Looking for a sci-fi dystopian story where the main characters are trained children So I read a book back in school (2000s), didn't finish it for whatever reason, and have been unable to remember the name or anything outside of a few small details.  Note, it's not Ender's Game or The Giver.  The details I know are:   Main characters are boys aged 8-17ish. They're raised in a school/facility of sorts where everything adheres to a strict schedule. They sleep in 'pods' and have very little freedom. The main boys (I forget but I think there are 2-3) want to escape or to at least see the outside world. When they try to do so, the 'teacher' of sorts (as well as a security team) go after them. The teacher is an ex-soldier or special force unit, as when he gets hit in the face and his nose is broken, he is able to mentally move the pain around. As in, concentrate and move it from his broken nose to another part of his body to 'deal with later', so he can continue to chase after the boys.   That's all I have, but I would really appreciate any help! I've been looking for years. :(
Sci-fi book, blue critters than only some people can see, kids fight the critters as they feed off energy and are a threat I can't really remember how long ago it was, but I think the book was marketed towards children/teens.  All I remember is the basic premise of the story.  Some story about these unusual little blue electric critters that only certain people could see, and these kids took it upon themselves to go about destroying them since they fed off energy or something like that.  Not sure whether they fed off people or off electricity... or both maybe?  I think the dominant method of destroying them was an electric baton that was taken from law enforcement.  I wanna call them buzz batons, but that's probably thanks to Artemis Fowl.
If string is stretched just by weight, where does the gravitational potential energy goes if only half is converted to elastic potential energy? If a spring is stretched by a weight of mass m, (so the extension is $\Delta x$) then $ k = \frac W{\Delta x} = \frac {mg}{\Delta x}$. So $ k\Delta x= mg $.  When the Spring is stretched by distance $\Delta x$ (by the weight) then it looses gravitational potential enegry. ($ \Delta GPE= mg\Delta x$)  But, when we calculate the change in elastic potential energy, We get  $ U = \frac 12 k(\Delta x)^2 $. Since $ k\Delta x = mg$, $U=\frac 12 mg\Delta x$  At, equilibrium we have no kinetic energy $E_k = 0$  Doesn't that violate Energy Conservation?  Where does the rest of lost GPE goes?  Here's a illustration I am trying to identify the general case algorithm for counting the different ways dice can add to a given number.  For instance, there are  with two 6-dice.  I've spent quite a bit of time working on this (for a while my friend and I were using Figurate numbers, as the early items in the series match up) but at this point I'm tired and stumped, and would love some assistance.  So far we've got something to this effect (apologies for the feeble attempt at mathematical notation - I usually reside on StackOverflow):  count(x):    x = min(x,n*m-x+n)    if x = n       1    else       some sort of (recursive?) operation   The first line simplifies the problem to just the lower numbers - where the count is increasing.  Then, if we're looking for the count of the minimum possible (which is also now the max because of the previous line) there is only one way to do that so it is 1, no matter the n or m. Convert a Pair of Integers to a Integer, Optimally? Detecting significant predictors out of many independent variables In a dataset of two non-overlapping populations (patients &amp; healthy, total $n=60$) I would like to find (out of $300$ independent variables) significant predictors for a continuous dependent variable. Correlation between predictors is present. I am interested in finding out if any of the predictors are related to the dependent variable "in reality" (rather than predicting the dependent variable as exactly as possible). As I got overwhelmed with the numerous possible approaches, I would like to ask for which approach is most recommended.    From my understanding stepwise inclusion or exclusion of predictors is  E.g. run a linear regression separately for every predictor and correct p-values for multiple comparison using FDR (probably very conservative?) Principal-component regression: difficult to interpret as I won't be able to tell about the predictive power of individual predictors but only about the components.  any other suggestions? Walking up/down a level road/street Is walking up/down the road/street applicable if the street is not sloped?  I think I heard something about "with/against the numbering of houses" but I'm not sure if it's correct.  Also, if that were correct, why is walking down the street  than walking up the street? How to display citations in text grouped as [1-3] in stead of [1,2,3] I've shown the existence of unique square roots of all positive rational numbers, so now I want to prove that the square root is monotone:   $0&lt;a&lt;b$ if and only if $\sqrt{a} &lt; \sqrt{b}$ Generating data with a given sample covariance matrix $\int_{0}^{\infty}\frac{\sin^{2n+1}(x)}{x} \mathrm {d}x$ Evaluate Integral Here is a fun integral I am trying to evaluate:  $$\int_{0}^{\infty}\frac{\sin^{2n+1}(x)}{x} \ dx=\frac{\pi \binom{2n}{n}}{2^{2n+1}}.$$  I thought about integrating by parts $2n$ times and then using the binomial theorem for $\sin(x)$, that is, using $\dfrac{e^{ix}-e^{-ix}}{2i}$ form in the binomial series.  But, I am having a rough time getting it set up correctly. Then, again, there is probably a better approach.   $$\frac{1}{(2n)!}\int_{0}^{\infty}\frac{1}{(2i)^{2n}}\sum_{k=0}^{n}(-1)^{2n+1-k}\binom{2n}{k}\frac{d^{2n}}{dx^{2n}}(e^{i(2k-2n-1)x})\frac{dx}{x^{1-2n}}$$  or something like that. I doubt if that is anywhere close, but is my initial idea of using the binomial series for sin valid or is there a better way?.  Thanks everyone. Smart guides aren't smart TL:DR Smart guides aren't accurate - even though the snap, (end up causing more problems in the long run) is there a way to fix it?  Maybe there are some settings that I'm missing (need to be changed)    I use my smart guides all the time (and am overall pleased with them). I do have my issues with it, as explained here:  A lot of times, when I'm trying to make a bunch of triangles like this:    Done by making a triangle, cloning, flipping, rotating etc. Repeat until full  (Perfect) Snapping using Smart Guides    Ends up looking likebetween the triangles (Outline Mode)    Now I personally (with a strong attention to detail) will notice that there is something off after making just 1 or 2 triangles (Even before outline mode... strokes look oh so slightly thicker/off)   And then I check in outline mode... and sure enough:    Notice the line spaces (and this is in outline mode, so if I didn't notice it before, now it's sitting right in front of my nose)  The way I (seemingly) "fixed" the first image was by adding in a thick stroke outline so that masks out the difference, however, in a lot of my cases I don't want to have a stroke at all (and then you really notice the problems). I was wondering how light or any electromagnetic radiation can be "absorbed" if it consists of electric and magnetic fields. For example if there is a charge at point A, and the  light reaches point A, it will cause that charge to move depending on the value of the electric field. However, why wouldn't this electric field continue on and influence others particles everywhere else? For example, if you have a static charge creating an electric field, then if you put a charge at point A it will feel its effects and then if you bring a charge at another location B it will also feel its effects, namely it will not have been absorbed. Please shed some light on this. Thanks  edit: Does this mean the electron that absorbs this light moves in such a way that it creates an electric field of its own canceling the initial one? Or am I way off? When would you call java's thread.run() instead of thread.start()? Why is the set of commutators not a subgroup? Where do I change my shell? Give an example of three positive integers m, n, and r Combinatorial proof for Stirling number of 1st kind's generating function So I see this identity a lot but I can't find a detailed combinatorial proof for it.  $$n(n+1)...(n+k-1)=\sum_{j=0}^k \begin{bmatrix}k \\j \end{bmatrix}n^j$$ Can someone please help? Newton's Law of Graviation: Why $G$ and not e.g. $\dfrac{1}{4\pi G_0}$? Difference between Unity and GNOME I often come across the terms Unity and GNOME while reading about Ubuntu. I understand that Unity is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu. What is GNOME and how is it related to/different from Unity? Customizing citations and the list of publications depending on the author Say I use a bibliography file in my document, relying on Biblatex and Biber for citation management.  Given a citation command such as \cite{A, B, C} (or any other standard Biblatex citation command), I'd like the resulting citations to be typeset differently depending on whether a given field (e.g. the author field) in the corresponding bibliography entry contains a given string (e.g. someone's lastname).   Besides, I'd like to generate two different bibliography sections in the resulting document, depending on the same condition as above.  Typically this would be used to differentiate, both at the citation level in the main text and in the appendix, the publications that I co-authored from others.  EDIT: adding a MWE:  \documentclass{article} \usepackage{filecontents} \usepackage[backend=biber,style = alphabetic]{biblatex} \usepackage[colorlinks=true, breaklinks, allcolors = blue]{hyperref} \DeclareSourcemap{%   \maps[datatype=bibtex]{%     \map{%       \step[fieldsource=author, match=Doe, final]%       \step[fieldset=keywords, fieldvalue=doe]%     }%   }% } \begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib} @Book{p1,   author =       "A. U. Thor and John Doe",   title =        "A Scientific Article 1",   year =         "1975"   } @Book{p2,   author =       "John Doe",   title =        "A Scientific Article 2",   year =         "1985"   } @Book{p3,   author =       "Joe Bar",   title =        "A Scientific Article 3",   year =         "1995"   } @Book{p4,   author =       "Jane Baz",   title =        "A Scientific Article 4",   year =         "2005"   } \end{filecontents} \addbibresource{\jobname.bib} \begin{document} % Requirement 1: should make citations of Doe bold In \parencite{p4, p1, p2, p3}, ``TD75'' and ``Doe85'' should appear in bold (the semicolon should remain plain).  % Requirement 2: separating bibliographies. IT WORKS. \section{Co-authored Publications} \nocite{*} \printbibliography[keyword=doe,heading=none]  \section{Other Publications} \nocite{*} \printbibliography[notkeyword=doe,heading=none]  \end{document} Are there cheap GPS or other navigator devices with downloadable maps for the whole world? I don't need a recommendation or a list but my knowledge of GPS and "navi"s and the differences between them is an utter mystery to me.  But often I'm lost in backstreets in random countries where access to something like a live Google Maps would be awesome. I absolutely cannot afford a smartphone with worldwide roaming though.  Can GPS's do what I want or am I barking up the wrong tree? If they can is it only high end ones than can?