Looking for title of sci-fi story/book: About space travel and finding dead relatives on a planet? I read this book years ago and from what I remember it was kind of short for a sci-fi book.  It was about a ship landing on a planet and they all found their dead loved ones living there. The so called dead loved ones explain that this place is where they end up after dying and so on. So the crew assumes this is heaven of some sort. They all happily decide to spend the night with their loved ones.  Only the captain or someone was suspicious of them.  But in the end as far as I remember everyone died. I only remember feeling my blood froze at the ending. It really left a mark. Does anyone know what this is?
Astronauts land on planet, met by aliens impersonating their deceased relatives When I was young, I read a chilling story of astronauts coming to an unknown planet and found to their delight  the occupants were all members of their family who were deceased. Each crew member goes off to their respective childhood homes to relive memories.   One astronaut however in the same bedroom as his brother suddenly wonders if aliens may have searched the memories of himself and fellow crew members and used this to gain power over the intruders. His brother asks suspiciously what he's thinking and doesn't believe the answer. The last scene shows astronauts being buried by aliens whose faces melt from human into something terrifying.   Anyone know the name of the story and author? I thought it might be something like Coming Home, but only a guess.
How to get Debian codename without lsb-release I am trying to create a script that requires me to print the debian codename so that I may echo it into the sources.list file.  I am trying to make this script work across any version of Debian, so I had hoped to set a bash variable of the release codename. This would be simple to do (with lsb_release -c), however our deployment images do not contain lsb_release by default - and with this script being required to fix the sources.list, installing lsb-release with apt-get would not be an option.  I have found numerous ways to get the release number and other info about the system, but cannot find a reliable place to get the codename.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!  (OS I am testing this with is Debian Squeeze) Validity of maximising log-likelihood for maximum likelihood estimation For reasons owing to mathematical convenience, when finding MLEs (maximum likelihood estimates), it is often the log-likelihood function---as opposed to the standard likelihood function---which is maximised.  From what I've gathered, this approach is deemed valid as a result of the monotonically increasing nature of the (natural) logarithm function.  My understanding of a monotonically increasing function is: for all $x$ and $y$ (defined on a subset of the reals), if $x \leq y$ then $f(x) \leq f(y)$.  This, however, does not appear to be the case for all log-likelihood functions; for example: for the log-likelihood $\text{Gamma}(3, 5)$ function, if $x = 0.15$ and $y = 0.46$, then $f(x) = -0.59$ and $f(y) = -1.19$.  Clearly, I've misunderstood this concept. Fundamentally, I guess I'm asking can somebody (preferably mathematically) demonstrate why:  $$ \hat{\theta} = \text{argmax} \text{ } L(\theta) = \text{argmax} \text{ } \text{log} \text{ } L(\theta) $$  where $\hat{\theta}$ is the MLE for a given likelihood function. Evaluate the sum $\sum_{k=1}^n {n \choose k-1} {n \choose k}$ Evaluate the summation of: $$ \sum_{k=1}^n {n \choose k-1} {n \choose k} $$ I have been trying to solve this problem by translating C(n, k-1) into C(n, k), because I know that: $$ \sum_{k=1}^n {n \choose k}^2={2n \choose n} $$ However, I haven't been having any luck. Am I on the right track? What am I doing wrong? How to set one header for each page using multicols When should you push variables in quotes in boolean conditions? Are the following two boolean expressions the same?  if [ -n $1 ] ; then  if [ -n "$1" ] ; then   If not - When should you put a variable in quotes? In all shells I am aware of, rm [A-Z]* removes all files that start with an uppercase letter, but with bash this removes all files that start with a letter.  As this problem exists on Linux and Solaris with bash-3 and bash-4, it cannot be a bug caused by a buggy pattern matcher in libc or a miss-configured locale definition.  Is this strange and risky behavior intended or is this just a bug that exists unfixed since many years? Filter questions with no accepted answer I have some questions with answers, but none of the answers are acceptable (just wrong).  I'm sure there are a lot more people with the same problem.  Can you add a button to filter questions with answers but no accepted answer?  This way, people will see those questions and maybe try to offer a new perspective. UV mapping not filling faces I have tried to map this simple object, but the uv mapping does not correspond to what i see in the textured object. It cuts the image a bit on top and a bit on the bottom of the faces. It does not fill the faces with the texture, even though i have mapped them correctly. Does anyone know what could be happening? Thanks in advance. How to show distance between boundary of an open set and a compact subset is positive? Let $n \in \mathbb N$ and $U\subset \mathbb R^n$ be an open set.Let $K\subset U$ be a compact subset of $U$. Then How can we show that distance between $K$ and $\partial U$ is positive?   Please, someone, give some hints. to solve this.  Thank you. A  is river or stream that flows into a larger river.  A  a stream branching off a river.    Is there a word that combines both structures, the idea of a river that splits in two and later rejoins to become one river again?           /---------------\ ---------                 --------------------          \---------------/   My focus here is on the waterway, not the land. I’m looking for a word describing the behavior of the river splitting and later rejoining, without regard for the geography, and without regard for the cause or effect between land and water. I have just dropped a half full latté on my company laptop and am not sure what to do.  Is there a way I can make sure that my laptop is usable again?  What steps must I go through to improve it's chances of survival? Is it normal for focal length to change while focusing? When I change the focus distance on my Pentax 55-300mm lens, the focal length appears to change.  More specifically, the lens appears to zoom in as I focus towards the minimum focusing distance.  This is most noticeable at the 55mm end of the lens.  Is this normal? Calculate $\lim\limits_{x\to4} \frac {\sqrt {1+2x}-3} {\sqrt x -2}$ After I just learned there are ways to cancel out $0$s in the divisor of fractions onto limits I looked back at a task where I gave up when I got the result $\lim\limits_{x\to4} \frac {\sqrt {1+2x}-3} {\sqrt x -2}$ so I tried to find a way to get the $0$ out here, as well. Am I just not seeing the solution or is there no way to do it? On the bash command-line, ↑ gives me the previous command. On the command-lines in ipython or matlab, when I type a few characters, ↑ gives me the previously entered command starting with those characters. How can I enable exactly this behaviour in bash? I am aware of more advanced ways of searching through the command-line history, but sometimes a simple way is more convenient. I connect my phone to a Bluetooth speaker to play music. When engage Siri or try to use dictation, the phone wants to use the microphone on the Bluetooth device, which is either too crappy or too far away for it to understand what I am saying.  So, I would like a way to restrict the iPhone to using its own microphone even when connected to a Bluetooth speaker.  I am open to doing this via a setting, buying an app, or jailbreaking or whatever.  Is there a way to do this? Interaction between Leyline of Anticipation and Teferi, Time Raveler With the reprint of  in Core Set 2020, the interaction with  came to mind and I couldn't figure out what is right.  If I have the Leyline and my opponent has Teferi, may I cast spells during my opponent's turn? Media keys behaving like function keys Include external subtitles while converting video with FFmpeg Is it possible to use subtitles from an external file while converting a video with FFmpeg? The file extension of the subtitles is .stl or .vob. How is dark energy consistent with conservation of mass and energy? I initially thought that dark energy must in some way violate conservation of mass and energy since the component of the energy density of space that comes from dark energy is constant, and space is expanding. Therefore, as space expands the energy in the universe that comes from dark energy would increase. I presumed the source of this energy was not coming from the conversion of other types of energy to dark energy, so it must violate conservation.  I decided to Google this and came upon this article:    It says that dark energy does NOT violate conservation and quotes Carroll, Press, and Turner (1992):  "…the patch does negative work on its surroundings, because it has negative pressure. Assuming the patch expands adiabatically [i.e. without loss or gain of heat], one may equate this negative work to the increase of mass/energy of the patch. One thereby recovers the correct equation of state for dark energy: P = – ρ c2. So the mathematics is consistent."  Is there a way to explain this in layman's terms? (The blog attempted to do this, but it was very unclear to me.) More specifically, can you explain where my initial train of thought described above fails when I erroneously concluded that dark energy violates conservation?  Thank you. Could anyone explain why the number of legal or reachable combinations of a $3\times 3\times 3$ Rubik's Cube is $1/12\mbox{th}$ of the total. I understood the logic behind the total number of combinations: $8! \cdot 2^{12} + 3^{12} \cdot 12!$. What I am not able to understand is why do we divide this quantity by $2 \cdot 3\cdot 2$. I don't have any idea about parity or group/set theory. Is there another possible explanation for it?