libertus

Now my Ubuntu workstation, part-way upgraded to the 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” release, works almost as elegantly as my Windows machines have worked forever. My network music store now auto-mounts into my home directory when I login. Finally. I’ve been beating away at this, on and off, for bloody years. I’m just not a great sysadmin, I guess!

Method follows.

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Liberta asked if I could devise some experiment to test whether I require assistive technology to work at my best. Despite the obvious difficulties with objectivity, I believe I have devised an adequate design to test the theory.

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Like the typical ones from supermarkets. Maybe works for other bag-like structures, I dunno.

1. Empty the bag
2. Flatten it
3. Fold it up lengthwise into a single strip
4. Twist it up tight into a string
5. Bring the two ends together
6. Twist it up tight again
7. Bring the two ends together
8. Twist it up tight again
9. Thread the loose end through the loop
10. Tighten gently

Voila! A stable, knotted plastic bag, albeit at a fair amount of time and effort! The reward is that unfolding is easy - it practically springs apart itself when untied.

I encourage you to try it, as the structure formed is oddly familiar, and the saving in storage space considerable.

A picture tells a thousand words. (more…)

The may be operator. A syntax for expressing a conditional cause chain or known sequence of expressions likely to resolve to a single value. Akin to the SQL function COALESCE().

PHP example

Expression without may be operator:

if( !isset( $id ) )
   if( isset( $_COOKIE['id'] ) )
      $id = $_COOKIE['id'];
   else
      if( isset( $_POST['id'] ) )
         $id = $_POST['id'];
      else
         if( isset( $_GET['id'] ) )
            $id = $_GET['id'];
         else
            $id = -1;

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Jax at her brilliant best. Wow. The definitive answer to the question “why blog?”

This is my 200^th post, by the way.

Does anyone who knows me think that a “Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences” would be a bad place for me to live if I were intent on using my talents to do works of good? If so, please sound off. Hell, sound off anyway. It’s good for the soul.

What is the outcome of sorting a circular list?

On omnipotence, could an omnipotent being create something over which it had no power?
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