with user choices that affect the subsequent workflow and the content and re-ordering of the progress meter of the wizard.  As for now I can think of 3 alternatives.   Static solution: Lay out all possible steps in advance. Though some steps will only be activated if the user makes the appropriate choice. Otherwise, the wizard continues with the next valid step. As an example: If someone doesn't need the "flight transfer option" the wizard simply leaves out all steps concerned with that choice. Fluid solution: Lay out only the default or required steps (happy path scenario). If for instance at some point the user chooses to branch away from the visible path (I need the transfer option) the wizard gets a visual update and also its progress meter. Now, showing all the additional steps. (I'm not sure though if this is visually appealing.) A combination of 1 and 2: This is meant as an extension to 1) and 2) where all the choices are made up-front like in a short enquiry (1st step). Based upon these choices the wizard gets a visual update with the corresponding workflow. If the user wants to change the choice she made she has to re-visit the first step (which creates the potential complexity of not loosing already entered data) Normal ordering of the commutator between annihilation and creation operator According to the commutation relation of annihilation and creation operators,   $$[a,a^{\dagger}]=1. \tag{1}$$   I would like to calculate the vacuum expectation value of the normal order of this commutator. We claim that since this commutator is just a c-number, then there is no effect from the normal ordering. We therefore get   $$\langle 0|(:[a,a ^\dagger]:)|0 \rangle=1. \tag{2}$$  However, if we expand the commutator first and do normal order later, we will get something like   $$\langle0|(:[a,a^\dagger]:)|0\rangle=\langle0|(:aa^\dagger-a^\dagger a:)|0\rangle=\langle0|(a^\dagger a-a^\dagger a)|0\rangle=0.\tag{3}$$ Which is contradicting with itself. Why do we use AC for long distance transmission? Why do we use AC (Alternating Current) for long distance transmission of electrical power?  I know that AC is such a current that changes polarity (magnitude and direction) and has fixed poles. Copy material to another object? I saw a video where the person copied a material from one object to another (Cycles).  How can I accomplish this? In Drupal 7, I used the Secure login module to run the site on a secure connection, but it seems it doesn't revert back to http on logout. I would like to just run the whole site as https:// as a simplification.  Is there a simple way to do this without the use of module? General question I have an app X installed on my device in version Y. I don't want to update it to any newer version (Y+z) for some reason. Still, the Google Play Store app always lists updates for X, which keeps me from a simple &quot;update all&quot;. My question, put to a single sentence:  How to hide updates for X permanently from the &quot;available updates&quot; list?   Specific examples First, I know there are alternatives as e.g. the , which can handle this quite well (skip this update, skip all future updates). I prefer a &quot;generic solution&quot;, which does not depend on a 3rd party's market app. Second, I know that  includes a &quot;Market doctor&quot;, which can be used to disconnect an app from Google Play.1 However, in my specific case that only worked for a few hours: I disconnected GTalk, as I don't want it replaced by Hangouts. The update notification disappeared for a few hours, then it was back. No idea what restored the &quot;link&quot;. Third, just to make sure: I'm not talking about the &quot;auto update&quot; feature as discussed e.g. in . I was rather hoping for something close to , but without the need to &quot;freeze&quot; the app in question (which I still want to use, but in the version installed, not in a &quot;future version&quot; available). Fourth: No, uninstalling the app in question is no option here, though it would perfectly hide any future updates from being displayed :) Nor is &quot;freezing&quot;, as the app is used regularly. Fifth: There is a related question for my GTalk example:  However, I want the opposite: No update.  It might very well be that &quot;Google Apps&quot; (and other pre-installed apps) are handled in some specific way, and restore their &quot;market links&quot; themselves somehow. For this case, my question includes: How to prevent that from happening?  Update There's a  discussing the very same issue. Until recently, a work-around for &quot;user installed apps&quot; was to uninstall them and then sideload the .apk – but even that stopped working. Well, re-signing the .apk with a different key might work for user-apps. But both would fail for pre-installed apps (can't sideload them to override; different signature would refuse that install completely). Moreover, there's an  on this by some &quot;joel.bou..&quot;. Not hard to guess, though blanked out: that would be Joël Bourquard. If it's really him, then that's really an issue (for those who don't know: Joël is the dev behind Titanium Backup). Let me quote from the issue:  For the record: in the Android Market days it was possible to &quot;Attach&quot; or &quot;Detach&quot; apps (on rooted devices) with a system tool such as Titanium Backup. But nowadays (with the Google Play Store app) this has become nearly impossible to do, because the complete app list seems to sync from Google's servers and the user has no control over that.  Which explains why detaching with apps like Titanium Backup is no longer permanent. And I'm afraid I've asked the impossible. But I thought the same in the past with other questions, and surprisingly got solutions here. So I do not yet give up hope on this one!  1: what that does is explained by eldarerathis  (thanks to  for digging that up!) Which Mac is suitable for Blender 2.8? I am considering purchasing a Mac for my godson who will be using it to run Blender 2.8.  I know very little about this program.  All I can find are requirements for a Mac that will run earlier versions of Blender.  Would someone please recommend a list of requirements for a Mac (or a link to a list of requirements) that I could use to find a model that can run 2.8?  Thank you in advance for all your help! Sincerely, M. Lap I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?).  After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again.  During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort?  Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Saving memoization to disk How are first digits of $\pi$ found? Since Pi or $\pi$ is an irrational number, its digits do not repeat. And there is no way to actually find out the digits of $\pi$ ($\frac{22}{7}$ is just a rough estimate but it's not accurate). I am talking about accurate digits by either multiplication or division or any other operation on numbers.  Then how are the first digits of $\pi$ found -     3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993...   In fact, more than 100,000 digits of $\pi$ are found (sources - )  How is that possible? If these digits of $\pi$ are found, then it must be possible to compute $\pi$ with some operations. (I am aware of breaking of circle into infinite pieces method but that doesn't give accurate results.)  How are these digits of $\pi$ found accurately? Can it be possible for a square root of some number to be equal to $\pi$? InputStream returning NullPointerException (Java) After I deleted my Ubuntu partition, I rebooted my computer and I only get a prompt:   grub rescue &gt;   The command ls lists   (hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1) (hd1) (hd1,msdos1)   I check them one by one:  ls (hd0,msdos5)/ ls (hd0,msdos1)/   But I cannot find the right partition. Footnote to an item in a description environment It seems like it's not possible to put footnote inside a description list item.  For example in the following code first footnote appears at the bottom of the page, but the second - doesn't:  \documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}  \begin{document}     Text text text.\footnote{This footnote is working}     \begin{description}         \item[Label\footnote{This footnote is not working}] Some description     \end{description} \end{document}   Why it's not working this way? And is there any way to put footnote to a list item? How accurate is approximating the Earth as a sphere? What level of error do I encounter when approximating the earth as a sphere? Specifically, when dealing with the location of points and, for example, the great circle distances between them.  Are there any studies on the average and worst case error compared to an ellipsoid? I'm wondering how much accuracy I'd be sacrificing if I go with a sphere for the sake of easier calculations.  My particular scenario involves directly mapping WGS84 coordinates as if they were coordinates on a perfect sphere (with the  defined by the IUGG) without any transformation. Calculating the number of possible paths through some squares I'm prepping for the GRE.  Would appreciate if someone could explain the right way to solve this problem. It seems simple to me but the site where I found this problem says I'm wrong but doesn't explain their answer. So here is the problem verbatim:    Find the number of paths from x to y moving only right (R) or down (D).  My answer is 6. What am I missing??  Thanks for any help. Looking for a 1000 most frequent english words Is there a free list of 1000 most frequent words used in everyday English? If there is a list with usage examples (as each of those words has multiple meanings for sure, not to cound phrasal verbs), it would be even greater.  Is there something alike, but with phrases? (E.g. 1000 most frequent phrases) Overflow: Visible on SVG