This book is from the late 80s at the earliest; I read it around 1988). Here is the synopsis:  A young man on the cusp of becoming an adult is to take a test mandated by the Empire (Emperor) called the Fortune Hunter Test or something.  Basically it is a test that is supposed to set you on your life path and some 'very lucky' people who pass it are taken to special schools and never seen again but assumed to be filthy rich or whatever.    The kid takes test and is one of the lucky ones and they take him through a matter transmitter called an MT Screen or Empty Screen.  It is gray and opaque.  The kid is (fuzzy on this part, as I was like 11 or something and sick) rescued or escapes or something and goes on the run after realizing that the Emperor is actually culling out the people who are lucky or smart enough to threaten his reign.    The kid ends up fighting the for a rebel group that is part of an interstellar circus or something as a cover. They have all this tech based on the matter transmitters including a MT cube that is basically projected around the person as a shield but can have the walls removed so they can be shot then have them pop back into existence to protect the person inside. Also the mt screen can be weaponized as it instantaneously transmits matter that it touches to another place and can therefore be used as a slicer to remove parts of people or whatnot (Kind of violent theoretically, but not really that bloody).    At one point the kid is trying to get past a security checkpoint and the ringmaster (I think) gives him the identity Asa Baqua (spelling?) who we later find out was his child who maybe passed the fortune hunters test before, and disappeared, giving the ringmaster (weird word but that is what I remember) a reason to fight against the emperor.  Anyway, it was teen fiction or sci fi/fantasy and I loved the story but only read it once forever ago.  If anyone can figure out this book or remembers having read it please let me know!
I read it in English in the United States, somewhere in the 1990s. I got it off of the big bookshelf in our family room, which means it could be a good bit older; some of the books were my Dad's. At the beginning, a young boy (maybe an early teen?) leaves his house, where he lives with his parent or parents, and takes a test to become a spaceship pilot for the military. Part of the test judges reaction speed, and he fails the test. He later learns (I think when he's approached by an agent of the government) that he "failed" because he has some sort of enhanced fortune that meant that he was actually giving the results before they could be displayed on the screen. At the time, I remember thinking that the book felt a bit like a Star Wars rip-off.  Years later, I read that one of the Star Wars books (probably now Legends) had Luke similarly failing the Imperial Academy test because he gave his answers too quickly, and it amused me that I was uncertain as to which had come first.  I don't remember anything concrete about the cover, although I have a general impression that it was white. Definitely futuristic. My impression was that the boy was wearing a white uniform for the testing and that the government agent who spoke to him had a grey beard, but I might be mixing bits of Star Wars in there.
Why did the slaver in Astapor think Daenerys wouldn't do exactly what she did? Spoilers! (do I have to even say that here?)  I recently rewatched the episode of Game of Thrones where Daenerys is in Astapor. She makes the deal with the master slaver guy, where she trades him one of her dragons for 8,000 of his very tough slaves. I immediately thought this was stupid for two reasons:   Why would he think the dragon would immediately obey him rather than her? Maybe he doesn't quite believe the 'Mother of Dragons' lore, but it's still basically a pet at the very least. This one isn't as bad though, as... Why would he possibly think she wouldn't betray him and use her freshly bought slaves to take back her dragon? He just traded her literally all his slaves and he has not been kind to her so far. He has motivation to not go back on the deal -- he's running a business, basically... but she has no reason not to.   I guess you could argue that he was blinded by greed, but I think that would be poor writing -- he's in a vicious trade, I can't imagine he would've survived long thinking so naively.  Does anyone have a good explanation? Suddenly Okular will not open any more I have made my laptop double boot a few months again, with Ubuntu 18.04.1 . I have been working with okular to open pdf files (for the commenting option) but suddenly okular doesn't work anymore. When trying to open okular I get the following error:     Unable to find the Okular component: Cannot load library /snap/okular/39/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/plugins/okularpart.so: (libKF5JSApi.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory)   I don't understand how to solve this problem. Okular was working fine until today and I didn't change anything to my ubuntu system in the mean time. Perhaps the problem comes from the fact that I have been working on windows the last few days and also used the windows ubuntu app.   How can I make okular work again? ATMEGA328P standalone sketch doesn't work as expected Your UK visa application has been issued.      PLEASE DO NOT GO TO THE VISA APPLICATION CENTRE BEFORE THEY CONTACT YOU.      You will be contacted by the Visa Application Centre when your documents are ready for collection, or have been dispatched via courier where this is relevant.       You are reminded that you should avoid making travel plans until you have collected your passport, as the outcome of your visa application is not final until you receive your passport.      Please ensure you check the details on your visa when collecting your passport. If you need to contact us you can do so via our International Enquiry Service at www.gov.uk/contact-ukvi-outside-uk      Kind regards,      UK Visas and Immigration   British Embassy Abu Dhabi     Your UK visa application has been issued.   I know words like processed, forwarded, received, refused but never heard anything like that, so I am confused. How to exactly convert an arithmetic rgb value (e.g 0.55,0.25,0.1) to the corresponding 8bit RGB value (e.g. 123,90,40)?  My more specific questions are:  1.) What is the exact conversion formula and macro?  2.) Is there some built in command or macro for converting it? Ways of getting three of a kind in a 52 card deck This question has probably been asked before, but just to be clear here, I am NOT asking for the answer, I know the answer.  What i want to know is why my solution is not equivalent to the actual solution.  Three of a kind in a deck means you draw 3 cards of the same rank, and 2 other cards each of different ranks.  So. The solution in my book is the following: (13 C 1)(4 C 3) * (12 C 2)(4 C 1)(4 C 1)  The logic is the following:  1) Choose 1 out of the 13 ranks, then for the 4 cards in the chosen rank, pick 3.  2) Choose a combination of 2 ranks from the remaining 12, then for the 4 cards in each rank, choose 1.  Total combinations: 54912  My solution is the following:  ((13 C 1)(4 C 3)) * ((12 C 1)(4 C 1)) * ((11 C 1)(4 C 1))  1) My logic for the 3 of a kind is the same as the solution.   2) Choose 1 of the remaining 12 ranks, and 1 card from the 4 cards in the rank.  3) Choose 1 of the remaining 11 ranks, and 1 card from the 4 cards in the rank.  Total combinations: 109824  My solution says that the combinations are exactly double of the book's solution.  I'm just very confused as to why this is. If anyone could explain this to me I would be very appreciative, thank you. How do I logout from a non-registered account? I have a registered StackOverflow account which I normally log into using OpenID.  Recently I logged out in order to post a question anonymously (supplying a fake name and of my secondary email addresses).  The problem now is that I'm logged in to StackOverflow as this "dummy" user, unable to see a way to log out.  The top menu normally has a "logout" link, but when you aren't fully registered this link is replaced with "register".  There is no "logout" link for me. :(  So..   When logged out there is a "login" link. When logged in there is a "logout" link. When "logged in" with an unregistered account, there is only a "register" link (no "logout"). Scientists have found mammoth blood, and are planning to   How does one go from having its blood to a full blown living mammoth? Is it possible?    Why does it matter if the blood is frozen or not? Suppose one found dinosaur blood, could one clone a dinsosaur (as in say 'Jurassic Park')? How rare are magic items and how many should I be handing out? How do you compute negative numbers to fractional powers? My teachers have gone over rules for dealing with fractional exponents. I was just wondering how someone would compute say: $$(-5)^{2/3}$$ I have tried a couple ways to simplify this and I am not sure if the number stays negative or turns into a positive. I know that if a negative number is raised to an odd power it is negative, but fractional powers are neither odd or even. Is there a general rule for dealing with these types of problems? Why is the sample distribution the Exponential distribution Gamma distributed? Can't use Shortcut key on linux mint 19 XFCE Primefaces growl is not working in all the pages Over on Stackoverflow, I keep seeing questions wherein posters say:  *I have an item named SoAndSo (a table, a file, etc.).  Shouldn't it be:  *I have an item called SoAndSo.  Is "named" an acceptable word in this context?  Are those words specific to a particular English speakers, e.g. UK vs. USA vs. Australia, etc.? Android SQLite database: slow insertion As a follow-up to :  From what I've seen, this should work as expected:  void greet(){   char c[] = "Hello";   greetWith(c);   return; }   but this will cause undefined behavior:  char *greet(){    char c[] = "Hello";   return c; }   If I'm right, what's the best way to fix the second greet function? In an embedded environment? On a desktop? Tree level QFT and classical fields/particles Which is better to do client side or server side validation?  In our situation we are using    jQuery and MVC.   JSON data to pass between our View and Controller.     A lot of the validation I do is validating data as users enter it. For example I use the the keypress event to prevent letters in a text box, set a max number of characters and that a number is with in a range.   I guess the better question would be, Are there any benefits to doing server side validation over client side?    Awesome answers everyone. The website that we have is password protected and for a small user base(&lt;50). If they are not running JavaScript we will send ninjas. But if we were designing a site for everyone one I'd agree to do validation on both sides. How general is the Lagrangian quantization approach to field theory? Polynomial irreducible - maximal ideal I have a couple of ideals which I wonder if I correctly classify as maximal/prime ideal.  $I_1 = \langle 2x^2 + 9x -3\rangle$, $I_2 = \langle x - 1\rangle$  $\mathbf 1)$ Is $I_1$ a maximal ideal in $\mathbb{Q}[x]$?  Yes, since $I_1$ is irreducible with $p=3$ using Eisenstein's criterion, thus maximal ideal.  $\mathbf 2)$ Is $I_2$ a prime ideal in $\mathbb{Q}[x]$?  Yes, since $I_2$ is obviously irreducible, and thus a maximal ideal, and every maximal ideal is a prime ideal.  $\mathbf 3)$ Is $I_2$ a maximal ideal in $\mathbb{Z}[x]$?  Yes, $I_2$ is obviously irreducible, and thus a maximal ideal.  $\mathbf{Edit:}$ No, as it is not a field. $$ $$  Am I right in my conclusions?  Appreciate any help.