We read a short story at school (around 1992 in the UK) which I've always wanted to identify and much googling hasn't gotten me anywhere.  From memory... It had astronauts visiting a planet for the first time.  They landed in an abandoned city and as they got out to explore.  The city was automated to sense them.  One of the most vivid moments I remember talked about how the smell of the astronauts was drawn through the cobbles in the street where a (mechanical) machine was analysing them to see what type of person (species) they were.  I can't remember the ending but I have a funny feeling they died or were about to die as the city disposed of them and lay in wait for the next visitors but I may have made that part up in my head :-p  It must have been a short story although could also have been a poem.  It was short enough that we covered it all in a lesson.  Funny the things you remember :-D  Thank you in advance
Many years ago I read a book or story where a group of people discover a dark city - maybe on another planet - which appears devoid of life but is in very good condition. As they gradually explore the city one of the them falls into a trap and is cut to pieces by something mechanical. This detail I can remember as it was a pretty gruesome idea. I don't know the ending but my guess is that none of them make it out alive.
Executing .bat file 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) How do I add a custom keybind to a button on any website? i have a table like this  +--------+------------+-----------+ | id     | volume     | price     | +--------+------------+-----------+ |      1 | 1.0000     |  14250.00 | |      2 | 0.2500     |  14251.10 | |      3 | 0.2500     |  14250.00 | |      4 | 0.0050     |  14200.00 | |      5 | 0.5000     |  14255.01 | +--------+------------+-----------+   Simply if volume 1.7500, how to select like bellow by ordering(highest price)  +--------+------------+-----------+ | id     | volume     | price     | +--------+------------+-----------+ |      5 | 0.5000     |  14255.01 | |      2 | 0.2500     |  14251.10 | |      1 | 1.0000     |  14250.00 | +--------+------------+-----------+   And if volume 1.5000 it also select the least amounts of records needed to calculate to the input volume  +--------+------------+-----------+ | id     | volume     | price     | +--------+------------+-----------+ |      5 | 0.5000     |  14255.01 | |      1 | 1.0000     |  14250.00 | +--------+------------+-----------+   some guys say i cant do this with sql Is "a total of 10 payments" singular or plural? A total of 10 payments were made.   OR     A total of 10 payments was made.   Which is correct? Or can both be correct? Value passed with request.setAttribute() is not available by request.getParameter() How should you interview for QA *Automation* positions? $G$ solvable $\implies$ composition factors of $G$ are of prime order. I'm trying to prove the equivalency of the following definitions for a finite group, $G$:  (i) $G$ is solvable, i.e. there exists a chain of subgroups $1 = G_0  \trianglelefteq G_1 \trianglelefteq \cdots \trianglelefteq G_s = G $ such that $G_{i+1}/ \ G_i$ is abelian for all $0 \leq i \leq s-1$  (ii) $G$ has a chain of subgroups $1 = H_0  \trianglelefteq H_1 \trianglelefteq \cdots \trianglelefteq H_s = G $ such that $H_{i+1} /\  H_i$ is cyclic for all $0 \leq i \leq s-1$.  (iii) All composition factors of $G$ are of prime order.  (iv) G has a chain of subgroups $1 = N_0  \trianglelefteq N_1 \trianglelefteq \cdots \trianglelefteq N_t = G $ such that each $N_i$ is a normal subgroup of $G$, and $N_{i+1}/ \ N_i$ is abelian for all $0 \leq i \leq t-1$.  It was simple to show that (iii) $\implies$ (ii) and (ii) $\implies$ (i). Now, I'm trying to prove that (i) $\implies$ (iii), and I'm getting stuck.   I know that If $G$ is an abelian simple group, then $|G|$ is prime, so all I need to show is that each $G_{i+1}/ \ G_i$ in the definition of solvable is simple.  If I knew that $1 = G_0  \trianglelefteq G_1 \trianglelefteq \cdots \trianglelefteq G_s = G $ were a composition series, then each $G_{i+1}/ \ G_i$ would be simple by definition. But the definition of solvable doesn't assume a composition series. I know every group has a unique composition series, but I'm not sure how to connect that to the subgroups in the definition of solvable.   More generally, I guess I just don't understand how being abelian connects to being of simple or of prime order.  Any pushes in the right direction would be appreciated! Working with large images and transform in the VSE How do I get a remote host IP address if I don't have ping, and don't have any bind utilities like dig, nslookup, etc?  I need an answer that does not include 'install X' or 'use sidecar container'. I am looking for something that relies on nothing more than bash and the basic shell commands. Quantum entanglement as practical method of superluminal communication Need a MP3 ID3 tagger, and cover fetcher I need to tag my MP3 library, and have tried kid3 (which was manual tagging), when I used Kubuntu 9.10 (I now use Ubuntu Meerkat) Here are the features I am hoping for:   A good and clean UI. Tagging should be automatic, like Winamp's autotag feature, which rocks, btw! It should also embed the cover-art in the mp3, not copy a jpeg file in the folder, because now-a-days all players support displaying cover art. But acceptable if not possible. Rename the files as per some regular expression like %TrackNo - %Artist - %Title.  Should be accurate, and more importantly smart. I want to start tagging at night, and hopefully my collection should be done by the morning, w/o it being stuck at a user prompt at 1%.   If one app cant do all, I am willing to use 3, wouldn't mind exposure to a few more apps ;)  I have used picard or someting, and I didnt like it quite a lot. But wouldn't mind using it, if there is no other alternative.   Thanks for your time! This is a  about Licensing.    Questions on licensing are off-topic on Server Fault.  If your question has been closed as a duplicate of this question, then this is because we want to help you understand why licence questions are off topic rather than just telling you "it just is". In all likelihood, this question will not address your question directly, it was not meant to.    I have a question regarding software licensing. Can the Server Fault community please help with the following:   How many licenses do I need? Is this licensing configuration valid? What CALs do I need to be properly licensed? Can I run this product in a virtual environment? Can I downgrade this product to an earlier version? Am I entitled to feature X with license Y? Can an integrated HDMI port work both ways? Say I had a laptop [Correction: notebook, don't want my thighs medium rare], any OS, and it has an HDMI port built into the side. Would it be remotely possible to hack it into an input, provided it wasn't already designed for that? I would figure all video ports operate straight off the graphics chip, however, are there ways to override that functionality on the driver level? Driver hacks already exist for plenty of things such as the classic example: Bluetooth adapters (so we can play with our PS3 controllers and save a buck) However, is HDMI one of these tamperable interfaces? As far as the interface standard is concerned, are HDMI ports designed to be either way or are they Input/Output specific? Question mark or period to end a rhetorical sentence Which makes more sense as end punctuation for the following rhetorical sentence—a period or a question mark?     Maybe you could be a security guard there and enforce whatever the WalMart policy is at that location There is some unwanted extra spaces in between each site in the Your Sites section.  Steps to reproduce:   Touch the Nav Icon in the left top corner Touch the EDIT link in YOUR SITES Scroll the screen; there is unwanted spaces in between the each site   For reference I recorded the same:    Configurations:   App Version: 1.0.85 Device Manufacturer: Motorola Device Model: XT1033 OS Version: 5.1 (2) Prove using natural deduction $((P \land Q) \rightarrow R) \vdash (P \rightarrow R) \lor (Q\rightarrow R)$ How do I prove the following using Natural Deduction?  $$((P \land Q) \rightarrow R) \vdash (P \rightarrow R) \lor (Q\rightarrow R)$$   My current approach:  So instead of proving $(P \rightarrow R) \lor (Q\rightarrow R)$, I figure I just need to prove $(P \rightarrow R)$ and use disjunction introduction.  The problem is my hypothesis requires $P$ and $Q$. How do I "create" this Q? I tried using the Law of the Excluded middle, but it does not seem to work.  Any help or insights is deeply appreciated. app crash in the dealloc Maximum temperature laptop internals can handle? Cooling options? So I have a Compaq CQ50-215CA and my sister was using her laptop on her bed and I was just using it quickly to check my email. The surface of the laptop was really hot and I opened Speccy to see that the CPU and GPU temperature was 96 C. A couple months ago, my laptop was on the desk without a cooling pad and I was playing a game. Using GPU-Z back then, I had a reading of 104 C. Even with a cooling pad on a desk, running several processes/games keeps me around 88-90 C.  Is this normal for a laptop and what's the highest temperature the internals can handle? Besides a cooling pad, are there any other more effective ways of cooling a laptop? std::thread - "terminate called without an active exception", don't want to 'join' it