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  • Is it safe to modify CCK tables by hand?

    - by LanguaFlash
    I'm not intimately familiar with CCK but I have a one-time custom setup and know that I could get some performance gains if I created indexes and changed the field type and length of some of the fields in my CCK table. Is it save to modify this table at all or will I end up destroying something in the process? Thanks

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  • Ada and 'The Book'

    - by Phil Factor
    The long friendship between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace created one of the most exciting and mysterious of collaborations ever to have resulted in a technological breakthrough. The fireworks that created by the collision of two prodigious mathematical and creative talents resulted in an invention, the Analytical Engine, which went on to change society fundamentally. However, beyond that, we just don't know what the bulk of their collaborative work was about:;  it was done in strictest secrecy. Even the known outcome of their friendship, the first programmable computer, was shrouded in mystery. At the time, nobody, except close friends and family, had any idea of Ada Byron's contribution to the invention of the ‘Engine’, and how to program it. Her great insight was published in August 1843, under the initials AAL, standing for Ada Augusta Lovelace, her title then being the Countess of Lovelace. It was contained in a lengthy ‘note’ to her translation of a publication that remains the best description of Babbage's amazing Analytical Engine. The secret identity of the person behind those enigmatic initials was finally revealed by Prince de Polignac who, seventy years later, wrote to Ada's daughter to seek confirmation that her mother had, indeed, been the author of the brilliant sentences that described so accurately how Babbage's mechanical computer could be programmed with punch-cards. L.F. Menabrea's paper on the Analytical Engine first appeared in the 'Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve' in October 1842, and Ada translated it anonymously for Taylor's 'Scientific Memoirs'. Charles Babbage was surprised that she had not written an original paper as she already knew a surprising amount about the way the machine worked. He persuaded her to at least write some explanatory notes. These notes ended up extending to four times the length of the original article and represented the first published account of how a machine could be programmed to perform any calculation. Her example of programming the Bernoulli sequence would have worked on the Analytical engine had the device’s construction been completed, and gave Ada an unassailable claim to have invented the art of programming. What was the reason for Ada's secrecy? She was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, who was probably the best known celebrity of the age, so she was already famous. She was a senior aristocrat, with titles, a fortune in money and vast estates in the Midlands. She had political influence, and was the cousin of Lord Melbourne, who was the Prime Minister at that time. She was friendly with the young Queen Victoria. Her mathematical activities were a pastime, and not one that would be considered by others to be in keeping with her roles and responsibilities. You wouldn't dare to dream up a fictional heroine like Ada. She was dazzlingly beautiful and talented. She could speak several languages fluently, and play some musical instruments with professional skill. Contemporary accounts refer to her being 'accomplished in science, art and literature'. On top of that, she was a brilliant mathematician, a talent inherited from her mother, Annabella Milbanke. In her mother's circle of literary and scientific friends was Charles Babbage, and Ada's friendship with him dates from her teenage zest for Mathematics. She was one of the first people he'd ever met who understood what he had attempted to achieve with the 'Difference Engine', and with whom he could converse as intellectual equals. He arranged for her to have an education from the most talented academics in the country. Ada melted the heart of the cantankerous genius to the point that he became a faithful and loyal father-figure to her. She was one of the very few who could grasp the principles of the later, and very different, ‘Analytical Engine’ which was designed from the start to tackle a variety of tasks. Sadly, Ada Byron's life ended less than a decade after completing the work that assured her long-term fame, in November 1852. She was dying of cancer, her gambling habits had caused her to run up huge debts, she'd had more than one affairs, and she was being blackmailed. Her brilliant but unempathic mother was nursing her in her final illness, destroying her personal letters and records, and repaying her debts. Her husband was distraught but helpless. Charles Babbage, however, maintained his steadfast paternalistic friendship to the end. She appointed her loyal friend to be her executor. For years, she and Babbage had been working together on a secret project, known only as 'The Book'. We have a clue to what it was in a letter written by her nine years earlier, on 11th August 1843. It was a joint project by herself and Lord Lovelace, her husband, and was intended to involve Babbage's 'undivided energies'. It involved 'consulting your Engine' (it required Babbage’s computer). The letter gives no hint about the project except for the high-minded nature of its purpose, and its highly mathematical nature.  From then on, the surviving correspondence between the two gives only veiled references to 'The Book'. There isn't much, since Babbage later destroyed any letters that could have damaged her reputation within the Establishment. 'I cannot spare the book today, which I am very sorry for. At the moment I want it for constant reference, but I think you can have it tomorrow' (Oct 1844)  And 'I will send you the book directly, and you can say, when you receive it, how long you will want to keep it'. (Nov 1844)  The two of them were obviously intent on the work: She writes, four years later, 'I have an engagement for Wednesday which will prevent me from attending to your wishes about the book' (Dec 1848). This was something that they both needed to work on, but could not do in parallel: 'I will send the book on Tuesday, and it can be left with you till Friday' (11 Feb 1849). After six years work, it had been so well-handled that it was beginning to fall apart: 'Don't forget the new cover you promised for the book. The poor book is very shabby and wants one' (20 Sept 1849). So what was going on? The word 'book' was not a code-word: it was a real book, probably a 'printer's blank', plain paper, but properly bound so printers and publishers could show off how the published work might look. The hints from the correspondence are of advanced mathematics. It is obvious that the book was travelling between them, back and forth, each one working on it for less than a week before passing it back. Ada and her husband were certainly involved in gambling large sums of money on the horses, and so most biographers have concluded that the three of them were trying to calculate the mathematical odds on the horses. This theory has three large problems. Firstly, Ada's original letter proposing the project refers to its high-minded nature. Babbage was temperamentally opposed to gambling and would scarcely have given so much time to the project, even though he was devoted to Ada. Secondly, Babbage would have very soon have realized the hopelessness of trying to beat the bookies. This sort of betting never attracts his type of intellectual background. The third problem is that any work on calculating the odds on horses would not need a well-thumbed book to pass back and forth between them; they would have not had to work in series. The original project was instigated by Ada, along with her husband, William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace. Charles Babbage was invited to join the project after the couple had come up with the idea. What could William have contributed? One might assume that William was a Bertie Wooster character, addicted only to the joys of the turf, but this was far from the truth. He was a scientist, a Cambridge graduate who was later elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. After Eton, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. On graduation, he entered the diplomatic service and acted as secretary under Lord Nugent, who was Lord Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. William was very friendly with Babbage too, able to discuss scientific matters on equal terms. He was a capable engineer who invented a process for bending large timbers by the application of steam heat. He delivered a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1849, and received praise from the great engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. As well as being Lord Lieutenant of the County of Surrey for most of Victoria's reign, he had time for a string of scientific and engineering achievements. Whatever the project was, it is unlikely that William was a junior partner. After Ada's death, the project disappeared. Then, two years later, Babbage, through one of his occasional outbursts of temper, demonstrated that he was able to decrypt one of the most powerful of secret codes, Vigenère's autokey cipher.  All contemporary diplomatic and military messages used a variant of this cipher. Babbage had made three important discoveries, namely, the mathematical law of this cipher, the principle of the key periodicity, and the technique of the symmetry of position. The technique is now known as the Kasiski examination, also called the Kasiski test, but Babbage got there first. At one time, he listed amongst his future projects, the writing of a book 'The Philosophy of Decyphering', but it never came to anything. This discovery was going to change the course of history, since it was used to decipher the Russians’ military dispatches in the Crimean war. Babbage himself played a role during the Crimean War as a cryptographical adviser to his friend, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort of the Admiralty. This is as much as we can be certain about in trying to make sense of the bulk of the time that Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace worked together. Nine years of intensive work, involving the 'Engine' and a great deal of mathematics and research seems to have been lost: or has it? I've argued in the past http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/philfactor/archive/2008/06/13/59614.aspx that the cracking of the Vigenère autokey cipher, was a fundamental motive behind the British Government's support and funding of the 'Difference Engine'. The Duke of Wellington, whose understanding of the military significance of being able to read enemy dispatches, was the most steadfast advocate of the project. If the three friends were actually doing the work of cracking codes by mathematical techniques that used the techniques of key periodicity, and symmetry of position (the use of a book being passed quickly to and fro is very suggestive), intending to then use the 'Engine' to do the routine cracking of each dispatch, then this is a rather different story. The project was Ada and William's idea. (William had served in the diplomatic service and would be familiar with the use of codes). This makes Ada Lovelace the initiator of a project which, by giving both Britain, and probably the USA, a diplomatic and military advantage in the second part of the Nineteenth century, changed world history. Ada would never have wanted any credit for cracking the cipher, and developing the method that rendered all contemporary military and diplomatic ciphering techniques nugatory; quite the reverse. And it is clear from the gaps in the record of the letters between the collaborators that the evidence was destroyed, probably on her request by her irascible but intensely honorable executor, Charles Babbage. Charles Babbage toyed with the idea of going public, but the Crimean war put an end to that. The British Government had a valuable secret, and intended to keep it that way. Ada and Charles had quite often discussed possible moneymaking projects that would fund the development of the Analytic Engine, the first programmable computer, but their secret work was never in the running as a potential cash cow. I suspect that the British Government was, even then, working on the concealment of a discovery whose value to the nation depended on it remaining so. The success of code-breaking in the Crimean war, and the American Civil war, led to the British and Americans  subsequently giving much more weight and funding to the science of decryption. Paradoxically, this makes Ada's contribution even closer to the creation of Colossus, the first digital computer, at Bletchley Park, specifically to crack the Nazi’s secret codes.

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  • How to shoot yourself in the foot (DO NOT Read in the office)

    - by TATWORTH
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2013/06/21/how-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-do-not-read.aspxLet me make it absolutely clear - the following is:merely collated by your Geek from http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=3917012#xx3917012xxvery, very very funny so you read it in the presence of others at your own riskso here is the list - you have been warned!C You shoot yourself in the foot.   C++ You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying "That's me, over there."   FORTRAN You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling facility.   Modula-2 After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.   COBOL USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.   Lisp You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...   BASIC Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.   Forth Foot yourself in the shoot.   APL You shoot yourself in the foot; then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.   Pascal The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.   Snobol If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.   HyperTalk Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.   Prolog You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.   370 JCL You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.   FORTRAN-77 You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you still can't do exception-processing.   Modula-2 (alternative) You perform a shooting on what might be currently a foot with what might be currently a bullet shot by what might currently be a gun.   BASIC (compiled) You shoot yourself in the foot with a BB using a SCUD missile launcher.   Visual Basic You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.   Forth (alternative) BULLET DUP3 * GUN LOAD FOOT AIM TRIGGER PULL BANG! EMIT DEAD IF DROP ROT THEN (This takes about five bytes of memory, executes in two to ten clock cycles on any processor and can be used to replace any existing function of the language as well as in any future words). (Welcome to bottom up programming - where you, too, can perform compiler pre-processing instead of writing code)   APL (alternative) You hear a gunshot and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened. or @#&^$%&%^ foot   Pascal (alternative) Same as Modula-2 except that the bullet is not the right type for the gun and your hand is blown off.   Snobol (alternative) You grab your foot with your hand, then rewrite your hand to be a bullet. The act of shooting the original foot then changes your hand/bullet into yet another foot (a left foot).   Prolog (alternative) You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to find its mark, backtracks to the gun, which then explodes in your face.   COMAL You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol, but the bore is clogged, and the pressure build-up blows apart both the pistol and your hand. or draw_pistol aim_at_foot(left) pull_trigger hop(swearing)   Scheme As Lisp, but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.   Algol You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is aesthetically fascinating and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.   Ada If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a firing squad and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at the feet." or The Department of Defense shoots you in the foot after offering you a blindfold and a last cigarette. or After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type. or After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and confidently aim at your foot knowing it is safe. However the cordite in the round does an Unchecked Conversion, fires and shoots you in the foot anyway.   Eiffel   You create a GUN object, two FOOT objects and a BULLET object. The GUN passes both the FOOT objects a reference to the BULLET. The FOOT objects increment their hole counts and forget about the BULLET. A little demon then drives a garbage truck over your feet and grabs the bullet (both of it) on the way. Smalltalk You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation and makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal. or You send the message shoot to gun, with selectors bullet and myFoot. A window pops up saying Gunpowder doesNotUnderstand: spark. After several fruitless hours spent browsing the methods for Trigger, FiringPin and IdealGas, you take the easy way out and create ShotFoot, a subclass of Foot with an additional instance variable bulletHole. Object Oriented Pascal You perform a shooting on what might currently be a foot with what might currently be a bullet fired from what might currently be a gun.   PL/I You consume all available system resources, including all the offline bullets. The Data Processing & Payroll Department doubles its size, triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes and drops the original one on your foot. Postscript foot bullets 6 locate loadgun aim gun shoot showpage or It takes the bullet ten minutes to travel from the gun to your foot, by which time you're long since gone out to lunch. The text comes out great, though.   PERL You stab yourself in the foot repeatedly with an incredibly large and very heavy Swiss Army knife. or You pick up the gun and begin to load it. The gun and your foot begin to grow to huge proportions and the world around you slows down, until the gun fires. It makes a tiny hole, which you don't feel. Assembly Language You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight. or You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.or The bullet travels to your foot instantly, but it took you three weeks to load the round and aim the gun.   BCPL You shoot yourself somewhere in the leg -- you can't get any finer resolution than that. Concurrent Euclid You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.   Motif You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.   Powerbuilder While attempting to load the gun you discover that the LoadGun system function is buggy; as a work around you tape the bullet to the outside of the gun and unsuccessfully attempt to fire it with a nail. In frustration you club your foot with the butt of the gun and explain to your client that this approximates the functionality of shooting yourself in the foot and that the next version of Powerbuilder will fix it.   Standard ML By the time you get your code to typecheck, you're using a shoot to foot yourself in the gun.   MUMPS You shoot 583149 AK-47 teflon-tipped, hollow-point, armour-piercing bullets into even-numbered toes on odd-numbered feet of everyone in the building -- with one line of code. Three weeks later you shoot yourself in the head rather than try to modify that line.   Java You locate the Gun class, but discover that the Bullet class is abstract, so you extend it and write the missing part of the implementation. Then you implement the ShootAble interface for your foot, and recompile the Foot class. The interface lets the bullet call the doDamage method on the Foot, so the Foot can damage itself in the most effective way. Now you run the program, and call the doShoot method on the instance of the Gun class. First the Gun creates an instance of Bullet, which calls the doFire method on the Gun. The Gun calls the hit(Bullet) method on the Foot, and the instance of Bullet is passed to the Foot. But this causes an IllegalHitByBullet exception to be thrown, and you die.   Unix You shoot yourself in the foot or % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm * .o rm: .o: No such file or directory % ls %   370 JCL (alternative) You shoot yourself in the head just thinking about it.   DOS JCL You first find the building you're in in the phone book, then find your office number in the corporate phone book. Then you have to write this down, then describe, in cubits, your exact location, in relation to the door (right hand side thereof). Then you need to write down the location of the gun (loading it is a proprietary utility), then you load it, and the COBOL program, and run them, and, with luck, it may be run tonight.   VMS   $ MOUNT/DENSITY=.45/LABEL=BULLET/MESSAGE="BYE" BULLET::BULLET$GUN SYS$BULLET $ SET GUN/LOAD/SAFETY=OFF/SIGHT=NONE/HAND=LEFT/CHAMBER=1/ACTION=AUTOMATIC/ LOG/ALL/FULL SYS$GUN_3$DUA3:[000000]GUN.GNU $ SHOOT/LOG/AUTO SYS$GUN SYS$SYSTEM:[FOOT]FOOT.FOOT   %DCL-W-ACTIMAGE, error activating image GUN -CLI-E-IMGNAME, image file $3$DUA240:[GUN]GUN.EXE;1 -IMGACT-F-NOTNATIVE, image is not an OpenVMS Alpha AXP image or %SYS-F-FTSHT, foot shot (fifty lines of traceback omitted) sh,csh, etc You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours reading manual pages, then your foot falls asleep. You shoot the computer and switch to C.   Apple System 7 Double click the gun icon and a window giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small bomb appears with note "Error of Type 1 has occurred."   Windows 3.1 Double click the gun icon and wait. Eventually a window opens giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small box appears with note "Unable to open Shoot.dll, check that path is correct."   Windows 95 Your gun is not compatible with this OS and you must buy an upgrade and install it before you can continue. Then you will be informed that you don't have enough memory.   CP/M I remember when shooting yourself in the foot with a BB gun was a big deal.   DOS You finally found the gun, but can't locate the file with the foot for the life of you.   MSDOS You shoot yourself in the foot, but can unshoot yourself with add-on software.   Access You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.   Paradox Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.   dBase You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the time your foot feels the pain, you've forgotten why you shot yourself anyway. or You buy a gun. Bullets are only available from another company and are promised to work so you buy them. Then you find out that the next version of the gun is the one scheduled to actually shoot bullets.   DBase IV, V1.0 You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a poorly designed hand grenade and the whole building blows up.   SQL You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it returns, it has a hole in it but will no longer fit the attachment at the end of your leg. or Insert into Foot Select Bullet >From Gun.Hand Where Chamber = 'LOADED' And Trigger = 'PULLED'   Clipper You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you can shoot yourself in the foot and discover that the gun that the bullets fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail _REAL_SOON_NOW_. Oracle The menus for coding foot_shooting have not been implemented yet and you can't do foot shooting in SQL.   English You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off. (For those who don't know, English is a McDonnell Douglas/PICK query language which allegedly requires 110% of system resources to run happily.) Revelation [an implementation of the PICK Operating System] You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.   FlagShip Starting at the top of your head, you aim the gun at yourself repeatedly until, half an hour later, the gun is finally pointing at your foot and you pull the trigger. A new foot with a hole in it appears but you can't work out how to get rid of the old one and your gun doesn't work anymore.   FidoNet You put your foot in your mouth, then echo it internationally.   PicoSpan [a UNIX-based computer conferencing system] You can't shoot yourself in the foot because you're not a host. or (host variation) Whenever you shoot yourself in the foot, someone opens a topic in policy about it.   Internet You put your foot in your mouth, shoot it, then spam the bullet so that everybody gets shot in the foot.   troff rmtroff -ms -Hdrwp | lpr -Pwp2 & .*place bullet in footer .B .NR FT +3i .in 4 .bu Shoot! .br .sp .in -4 .br .bp NR HD -2i .*   Genetic Algorithms You create 10,000 strings describing the best way to shoot yourself in the foot. By the time the program produces the optimal solution, humans have evolved wings and the problem is moot.   CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes) You only fail to shoot everything that isn't your foot.   MS-SQL Server MS-SQL Server’s gun comes pre-loaded with an unlimited supply of Teflon coated bullets, and it only has two discernible features: the muzzle and the trigger. If that wasn't enough, MS-SQL Server also puts the gun in your hand, applies local anesthetic to the skin of your forefinger and stitches it to the gun's trigger. Meanwhile, another process has set up a spinal block to numb your lower body. It will then proceeded to surgically remove your foot, cryogenically freeze it for preservation, and attach it to the muzzle of the gun so that no matter where you aim, you will shoot your foot. In order to avoid shooting yourself in the foot, you need to unstitch your trigger finger, remove your foot from the muzzle of the gun, and have it surgically reattached. Then you probably want to get some crutches and go out to buy a book on SQL Server Performance Tuning.   Sybase Sybase's gun requires assembly, and you need to go out and purchase your own clip and bullets to load the gun. Assembly is complicated by the fact that Sybase has hidden the gun behind a big stack of reference manuals, but it hasn't told you where that stack is. While you were off finding the gun, assembling it, buying bullets, etc., Sybase was also busy surgically removing your foot and cryogenically freezing it for preservation. Instead of attaching it to the muzzle of the gun, though, it packed your foot on dry ice and sent it UPS-Ground to an unnamed hookah bar somewhere in the middle east. In order to shoot your foot, you must modify your gun with a GPS system for targeting and hire some guy named "Indy" to find the hookah bar and wire the coordinates back to you. By this time, you've probably become so daunted at the tasks stand between you and shooting your foot that you hire a guy who's read all the books on Sybase to help you shoot your foot. If you're lucky, he'll be smart enough both to find your foot and to stop you from shooting it.   Magic software You spend 1 week looking up the correct syntax for GUN. When you find it, you realise that GUN will not let you shoot in your own foot. It will allow you to shoot almost anything but your foot. You then decide to build your own gun. You can't use the standard barrel since this will only allow for standard bullets, which will not fire if the barrel is pointed at your foot. After four weeks, you have created your own custom gun. It blows up in your hand without warning, because you failed to initialise the safety catch and it doesn't know whether the initial state is "0", 0, NULL, "ZERO", 0.0, 0,0, "0.0", or "0,00". You fix the problem with your remaining hand by nesting 12 safety catches, and then decide to build the gun without safety catch. You then shoot the management and retire to a happy life where you code in languages that will allow you to shoot your foot in under 10 days.FirefoxLets you shoot yourself in as many feet as you'd like, while using multiple great addons! IEA moving target in terms of standard ammunition size and doesn't always work properly with non-Microsoft ammunition, so sometimes you shoot something other than your foot. However, it's the corporate world's standard foot-shooting apparatus. Hackers seem to enjoy rigging websites up to trigger cascading foot-shooting failures. Windows 98 About the same as Windows 95 in terms of overall bullet capacity and triggering mechanisms. Includes updated DirectShot API. A new version was released later on to support USB guns, Windows 98 SE.WPF:You get your baseball glove and a ball and you head out to your backyard, where you throw balls to your pitchback. Then your unkempt-haired-cargo-shorts-and-sandals-with-white-socks-wearing neighbor uses XAML to sculpt your arm into a gun, the ball into a bullet and the pitchback into your foot. By now, however, only the neighbor can get it to work and he's only around from 6:30 PM - 3:30 AM. LOGO: You very carefully lay out the trajectory of the bullet. Then you start the gun, which fires very slowly. You walk precisely to the point where the bullet will travel and wait, but just before it gets to you, your class time is up and one of the other kids has already used the system to hack into Sony's PS3 network. Flash: Someone has designed a beautiful-looking gun that anyone can shoot their feet with for free. It weighs six hundred pounds. All kinds of people are shooting themselves in the feet, and sending the link to everyone else so that they can too. That is, except for the criminals, who are all stealing iOS devices that the gun won't work with.APL: Its (mostly) all greek to me. Lisp: Place ((gun in ((hand sight (foot then shoot))))) (Lots of Insipid Stupid Parentheses)Apple OS/X and iOS Once a year, Steve Jobs returns from sick leave to tell millions of unwavering fans how they will be able to shoot themselves in the foot differently this year. They retweet and blog about it ad nauseam, and wait in line to be the first to experience "shoot different".Windows ME Usually fails, even at shooting you in the foot. Yo dawg, I heard you like shooting yourself in the foot. So I put a gun in your gun, so you can shoot yourself in the foot while you shoot yourself in the foot. (Okay, I'm not especially proud of this joke.) Windows 2000 Now you really do have to log in, before you are allowed to shoot yourself in the foot.Windows XPYou thought you learned your lesson: Don't use Windows ME. Then, along came this new creature, built on top of Windows NT! So you spend the next couple days installing antivirus software, patches and service packs, just so you can get that driver to install, and then proceed to shoot yourself in the foot. Windows Vista Newer! Glossier! Shootier! Windows 7 The bullets come out a lot smoother. Active Directory Each bullet now has an attached Bullet Identifier, and can be uniquely identified. Policies can be applied to dictate fragmentation, and the gun will occasionally have a confusing delay after the trigger has been pulled. PythonYou try to use import foot; foot.shoot() only to realize that's only available in 3.0, to which you can't yet upgrade from 2.7 because of all those extension libs lacking support. Solaris Shoots best when used on SPARC hardware, but still runs the trigger GUI under Java. After weeks of learning the appropriate STOP command to prevent the trigger from automatically being pressed on boot, you think you've got it under control. Then the one time you ever use dtrace, it hits a bug that fires the gun. MySQL The feature that allows you to shoot yourself in the foot has been in development for about 6 years, and they are adding it into the next version, which is coming out REAL SOON NOW, promise! But you can always check it out of source control and try it yourself (just not in any environment where data integrity is important because it will probably explode.) PostgreSQLAllows you to have a smug look on your face while you shoot yourself in the foot, because those MySQL guys STILL don't have that feature. NoSQL Barrel? Who needs a barrel? Just put the bullet on your foot, and strike it with a hammer. See? It's so much simpler and more efficient that way. You can even strike multiple bullets in one swing if you swing with a good enough arc, because hammers are easy to use. Getting them to synchronize is a little difficult, though.Eclipse There are about a dozen different packages for shooting yourself in the foot, with weird interdependencies on outdated components. Once you finally navigate the morass and get one installed, you then have something to look at while you shoot yourself in the foot with that package: You can watch the screen redraw.Outlook Makes it really easy to let everyone know you shot yourself in the foot!Shooting yourself in the foot using delegates.You really need to shoot yourself in the foot but you hate firearms (you don't want any dependency on the specifics of shooting) so you delegate it to somebody else. You don't care how it is done as long is shooting your foot. You can do it asynchronously in case you know you may faint so you are called back/slapped in the face by your shooter/friend (or background worker) when everything is done.C#You prepare the gun and the bullet, carefully modeling all of the physics of a bullet traveling through a foot. Just before you're about to pull the trigger, you stumble on System.Windows.BodyParts.Foot.ShootAt(System.Windows.Firearms.IGun gun) in the extended framework, realize you just wasted the entire afternoon, and shoot yourself in the head.PHP<?phprequire("foot_safety_check.php");?><!DOCTYPE HTML><html><head> <!--Lower!--><title>Shooting me in the foot</title></head> <body> <!--LOWER!!!--><leg> <!--OK, I made this one up...--><footer><?php echo (dungSift($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], "ie"))?("Your foot is safe, but you might want to wear a hard hat!"):("<div class=\"shot\">BANG!</div>"); ?></footer></leg> </body> </html>

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  • The challenge of giving a positive No

    - by MarkPearl
    I find it ironic that the more I am involved in the software industry, the more apparent it becomes that soft skills are just as if not more important than the technical abilities of a developer. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in my career is in managing client expectations to what one can deliver and being able to work with multiple clients. If I look at where things commonly go pear shaped, one area features a lot is where I should have said "No" to a request, but because of the way the request was made I ended up saying yes. Time and time again this has caused immense pain. Thus, when I saw on Amazon that they had a book titled "The power of a positive no" by William Ury I had to buy it and read it. In William's book he explains an approach to saying No that while extremely simple does change the way a No is presented. In essence he talks of a pattern the Yes! > No > Yes? Pattern. 1. Yes! -> positively and concretely describing your core interests and values 2. No. -> explicitly link your no to this YES! 3. Yes? -> suggest another positive outcome or agreement to the other person Let me explain how I understood it. If you are working on a really important project and someone asks you to do add a quick feature to another project, your Yes! would be to the more important project, which would mean a No to the quick feature, and an option for your Yes? may be an alternative time when you can look at it.. An example of an appropriate response would be... It is really important that I keep to the commitment that I made to this customer to finish his project on time so I cannot work on your feature right now but I am available to help you in a weeks time. William then goes on to explain the type of behaviour a person may display when the no is received. He illustrates this with a diagram called the curve of acceptance. William points out that if you are aware of the type of behaviour you can expect it empowers you to stay true to your no. Personally I think reading and having an understanding of the “soft” side of things like saying no is invaluable to a developer.

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  • How to copyright and license individual code files

    - by Hand-E-Food
    I have a habit of writing small, reusable components in my spare time. I reuse these components with my clients' code bases. It occurs to me there's a potential issue that using identical code for multiple clients may bite me back in the future. I don't care who uses the code. I just don't want a situation where one company tries to sue another for copyright infringement due to my actions. I'm not familiar with common licensing schemes. What do I need to specify in my code files to indicate that these protions are copyrighted to myself and usable by anyone, while differentiating them from the code specificly written for the client? Where can I find more information on this scenario?

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  • Blackjack game reshuffling problem-edited

    - by Jam
    I am trying to make a blackjack game where before each new round, the program checks to make sure that the deck has 7 cards per player. And if it doesn't, the deck clears, repopulates, and reshuffles. I have most of the problem down, but for some reason at the start of every deal it reshuffles the deck more than once, and I can't figure out why. Help, please. Here's what I have so far: (P.S. the imported cards and games modules aren't part of the problem, I'm fairly sure my problem lies in the deal() function of my BJ_Deck class.) import cards, games class BJ_Card(cards.Card): """ A Blackjack Card. """ ACE_VALUE = 1 def get_value(self): if self.is_face_up: value = BJ_Card.RANKS.index(self.rank) + 1 if value > 10: value = 10 else: value = None return value value = property(get_value) class BJ_Deck(cards.Deck): """ A Blackjack Deck. """ def populate(self): for suit in BJ_Card.SUITS: for rank in BJ_Card.RANKS: self.cards.append(BJ_Card(rank, suit)) def deal(self, hands, per_hand=1): for rounds in range(per_hand): if len(self.cards)>=7*(len(hands)): print "Reshuffling the deck." self.cards=[] self.populate() self.shuffle() for hand in hands: top_card=self.cards[0] self.give(top_card, hand) class BJ_Hand(cards.Hand): """ A Blackjack Hand. """ def __init__(self, name): super(BJ_Hand, self).__init__() self.name = name def __str__(self): rep = self.name + ":\t" + super(BJ_Hand, self).__str__() if self.total: rep += "(" + str(self.total) + ")" return rep def get_total(self): # if a card in the hand has value of None, then total is None for card in self.cards: if not card.value: return None # add up card values, treat each Ace as 1 total = 0 for card in self.cards: total += card.value # determine if hand contains an Ace contains_ace = False for card in self.cards: if card.value == BJ_Card.ACE_VALUE: contains_ace = True # if hand contains Ace and total is low enough, treat Ace as 11 if contains_ace and total <= 11: # add only 10 since we've already added 1 for the Ace total += 10 return total total = property(get_total) def is_busted(self): return self.total > 21 class BJ_Player(BJ_Hand): """ A Blackjack Player. """ def is_hitting(self): response = games.ask_yes_no("\n" + self.name + ", do you want a hit? (Y/N): ") return response == "y" def bust(self): print self.name, "busts." self.lose() def lose(self): print self.name, "loses." def win(self): print self.name, "wins." def push(self): print self.name, "pushes." class BJ_Dealer(BJ_Hand): """ A Blackjack Dealer. """ def is_hitting(self): return self.total < 17 def bust(self): print self.name, "busts." def flip_first_card(self): first_card = self.cards[0] first_card.flip() class BJ_Game(object): """ A Blackjack Game. """ def __init__(self, names): self.players = [] for name in names: player = BJ_Player(name) self.players.append(player) self.dealer = BJ_Dealer("Dealer") self.deck = BJ_Deck() self.deck.populate() self.deck.shuffle() def get_still_playing(self): remaining = [] for player in self.players: if not player.is_busted(): remaining.append(player) return remaining # list of players still playing (not busted) this round still_playing = property(get_still_playing) def __additional_cards(self, player): while not player.is_busted() and player.is_hitting(): self.deck.deal([player]) print player if player.is_busted(): player.bust() def play(self): # deal initial 2 cards to everyone self.deck.deal(self.players + [self.dealer], per_hand = 2) self.dealer.flip_first_card() # hide dealer's first card for player in self.players: print player print self.dealer # deal additional cards to players for player in self.players: self.__additional_cards(player) self.dealer.flip_first_card() # reveal dealer's first if not self.still_playing: # since all players have busted, just show the dealer's hand print self.dealer else: # deal additional cards to dealer print self.dealer self.__additional_cards(self.dealer) if self.dealer.is_busted(): # everyone still playing wins for player in self.still_playing: player.win() else: # compare each player still playing to dealer for player in self.still_playing: if player.total > self.dealer.total: player.win() elif player.total < self.dealer.total: player.lose() else: player.push() # remove everyone's cards for player in self.players: player.clear() self.dealer.clear() def main(): print "\t\tWelcome to Blackjack!\n" names = [] number = games.ask_number("How many players? (1 - 7): ", low = 1, high = 8) for i in range(number): name = raw_input("Enter player name: ") names.append(name) print game = BJ_Game(names) again = None while again != "n": game.play() again = games.ask_yes_no("\nDo you want to play again?: ") main() raw_input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.") Since someone decided to call this 'psychic-debugging', I'll go ahead and tell you what the modules are then. Here's the cards module: class Card(object): """ A playing card. """ RANKS = ["A", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9", "10", "J", "Q", "K"] SUITS = ["c", "d", "h", "s"] def __init__(self, rank, suit, face_up = True): self.rank = rank self.suit = suit self.is_face_up = face_up def __str__(self): if self.is_face_up: rep = self.rank + self.suit else: rep = "XX" return rep def flip(self): self.is_face_up = not self.is_face_up class Hand(object): """ A hand of playing cards. """ def init(self): self.cards = [] def __str__(self): if self.cards: rep = "" for card in self.cards: rep += str(card) + "\t" else: rep = "<empty>" return rep def clear(self): self.cards = [] def add(self, card): self.cards.append(card) def give(self, card, other_hand): self.cards.remove(card) other_hand.add(card) class Deck(Hand): """ A deck of playing cards. """ def populate(self): for suit in Card.SUITS: for rank in Card.RANKS: self.add(Card(rank, suit)) def shuffle(self): import random random.shuffle(self.cards) def deal(self, hands, per_hand = 1): for rounds in range(per_hand): for hand in hands: if self.cards: top_card = self.cards[0] self.give(top_card, hand) else: print "Can't continue deal. Out of cards!" if name == "main": print "This is a module with classes for playing cards." raw_input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.") And here's the games module: class Player(object): """ A player for a game. """ def __init__(self, name, score = 0): self.name = name self.score = score def __str__(self): rep = self.name + ":\t" + str(self.score) return rep def ask_yes_no(question): """Ask a yes or no question.""" response = None while response not in ("y", "n"): response = raw_input(question).lower() return response def ask_number(question, low, high): """Ask for a number within a range.""" response = None while response not in range(low, high): response = int(raw_input(question)) return response if name == "main": print "You ran this module directly (and did not 'import' it)." raw_input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

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  • Configuration Deployment to Linux Systems

    - by William
    Hello, I'm looking for a nice way to add / remote ips (and possibly interact with an asset inventory system to track where ips are), start / stop processes, download logs, and all around genearal system admin duties from one place. It's okay if I require more than 1 program. That would still be better than having 50 million terminals open and trying to trace ip assignments etc on whiteboards. I'd also like to know if anyone knows any good asset management programs. Best Regards, William

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  • F#: Advantages of converting top-level functions to member methods?

    - by J Cooper
    Earlier I requested some feedback on my first F# project. Before closing the question because the scope was too large, someone was kind enough to look it over and leave some feedback. One of the things they mentioned was pointing out that I had a number of regular functions that could be converted to be methods on my datatypes. Dutifully I went through changing things like let getDecisions hand = let (/=/) card1 card2 = matchValue card1 = matchValue card2 let canSplit() = let isPair() = match hand.Cards with | card1 :: card2 :: [] when card1 /=/ card2 -> true | _ -> false not (hasState Splitting hand) && isPair() let decisions = [Hit; Stand] let split = if canSplit() then [Split] else [] let doubleDown = if hasState Initial hand then [DoubleDown] else [] decisions @ split @ doubleDown to this: type Hand // ...stuff... member hand.GetDecisions = let (/=/) (c1 : Card) (c2 : Card) = c1.MatchValue = c2.MatchValue let canSplit() = let isPair() = match hand.Cards with | card1 :: card2 :: [] when card1 /=/ card2 -> true | _ -> false not (hand.HasState Splitting) && isPair() let decisions = [Hit; Stand] let split = if canSplit() then [Split] else [] let doubleDown = if hand.HasState Initial then [DoubleDown] else [] decisions @ split @ doubleDown Now, I don't doubt I'm an idiot, but other than (I'm guessing) making C# interop easier, what did that gain me? Specifically, I found a couple *dis*advantages, not counting the extra work of conversion (which I won't count, since I could have done it this way in the first place, I suppose, although that would have made using F# Interactive more of a pain). For one thing, I'm now no longer able to work with function "pipelining" easily. I had to go and change some |> chained |> calls to (some |> chained).Calls etc. Also, it seemed to make my type system dumber--whereas with my original version, my program needed no type annotations, after converting largely to member methods, I got a bunch of errors about lookups being indeterminate at that point, and I had to go and add type annotations (an example of this is in the (/=/) above). I hope I haven't come off too dubious, as I appreciate the advice I received, and writing idiomatic code is important to me. I'm just curious why the idiom is the way it is :) Thanks!

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  • Checking if your SIMPLE databases need a log backup

    - by Fatherjack
    Hopefully you have read the blog by William Durkin explaining why your SIMPLE databases need a log backup in some cases. There is a SQL Server bug that means in some cases databases are marked as being in SIMPLE RECOVERY but have a log wait type that shows they are not properly configured. Please read his blog for the full explanation and a great description of how to reproduce the issue. As part of our (William happens to be my Boss) work to recover our affected databases I wrote this small PowerShell script to quickly check our servers for databases that needed the attention that William details.  cls $Servers = “Server01″,”Server02″,”etc”,”etc” foreach($Server in $Servers){ write-host “************” $server “****************”     $server = New-Object Microsoft.sqlserver.management.smo.server $Server     foreach($db in $Server.databases){         $db | where {$_.RecoveryModel -eq “Simple” -and $_.logreusewaitstatus -ne “nothing”} | select name, LogReuseWaitStatus     } } If you get any results from this query then you should consult Williams blog for the details on what action you should take. This script does give out false positives if in some circumstances depending on how busy your databases are. Hopefully this will let you check your servers quickly and if you find any problems you can reference Williams blog to understand what you need to do.

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  • Distinguishing repetitive code with the same implementation

    - by KyelJmD
    Given this sample code import java.util.ArrayList; import blackjack.model.items.Card; public class BlackJackPlayer extends Player { private double bet; private Hand hand01 = new Hand(); private Hand hand02 = new Hand(); public void addCardToHand01(Card c) { hand01.addCard(c); } public void addCardToHand02(Card c) { hand02.addCard(c); } public void bustHand01() { hand01.setBust(true); } public void bustHand02() { hand02.setBust(true); } public void standHand01() { hand01.setStand(true); } public void standHand02() { hand02.setStand(true); } public boolean isHand01Bust() { return hand01.isBust(); } public boolean isHand02Bust() { return hand02.isBust(); } public boolean isHand01Standing() { return hand01.isStanding(); } public boolean isHand02Standing() { return hand02.isStanding(); } public int getHand01Score(){ return hand01.getCardScore(); } public int getHand02Score(){ return hand02.getCardScore(); } } Is this considered as a repetitive code? providing that each method is operating a seperate field but doing the same implementation ? Note that hand01 and hand02 should be distinct. if this is considered as repetitive code, how would I address this? providing that each hand is a seperate entity

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  • Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

    - by T
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/08/computer-visionaries-2014-kinect-hackathon.aspxA big thank you to Computer Vision Dallas and Microsoft for putting together the Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon that took place July 18th and 19th 2014.  Our team had a great time and learned a lot from the Kinect MVP's and Microsoft team.  The Dallas Entrepreneur Center was a fantastic venue. In total, 114 people showed up to form 15 teams. Burger ITS & Friends team members with Ben Lower:  Shawn Weisfeld, Teresa Burger, Robert Burger, Harold Pulcher, Taylor Woolley, Cori Drew (not pictured), and Katlyn Drew (not pictured) We arrived Friday after a long day of work/driving.  Originally, our idea was to make a learning game for kids.  It was intended to be multi-simultaneous players dragging and dropping tiles into a canvas area for kids around 5 years old. We quickly learned that we were limited to two simultaneous players. After working on the game for the rest of the evening and into the next morning we decided that a fast multi-player game with hand gestures was not going to happen without going beyond what was provided with the API. If we were going to have something to show, it was time to switch gears. The next idea on the table was the Photo Anywhere Kiosk. The user can use voice and hand gestures to pick a place they would like to be.  After the user says a place (or anything they want) and then the word "search", the app uses Bing to display a bunch of images for him/her to choose from. With the use of hand gesture (grab and slide to move back and forth and push/pull to select an image) the user can get the perfect image to pose with. I couldn't get a snippet with the hand but when a the app is in use, a hand shows up to cue the user to use their hand to control it's movement. Once they chose an image, we use the Kinect background removal feature to super impose the user on that image. When they are in the perfect position, they say "save" to save the image. Currently, the image is saved in the images folder on the users account but there are many possibilities such as emailing it, posting to social media, etc.. The competition was great and we were honored to be recognized for third place. Other related posts: http://jasongfox.com/computer-visionaries-2014-incredible-success/ A couple of us are continuing to work on the kid's game and are going to make it a Windows 8 multi-player game without Kinect functionality. Stay tuned for more updates.

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  • What's the proper way to calculate probability for a card game?

    - by Milan Babuškov
    I'm creating AI for a card game, and I run into problem calculating the probability of passing/failing the hand when AI needs to start the hand. Cards are A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 (with A being the strongest) and AI needs to play to not take the hand. Assuming there are 4 cards of the suit left in the game and one is in AI's hand, I need to calculate probability that one of the other players would take the hand. Here's an example: AI player has: J Other 2 players have: A, K, 7 If a single opponent has AK7 then AI would lose. However, if one of the players has A or K without 7, AI would survive. Now, looking at possible distribution, I have: P1 P2 AI --- --- --- AK7 loses AK 7 survives A7 K survives K7 A survives A 7K survives K 7A survives 7 KA survives AK7 loses Looking at this, it seems that there is 75% chance of survival. However, I skipped the permutations that mirror the ones from above. It should be the same, but somehow when I write them all down, it seems that chance is only 50%: P1 P2 AI --- --- --- AK7 loses A7K loses K7A loses KA7 loses 7AK loses 7KA loses AK 7 survives A7 K survives K7 A survives KA 7 survives 7A K survives 7K A survives A K7 survives A 7K survives K 7A survives K A7 survives 7 AK survives 7 KA survives AK7 loses A7K loses K7A loses KA7 loses 7AK loses 7KA loses 12 loses, 12 survivals = 50% chance. Obviously, it should be the same (shouldn't it?) and I'm missing something in one of the ways to calculate. Which one is correct?

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  • Creative Gesture Camera in Processing

    - by user2892963
    I'm trying to use the creative gesture camera in Processing. I started with the Intel Perceptual Computing SDK, and ran into an issue. I want to get the hand openness, and I am running into some issues - no matter what, the hand.openness returns 0. It otherwise runs quite well... Some Sample code I'm trying to get to work: If you open your hand it starts printing to the console, close it and it stops. import intel.pcsdk.*; PXCUPipeline session; PXCMGesture.GeoNode hand = new PXCMGesture.GeoNode(); void setup() { session = new PXCUPipeline(this); if(!session.Init(PXCUPipeline.GESTURE)) exit(); } void draw() { background(0); if(session.AcquireFrame(false)) { if(session.QueryGeoNode(PXCMGesture.GeoNode.LABEL_BODY_HAND_PRIMARY|PXCMGesture.GeoNode.LABEL_OPEN, hand)) //Only when primary hand is open { rect(0, 0, 10, 10); println(hand.openness + " : " + frameCount); //Openness should be from 0 to 100 } session.ReleaseFrame(); } } Using the current version of Processing (2.0.3), Perceptual Computing SDK Version 7383.

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  • Loadbalance UDP traffic with session affinity and way to take servers in & out of rotation

    - by William
    What is the best way to go about load balancing UDP traffic among a whole bunch of servers, while keeping session affinity based on the users' IP? I need to also be able to take servers in and out of rotation for new clients, so when they join for the first time, they get put on a server in a list of available servers, and clients already connected would stay connected to their specific server. I have written the software to maintain a list, but I can't seem to find anything that would perform this functionality. If you need the context, this is to facilitate game tournaments for Minecraft: Pocket Edition, which is done with UDP traffic, I cannot change the protocol. And, because tournaments open and close, I need to be able to place players on their proper servers. Performance is also a priority, I have a program to do this but it is very bloated and slow. Thanks for any help! William

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  • Ubuntu Server UFW NAT Issues

    - by William Fleming
    *nat :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] -A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE -A ufw-before-input -i tun0 -j ACCEPT -A ufw-before-output -i tun0 -j ACCEPT -A ufw-before-forward -s 10.8.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT -A ufw-before-forward -d 10.8.0.0/24 -j ACCEPT This input into my before.rules file stops me being able to ping the outside world. Before its fine i can ping google.co.uk after cant get out. Is there something wrong in my syntax here or what is the issue...? Im just trying to NAT my VPN so i can get internet access. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks William

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  • Problem with OpenGL or Unity, need Gnome fallback mode

    - by William Wind
    This question is in two parts, and I have been searching the web for days to find answers. With no luck I thought I'd drop by and ask for your help. Here goes: 1.) I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 and one day last week Unity suddenly wound't work. After the login screen, I was either faced with an all black and non-responsive screen, or sometimes it booted and I could see my desktop wallpaper (and add and remove icons/folders from the desktop). But there was no menu in the left hand side and no top bar :-( However I could still enter the terminal. I borrowed my dad's laptop and looked for a solution online. About two days later I gave up (I'm still kind of a n00b at Linux) and found a way to install Gnome Fallback, via the terminal. When I used it, I had the same problem. [clue #1] Missing menues. But if I rebooted into Gnome Fallback mode with no effects. It worked. Great! I have used that for some days now, while still trying to fix the original problem with either Unity or OpenGl or whatever went wrong in the first place. With no luck. After giving up on my search for a fix (I know that came out wrong) -- I decided to reinstall Ubuntu 13.04 from a CD. But! After that I was left where I began. When booting into my account, it only shows the desktop wallpaper and the icons. I can click and enter the folders, but not go into the menues. Last time I fixed it with Gnome Fallback mode, because I could enter the terminal and the PC was automatically online, via wireless network. But not this time, I can't get online. So: 1.) How do I via the LiveCD Ubuntu version (the one I'm using right now) install Gnome Fallback unto the harddrive based system? 2.) If impossible. How can I access the wireless Internet via the terminal, so I can install Gnome Fallback, from the "broken" Unity session. 3.) Is there any other things that I should try? Please help me, PS: My GFX-card is an ATI Radeon something and I have install and used the "Redwood" drive (I think its called) for many weeks prior to the shutdown.

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  • Cloning a NAS drive which hosts a SQL Server DB

    - by Adrian Hand
    We have a system in the field running a server application which is suffering with major performance issues. The system in question has 2 onboard 300gb sas drives in RAID 5 from which it boots Windows Server 2003, and a 6tb buffalo terastation NAS unit (also RAID 5) to which the server app does all of its reading and writing. I believe the terastation is the source of all our woes. Whilst under load, reads and writes tick by at something of the order of 1meg/sec, though the network in question is hardly utilised. The terastation contains various data, but crucially hosts a full instance worth of SQL Server .mdf and .ldf files (master etc - the whole shooting match) I wish to stop all the services on the server, then take everything on the terastation and essentially clone it to some alternative onboard storage, so as to eliminate the terastation from the equation as far as poor performance is concerned. ie the terastation is currently drive D: - I want to copy everything off and then have the duplicate assume the drive letter so that as far as the software is aware, nothing is different. This is tricky because of the mdf and ldf files - everything else will work with a straight up file copy. Can anyone suggest a means to achieve what I am describing? Many thanks!

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  • Creating a private wiki

    - by Hand-E-Food
    I want to create a simple, private wiki, but am really struggling to find what I need. I require the following features: Private wiki. Only I will read or write it. Some formatting capability: headings, bold, italic, bullets, block quotes Wiki Viewer for Windows 7. If it comes with an editor, I need to be able to hide it. Page Editor for Windows 7. Page Editor for iPhone. Synchronize by cloud but available offline in Windows. So far, my research has led me to Markdown language. I can easily edit this as plain text using Notepad++ for Windows and Elements for iPhone. I can sync these files through Dropbox and have them available offline. What I can't find is a suitable viewer for Windows. I'd prefer to steer away from using HTML due to its verbose formatting codes. Can anyone recommend a solution for me? If need be, I'll happy to make a small one-off payment for software.

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  • Blackjack game reshuffling problem

    - by Jam
    I am trying to make a blackjack game where before each new round, the program checks to make sure that the deck has 7 cards per player. And if it doesn't, the deck clears, repopulates, and reshuffles. I have most of the problem down, but for some reason at the start of every deal it reshuffles the deck more than once, and I can't figure out why. Help, please. Here's what I have so far: (P.S. the imported cards and games modules aren't part of the problem, I'm fairly sure my problem lies in the deal() function of my BJ_Deck class.) import cards, games class BJ_Card(cards.Card): """ A Blackjack Card. """ ACE_VALUE = 1 def get_value(self): if self.is_face_up: value = BJ_Card.RANKS.index(self.rank) + 1 if value > 10: value = 10 else: value = None return value value = property(get_value) class BJ_Deck(cards.Deck): """ A Blackjack Deck. """ def populate(self): for suit in BJ_Card.SUITS: for rank in BJ_Card.RANKS: self.cards.append(BJ_Card(rank, suit)) def deal(self, hands, per_hand=1): for rounds in range(per_hand): for hand in hands: if len(self.cards)>=7*(len(hands)): top_card=self.cards[0] self.give(top_card, hand) else: print "Reshuffling the deck." self.cards=[] self.populate() self.shuffle() top_card=self.cards[0] self.give(top_card, hand) class BJ_Hand(cards.Hand): """ A Blackjack Hand. """ def init(self, name): super(BJ_Hand, self).init() self.name = name def __str__(self): rep = self.name + ":\t" + super(BJ_Hand, self).__str__() if self.total: rep += "(" + str(self.total) + ")" return rep def get_total(self): # if a card in the hand has value of None, then total is None for card in self.cards: if not card.value: return None # add up card values, treat each Ace as 1 total = 0 for card in self.cards: total += card.value # determine if hand contains an Ace contains_ace = False for card in self.cards: if card.value == BJ_Card.ACE_VALUE: contains_ace = True # if hand contains Ace and total is low enough, treat Ace as 11 if contains_ace and total <= 11: # add only 10 since we've already added 1 for the Ace total += 10 return total total = property(get_total) def is_busted(self): return self.total > 21 class BJ_Player(BJ_Hand): """ A Blackjack Player. """ def is_hitting(self): response = games.ask_yes_no("\n" + self.name + ", do you want a hit? (Y/N): ") return response == "y" def bust(self): print self.name, "busts." self.lose() def lose(self): print self.name, "loses." def win(self): print self.name, "wins." def push(self): print self.name, "pushes." class BJ_Dealer(BJ_Hand): """ A Blackjack Dealer. """ def is_hitting(self): return self.total < 17 def bust(self): print self.name, "busts." def flip_first_card(self): first_card = self.cards[0] first_card.flip() class BJ_Game(object): """ A Blackjack Game. """ def init(self, names): self.players = [] for name in names: player = BJ_Player(name) self.players.append(player) self.dealer = BJ_Dealer("Dealer") self.deck = BJ_Deck() self.deck.populate() self.deck.shuffle() def get_still_playing(self): remaining = [] for player in self.players: if not player.is_busted(): remaining.append(player) return remaining # list of players still playing (not busted) this round still_playing = property(get_still_playing) def __additional_cards(self, player): while not player.is_busted() and player.is_hitting(): self.deck.deal([player]) print player if player.is_busted(): player.bust() def play(self): # deal initial 2 cards to everyone self.deck.deal(self.players + [self.dealer], per_hand = 2) self.dealer.flip_first_card() # hide dealer's first card for player in self.players: print player print self.dealer # deal additional cards to players for player in self.players: self.__additional_cards(player) self.dealer.flip_first_card() # reveal dealer's first if not self.still_playing: # since all players have busted, just show the dealer's hand print self.dealer else: # deal additional cards to dealer print self.dealer self.__additional_cards(self.dealer) if self.dealer.is_busted(): # everyone still playing wins for player in self.still_playing: player.win() else: # compare each player still playing to dealer for player in self.still_playing: if player.total > self.dealer.total: player.win() elif player.total < self.dealer.total: player.lose() else: player.push() # remove everyone's cards for player in self.players: player.clear() self.dealer.clear() def main(): print "\t\tWelcome to Blackjack!\n" names = [] number = games.ask_number("How many players? (1 - 7): ", low = 1, high = 8) for i in range(number): name = raw_input("Enter player name: ") names.append(name) print game = BJ_Game(names) again = None while again != "n": game.play() again = games.ask_yes_no("\nDo you want to play again?: ") main() raw_input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

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  • Using a Predicate as a key to a Dictionary

    - by Tom Hines
    I really love Linq and Lambda Expressions in C#.  I also love certain community forums and programming websites like DaniWeb. A user on DaniWeb posted a question about comparing the results of a game that is like poker (5-card stud), but is played with dice. The question stemmed around determining what was the winning hand.  I looked at the question and issued some comments and suggestions toward a potential answer, but I thought it was a neat homework exercise. [A little explanation] I eventually realized not only could I compare the results of the hands (by name) with a certain construct – I could also compare the values of the individual dice with the same construct. That piece of code eventually became a Dictionary with the KEY as a Predicate<int> and the Value a Func<T> that returns a string from the another structure that contains the mapping of an ENUM to a string.  In one instance, that string is the name of the hand and in another instance, it is a string (CSV) representation of of the digits in the hand. An added benefit is that the digits re returned in the order they would be for a proper poker hand.  For instance the hand 1,2,5,3,1 would be returned as ONE_PAIR (1,1,5,3,2). [Getting to the point] 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:   4: namespace DicePoker 5: { 6: using KVP_E2S = KeyValuePair<CDicePoker.E_DICE_POKER_HAND_VAL, string>; 7: public partial class CDicePoker 8: { 9: /// <summary> 10: /// Magical construction to determine the winner of given hand Key/Value. 11: /// </summary> 12: private static Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string>> 13: map_prd2fn = new Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string>> 14: { 15: {new Predicate<int>(i => i.Equals(0)), PlayerTie},//first tie 16:   17: {new Predicate<int>(i => i > 0), 18: (m => string.Format("Player One wins\n1={0}({1})\n2={2}({3})", 19: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Key, m[1].Value))}, 20:   21: {new Predicate<int>(i => i < 0), 22: (m => string.Format("Player Two wins\n2={2}({3})\n1={0}({1})", 23: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Key, m[1].Value))}, 24:   25: {new Predicate<int>(i => i.Equals(0)), 26: (m => string.Format("Tie({0}) \n1={1}\n2={2}", 27: m[0].Key, m[0].Value, m[1].Value))} 28: }; 29: } 30: } When this is called, the code calls the Invoke method of the predicate to return a bool.  The first on matching true will have its value invoked. 1: private static Func<DICE_HAND, E_DICE_POKER_HAND_VAL> GetHandEval = dh => 2: map_dph2fn[map_dph2fn.Keys.Where(enm2fn => enm2fn(dh)).First()]; After coming up with this process, I realized (with a little modification) it could be called to evaluate the individual values in the dice hand in the event of a tie. 1: private static Func<List<KVP_E2S>, string> PlayerTie = lst_kvp => 2: map_prd2fn.Skip(1) 3: .Where(x => x.Key.Invoke(RenderDigits(dhPlayerOne).CompareTo(RenderDigits(dhPlayerTwo)))) 4: .Select(s => s.Value) 5: .First().Invoke(lst_kvp); After that, I realized I could now create a program completely without “if” statements or “for” loops! 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Action<Action<string>>> main = new Dictionary<Predicate<int>, Action<Action<string>>> 4: { 5: {(i => i.Equals(0)), PlayGame}, 6: {(i => true), Usage} 7: }; 8:   9: main[main.Keys.Where(m => m.Invoke(args.Length)).First()].Invoke(Display); 10: } …and there you have it. :) ZIPPED Project

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  • C++ Beginner - Simple block of code crashing, reason unknown.

    - by Francisco P.
    Hello everyone, Here's a block of code I'm having trouble with. string Game::tradeRandomPieces(Player & player) { string hand = player.getHand(); string piecesRemoved; size_t index; for (size_t numberOfPiecesToTrade = rand() % hand.size() + 1; numberOfPiecesToTrade != 0; --numberOfPiecesToTrade) { index = rand() % hand.size(); piecesRemoved += hand[index]; hand.erase(index,1); } player.removePiecesFromHand(piecesRemoved); player.fillHand(_deck); return piecesRemoved; } I believe the code is pretty self explanatory. fillhand and removepiecesfromhand are working fine, so that's not it. I really can't get what's wrong with this :( Thanks for your time

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  • Silverlight Cream for December 31, 2010 -- #1019

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Michael Washington, Thomas Martinsen, Mike Ormond, William E. Burrows(-2-), Vangos Pterneas, Jesse Liberty, Diptimaya Patra, and Jeff Blankenburg(-2-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Drag from Multiple Source In Silverlight 4" Diptimaya Patra WP7: "What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 12" Jeff Blankenburg Shoutouts: Paul Thurrott posted a great phone comparison chart: Great Windows Phone comparison chart Kunal Chowdhury announced his new Silverlight Site: Welcome to Silverlight-Zone - Site is Live Now ... Good Luck, Kunal! From SilverlightCream.com: MyStudioServer goes Open Source Michael Washington decided to put his "MyStudioServer" on CodePlex... I saw this last spring and it's pretty darn cool... check out the post and examples. UriMapping for WP7 Thomas Martinsen discusses UriMapping in WP7, details the steps you need to follow and has sample code to demonstrate. More Monitoring Web Requests on Windows Phone Mike Ormond revisits a post about monitoring WP7 web requests, and shows how to get the data via Fiddler. New Tutorial – Windows Phone 7 (Getting Started) William E. Burrows has 2 parts of a video tutorial series on WP7 development up. This first gets things rolling, explains what is going on, and gets far enough to display golf courses stored in the database. WP7 Tutorial – Part 2: Managing Courses William E. Burrows's 2nd video tutorial is on building out the app to provide features to manage the gold courses for this gold handicap application. Face detection in Windows Phone 7 Vangos Pterneas has a post up about a WP7 app he did using René Schulte's Facelight to do facial recognition. Source available and also on CodePlex. Windows Phone From Scratch – Navigation II Jesse Liberty has up his latest WP7 from Scratch and is the 2nd post in the Navigation series, which is combining the previous navigation with the animation from the one before to produce a better navigation experience. Drag from Multiple Source In Silverlight 4 Diptimaya Patra has a post up at dotnetslackers on dragging into a drop area from multiple sources of different data templates and contexts. What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 12 Jeff Blankenburg's number 12 is up and he's got all the RGB colors on WP7 charted out, name, HEX, RGB, and visual... looks like a good one to bookmark What I Learned In WP7 – Issue 13 Jeff Blankenburg's number 13 is the chart I have listed in the Shoutout above... a complete phone comparison chart. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • Architecture: Bringing Value to the Table

    - by Bob Rhubart
    A recent TechTarget article features an interview with Business Architecture expert William Ulrich (Take a business-driven approach to application modernization ). In that article Ulrich offers this advice: "Moving from one technical architecture might be perfectly viable on a project by project basis, but when you're looking at the big picture and you want to really understand how to drive business value so that the business is pushing money into IT instead of IT pulling money back, you have to understand the business architecture. When we do that we're going to really be able to start bringing value to the table." In many respects that big picture view is what software architecture is all about. As an architect, your technical skills must be top-notch. But if you don't apply that technical knowledge within the larger context of moving the business forward, what are you accomplishing? If you're interested in more insight from William Ulrich, you can listen to the ArchBeat Podcast interview he did last year, in which he and co-author Neal McWhorter talked about their book, Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation.

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  • How to retrieve only updated/new records since the last query in SQL?

    - by William Choi
    Hi all, I was asked to design a class for caching SQL query results. Calling the class' query method will query and cache the entire set of results at the first time; afterward, each subsequence query will retrieve only the updated portion, and will merge the result into the cache. If the class is required to be generic, i.e. NO knowledge about the db and the tables, do you have any idea? Is it possible, and how to retrieve only updated/new records since the last query? Thanks! William

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