Short story with explorers or tourists on a planet with dangerous, but attractive glass plants I read this in the past 3 years, but I'm sure it was in an old (1950s most likely) pulp magazine that I read once I discovered that the Internet Archive had hundreds of them.  The story concerns either explorers or tourists.  (I think I may be conflating 2 stories.)  At least there are 2 or more characters, 1 being more experienced than the other(s).  They land on a planet where some/many of the species incorporate silica (glass) in their structure.  One character is attracted to a field of low plants whose chiming is very pleasant, maybe even hypnotic.  The more experienced one stops him/her just before he/she walks into the plants, pointing out the razor-sharp edges of the plants and the bones scattered among them.  There may have been an illustration accompanying the story.
Story about a trip to a Valley of Sound I read a short story, can’t remember if it was part of a larger narrative or just on its own.  It was about a crew that was taking a bunch of space tourists to a planet that had plants with seeds in glass-like structures that make certain sounds. The main character in this story feels connected to this planet because there’s a Valley of Sound, where there’s a large number of these glass plants that make all sounds imaginable.  People can almost pick out a loved one’s voice for instance. I absolutely love this concept but can’t for the life of me remember what the story/book was called!
I recently bought  white LED reading lamp. I like it a lot, but the "white" light produced is significantly blue; I'll guess its  is about 5000K.  I've noticed that, when this is the only source of light, printed text appears slightly fuzzy, and is more difficult to read than with a standard incandescent reading lamp. My guess is that this is  causing color fringing in my eyes, making it harder to read with this new lamp.  Is there a way to make this lamp less blue using some sort of transparent/translucent filter over the lens? This could filter out some of the blue end of the spectrum, or include a  to convert some of the blue to yellow (as  do). The fluorescence idea would be better, as there'd be less light lost. I don't want to go too far, though; a strongly yellow lamp might be worse for reading than this currently blueish lamp. I want to prove this:  Prove that if $a \in \mathbb{Z}$ is divisible by $4$, then there exist $b$ and $c$ where $b,c \in \mathbb{Z}$ such that $a = b^2 - c^2$  I want to prove this directily:  $4\mid a $,  $a\in \mathbb{Z} \implies \exists b,c \in \mathbb{Z}, \quad$ s.t. $a=b^2-c^2$  Let $k\in \mathbb{Z}$. Then $4=a\cdot k$ and $k$ can divide $4$. Hence,  $\frac{4}{k} =b^2 - c^2 = (b-c)(b+c) \implies \dfrac{4}{k\cdot(b-c)} = b+c$  Is this proof correct? How to check if a column exists in a SQL Server table? I need to add a specific column if it does not exist. I have something like the following, but it always returns false:  IF EXISTS(SELECT *           FROM   INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS           WHERE  TABLE_NAME = 'myTableName'                  AND COLUMN_NAME = 'myColumnName')    How can I check if a column exists in a table of the SQL Server database? Can one PC throw another? Ubuntu boots on terminal only, how do I recover the GUI desktop? How can I cast artificially darker shadows? I want to make certain shadows more prominent (using Cycles) without further illuminating the rest of the scene.  Example: I have a simple studio with a bowl of fruit and 3-point lighting.  The light looks great so I don't want to change it but I want the bowl to cast a darker shadow on the ground (without dimming the back-light).  Alternatively, and this would be really cool, an anti-light source.  Like a spot light that throws darkness instead of light. (Am I crazy for wanting this?)  Thanks! What are the differences between executing shell scripts using "source file.sh", "./file.sh", "sh file.sh", ". ./file.sh"? Have a look at the code:  #!/bin/bash read -p "Eneter 1 for UID and 2 for LOGNAME" choice if [ $choice -eq 1 ] then         read -p "Enter UID:  " uid         logname=`cat /etc/passwd | grep $uid | cut -f1 -d:` else         read -p "Enter Logname:  " logname fi not=`ps -au$logname | grep -c bash` echo  "The number of terminals opened by $logname are $not"   This code is used to find out the number of terminals opened by a user on the same PC. Now there are two users logged on, say x and y. I am currently logged in as y and there are 3 terminals open in user x. If I execute this code in y using different ways as mentioned above the results are :  $ ./file.sh The number of terminals opened by x are 3  $ bash file.sh The number of terminals opened by x are 5  $ sh file.sh The number of terminals opened by x are 3  $ source file.sh The number of terminals opened by x are 4  $ . ./file.sh The number of terminals opened by x are 4   Note: I passed 1 and uid 1000 to all these executables.  Now can you please explain the differences among all these? Set String via String.prototype function without return According to the well ordering theorem "". Whenever we have a well ordering on a set, it is not difficult to construct a new well ordering with a largest element. My question is:     For a given infinite set, can we find a well ordering on it such that there is no largest element? Can you make a bonus-action attack from Two-Weapon Fighting before you take your action? Ubuntu 16.10 Dual Boot error - 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install Split a plane into smaller plane objects I just started using Blender and I'm trying to cut a plane in equal squares and have each square be its own separate object. My main goal is create the plane and add a displace and decimate modifier to create a low poly terrain. By cutting the plane in equal squares I'll be able to tile them in a 3D maze game I'm working on. If anyone know a better way to approach this it would also be greatly appreciated. I'm looking for specific, real cases in which a causal relationship was inappropriately inferred from evidence of a correlation.   Specifically, I'm interested in examples that meet the following criteria:   Existence of the causal relationship was accepted as fact widely enough to have notable effects (on public policy, discourse, individual decisions, etc.). The link was inferred solely on the basis of correlative evidence (perhaps along with the existence of a coherent but unproven causal mechanism).  Causality has been objectively falsified or at least called into serious doubt.   The two examples that came to mind for me aren't quite ideal:   Sodium intake and blood pressure: As I understand it, it has since been determined that salt intake only increases blood pressure in sodium-sensitive individuals. The existence of a valid causal relationship (although not quite the one that was originally accepted) make this example less compelling. Vaccines and autism: I may have the background wrong, but I believe this link was surmised on the basis of both correlations and (fraudulent) experimental evidence. This example is weakened by the fact that (fake) direct evidence existed.   Note: I've seen this similar question:    My question differs primarily in that it focuses on notable, real-world examples and not on examples in which a causal link is clearly absent (e.g., weight and musical skill). How do I spamtrap with Postfix? How do I setup spamtraps with Postfix so clients that send to trapped addresses are prevented from sending me more spam? Who did Khan get his Starfleet insignia from? I have a question about inheritance in Java.  I have two classes A and B , and class B, inherits from A:  public class A {      public A() {          System.out.println("Hi!");      } }   public class B extends A {      public B() {          System.out.println("Bye!");      }       public static void main(String[] args) {          B b = new B();      } }   When I run program B, the output is:  Hi! Bye!      Question : why the constructor of class A is invoked, when I create and object of class B ?    I know that B inherits everything from A - all instance or class variables, and all methods, and in this sense an object of B has all characteristics of A plus some other characteristics defined in B. However, I didn't know and didn't imagine that when I create an object of type B, the constructor of A is also invoked. So, writing this:  B b = new B();   creates Two objects - one of type B, and one of type A.  This is getting interesting,   can somebody explain why exactly this happens? I am applying for a UK visa. Can I show 5 months worth of bank statements for the UK visa, or is 6 months a requirement, as its not mentioned on their website?  There are no appointment dates showing in April. Is there any time limit in which we have to book an appointment after paying the fee? Order of an element in a finite cyclic group How to ensure that string interpolated into `sed` substitution escapes all metachars I have a script that reads a text stream and generates a file of sed commands that is later run with sed -f. The generated sed commands are like:  s/cid:image002\.gif@01CC3D46\.926E77E0/https:\/\/mysite.com\/files\/1922/g s/cid:image003\.gif@01CC3D46\.926E77E0/https:\/\/mysite.com\/files\/1923/g s/cid:image004\.jpg@01CC3D46\.926E77E0/https:\/\/mysite.com\/files\/1924/g   Assume the script which generates the sed commands is something like:  while read cid fileid do     cidpat="$(echo $cid | sed -e s/\\./\\\\./g)"     echo 's/'"$cidpat"'/https:\/\/mysite.com\/files\/'"$fileid"'/g' &gt;&gt; sedscr done   How can I improve the script to ensure all regex metacharacters in the cid string are escaped and interpolated properly? I've just installed MariaDb on a fresh Ubuntu Gnome and ran  afterwards where I set a decent admin password, removed the anonymous user etc.  Afterwards I realized some strange behavior regarding the admin password:   If I try to login from my normal user account using the command mysql -u root -p I always get an error: ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' I'm pretty sure I entered the correct password which I set with  earlier... When I run the command from root using sudo mysql -u root -p, I always get access to the database, no matter which password I actually enter...   Is this normal behavior, am I doing anything wrong or have I somehow screwed up the installation?