What I have learnt that we use "among" when we are talking about more than two, and "between" for two.   But  1 Between the students in the class which is the best?  2 The U.N.O. insists on better understanding between the countries of the world.   3 There is a treaty between the five great power.  But in these sentences "between" is used. There are many more examples like this. When we use "between" for more than two things or people. Can you explain the reason behind this?  Thank you
Consider the following two versions of a question:1   Version 1: What is the difference in meaning between "[to be] not invited" and similar negation forms?  Version 2: What is the difference in meaning among "[to be] not invited" and similar negated forms?    Personally, I think Version 1 might subtly suggest a Star Topology (see below) with the target sentence "[to be] not invited"at the center.  And Version 2 might subtly suggest a more free-form comparison like the Mesh or Fully Connected, with the target sentence simply "one among many":   Between approx equal "Star" and among approx equal "Fully Connected"?  Don't get me wrong: I do think this is quite subtle, not always applicable, and I don't think anyone would intuit such a "network topology" meaning without further explanation.   So the main question is, are both grammatically correct?  If yes, is there a semantic difference to choose one over another, perhaps as I suggested?  Or does the plurality aspect of between and among trump other semantic and stylistic issues?    1. In my question , another user provided a very helpful edit. However, the change of the word between to among prompted this question.
How do I test a private function or a class that has private methods, fields or inner classes? How to let `dpkg -i` install dependencies for me? Finding CPU usage of a service Because my laptop fan was spinning up for no reason, I had a look at the CPU usage and I see  svchost with 12.5% CPU, which is basically a full core.  Now, I'm aware that  svchost runs services and I know how to display the services it runs in Task Manager or Process Explorer ().  Now I know which services are run, but I don't know which service eats the CPU time. I could disable one service after another, but I don't really like doing this (it could break things that are currently in use and I could forget turning the service back on later).  Therefore I'd like to know whether it's possible to instruct Windows to run only one service per svchost the next time I boot my PC. While I might have the slight disadvantage of several processes, I could immediately find out which one it is and it would be a much easier decision of whether or not to stop or restart the service. How can I assign different random values to each row in a SELECT statement? Please look at this code:  create table #t1(   id int identity (1,1),   val varchar(10) );   insert into #t1 values ('a'); insert into #t1 values ('b'); insert into #t1 values ('c'); insert into #t1 values ('d');   Now, whenever you execute this  select *,      ( select top 1 val from #t1 order by NEWID()) rnd  from #t1 order by 1;   you will get a result with where all rows have the same random value. e.g.  id          val        rnd ----------- ---------- ---------- 1           a          b 2           b          b 3           c          b 4           d          b   I know a way using a cursor to loop throw the rows and get different random values, but that is not performant.   A clever solution to this is   select t1.id, t1.val, t2.val from #t1 t1     join (select *, ROW_NUMBER() over( order by NEWID()) lfd from #t1) as t2 on  t1.id = t2.lfd    But I simplified the query. The real query looks more like  select *,      ( select top 1 val from t2 where t2.x &lt;&gt; t1.y order by NEWID()) rnd  from t1 order by 1;   and the simple solution doesn't fit. I'm looking for a way to force repeated evaluation of  ( select top 1 val from #t1 order by NEWID()) rnd    without the use of cursors.  Edit: Wanted output:  perhaps 1 call  id          val        rnd ----------- ---------- ---------- 1           a          c 2           b          c 3           c          b 4           d          a   and a second call  id          val        rnd ----------- ---------- ---------- 1           a          a 2           b          d 3           c          d 4           d          b   The value for each row just should be a random value independent from the other rows  Here is the cursor version of the code:  CREATE TABLE #res ( id INT, val VARCHAR(10), rnd VARCHAR(10));  DECLARE @id INT DECLARE @val VARCHAR(10) DECLARE c CURSOR FOR SELECT id, val FROM #t1 OPEN c FETCH NEXT FROM c INTO @id, @val WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN     INSERT INTO #res     SELECT @id, @val, ( SELECT TOP 1 val FROM #t1 ORDER BY NEWID()) rnd      FETCH NEXT FROM c INTO @id, @val END CLOSE c DEALLOCATE c  SELECT * FROM #res I know there a lot of posts about ram but I'm still confused about it. I'm building a new system and because it was cheaper, I bought a 6GB kit from Corsair. So I'm wondering if I would be better off just using 4GB of it in a dual channel configuration or just add all 6GB (3 DIMMS) in a single channel configuration.   Thanks Reading a file used by another process I asked a question that has been marked as a duplicate. I read a lot of similar questions and explanations in advance but I couldn't find a solution. In the question that should answer my question the asker used a different (not working) approach. There is even an answer that would work for my case however I'd rather consider it as a workaround than a solution since I have seen examples using my approach.  So I would like your opinion in that case. Would it be ok to repost my question while explaining why other answers didn't help me? I edited my question but I think it's not getting any attention anymore. Naturally I will remove the old question. Real valued analytic function defined on a connected set is constant Let $G$ be a connected set and $f : G \rightarrow \mathbb{C}$ a real valued analytic function. Prove that $f$ is constant.    My idea to prove the result is to prove a subset $A \neq \varnothing$ of the connected set $G$ is both open and closed. So $G=A$ Take $f(w) = a$ $$A = \{z\colon z \in G, f(z) = a\}$$ Now I want to show that $A$ is infinite. How to do it? After that it is easy to prove $A=G$. What setting causes OS X to let you resize windows behind the dock? I've set up my fair share of Macs over the years, but I've never been able to pinpoint what setting tells OS X that you're ok with being able to drag-resize a window vertically so that it goes behind the dock (assuming the dock is in its default position at the bottom of the screen), as opposed to only being able to resize it vertically so that it is touching the top of the dock's "space".  My work computer is a 21" iMac Core 2 Duo and it drives me crazy because I'll quickly drag-resize a window larger by pulling down and to the right but instead of staying locked vertically above the dock it'll slide behind it which I don't like so then I've gotta jiggle the window around to get it all back into visible space... my home computer (6 core tower) doesn't have this problem even though I've, from what I can tell, set it up nearly identically.  Both machines running the latest version of snow leopard.  Here's a video captured from my machine at home showing the window resize behaviour I prefer. If it helps at all I can do another one from my work machine tomorrow showing the windows resizing behind the dock. How does temperature relate to the kinetic energy of molecules? In ideal gas model,  is the measure of average kinetic energy of the gas molecules. If by some means the gas particles are accelerated to a very high speed in one direction, KE certainly increased, can we say the gas becomes hotter? Do we need to distinguish the random vibration KE and KE in one direction?  Furthermore, if we accelerate a block of metal with ultrasonic vibrator so that the metal is vibrating in very high speed with cyclic motion, can we say the metal is hot when it is moving but suddenly become much cooler when the vibration stop? Why do the big nuts always remain at top? The Brazil-nut Effect Most of the time when I mixed different nuts in a bowl, I observed that the big Brazil nuts were always on top while the small peanuts settled near the base. No matter how you take it, if the big nuts are put at the bottom and then the small nuts are poured, then also after some time the big ones will come to the top. Will not the gravity attract those big nuts more and eventually will they not remain at the base? But it doesn't happen!   I googled it and found the term Brazil-nut Effect but couldn't find any proper explanation. What is the physical explanation for this effect? How can I undo git reset --hard HEAD~1? C# LINQ find duplicates in List Changing internal URL path for SEO I have a site where Google has already indexed about 1 million pages, and I want to change all the URL paths for SEO purposes, ensuring that we always have our keywords in the path.  Technically I know how to complete it (301 redirects, new canonical URL, update sitemap, etc.) but I'm wondering if Google will penalize the site because of it, or if links will disappear from search results until they are re-crawled? Similes and Metaphors - are similes a subset of metaphors? Purpose of asterisk before a CSS property Is it possible to use a laptop as an external monitor? I need to create a multi-monitor setup for my desktop computer but I have no additional monitors with me right now, aside from my laptop. Is it possible to use my laptop screen as an external monitor?  Note that I am not trying to connect a monitor to my laptop, rather, I am trying to connect my laptop screen to a desktop video card (if this is possible). How to best respond to a request to send a passport scan by unsecured email? It is not uncommon for travel or holiday accommodation companies to ask for a scan of your passport by email. Sometimes local laws require them to keep a record of the passport numbers of all visitors. I'm happy to provide that information but you usually have to send it in an unsecured email, which may have consequences .  Could these companies be more responsible, and provide a public cryptographic key at least?  Are there other steps you should take to protect yourself, if you do send by unsecured email? "He didn't know where New Jersey was" I know the past tense carries the past tense in every dependent clause, but referring specifically to places or to things that are eternal, like the Earth, seems a bit weird and therefore we sometimes (I believe incorrectly) say     He didn't know that New Jersey was actually on the East Coast.   Because it still is. Or     He thought the Earth was round.   So is it square now?  Logically speaking, would you consider the use of past tense here a bit confusing in a day-to-day speech in these examples? Would you instinctively opt for using the present tense? As far as I can tell downvoting is mostly useless.     For questions the only people who get downvoted are lower rep users, or incredibly stupid questions    most questions that are downvoted get closed anyway which should be sufficient downvoting doesn't have too much affect on your rep anyway a negative comment is more useful and more of a push too change or delete the question  For answers downvoting is often used incorrectly as well   people commonly competitively downvote (downvoting another answer to a question that you also answered) obviously not a good behavior downvoting (and upvoting) are contagious, meaning one downvote leads to a bunch of others even though downvotes don't effect rep that much they create a negative environment, no one wants their post downvoted, on the other hand criticizing comments, I think, are far more welcome      So basically in a nutshell a downvote serves no real purpose even if a post deserves it. Flagging, closing and commenting are much more useful to everyone including the poster than downvoting so why have it.    I now see from the answers and comments that downvotes do serve a purpose and would like to retract my request.