A short story I think... A man who suffers from blackouts hires a husband and wife detective team to follow him when he's in his fugue state... I thought it was a Philip K Dick short but couldn't find it online. Possibly by Douglas Adams... Ring any bells?
I read a collection of Sci-Fi short stories back in the 1970's or early 80's that had one about a couple in love who kept losing each other. The book was my dad's so the story itself could be much older than that. I am very fuzzy on the details as I was young when I read it and it was so long ago. I believe the woman/girlfriend was "taken" (by some bad guy aliens??) while she was sleeping. I think it involved time travel and the man had to search through time to find her. After he found her, when he was asleep one time, he somehow was then "taken" and I think transported through time and had to fight his way back to her again. He may have been some sort of police officer. I just remember in the end, at night when they went to bed, the couple always wore handcuffs so they were never separated when they went to sleep ever again. Does this ring a bell with anyone?  (There is a possibility it is in a short story collection that also contained " The Twonky " by Lewis Padgett (1942), as I remember reading that story around the same time)
What's the easiest way to install a missing Perl module? I get this error:  Can't locate Foo.pm in @INC  Is there an easier way to install it than downloading, untarring, making, etc? Illustrating op amp feedback without control theory We are teaching op amps in a high school class, before calculus.  So we can't use control theory to teach how op amps respond.  All the same, I would like to have an intuitive explanation for how a feedback circuit works.  Take the negative feedback, for instance.  Is there a clear way to show how an initial difference of delta between V+ and V- leads to a very large (G(V+ - V-)) difference in the output, which then leads to ...  I'd like to be able to take that argument and show how the voltage of the output converges in addition to the standard virtual short argument.  Can anyone explain it clearly? What control type should I use - Image, MediaElement, etc.? Is there always an equivalent metric which is not complete? ICANN charges 18¢ per domain name registered regardless of its extension, but I pay $10 for a domain name per year with my registrar.   What do domain name registrars do for its customers to justify this extra $9.82?  Is there something that they do for our domain names other than registering it with ICANN?   I just read about the 7 people who hold the ICANN database key and got a little bit curious to know what the domain name servers do for us to justify this extra amount (12 times the actual fee)? How to split a very long equation (using AMSMATH package)? Find the number of zeroes (counting multiplicity) of $p(z)=z^6+z^3+10z^2+4z+3$ inside the annulus $1&lt;|z|&lt;2$. I think this can be solved using Rouché’s theorem. First consider $|z|\leq 1$ on the boundary $|z|=1$ and $|z^6+z^3|&lt;|10z^2+4z+3|$ which can be shown using triangle inequalities, the left side is at most $2$ while right side is at least $3$. We could also consider $|z|\leq 1+ \epsilon$ and our proof still works. Thus $p(z)$ has 2 roots inside $|z|\leq 1$. Also for $|z|= 2$ we have $|z^6+z^3|&gt;|10z^2+4z+3|$. Thus we have 6 zeroes of $p(z)$ inside $|z|&lt;2$ and therefore 4 of them are in $1&lt;|z|&lt;2$. Is this correct? The only &quot;tricky&quot; part is ruling out that there are zeros on $|z|=1$. In my opinion the accepted answer should permanently stick as only the original question submitter has the ability to accept. How to Flatten a Multidimensional Array? How can I prevent SQL injection in PHP? How do I download torrents? What makes induction (over natural numbers) a valid proof technique? Is $$ \dfrac{ P(0) \quad \forall i \in \mathbb{N}. P(i) \Rightarrow P(i+1) }{ \forall n \in \mathbb{N}.  P(n)} $$ just taken for granted as a proof rule, or can it be derived from more foundational axioms?  Similarly, can the principle of induction over well-founded sets be derived from something more foundational, or does it have to be assumed to be a valid inference rule? When to use "If I was" vs. "If I were"? If I was... If I were...   When is it correct to use "If I was" vs. "If I were" in standard English? Let $G$ be a simply connected algebraic group defined over $C$.   Note : I see the definition of simply connected as "Every isogeny to $G$ is an isomorphism" as given in Hochschild's  "Basic Theory of Algebraic Groups and Lie algebras".   $C$ is an algebraically closed field.   Please help me realise the follwoing things provided they are true:   $G_C$ (the $C$-points of $G$) is simply connected as well. $Lie(G) \cong Lie(G_C)$    Thanks ! Trouble with batch conversion of .png to .pdf using convert The site still thinks it's attached to Stack Overflow What is the gradient of $f(x, y, z) = \sqrt{x^2+y^2+z^2}$? What is the gradient of $f(x, y, z) = \sqrt{x^2+y^2+z^2}$?  I know that $\nabla f = \left\langle\frac{\partial f}{\partial x}, \frac{\partial f}{\partial y}, \frac{\partial f}{\partial z}\right\rangle$ or equivalently $\nabla f = \frac{\partial f}{\partial x}\mathbf{i} + \frac{\partial f}{\partial y}\mathbf{j} + \frac{\partial f}{\partial z}\mathbf{k}$.  Eventually, I am going to evaluate this gradient at a point and then dot it with some given unit vector to find a directional derivative. I think maybe what is troubling me is the radical in $f$. Will I have to use the chain rule in order to find the three partial derivatives?  I tried this:  $$\frac{\partial f}{\partial x} = \frac{1}{2}(x^2 + y^2 + z^2)^{-\frac{1}{2}}2x$$ $$= \frac{x}{\sqrt{x^2 + y^2 + z^2}}$$  That result looks ugly to me. However, if I did that partial derivative correctly, then I think I know what I am doing. Achievements tab isn't working in Area 51 When I try to bring down the Achievements tab in Area 51, it's showing an error dialogue.  Strangely enough, the global inbox dropdown works just fine.  Could be connected to .  Screenshot: Do I have an SSD and a hard drive on my MacBook Pro? I looked at the details provided in  my system report/storage and I noticed that it appears I have a hard drive of 499.05GB and an additional SSD drive of 499.42GB. Does this mean I have 1TB of data? I only have 139GB available so do I have 500GB 'hiding' somewhere? (If so where??)  I am unsure how to interpret this information- why does it list both storage types? Is it duplicating the information?     Macintosh HD:      Available:    139.8 GB (139,800,666,112 bytes)   Capacity: 499.05 GB (499,046,809,600 bytes)   Mount Point:  /   File System:  Journaled HFS+   Writable: Yes   Ignore Ownership: No   BSD Name: disk1   Volume UUID:  EF0908C8-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX80333709         Logical Volume:  Revertible:  Yes (unlock and decryption required)   Encrypted:    Yes   Encryption Type:  AES-XTS   Locked:   No   LV UUID:  8CC9C88D-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX2002329B        Logical Volume Group:   Name:    Macintosh HD   Size:    499.42 GB (499,418,034,176 bytes)   Free Space:  18.9 MB (18,903,040 bytes)    LVG  UUID: EE040070-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXA83B309         Physical Volumes:      disk0s2:     #is this a second disk?      Device Name:  APPLE SSD SM0512G   Media Name: APPLE SSD  SM0512G   Media   Size:   499.42 GB (499,418,034,176 bytes)   Medium Type:  SSD    Protocol:  PCI    Internal:  Yes   Partition Map Type: GPT(GUID Partition Table)  #does this mean its partitioned?   Status: Online   S.M.A.R.T. Status:  Verified   PV UUID:    A1391405-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXX2E8FCDF3 Travel to Ireland (Dublin) with U.K. Visitor visa