What is the correct sentence.    I am a IT degree holder. I am an IT degree holder.
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
Find the maximum value of $ f(x) = \int^{x}_{0} \sqrt{(x^2-x)^2+y^4}~dy$ Some cards in magic has something happen for each {something}. For instance:  makes you gain 2 life for each creature you control. Tapping  adds one green mana to your mana pool, and you gain 1 life for each non-land card revealed.  How is this life gained: all at once or "one bit" at a time? Say I tap Selvala and 1 land, and 2 non-lands are revealed: do I gain 2 life, or do I gain 1 life two times? Would  have one or two +1/+1 counters placed on it if I had it in play at that point? Can you be refused a visitor visa to US if you have bad Credit there? Feed lists answered questions as "unanswered" Does Perl have PHP-like dynamic variables? What Does it Really Mean to Have Different Kinds of Infinities? How to make git mark a deleted and a new file as a file move? Subsample of a random sample: random sample? Let's say you have a large random sample of soccer players in Europe but you are only interested in what happens in Spain. Could you reduce your sample to players in Spain and still call it a random sample (but of a different population)? If not, how would you call that subsample and which specific precautions should you take to be able to make inferences on the population of spanish soccer players?  My feeling is that using that subsample would be fine as long as it is large enough, but maybe I am missing something. Beamer continue block in next column I'm unable to update nodejs, and I can't see why.  If I were to make a guess, I'd say that I have two repositories listed in apt-get, that both contain a nodejs package.  Here's what I've done:  Remove old version:  sudo apt-get remove --purge nodejs npm   Then, going by , I've run:  curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_5.x | sudo -E bash -   And then:  sudo apt-get install -y nodejs   I then run:  nodejs -v   Which returns:  v0.10.25   Can anyone explain what's going wrong? And how I can remedy this situation?  Many thanks. How do I read a resource file from a Java jar file? Does Find My Mac stop working after the system has been wiped? Find the sum : $\frac{1}{\cos0^\circ\cos1^\circ}+\frac{1}{\cos1^\circ \cos2^\circ} +\frac{1}{\cos2^\circ \cos3^\circ}+......+$ Find the sum of the following :   (i) $$\frac{1}{\cos0^\circ \cos1^\circ}+\frac{1}{\cos1^\circ\cos2^\circ} +\frac{1}{\cos2^\circ \cos3^\circ}+......+\frac{1}{\cos88^\circ \cos89^\circ}$$  I tried :  $$\frac{1}{\cos1^\circ}\left[\frac{\cos(1^\circ-0^\circ)}{\cos0^\circ\cos1^\circ} + \frac{\cos(2^\circ-1^\circ)}{\cos1^\circ\cos2^\circ}+...\right]$$  = $$\frac{1}{\cos1^\circ}\left[\frac{\cos1^\circ\cos0^\circ}{\cos0^\circ\cos1^\circ} - \frac{\sin1^\circ \sin0^\circ}{\sin0^\circ\cos1^\circ} + \frac{\cos2^\circ \cos1^\circ}{\cos1^\circ\cos2^\circ} -\frac{\sin2^\circ \sin1^\circ}{\cos1^\circ\cos2^\circ}...\right]$$  For this, as well, I am not getting any pattern to solve further. Please suggest, thanks. Is there an easy way to get to www.stackexchange.com from any of the SE sites? One thing I've noticed about the relatively new sitewide layout is that I can't find a quick way to get back to www.stackexchange.com without finding StackExchange in the sites list. As a result, I am typing stackexchange in my toolbar a whole lot more often now. In particular, I tend to enjoy browsing the hot questions list and my own personal feed quite often so visit these pages on a daily basis. Is there an easy link to them that I'm missing?  (On the android app, there is a feed in the menu that I really appreciate, something like that on the desktop would be ideal!) Determinant of matrix How to "find and replace" in a PDF on OS X? Can't find wifi drivers for 0bda:f179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp I'm trying to install wifi drivers for a particular mini wifi card i bought. The output of lsusb is:  0bda:f179 Realtek Semiconductor Corp   I've searched everywhere for drivers, but could not find anything. Any help?  Thanks I have a trained logistic regression model that I am applying to a testing data set. The dependent variable is binary (boolean). For each sample in the testing data set, I apply the logistic regression model to generates a % probability that the dependent variable will be true. Then I record whether the acutal value was true or false. I'm trying to calculate an $R^2$ or Adjusted $R^2$ figure as in a linear regression model.  This gives me a record for each sample in the testing set like:  prob_value_is_true         acutal_value    .34                          0    .45                          1    .11                          0    .84                          0     ....                        ....             I am wondering how to test the accuracy of the model. My first attempt was to use a contingency table and say "if prob_value_is_true > 0.80, guess that the actual value is true" and then measure the ratio of correct to incorrect classifications. But I don't like that, because it feels more like I'm just evaluating the 0.80 as a boundary, not the accuracy of the model as a whole and at all prob_value_is_true values.  Then I tried to just look at each prob_value_is_true discrete value, as an example, looking at all samples where prob_value_is_true=0.34 and measuring the % of those samples where the acutal value is true (in this case, perfect accuracy would be if the % of samples that was true = 34%). I might create a model accuracy score by summing the difference at each discrete value of prob_value_is_true. But sample sizes are a huge concern here, especially for the extremes (nearing 0% or 100%), such that the averages of the acutal values are not accurate, so using them to measure the model accuracy doesn't seem right.  I even tried creating huge ranges to ensure sufficient sample sizes (0-.25, .25-.50, .50-.75, .75-1.0), but how to measure "goodness" of that % of actual value stumps me. Say all samples where prob_value_is_true is between 0.25 and 0.50 have an average acutal_value of 0.45. Is that good since its in the range? Bad since its not near 37.5% (the center of the range)?  So I'm stuck at what seems like should be an easy question, and hoping someone can point me to a resource or method to calculate an accuracy stastic for a logistic regression model. Finding the Dimension of a Matrix Polynomial: $W$ = { $p(B)$ : $p$ is a polynomial with real coefficients} Let $W = \{ p(B) : p \text{ is a polynomial with real coefficients}\}$, where $$B= \begin{pmatrix} 0 &amp; 1 &amp; 0\\  0 &amp; 0 &amp; 1\\  1 &amp; 0 &amp; 0 \end{pmatrix}$$  Which of the following possibilities presents the tightest bounds on the dimension $d$ of the vector space $W$?     $4 ≤ d ≤ 6$    $6 ≤ d ≤ 9$    $3 ≤ d ≤ 8$    $3 ≤ d ≤ 4$ What is the difference between a static and a non-static initialization code block My question is about one particular usage of static keyword. It is possible to use static keyword to cover a code block within a class which does not belong to any function. For example following code compiles:  public class Test {     private static final int a;         static {         a = 5;         doSomething(a);     }     private static int doSomething(int x) {         return (x+5);     } }   If you remove the static keyword it complains because the variable a is final. However it is possible to remove both final and static keywords and make it compile.   It is confusing for me in both ways. How am I supposed to have a code section that does not belong to any method? How is it possible to invoke it? In general, what is the purpose of this usage? Or better, where can I find documentation about this?