Short story about a robot who outlives his humans
Looking for a short story about a robot evolving to have supernatural powers
Some sort of battle school (no, not Ender's Game), where teens are being trained as military commanders.   The control system for their army hinges around some sort of system that requires extremely fine motor control -- being able to "push" around digital representations of military units using a special interface that interprets minute finger movements.  The boy protagonist eventually meets a girl in the battle school, and is astonished to learn that most people do not live as well as he does -- for instance, he gets a fresh jumpsuit outfit every day and disposes of the old one; this is a luxury.  One scene I recall is them kissing for a moment in some sort of underground passageway; the boy protagonist notes the exact length of the kiss, as he has been trained to have heightened time perception.  I don't recall much about other commander characters; I think they have different special abilities, and one other major character might have physical deformities, possibly because of postwar-radiation-related birth defects.  They have been training for an upcoming, prearranged final battle between all the existing national governments; the military units are very possibly robotic or entirely digital in nature, so as to avoid wasting materiel / human life.    They ultimately win the battle, just barely; I think the girl protagonist gives them an edge in the competition by hacking the timing / control system in favor of their team, causing a discrepancy which only the boy protagonist notices due to his heightened perceptions.  It was agreed that the winning government gets dominion over one of the few islands of land left that was not irradiated in some previous war; the protagonists get to live there as a reward for their victory.  I believe the boy protagonist later realizes he's gradually losing his ability to exactly quantify the passage of time.  Published no later than 2004, likely somewhere between 1980-2000, probably sometime in the '90s. wpa_supplicant store password as hash (WPA-EAP with phase2="auth=PAP") Is there a way to store my password in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf as some hash instead of plaintext?  By "password" I refer here to the password used for phase2 authentification. I do not refer to the Preshared Key (PSK) which could be hashed using wpa_passphrase.  For phase2 MSCHAPv2 or MSCHAP authentification I could store the password as MD4 hash using nt_password_hash (see example wpa_supplicant.conf line 659).  Is there any way to store my PAP password as hash?  Or: Is there a way to store the password in some sort of external storage? The example wpa_supplicant.conf suggests the use of such an external storage (using ext:????) but I could not find any documentation about it.  I am aware that storing the password as hash does not increase wifi security. But as the password MUST be the same as the password for other services (account management, subscriptions, payments ...) I don't want it to be stored as plaintext. Find with proof all positive integers $n$ such that $2^n + 1 \equiv 0 \pmod{n}$ I found this problem in a book and while I understand the given solution, I don't quite understand how somebody would arrive at this solution unless they did out the casework and happened to make the right guesses to solve the problem. Any guidance on solving this from scratch would be greatly appreciated! Can ribosomes read ssDNA? My question is whether translation can be done, either naturally or artificially, through a ribosome reading (single-stranded) DNA directly. If not, I would like to know what allows ssRNA to be translated but not ssDNA. Probability that uniform random variables equal the natural numbers I have random variables $X_{1}, X_{2}, \dots X_{n}$ that are each Unif$\{1, \dots, n\}$, and I want to calculate $$P(\{X_{1}, X_{2}, \dots X_{n}\}=\mathbb{N})$$  My intuition is that this means each $X_{n} = n$, which occurs with probability $\frac{1}{n!}$.  Does this seem correct? How should a GM deal with "standing orders?" Why is menstruation in wild animals not a disadvantage to organismal survival? When I watch wilderness specials for more than a few minutes, I notice a familiar pattern: predators are depicted as being alerted by the scent of blood. Wounded animals seem to make the best prey and predators seem to have a heightened awareness for the smell of blood.   It would seem that it would then be a disadvantage to evolutionary survival for female organisms to menstruate. How do females of a species not attract predators to the signal of menstrual blood?   Do female organisms in the wild actually menstruate? If so, is there a difference in the composition of menses that does not alert predators? How would this not at the very least give predators an idea of the general vicinity of the female?  If wild animals excrete their menses, do they have ways in which they are able to mask the evidence of its release or are they somehow internalizing the tissue so that they are not released?  If female organisms in the wild do menstruate, then why is this not a survival disadvantage? Aligning multiple figures/tikzpicture vertically and horizontally I'm trying to align four figures vertically and horizontally. But I couldn't get it right in spite of repeated tweaks.  Can someone help me out?   Here is a MWE -- there are no errors, but the figures don't come out scaled properly.  \documentclass[12pt]{llncs}  \usepackage{fullpage} \usepackage{graphicx}  \pdfoutput=1 \usepackage{epsf} \usepackage{epsfig} \usepackage{epstopdf} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{latexsym} \usepackage[all]{xy} %\pagestyle{empty} \pagestyle{plain} %\usepackage{algorithmic} %\usepackage{algorithm} \usepackage{hyperref} \usepackage{nameref} %\usepackage{MnSymbol} \usepackage{tikz} \usepackage{caption} \usepackage{subfig}  \begin{document}  \begin{figure} \captionsetup[subfigure]{width=2in} \begin{minipage}[t][4em][s]{.5\textwidth} \subfloat[First]{ %\begin{subfigure}[b]{\textwidth} \begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={circle, draw, scale=1.0, fill=gray!50}, scale=1.0, rotate = 180, xscale = -1]  \node (1) at (0, 0) {$a$}; \node (2) at (3.0, 0) {$s$}; \node (3) at (4.5, 0) {$s'$}; \node (4) at (7.5, 0) {$t'$}; \node (5) at (9.0, 0) {$t$}; \node (6) at (12.0, 0) {$b$};   \draw[-&gt;] (1) -- (2); \draw[-&gt;] (2) -- (3); \draw[-&gt;] (3) -- (4); \draw[-&gt;] (4) -- (5); %\draw (8) -- (7); \draw[-&gt;] (5) -- (6);  \end{tikzpicture} %\label{fig:sto} } %%\qquad % %\bigskip % \subfloat[Second]{ \label{fig:st} %\begin{subfgure}[b]{\textwidth} \begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={circle, draw, scale=1.0, fill=gray!50}, scale=1.0, rotate = 180, xscale = -1]  \node (1) at (0, 0) {$a$}; \node (2) at (3.0, 0) {$s$}; \node (3) at (4.5, 0) {$s'$}; \node (4) at (7.5, 0) {$t'$}; \node (5) at (9.0, 0) {$t$}; \node (6) at (12.0, 0) {$b$};   \draw[-&gt;] (1) -- (2); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (2) to[out=-100,in=-150] (1); %\draw (3) -- (2); \draw[-&gt;] (3) -- (4); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (4) to[out=-100,in=-150] (3); %\draw (5) -- (4); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (2) to[out=-250,in=-350] (4); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (3) to[out=100,in=150] (1);     %\draw (8) -- (7); \draw[-&gt;] (5) -- (6); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (6) to[out=-100,in=-150] (5);   \end{tikzpicture} } \end{minipage} \begin{minipage}[t][4em][s]{0.5\textwidth} \subfloat[Third]{ %\begin{subfigure}[b]{\textwidth} %\centering \begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={circle, draw, scale=1.0, fill=gray!50}, scale=1.0, rotate = 180, xscale = -1]  \node (1) at (0, 0) {$a$}; \node (2) at (3.0, 0) {$t$}; \node (3) at (4.5, 0) {$t'$}; \node (4) at (7.5, 0) {$s'$}; \node (5) at (9.0, 0) {$s$}; \node (6) at (12.0, 0) {$b$};   \draw[-&gt;] (1) -- (2); \draw[-&gt;] (2) -- (3); \draw[-&gt;] (3) -- (4); \draw[-&gt;] (4) -- (5); %\draw (8) -- (7); \draw[-&gt;] (5) -- (6);   \end{tikzpicture} } %%\qquad % \subfloat[Fourth]{ \label{fig:ts} %\begin{subfigure} \begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={circle, draw, scale=1.0, fill=gray!50}, scale=1.0, rotate = 180, xscale = -1]  \node (1) at (0, 0) {$a$}; \node (2) at (3.0, 0) {$t$}; \node (3) at (4.5, 0) {$t'$}; \node (4) at (7.5, 0) {$s'$}; \node (5) at (9.0, 0) {$s$}; \node (6) at (12.0, 0) {$b$};   \draw[-&gt;] (1) -- (2); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (4) to[out=-100,in=-150] (1); %\draw (3) -- (2); \draw[-&gt;] (3) -- (4); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (5) to[out=100,in=150] (1); %\draw (5) -- (4); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (2) to[out=100,in=150] (5); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (4) to[out=-100,in=-160] (2);   %\draw (8) -- (7); \draw[-&gt;] (5) -- (6); \draw[thick, dashed, -&gt;] (6) to[out=100,in=150] (3);  \end{tikzpicture} } \end{minipage} \end{figure} \end{document} No sound and flash videos play super fast after daily update I just updated my 11.10 Ubuntu from the regular auto updater. After I restarted my laptop I have no sound and the videos in YouTube (and other websites) play super fast.  Not sure if it has something to do with the case, but since last night I get hd0 out of disk error before the grub screen and on the login screen I have some delay before I can type my password. In the console I see errors like these: status: {DRDY err}.  I could say the errors have something to do with the sound problem and the flash player, but if this happened when I got the hd0 error, not now after the regular daily update.  Here is the update history log from /var/log/apt/history.log   Start-Date: 2012-04-03  10:04:39  Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.71' Upgrade: python-aptdaemon.gtkwidgets:amd64 (0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  libvlc5:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),  python-aptdaemon:amd64 (0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  vlc-nox:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),  vlc-plugin-notify:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),  aptdaemon:amd64 (0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  python-aptdaemon-gtk:amd64 (0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  vlc:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),  aptdaemon-data:amd64 (0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  vlc-data:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),   python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets:amd64, 0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1,0.43+bzr697-0ubuntu1.2),  libvlccore5:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1),  vlc-plugin-pulse:amd64 (2.0.1+git20120329+r134-0~r35~oneiric1, 2.0.1+git20120402+r146-0~r36~oneiric1) End-Date: 2012-04-03  10:05:15 how to loop through arguments in a bash script iOS crash log catch, debug info.. Catch and send via email to the Dev team Prove that for every positive integer $n$, $1/1^2+1/2^2+1/3^2+\cdots+1/n^2\le2-1/n$ Show that if terms of a series have ratio less than the ratio of convergent series, then the series converges We have two infinite series $\sum a_n $ and $\sum b_n$, such that $a_n &gt; 0,\ b_n &gt; 0$ and $a_{n + 1}/a_n \leq b_{n + 1}/b_n$ for all $n$. Show that if $\sum b_n$ converges, then $\sum a_n$ also converges.   Any hints on how to prove this? I can sort of picture why this must be true, but I'm not sure how to prove this rigorously. I'm not sure using the ratio test would help here.. How long typically are paper reviews? Is there such a thing as “too long”? When you review papers submitted for publication, is there an “optimal” length for reviews? In my experience as an author and referee, I have seen a large range of review lengths (for reference, a paper in my field is typically between 3 and 8 printed pages):   Zero length: for some of the papers I have authored, the reviewer just clicked the “accept as is” or “reject” checkmark on the review sheet, without adding any comment (at least, not any comment visible to me). It's not so common, but it has happened. Short length: a lot of time, I received reviews who consisted of a single paragraph. Medium: one full page, maybe two pages.   Although I have never received any such long reviews, I have myself written on a few occasions reviews that exceed two pages, including once or twice a four or five-page review.  These were cases where the paper was good, but could be (in my view) much improved and some of the aspects/consequences had escaped the authors' consideration.  I am wondering how useful reviews of various length are to editors. I often consider that “unmotivated” reviews are useless, as they do not give any real insight about the paper to the editor. For example, if the editor gets two conflicting non motivated reviews, how is she to decide?  On the other hand, although I write some from time to time, I have never received long reviews, so… is this something frowned upon? Drawing Day and Night on a Google Map I'm looking to plot day/night on a Google map, for an arbitrary point in time. I'm familiar with generating map tiles; I'm just looking for an algorithm to tell me whether a particular point on the globe is currently in daylight or darkness, or to otherwise plot the curve of the day/night interface onto the map.  I've done some searching, but it's possible I don't even know enough about the problem domain here to know what terms to search for!  Any ideas? Doesn't have to be perfect -- basically, I'm comparing Flickr geolocation data of sunrise and sunset photos (and their "date taken" timestamps) with reality, and this is to help me visualise it. How to find a point on a line at a given distance from a given point on the same line (given the equation of the line)? You are given a point P(x,y) on a line of equation ax + by + c = 0. I want another point, Q(a,b) on the same line which is at a distance d from P. There will be two points. I want to find both and know which side of P each one lies.  There are related questions in this forum, but I didn't get what I am exactly looking for. Sorry for beating around the bush, and thanks for any help... Please give me an elaborate explanation. Thanks once again!!! Suppose I have a node in the shape of a circle. How can I make its border thicker?   \node[circle, draw=blue!80, inner sep=0pt, minimum size=12pt] (1) at (0,0) {1}; combining results of two select statements Problem with IPv6 sudo apt-get update/upgrade I am using Ubuntu 16.04 Beta 2 at the moment and every time I try to update at home via sudo apt-get update or upgrade trough sudo apt-get upgrade I wont get any feedback. Even installing of anything will have the same result. It will just "hang up" on 0% while fetching data.  $ sudo apt-get update [sudo] password for niclas:  0% [Connecting to archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1560:8001::11)] [Connecting to archive.canonical.com (2001:67c:1360:8c01::1b)]   I have no idea how to solve the problem. I already tried to ping6 archive.ubuntu.com with 100% packet loss while just ping wont have any loss.  I changed the DNS-Server (IPv4 &amp; IPv6) to Google's one no solution either. I'd like to know whether, given a system, there's a way to obtain all the conserved quantities. For instance if the system consists of electric and magnetic fields, the fields must satisfy Maxwell's equations. These equations are invariant under many transformations (Lorentz transformation, rotations, spatial and temporal translations, etc. By the way is there a way, maybe from group theory, to find all the possible transformations that leaves the equation(s) invariant?) which imply as many conserved quantities thanks to Noether's theorem. In wikipedia I can see an equation that seems to give all the conserved quantities () but it involves the Lagrangian and I'm not sure whether the formula is valid for all systems whose Lagrangian is possible to obtain.