Is a person using the pronoun "I" uncapitalized considered rude or uneducated?
Is it alright to use lowercase "i" or should you always use "I" (uppercase)?
Why are addition and multiplication commutative, but not exponentiation? We know that the addition and multiplication operators are both commutative, and the exponentiation operator is not.  My question is why.  As background there are plenty of mathematical schemes that can be used to define these operators. One of these is   where $H_0(a,b) = b+1$   (successor op) $H_1(a,b) = a+b$   (addition op) $H_2(a,b) = ab $   (multiplication op) $H_3(a,b) = a^b$   (exponentiation op) $H_4(a,b) = a\uparrow \uparrow b$   (tetration op: $a^{(a^{(...a)})}$ nested $b$ times ) etc.    Here it is not obvious to me why $H_1(a,b)=H_1(b,a)$ and $H_2(a,b)=H_2(b,a)$ but not $H_3(a,b)=H_3(b,a)$  Can anyone explain why this symmetry breaks, in a reasonably intuitive fashion?  Thanks. Green is the most common circuit-board color because it has become an industry standard.  What I'm interested in is How the traditional "PCB Green" become a standard in the first place?   Were there any interesting historical reasons for the initial choice, or was it just a product of what one particularly successful company was doing that became the de-facto standard? Xdotool using "DISPLAY=:0" not works in Crontab Prove that every Lebesgue measurable function is equal almost everywhere to a Borel measurable function Suppose $(\mathbb{R},\Sigma(m),m)$ is our measure space, where $m$ is Lebesgue measure.  Also, suppose $f : \mathbb{R} \to [-\infty, \infty]$ is a Lebesgue measurable function.  The problem:     Prove that $f$ is equal almost everywhere to a Borel measurable function.   My attempt:  We only have to prove this assertion for a non-negative Lebesgue measurable function $f$ because the result will follow for all Lebesgue measurable functions.  Furthermore, since any Lebesgue measurable function can be approximated by a sequence of non-negative, monotonically increasing, Lebesgue measurable simple functions $s_{n}$, we only need to prove the claim for an arbitrary Lebesgue measurable simple function.  So, let $s: \mathbb{R} \to [-\infty, \infty] $ be a Lebesgue measurable simple function.  We can write $s$ canonically as $$ s(x) = \sum \limits_{i = 1}^{n} \alpha_{i} \chi_{A_{i}}(x)$$ where $\alpha_{i} \in [-\infty, \infty]$, $\bigcup \limits_{i = 1}^{n} A_{i} = \mathbb{R}$, and $A_{i} \cap A_{j} = \emptyset$ if $i \neq j$.  For each $i$, since $A_{i}$ is Lebesgue measurable, we can find a Borel set $B_{i}$ such that $A_{i} \subseteq B_{i}$ and $m(B_{i} \setminus A_{i}) = 0$.  Clearly, this implies that $\bigcup \limits_{i = 1}^{n} B_{i} = \mathbb{R}$.  Now we just need the $B_{i}$'s to be pairwise disjoint, with each $B_{i}$ still retaining $A_{i}$.  To make them pairwise disjoint, I constructed the following sets:  $\tilde{B_{i}} = [B_{i} \setminus (\bigcup \limits_{j \neq i} B_{j})] \cup A_{i}$.  This construction gives us that the $\tilde{B_{i}}$'s are pairwise disjoint (I think....) and $A_{i} \subseteq \tilde{B_{i}}$.  But I don't know that $\tilde{B_{i}}$ is necessarily still a Borel set. :( :(  Am I approaching this problem all wrong? Can't access pre populated SQLite database using PhoneGap/Cordova in Android It happens sometimes to receive or see a very good answer that arrives very late and that would deserve more upvotes. What can be done to give a boost to them? I would happily spend some of my reputation points to be able to give them such boost. This is not merely a question of reputation, but the idea is to let the answer &quot;bubble up&quot; faster so that it can be seen easily by other people to look into question. I hope I explained my question so that is understandable. Most of you got the point and there are some interesting proposals like the one that proposes to put randomly an answer at top. But I do have not enough experience to say if there is one that could solve the issue or not. I would be curious to know what Jeff thinks about it, if it feels there is something that can be improved or not. Totally sweet horizontal rules in LaTeX How to call a parent class function from derived class function? Crookshanks is Hermione's familiar in PoA, GoF, and OOTP. I cannot recall mention of Crookshanks following OOTP, though. What happened to Crookshanks? Does canon refer to Crookshanks in either HBP or DH? I always stumble when using abbreviations in a sentence, as they inherently contain a period in them. How do I use a comma or a semicolon after an abbreviation? How about a period?  E.g. (This is an example of my quandary) How do you tell what brand/make/model of bike I have? I have a bike I'm trying to sell because it's just been sitting in my basement. It looks as if someone primered it and the only thing I found was a serial number. Is there like a website I can look up more info on the bike using just that number? Convergence of the series $ \sum_{n=1}^{+ \infty } \frac{1}{n \cdot \ln(n) \cdot (\ln(\ln(n)))^{a}} $ I have a problem with a convergence of the series $ \sum_{n=1}^{+ \infty } \frac{1}{n \cdot \ln(n) \cdot (\ln(\ln(n)))^{a}}$ depending on the parameter $a$. I know that  $\frac{1}{n} \rightarrow 0$, $\frac{1}{\ln(n)} \rightarrow 0$, but I don't know how to deal with $\frac{1}{\ln(\ln(n)))^{a}}$ and how to get to the final answer. So far I solved tasks with  $\frac{1}{n ^{a}}$ and I know that $a&gt;1  \Leftrightarrow \sum_{n=1}^{+ \infty }\frac{1}{n ^{a}}$ is convergent, but in this task I cannot use it. Can you help me? Expandably change letter case and use inside \csname, without a package I want to change the letter-case of a single character argument, and use that changed letter inside a \csname.  And I want to do it without an additional package.  For example, I want to pass a macro the letter {S}, and have it execute the macro \csname macros\endcsname, or pass it the letter {T}, and have it execute the macro \csname macrot\endcsname.    In my MWE, I show three approaches:   I didn't expect \lowercase to work, since I recall reading that it is not truly expanded until the last possible moment.  Surprisingly, it goes into an \edef okay, but it must not be truly expanded, because it breaks the \csname. I also formulated an approach where I used \numexpr to add 32 to the ASCII code of the argument and perform a \char upon that result.  Like \lowercase, it gives the appearance of being expandable, but it also fails inside the \csname. I finally achieve success with the stringstrings package.  Having written the package, I know the conversion was not pretty... essentially, it is an exhaustive 26-fold check of the form \if #1Aa\else\if #1Bb\else\if #1Cc\else...\fi\fi\fi, which has the virtue that it can be expandably placed into an \edef, and so it works.   There has to be a better way.  The MWE works only because I use the inefficiently calculated \tmp from METHOD 3 inside the \csname.  If I use \tmp from either of the two earlier methods, it breaks.  \documentclass{article} \usepackage{stringstrings} \def\macros{Expandably converted an S to a s} \def\macrot{Expandably converted a T to a t} \newcommand\convert[1]{%   %MAKE THE ARGUMENT LOWER CASE   1) LOWERCASE\\   \edef\tmp{\lowercase{#1}}% PRETENDS TO EXPAND, BUT FAILS IN \csname   Here is the ``expanded'' conversion: \tmp\\   % OR   2) ASCII CONVERSION\\   \edef\tmp{\expandafter\char\numexpr`#1+32\relax}% PRETENDS TO EXPAND, BUT FAILS IN \csname   Here is the ``expanded'' conversion: \tmp\\   % OR   3) STRINGSTRINGS PACKAGE\\   \caselower[q]{#1}\def\tmp{\thestring}% WORKS BUT USES A PACKAGE   Here is the ``expanded'' conversion: \tmp\\   %   Now use it in a csname: \csname macro\tmp\endcsname% } \begin{document} \convert{S}\par \convert{T} \end{document}       SUMMARY OF ANSWERS:  I have added egreg's code snippets into this MWE to produce a document (and not just terminal output), showing the methods put forth to this point:  \documentclass{article}  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% L3 APPROACH  \usepackage{expl3}  \ExplSyntaxOn \cs_set_eq:NN \Xexplower \tl_expandable_lowercase:n \ExplSyntaxOff  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% EGREG'S LESS HACKY SOLUTION  \def\explowerchar#1{%   \ifcase\numexpr`#1-`A\relax    a\or b\or c\or d\or e\or f\or g\or h\or i\or j\or k\or l\or m\or    n\or o\or p\or q\or r\or s\or t\or u\or v\or w\or x\or y\or z\else    #1\fi }  \def\explower#1{%   \doexplowerchar#1\relax }  \def\doexplowerchar#1{%   \ifx#1\relax   \else     \explowerchar{#1}\expandafter\doexplowerchar   \fi }  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% STEVE'S HACKY PACKAGE APPROACH  \usepackage{stringstrings}  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  \def\macros{Expandably converted an S to a s} \def\macrot{Expandably converted a T to a t}  \begin{document}  \textbf{Steve's hacky approach}  \caselower[q]{S}\csname macro\thestring\endcsname\par \caselower[q]{T}\csname macro\thestring\endcsname  \textbf{egreg's less hacky approach}  \edef\lcstring{\explowerchar{S}}\csname macro\lcstring\endcsname\par \edef\lcstring{\explower{T}}\csname macro\lcstring\endcsname  \textbf{L3 approach}  \edef\lcstring{\Xexplower{S}}\csname macro\lcstring\endcsname\par \edef\lcstring{\Xexplower{T}}\csname macro\lcstring\endcsname  \end{document} What do you call snow that has collected between a car body and the tire? How can I straighten ALL the vertical UV lines at once? Is there a hot keyshort cut? Or if I have to do them one by one .. is there at shortcut for that? Thank you! How to install and configure Wine? When and how did "pretty" enter English as an intensifying adverb? Subgroup of $\mathbb{Q}$ with finite index Consider the group $\mathbb{Q}$ under addition of rational numbers. If $H$ is a subgroup of $\mathbb{Q}$ with finite index, then $H = \mathbb{Q}$.  I just saw this on our exam earlier and was stumped on how to show this. Any ideas? A (highfalutin) word for a highfalutin word? To illustrate the question, badroit used the word "meretricious" meretriciously.   Is there an English word that describes highfalutin words like "meretricious" that are (gratuitously) used in place of better-understood words like "garish"?  The word may or may not be self-describing. Is there an English term for "L'esprit de l'escalier"?