When do we use 'a few'instead of 'few'? For example, why is it incorrect to say "I have few dollars left" instead of "I have a few dollars left"? Most people reason it should be few dollars because "dollars" is a plural noun.
I have few friends.   I have a few friends.      I thought "few" means just one, two or even none. "A few" typically means more than two. However it seems to me some people say "few" when they really mean "a few", am I right?
Ambiguity of chi-squared test of association; how can the conclusion change using the ''same'' sample? Recently I have been struggling with the following two questions regarding the chi-squared test of independence / association during reading an article.        Is the chi-squared test able to detect no association between two groups among three at two levels? That is in a 3X2 contingency table.   Does the chi-squared test change its behavior with a larger sample that was otherwise perfectly proportional to a smaller sample?     I prepared a sample data set in R to seek the answers of these two questions. Though my initial discomfort about the chi-squared test have been proven, but over-acceptance of this test statistic in the scientific community have forced me to re-think. May be I have been missing something here.    # Question 1 x1 = c(100, 450, 450) x2 = c(600, 450, 450) d1 = rbind(x1,x2) colnames(d1) = c("Type 1", "Type 2", "Type 3") rownames(d1) = c("No", "Yes") d1 chisq.test(d1) # Significantly associated (not independent), though "Type 2" &amp; "Type 3"  #  were not different at all!   # Question 2 d2 = d1/50 d2 chisq.test(d2) # Not significant!!!  d3 = d2*2 d3 chisq.test(d3) # Significant!!! Does javascript use immutable or mutable strings? Do I need a "string builder"? I've searched for multiple forums for this questions and have seen different answers but so far, nothing have worked yet even from the ones I've seen here.  I want to extract a single file from a tar to a different directory.  I've tried this:  tar xvf file.tar -C /home/dir/ filename   or this:  tar -x filename -f file.tar -C /home/dir   But got these errors respectively:  x filename, 14826 bytes, 29 media blocks. File -C not present in the archive. File /home/dir not present in the archive.   and:  tar: /dev/rmt0: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.   The first extracted the file but in the same directory, not to the folder I wanted. adding an item to filtered table My project has a table with '+add' button and filtering. The add button opens a dialog to add item, and then to 'save' which closes it too Today I noticed the following flow:  Filter table on subject with value 'dummySubject'  Add new item with subject 'somethingelse'  save and close the new item ==&gt; the new item is shown in the table   So the outcome is that an item that does not qualify the filtering appears in the table. When I asked around I got the following answer  We don't want the new item to 'disappear' on creation just because it does not qualify the filtering. So we display it If you filter again, it will disappear as it should  I can almost understand that logic, but still it sounds wrong. I would rather have like a toaster saying 'new item create' with a 'goto' link. My question is  is the current user experience considered a reasonable one? what is the best practice way to handle such scenario?      &ndash; Wireframes created with I am having trouble understanding the estimation of an AR process. In some textbooks, the AR(1) process is defined as follows: $y_{t}=\theta y_{t-1}+ϵ_t$ (which does not contain a constant). So the OLS estimator is biased. I am confused about the cause of the bias. It is explained that $y_{t-1}$ is dependent on $ϵ_{t-1}$ although it is independent of $ϵ_t$. However in linear regression, if the equation does not contain a constant, we cannot make sure the expectation of disturbance is zero. So the OLS estimator is bias without a constant. Does it mean that the OLS estimator is unbiased if I add a constant in AR process? What does the human body use oxygen for besides the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain? My biology teachers never explained why animals need to breathe oxygen, just that we organisms die if we don't get oxygen for too long. Maybe one of them happened to mention that its used to make ATP. Now in my AP Biology class we finally learned the specifics of how oxygen is used in the  due to its high electronegativity. But I assume this probably isn't the only reason we need oxygen.   What other purposes does the oxygen we take in through respiration serve? Does oxygen deprivation result in death just due to the halting of ATP production, or is there some other reason as well? What percentage of the oxygen we take in through respiration is expelled later through the breath as carbon dioxide? Replacements for switch statement in Python? I want to write a function in Python that returns different fixed values based on the value of an input index.    In other languages I would use a switch or case statement, but Python does not appear to have a switch statement.  What are the recommended Python solutions in this scenario? The assumptions are:    Alice and Bob have perfectly synchronized clocks Alice and Bob have successfully exchanged a pair of entangled photons   The idea is simply to have Alice and Bob perform the Quantum Eraser Experiment (doesn't need to be the delayed choice).   Alice and Bob agree on a specific time when Bob's photon will be between the "path marker" (which is usually just after the slits) and the detector.  If Alice acts collpasing the wave-function on her photon, the interference pattern will disappear. If not it won't.  Alice and Bob can be spatially separated...  What am I misunderstanding?   The only meaningful difference from this spatially separated quantum eraser experiment to one done on tabletop is that you won't be able to use a coincidence detector, but that is not impeditive to identifying the interference pattern, just will make errors more probable. Which we should be able to deal with a appropriate protocol...  There is a experimental paper with a small amount of citations pointing out to the breaking of complementarity in a very similar setup: What is this noisy shadow overlay that stays with the camera? Expected Value of Max of IID Variables What is the expected value of the maximum of 500 IID random variables   with uniform distribution between 0 and 1?   I'm not quite sure of the technique to go about solving something like this. Could anyone point me the right direction?  Thanks What are the limitations of healing magic? While reading Sorcerer's Stone, I just finished the chapter where Harry walks in on Snape and Filch bandaging Snape's leg.  In a previous chapter Neville falls off of his broom and we see that magic can easily heal his broken wrist.  If magic can heal an injury like broken bones, why wouldn't Snape heal his leg, which was just torn up by a 3-headed dog?  My initial thought was that only certain people specialize in healing magic, but while poking around this site I came across this question:   This shows that Snape had at least some healing abilities.  So why didn't he heal his own leg?  Are there limitations that prevented Snape from healing his own wounds? Could a constant function be considered increasing? Given the definition of an increasing function as a function $f:E\to\mathbb{R}$, where $E$ is nonempty such that $x_1,x_2\in E$ and $x_1&lt;x_2$ imply $f(x_1)\leq f(x_2)$, then couldn't, for example, $f(x)=-1$ considered increasing? Since the inequality is not a strict inequality. Combining jquery functions - on() hover/mouseenter/mouseleave What does UNDEF and notype() mean when seeing the C++ library information using dumpbin? Following on from this question:   It seems all feats carry over to your new form if your new form is capable of using them (so Mounted Combatant and Inspiring leader would usually be ruled as unusable in most circumstances). But what about Tough?     Your hit point maximum increases by an amount equal to twice your   level when you gain this feat. Whenever you gain a level thereafter,   your hit point maximum increases by an additional 2 hit points.   Would this increase your maximum HP by the same amount when in the form of a rat, or brown bear? How can I run blender from command line or a python script without opening a GUI? I'm interested in using Blender for producing images, 3d files, or calculating geometry on a server.  Can I make blender run a python script without opening a GUI?  If not, can I incorporate Blender's python API into my own python script without running a GUI? What is the relationship between regression and linear discriminant analysis (LDA)? Is there a relationship between regression and linear discriminant analysis (LDA)? What are their similarities and differences? Does it make any difference if there are two classes or more than two classes? Extracting extension from filename in Python Is there a function to extract the extension from a filename? How to select an element inside "this" in jQuery? $P_n(x):=1+ \sum_{m=1}^n\dfrac{x^m}{m!}$ has no real root for even $n$ and exactly one real root for odd $n$ Is it true that  $$P_n(x):=1+ \sum_{m=1}^n\dfrac{x^m}{m!}$$ has no real root for even $n$ and exactly one real root for odd $n$? I can only prove that the polynomial cannot have any multiple roots. Am stuck , Please Help.