Novel with a mix of real world and gods I'm searching for a story, I believe it was a novel, in which someone answers an ad, and meets up with a group of different people in some suburban strip mall basement (I may be completely misremembering this, however). I think after some selection process, a smaller group is basically hired to steal something. One of them is a young girl. Maybe she's named Kitty or Fox, maybe not. And I think they steal a golden ball, possibly it's a magic enhancer or something. (There's a definite chance I might be conflating two books).  Because, there's a group that tries to summon a god (our modern world) and at some point, they're all in some Chateau in France, and they do a lot of research. And in the end, they're successful, maybe the God is called Fox. Anyway, he kills the old professor type and everybody in the group. Only the young girl remains alive. But not unscathed. (The god ..... her). Maybe that's her backstory, before we meet her.
Fantasy novel: magic school, talking rabbit, character bites off another character's fingers The plotline as a whole is completely lost to me, but it was a big inspiration to my preteen self at the time and has shaped my creative development up to now. I'll list some of the big points that I can recall from it, if anyone has the vaguest idea what book I am referring to I would be so appreciative for any guess! I just want to reread it.   Main character is a delinquent of sorts, goes to a magic school. I don't remember there being any pictures in this book. There is a threesome between the main character and his two friends I believe it is a talking rabbit that says something along the lines of "My dear child, you are incensed", followed by one of the characters saying something like "Damn right I am!" A character that had been mentioned earlier but never made an appearance (he was banned for doing bad magic I think) shows up to fight and he bites off another character's fingers. Main character seeks out a magical white stag near the end of the novel because the stag can grant a wish if it's caught because he wishes to reset his timeline. The stag is able to speak.
How is it, that $\sqrt{x^2}$ is not $ x$, but $|x|$? Proving that kernels of evaluation maps are generated by the $x_i - a_i$ I want to prove that the kernel of the evaluation map $s_a : \mathbb{C}[x_1,\dots,x_n] \rightarrow \mathbb{C}, x_i \mapsto a_i$ where $a = (a_1,\dots, a_n) \in \mathbb{C}^n$ is the ideal generated by $\{x_1 - a_1, \dots, x_n - a_n\}$.    The proof in the book first shows it easily for the case $a = 0$, and says that by substitutions of variables $x_i' = x_i - a_i$, you can show it for the rest of the cases.  I know that $f \in \ker s_a$ iff $f(a) = 0$.  And $\phi : \mathbb{C}[x_1,\dots, x_n] \rightarrow \mathbb{C}[x_1 - a_1, \dots, x_n-a_n], x_i \mapsto x_i - a_i$ is a surjective ring homomorphism.  Please give a hint and not the full answer.  Thanks. Partial vs. Full Volume Wort Boil The starting position for most new extract brewers is to use a partial boil set up.  Defined as using a pot smaller than the intended batch size, all the ingredients are boiled in a smaller volume.  Then the wort is diluted to the final desired batch size.  (Often the dilution step is used as part of a cooling step)  What are the Ups and Downs of both Partial vs. Full boils? Prove that if $X$ and it's closure $\overline X$ are connected and if $X\subset Y \subset \overline X$, show that Y is also connected. Can anyone give me a proof of the statement that if $X$ and its closure $\overline X$ are connected and if $X\subset Y \subset \overline X$, show that Y is also connected?  Thank you. I need help to solve following problem from Rudin's Mathematical analysis book:    Convergence of the series $\sum a_n$  implies the convergence of $\sum \dfrac{\sqrt {a_n}}{n}$, if $a_n&gt;0$  I tried to construct a suitable convergence sequence $b_n$ such that $\sum b_n$ converges and $a_n \leq b_n$ but, I am not able to find such sequence $b_n$ .  Thanks for the help and sugestions. After my online research on the subject, I learnt that, biologically speaking, many scientists believe that there is no such thing as a race. Homo sapiens as a species is only 200,000 years old, which has not allowed for any significant genetic diversification yet, and our DNA is 99.99% similar. I've read statements that there can be more genetic variation inside a racial group than between different racial groups, meaning that, for example, two individuals from the same "race" can have less in common with each other than with an individual from another "race".  :     Scientists consider biological essentialism obsolete, and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits     Q1: If Homo sapiens has no races (according to biologists), why are we so different morphologically? (hair/eyes/skin colour and even athletic performance seem to differ between human populations)  Q2: Is it common for other species too, when genetically close populations have very different morphological traits? Are there any other mammal or animal species that exhibit biological diversity comparable to human diversity, and how do taxonomists treat these species? (excluding intentionally bred domestic species to keep the comparison fair)    The question has been paraphrased to emphasize that it is the biological debate that is in question, not the sociopolitical. I.e., why is there no consensus in evidence and opinions of scientists? How do you minimise hand washing between every step to keep tools clean? Say you cooking beef steak:  You have to unwrap the beef from its packaging, lay it down, get blood on your hands, wash hands, sprinkle salt, wash hands, grind pepper, rub the seasoning into the beef, wash hands, grab the tongs etc..  Is it normal to wash hands after every step or is there a trick to avoid getting all the tools dirty?  If you watch TV, they don't ever wash as much as I do. Why the value of $PATH is different for root and normal user? for normal user I get :     /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/home/monty/google_appengine   which is actually the content of /etc/environment  For root I get:     /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin   what's the reason behind this and which file contains this line? I'm an android developer and have laptop with 4GB RAM. When I compile my project the RAM is used at 100%.    If I add more RAM will it solve the problem? Start TOC from chapter 1 and also page numbering Is there a term for this word play where a song intentionally avoids completing a rhyme? Take this for example:  In this , at 1:04 to 1:10, the person goes on rapping with a rhyming word at the end of each line, but he pauses before the end of the last word and, being humans, we predict the next word (due to the hint from the rhyme) that he is going to say but he avoids it intentionally. Is there a word or phrase for this word play?     ...and the beat still knocks when I sort my socks   I'm five foot eleven of sex   from the tip of my head to my gorgeous...   knees    Not the best example I could find but I think it sums up my point quite well. I have this problem where I can't built slide documents with beamer every time I include a math environment as simple as $\mu = A$. The log file posts this message at the end:  !pdfTeX error: miktex-pdftex.exe (file mathkerncmssi10): Font mathkerncmssi10 a t 657 not found  ==&gt; Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!   I understand that the file (mathkerncmssi10) that is apparently missing is part of the package sansmathaccent, but the package is already there and updated.  This is driving me crazy, I would appreciate any help.    Sure, I tried this with several examples. I can post this one  \documentclass{beamer} \usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} \usetheme{Warsaw} \title[Make a LaTeX presentation using Beamer]{Introduction  to Beamer\\How to make a presentation with LaTeX?} \author{Nadir Soualem -- Astozzia} \institute{Math-linux.com} \date{Jule 13, 2007} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \titlepage \end{frame} \begin{frame}{Introduction} This is a short introduction to Beamer class. $\mu=A$ \end{frame} \end{document}    By the way, it turns out that I just tried this one in another PC and works fine. I'm looking at creating a basic ORM (purely for fun), and was wondering, is there a way to return the list of tables in a database and also the fields for every table?  Using this, I want to be able to loop through the result set (in C#) and then say for each table in the result set, do this (e.g. use reflection to make a class that will do or contain xyz).  Further to this, what are some good online blogs for SQL Server? I know this question is really about using system SPs and databases in Sql Server, and I am ok with general queries, so I'm interested in some blogs which cover this sort of functionality.  Thanks biblatex and autonum don't work together biblatex and autonum don't seem to work together in the newest version. Consider the following MWE:  \documentclass{article} \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} \usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} \usepackage{autonum}  \begin{document}  \end{document}   I get the following error messages:  0 File ended while scanning use of \ettl@for@do1 0 pdflatex: \pdfmatch: repetition-operator operand invalid pdfTeX warning: pdflatex: \pdfmatch: repetition-operator operand invalid)Runaway argument?{{\blx@bibdata@i {\blx@tempb }}\blx@bibfiles \eappto \blx@tempa {\blx@xml@comme   After commenting out either biblatex or autonum, the errors disappear. Is there a single word with the same meaning as "good moments" or "pleasant memories"? I'm looking for a word which describes good thing(s) that happened to someone. The only word I can think of is "joy".  Some examples might be:   Wayne has many pleasant memories of the days spent with the family. She could remember many good moments from the last weekend. This is what happens:  sudo apt-get install vlc Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree        Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package vlc   Please help. I would also like to know when this error occurs, I've seen it before too. I just try to visualize some points using GeoServer to publish them as WMS and bind this WMS to my Openlayers website using the GeoServer internal Heatmap process to visualize it. I don't want to use the Openlayers Heatmap function.   But there seem to be some problems, look here:    I'm using this Openlayers implementation to bind my WMS URL:    Changing the params to:  params: {'LAYERS': 'test:points','TILED': true,'STYLES': 'heatmap'},   And using this as SLD to define the Heatmap:    Any ideas why this happens? Term or phrase describing action occuring when not watching I am an IT professional. More specifically in automation. I am looking for a term or phrase that describes the event when either:  a. you are watching something closely and the issue doesn't occur  or  b. you are not watching something at all and the issue does occur Automatically use specific language in Notepad++ for files with no extension How to remove trailing whitespaces with sed?