Book (pre 1982) - recalled mercenary only survivor of radiation weapon I read a book somewhere around 1981 or 82 at our local library. It was the first book in a series. I can almost remember the entire book just not the title nor the author.  I would love to find out if the author continued the series.   It starts out that there is a planet of mercenaries who hire out their services to other planets. There is a planetary distress call which recalls all the warriors back to the home planet. One warrior whose starship malfunctions, is left in orbit as the rest of the warriors enter the planets atmosphere and are immediately killed by a extremely lethal radiation weapon that has killed the entire planet.    He was close enough to the planet to become terminally ill, and ends up going out into the universe seeking who sent the bomb in the grain supply and killed his people and to try and find another warrior.  On the way, he meets up with a scientist who knows what is going on. They replace his bones through some process to keep him alive.   There is also a creature that reminded me of a ghost. That is all that I remember.
series of young adult science fiction books from early 1980s about last of a race of martial experts that sees the destruction of his home planet I remember that the main character is trying to find the group that destroyed his home planet while he was on a mission. His planet was very difficult to live on and the people became expert in martial arts and were the best soldiers in the galaxy. They were mercenaries and often helped against tyrants. There was a very memorable section in at least one book about an initiation task that the main character had to do in that he had to survive in their wilderness for days. He was at some point surrounded in a old building by thousands of poisonous worm/snake creatures that he managed to survive until rescued by the leaders.
How do I grep for multiple patterns on multiple lines? Separate labels in cases As much as I have tried, it doesn't seem possible to use separate labels when using a casesconstruction (from the amsmath package).  Ideally, I would like to be able to write something like  \documentclass{article} \usepackage{amsmath} \begin{document} \begin{equation} f(x)=\begin{cases}   1&amp;x\geq0\label{positive}\\   0&amp;x&lt;0\label{negative} \end{cases} \end{equation} \end{document}   and later refer to both cases at different places. What would be the best way to achieve this result? Detect if a method was overridden using Reflection (C#) su vs sudo -s vs sudo -i vs sudo bash What is the difference between the following commands:  su sudo -s sudo -i sudo bash   I know for su I need to know the root password, and for sudo I have to be in the sudoers file, but once executed what is difference?  I know there is a difference between su and sudo -s because my home directory is /root after I execute su, but my home directory is still /home/myname after sudo -s. But I suspect this is just a symptom of an underlying difference that I'm missing. Contacting prospective advisors before graduate school applications - courtesy or annoyance? Last year, rather late during the MSc application cycle (after one round of funding was allocated - tardiness due to an abrupt change in my life situation), I emailed two professors from two schools that I most wanted to go to. I had perused their webpages and decided these professors had the specific research interests closest to my own.  My reason for contacting them before finishing my applications for their respective schools was that the applications included a large section for specific research questions that I wanted to investigate. So, I emailed these professors asking a bit about their work, because their webpages of course featured surface-level stuff.  One professor was very receptive and invited me to Skype with her so she could better explain herself and I could ask her questions. With her support, I was able to write an application that met her standards quite quickly.  The other professor told me - paraphrasing, of course - that he was too far into the process of choosing a new student for his research group to spend time helping me finish the application.  Let me be clear that the latter professor didn't say any harsh words and I have nothing bad to say about him. That said, the purpose of my question is to decide whether it's better for me as a prospective MSc student to email professors ahead of time like this. Was the latter's rejection likely due to my tardiness rather my emailing him? The more receptive professor made the point that she always wanted to have prospective MSc students write their own research proposals and get her approval before submitting the application. Is this common? If so, then I guess reaching out beforehand is a good thing to do, but earlier in the application cycle?  Thank you. I'm trying to solve hard combinatorics that involve complicated factorials with large values.  In a simple case such as $8Pr = 336$, find the value of $r$, it is easy to say it equals to this: $$\frac{8!}{(8-r)!} = 336.$$  Then $(8-r)! = 336$ and by inspection, clearly $8-r = 5$ and $r = 3$.  Now this is all and good and I know an inverse function to a factorial doesn't exist as there is for functions like sin, cos and tan etc. but how would you possibly solve an equation that involves very large values compared to the above problem without the tedious guess and checking for right values.  Edit: For e.g. if you wanted to calculate a problem like this (it's simple I know but a good starting out problem) Let's say 10 colored marbles are placed in a row, what is the minimum number of colors needed to guarantee at least $10000$ different patterns? WITHOUT GUESS AND CHECKING  Any method or explanation is appreciated! Is it possible to make abstract classes in Python? Is it possible to enforce unique values in a column, excluding nulls? Smooth option sometimes produces incorrect arrow tips in PGFplots Why didn't the rebels on Hoth use X-Wings to fight AT-ATs? do a good job explaining why the Imperial forces didn't have fighter protection for their ground force on Hoth.  But nothing there explains why the Rebels didn't use X-Wings to easily dispatch the AT-ATs and buy more time. They obviously had them available because they were sending them off with transports and some of these were obviously not sent until after "defending" the base (since a few of the pilots of the X-Wings were the Rogue Squadron pilots fighting in the Battle of Hoth).  This happens in the EU in the book  (in fact, the cover picture shows this scene) with great success and Wedge actually comments, on page 120:     Back then we were in airspeeders - undergunned and overmatched... Not the case this time [referring to being in X-Wings against AT-ATs instead of speeders on Hoth]   This indicates X-Wings can perform in cold conditions - there was snow in this environment as described by Corran Horn after he is shot down. The temperature difference between day-time on Hoth and here is unknown however.  Additionally, the X-Wings were able to destroy the AT-ATs with their laser cannons only - no grappling was required.  I suspect the answer is basically "because that would have been boring to watch on-screen" but it seems there may have been an actual in-universe reason outside of this. URLs: Should I use hyphens, underscores or plus symbols? Which is better for search engines?   example.com/my_cool_page.html example.com/my-cool-page.html  example.com/my+cool+page.html Association Reputation Bonus on preexisting sites Xml configuration versus Annotation based configuration In a few large projects i have been working on lately it seems to become increasingly important to choose one or the other (XML or Annotation). As projects grow, consistency is very important for maintainability.   My questions are: what are the advantages of XML-based configuration over Annotation-based configuration and what are the advantages of Annotation-based configuration over XML-based configuration? In the 3rd and 4th editions of D&amp;D, there were explicit rules for determining if a character knew anything about a monster before them.  In 3rd edition, for example, use of the  skill with a general DC of 10 + the monster's HD allowed for determining one fact, plus one fact per 5 points over the check.  Looking at the Intelligence section of the 5e PHB, I don't see any similar notation.  Does 5e provide any guidance as to when a player could use their out-of-game knowledge about a monster, or when the player might be told things their character would probably know in-game? Validity of work-energy theorem in presence of non-conservative forces? In short, :     If you go before the Board of   Directors and ask for 1.5 billion   dollars to build a nuclear reactor, no   one will review or discuss the details   of the plant. They will assume that   experts have been over every inch of   the plans, and not want to look   foolish by asking a silly question.      However, if you ask the same group to   approve a 30 dollar expenditure for   lumber with which to build a bikeshed   (presumably a British term for the   smallest possible building) then be   prepared for a 45 minute discussion   about all aspects of the bikeshed,   including the color of the paint. The   explanation for this is that everyone   can grasp the scale of a bikeshed.   To transform this problem to Stack Overflow terms, questions that are trivial such as "How to convert a C string to a QString or "What is the difference between . and ->" get a lot more views, answers and votes than real questions of the form "How do I frob this widget" that bother real professionals. Fewer views mean less possible votes for good answers and hence less incentive for people to answer.  How can Stack Exchange solve this problem? consider positive numbers $a_1,a_2,a_3,\ldots,a_n$ and $b_1,b_2,\ldots,b_n$. does the following in-equality holds and if it does then how to prove it  $\left[(a_1+b_1)(a_2+b_2)\cdots(a_n+b_n)\right]^{1/n}\ge \left(a_1a_2\cdots a_n\right)^{1/n}+\left(b_1b_2\cdots b_n\right)^{1/n}$ Variable Sized Arrays vs calloc in C On the discussion of dynamic memory here:   The author states:     A memory block like this can effectively be used as a more flexible array. This approach is actually much more common in real-world C programs. It's also more predictable and flexible than a "variable size array"   The type of memory block he is talking about is as such:  const int size = 5; int * array = calloc(size, sizeof(int));   and then using another pointer to iterate over the array:  int * index = array; for (i = 0; i &lt; size; i++) {     *index = 1; // or whatever value     index++; }   My question is how is this method better than a standard variable sized array like this?:  int array[variable];   or dynamic:  char name[] = "Nick";   The author doesn't really shed much light as to why I should prefer the former method to the latter. Or more specifically: How is it more "predictable and flexible"? Since drush 9 (drupal 8.4 requirement), alias @sites does not seem to be implemented anymore (or yet ?).  $ drush @sites cr The alias @sites could not be found.   Is this a way to get the same behavior that does not consist of typing my 300 alias in a config file ? What exactly does ARM sell to vendors? Assumptions:   Computer architecture: Describes how the different modules of a processor interact with each other. A computer architecture is defined using vhdl files Computer Organization: Describes the physical layout of the processor modules on silicon. A computer organization is defined using a set of photo masks (and manufacturing process eg chemical, that goes at each step) Computer Organization, therefore, requires that the fab process be taken into account. ARM is not in the fabrication business, therefore it does not sell photo masks.     My question(s):   What exactly is ARM selling to a vendor (eg: freescale)? For a SoC (System On Chip), (eg: ), which part is ARM and which is Freescale? Who did the integration?