project-2501.net

Harry Angel Memorial 80m Sprint 2026

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On Saturday, 2nd of May, I participated in the Harry Angel Memorial 80m Sprint. The sprint is a ham radio contest for Australia and New Zealand to commemorate Harry Angel, VK4HA.

It’s a short contest that takes place on the 80-meter band for 106 minutes — one minute for each year that Harry Angel was alive.

I set up a linked dipole and a G90 radio at the Dandenong Police Paddocks. I started a little late, and the radio conditions weren’t great, but I managed 21 contacts including a VK6 (Western Australia) and a ZL (New Zealand), both which I’m very happy with.

Pipewire Loopback Config

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I was having a lot of trouble routing audio between programs on Linux.

Pretty sure this is the wrong way to go about it.

But it works, and I want to write it down somewhere if I need to do it again :-)

I’m sure these config files are meant to go into your home directory…

`/etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/11-loopback-devices.conf`

context.modules = [
    {
        name = libpipewire-module-loopback
        args = {
            audio.position = [ FL FR ]
            capture.props = {
                media.class = "Audio/Sink"
                node.name = "loopback-sink-1"
                node.description = "Loopback Virtual Sink 1"
                device.description = "Loopback Virtual Sink 1"
                device.class = "sound"
                device.icon-name = "audio-card"
                node.virtual = false
            }
            playback.props = {
                media.class "Audio/Source"
                node.name = "loopback-sink-1.output"
                node.description = "Loopback Virtual Source 1"
                device.description = "Loopback Virtual Source 1"
                device.class = "sound"
                device.icon-name = "audio-card"
                node.passive = true
            }
        }
    }
]

`/etc/pipewire/pipewire.conf.d/12-loopback-devices.conf`

context.modules = [
    {
        name = libpipewire-module-loopback
        args = {
            audio.position = [ FL FR ]
            capture.props = {
                media.class = "Audio/Sink"
                node.name = "loopback-sink-2"
                node.description = "Loopback Virtual Sink 2"
                device.description = "Loopback Virtual Sink 2"
                device.class = "sound"
                device.icon-name = "audio-card"
                node.virtual = false
            }
            playback.props = {
                media.class "Audio/Source"
                node.name = "loopback-sink-2.output"
                node.description = "Loopback Virtual Source 2"
                device.description = "Loopback Virtual Source 2"
                device.class = "sound"
                device.icon-name = "audio-card"
                node.passive = true
            }
        }
    }
]

And to restart:

systemctl restart --user pipewire

Bairnsdale Trip Feburary 2025

Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Just some random photos from a camping trip to Baairnsdale ealier this year.

(Golden Beach)

(Paynesville)

(Eagle Point)

(Mount Taylor)

Summer VHF-UHF Field Day 2025

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I took advantage of the weather this weekend and went to Baw Baw Village to operate portable for several hours.

(IC-705, 4EL 2m antenna, and a 10EL 70cm antenna)

Radio conditions were pretty good on 2m. I got several great VK7 contacts on 2m which was fantastic. 70cm was a bit harder, and I struggled a bit getting the locals in the Melbourne suburbs.

Summer VHF-UHF Field Day 2023

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Last field day I went up One Tree Hill and while it’s a great spot (with lots of shade from the trees), most of my contacts were pretty nearby. So this time I decided to head further out and went portable on Anderson Hill road between Loch and Kernot (a little south of the summit of Anderson Hill and the radio rower).

The location has good line of sight towards melbourne, and also some great views. Even saw some birds of prey riding the air currents.

Christmas 2022

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I had a wonderful time down in Wonthaggi this Christmas.

It felt like I was only there for a day. Very relaxing, and great food.

On Boxing day I went up to Bass Hill, just 20 min from Wonthaggi, to scout a possible location for the 2023 summer VHF/UHF field day. Was worth going just for the views. With my binoculars I could see the Toora wind farm about 65KM away.

New T2LT Antenna for 15m

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After hearing reports that 15m was starting to open up, I built a very simple T2LT antenna based on the dimensions from Tim G5TM.

The SWR measured okay, lowest around 1.5. Initial tests looked good, but it was hard to tell as I have S9+ noise at home.

(SWR with ugly balun and ferrite choke. 8m fiberglass pole)

To really test it I needed to away from my local noise, so late Sunday afternoon I headed up to John’s Hill Reserve to try it out. The reserve is quiet, with little rf, and is a little over 400m ASL.

First WWFF Activation

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I did nothing all week, so late Sunday afternoon I decided to activate a park for the first time.

I went to Baluk William Nature Conservation Reserve (VKFF-2042) and setup my G90 and EFHW. It wasn’t far away, but I missed a turn, and Google Maps took me on a fun backroad.

Made 23 SSB contacts on 40m in about an hour. It was a bit nerve wracking at the start, but I think I kinda got the hang of it. Was very happy to make a ZL3 contact too.

Remembrance Day Contest 2022

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I took part in my first contest this weekend; The Remembrance Day Contest.

This contest commemorates the Amateurs who died during World War II and is designed to encourage friendly participation and help improve the operating skills of participants. It is held on the weekend closest to the 15th August, the date on which hostilities ceased in the southwest Pacific area.

I headed up to John’s Hill Reserve in the afternoon and setup my G90 + EFHW, and made 20 contacts over about 3:30 hours. While I didn’t make many contacts, I was impressed that all but one station (VK2) was able to hear me on this setup.

Is this what FT8 actually looks like?

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Went to new park in Mornington Peninsula with G90 and 40m EFHW yesterday.

I think I preferred it when I could only see 7-8 FT8 contacts each decode, now it’s hard just to find an open frequency.

The most messages I saw during one decode was 38.

Noticed 3 people doing POTA as well, I had never really thought about that. Maybe that’s a way I can avoid talking to people now that no one uses PSK31, or other digital modes.

HF is better away from people

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It turns out the best way to play with radios is away from everyone else.

I tried to find if someone had made a map of noise levels around Melbourne, but couldn’t find anything. Instead, I used a light pollution map, with the idea being less light pollution = less background noise.

Last weekend I spent a couple of hours at night, at boat ramp 50km south-east of the Melbourne CBD. And my hypothesis seems to have checked out.

Arthurs Seat

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Visited Arthus Seat last week in the late afternoon. Was nice.

Learning EAA

Sun, 10 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve start learning about Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA). I’ve only gone out a few times, and while I barely know what I’m doing, it’s been a nice way to spend a few hours outside at night.

I’m using a ASI485MC camera, with an Amazon 70mm doublet refractor, a AZI-Gti Goto Mount, and EQ Adapter (from the Star Adventurer).

Tonight was the first time using the mount in EQ mode and it took a couple of hours to get the process sorted. In the end I managed a 2-minute-of-angle alignment, resulting in tracking, goto, and plate solving all working with zero issues. With luck, next time will be a lot quicker.

Keyboard Sounds

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Short audio sample of typing on my Keychron K2v2 with Boba U4T switches, and MA Blue Cat keycaps.

Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos.

(Youtube mirror)

I’m way too old for newfangled mech keyboards. This setup is pleasant enough to type on and does sound quite nice to me. But overall is too tactile for my taste.

I also did not realise the Keychron had dropped any future support of remapping the keys on their wireless models when I purchased the K2v2 which was quite disappointing.

FM Frequencies

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been really bored recently. So I’ve been looking to see how many FM stations I could find.

Equipment is AirSpy HF+ Discovery, SDRSharp, and a Discone Antenna mounted ~2m above the ground.

The websites FM Scan and VHF Propagation Map have been very useful for identifying stations, and finding good times to listen.

Furthest station was ABC Classic in Griffith NSW. Bit over 400KM away.

Updated 2021-09-22: Added a couple of new entries, included basic signal quality, and updated code.

ISS SSTV

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last week the ISS was transmitting SSTV images. So I setup MMSSTV, and my FT818 with a new colinear antenna to see if I could receive any images.

It took a couple of days before I realised you can receive signals from the ISS even if the ISS isn’t “visible”, so I ended up leaving the radio on for the rest of the week. I actually received 14 images on the 27th (UTC) over 7 passes (!).

HF is sometimes Fun

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:00:00 +0000

That signal is actually pretty cool…

I think it’s JORN an OTHR, but it only sort of matches up.

Sometimes there was a preamble before it started, and then it would jump around frequencies a little.

They weren’t evenly spaced, the lowest I was around 6.9753 Mhz to the highest 6.9576Mhz (USB).

Around 10s between bursts too.

Don’t really know what is going on, but this is what I saved:

HF is not Fun

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 18:00:00 +0000

I’ve done almost nothing with HF for a while. I’m still demoralized by all the interference.

Turns out the what I was receiving wasn’t related to power supply… Or anything else I can track down.

This is what I receive on 40m with a Discone (VHF/UHF) and a Airspy HF+ Discovery.

Can just see FT8 at 7040Khz. And there is a cool looking signal at 6950Khz too.

More HF Radio

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A little more work on my magnetic loop antenna.

I switched from using a Wifi stepper to a little high torque 12v DC motor + gearbox. I really liked the Wifi Stepper, it was painless to setup and use. It was exactly what (I thought) I wanted. Unfortunately I couldn’t get enough torque at low RPM with the little steppers I had. My variable capacitor has much to large a range, and needs very fine adjustments.

Noisy Waterfall

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

New toy, cheap antenna, and an expensive power supply.

(1.5MB png. Noise doesn’t compress well)

Viewing the whole 0-30mhz shows some, ugh, noise.

Necrodancer PB

Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I said this was meant to be a place where I could look back on. So, here’s my new Necrodancer Cadence PB of 10:40.84 from 2021-01-14.

Something like 1:20 faster than my last run.

I got an amazing Dead Ringer quick kill (without knowing what I was doing, it just somehow worked) and then Boots of Leaping made a very fast Necrodancer kill too. It was a very lucky run.

Random Photos

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

More random stuff. First is Aura Vale Lake Park and the second is Kilcunda Surf Beach.

Mordialloc Pier

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Just a couple of random pictures from Mordialloc pier.

I need to sort out some sort of work flow for posts like this…

4G Antenna Fun

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been running Optus 4G as my primary internet connections for over a year now and most of the time it’s been fine.

This week the 2300Mhz band appeared to go down on my local tower, causing my modems to connect to another tower further away (I think). The performance was horrible and unusable.

Letting the modem decide what band to use resulted in it using 700Mhz (which honestly I didn’t know Optus even supported until I started writing this down). While it worked, it wasn’t great. I was getting about 5Mbps and latency spikes, but good enough to get stuff done.

Time is Hard Apparently

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Got my nerves together and tested the YouLoop last night with the same settings as my magnetic loop.

Thankfully it was just okay (but still amazing for the price/performance/size).

But it turns out modern computer hardware is still awful at keeping time. I noticed that my PC had drifted almost 3s in the last day. That’s too much for FT8 to cope with and I could see WSJT-X missing strong signals.

New Magnetic Loop Antenna

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I finally put together my small transmitting loop antenna. It’s held together with zip ties, sits on a PVC stand in my kitchen and overall is a real mess, but it’s a start and appears to (mostly) work.

Adjusting the capacitor feels almost impossible. I either need a great big reduction gearbox, or to build my own with a more reasonable capacitance range.

I tried to build a fancy coupling loop out of some nice expensive cable, but I don’t have a soldering iron powerful enough… So it’s a few strands of copper wire braided together.

Factorio 1.0

Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Factorio v1.0 has been released this week, in time to finish off my most recent map (with the Rampant mod for enemies and weapons).

It’s been over 4 years since I first played, and I’ve only recently learned the most important lesson for keeping it fun: Embrace the spaghetti. Don’t get annoyed and think you have to refactor all the time, don’t worry about things lining up or being the most efficient. Just keep building and expanding, it’s fun to look back at the mess you’ve made.

Terraria 1.4

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The final patch for Terraria, 1.4, came out last month. Thought I’d record my progress after a couple of weeks.

I’ve just playing on classic this time round. Think Empress and the Frost moon event is all that’s left.

Turns out I still cannot build anything that looks good.

But at least I’ve explored a bit on this large world

More ADS-B Random Stuff

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Made some changes in the last couple of days. I setup a new antenna outside and switched to different software running on a Pi that automatically feeds ADS-B Exchange). Was really painless using their Pi image, just flashing a SD card and editing some text files.

The only problem I had was related to my router/internet connections constantly making requests from different IPs. But that was a simple fix on my router (once I understood the problem anyway).

Mucking around ADS-B

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Been playing around with SDR using a RTLSDR dongle, and right now I’m receiving ADS-B from nearby aircraft.

Was shockingly easy to setup using ModeSDeco2 which even provides a local web interface (you would normally feed a site like ADS-B Exchange that combines the results from thousands of receivers around the world).

I’m using a simple dipole antenna stuck to a window with poor LOS to the sky (amazing planning), but I’d like to setup something a little better in the future and maybe feed too. So I thought I’d save some images of my current results to compare with later.

3D Printed Stencil

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In an attempt to keep my rubbish bin from being (accidentally) taken by my neighbors, I tried to make a 3D printed stencil to make my unit number a little more obvious.

The first version was just a simple stencil. This probably worked the best, but required you to be careful of over-spray.

Then I tried to be clever and make a two tone number and add a shield to make it easier to apply. The idea was you did the background using the new stencil, and then drop in the original stencil and do the foreground. This actually fixed the problem of over-spray nicely. But the result didn’t look very good.

Quick Tar Backup

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I can never remember tar command line arguments to do a simple backup of the filesystem, so this time I’ll write it down.

mkdir -p /backups
cd /backups
tar -zcvpf /backups/img.tar.gz --directory=/ --exclude=proc --exclude=sys --exclude=dev/pts --exclude=backups .
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

# wget http://$SERVER_IP:8000/img.tar.gz

Stolen from: https://old.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/475a9b/is_there_a_way_to_download_digital_ocean_server/

Intel NUC Spreadsheet

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Trying to get my head around all the different NUCs and their performance/price.

Price was taken from Amazon (in USD) and performance from PassMark. Neither are very accurate, but should be adequate for an overview.

Gen	Name	Model	Processor	Single/Multi PassMark	TDP	Price USD	Price / Performance	Notes
1	Sandy Bridge	DCCP847DYE	Celeron 847			17
2	Ivy Bridge	DC3217IYE	Core i3-3217U			17
2	Ivy Bridge	DC3217BY	Core i3-3217U			17
2	Ivy Bridge	DC53427HYE	Core i5-3427U			17
3	Bay Trail-M	DN2820FYKH	Celeron N2820			7.5
3	Bay Trail-M	DN2820FYKH	Celeron N2830			7.5
3	Bay Trail-I	DE3815TYKHE	Atom E3815			5
4	Haswell	D34010WYK	Core i3-4010U	929	2,441	15
4	Haswell	D34010WYKH	Core i3-4010U	929	2,441	15
4	Haswell	D54250WYK	Core i5-4250U	1,413	3,376	15	$350	4.0	9.6
4	Haswell	D54250WYKH	Core i5-4250U	1,413	3,376	15	$500	2.8	6.8
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i7RYH	i7-5557U	1,893	4,952	28
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i5RYH	i5-5250U	1,424	3,588	15	$440	3.2	8.2
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i5RYK	i5-5250U	1,424	3,588	15
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i3RYH	i3-5010U	1,161	3,057	15	$235	4.9	13.0
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i3RYK	i3-5010U	1,161	3,057	15
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i3MYHE	i3-5010U	1,161	3,057	15
5	Broadwell-U	NUC5i5MYHE	i5-5300U vPro	1,531	3,838	15	$289	5.3	13.3
5	Braswell	NUC5CPYH	Celeron N3050	469	879	6	$141	3.3	6.2
5	Braswell	NUC5PPYH	Pentium N3700	548	1,836	6	$190	2.9	9.7
5	Braswell	NUC5PGYH	Pentium N3700	548	1,836	6
6	Skylake-U	NUC6i3SYK	Core i3-6100U	1,302	3,607	15	$380	3.4	9.5
6	Skylake-U	NUC6i3SYH	Core i3-6100U	1,302	3,607	15	$380	3.4	9.5
6	Skylake-U	NUC6i5SYK	Core i5-6260U	1,592	4,360	15	$390	4.1	11.2
6	Skylake-U	NUC6i5SYH	Core i5-6260U	1,592	4,360	15	$350	4.5	12.5
6	Skylake-U	NUC6i7KYK	Core i7-6770HQ	1,908	9,719	45	$610	3.1	15.9
6	Apollo Lake	NUC6CAYH	Celeron J3455	771	2,112	10	$270	2.9	7.8
6	Apollo Lake	NUC6CAYS	Celeron J3455	771	2,112	10
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i7BNH	i7-7567U	2,261	6,464	28	$495	4.6	13.1
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i7BNHX1	i7-7567U	2,261	6,464	28	$580	3.9	11.1	16GB Optane
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i5BNH	i5-7260U	1,939	5,638	15	$420	4.6	13.4
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i5BNHX1	i5-7260U	1,939	5,638	15	$480	4.0	11.7	16GB Optane
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i5BNK	i5-7260U	1,939	5,638	15	$430	4.5	13.1	Short
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i3BNH	i3-7100U	1,359	3,766	15	$340	4.0	11.1
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i3BNHX1	i3-7100U	1,359	3,766	15	$500	2.7	7.5	16GB Optane
7	Kaby Lake-U (Baby Canyon)	NUC7i3BNK	i3-7100U	1,359	3,766	15	$350	3.9	10.8
7	Kaby Lake-U (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i5DNHE	i5-7300U	1,957	5,161	15	$500	3.9	10.3
7	Kaby Lake-U (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i5DNKE	i5-7300U	1,957	5,161	15	$500	3.9	10.3	Short
7	Kaby Lake-U (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i3DNHE	i3-7100U	1,359	3,766	15	$350	3.9	10.8
7	Kaby Lake-U (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i3DNKE	i3-7100U	1,359	3,766	15	$350	3.9	10.8	Short
7	Kaby Lake-R (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i7DNHE	i7-8650U	2,224	8,706	15	$670	3.3	13.0
7	Kaby Lake-R (Dawson Canyon)	NUC7i7DNKE	i7-8650U	2,224	8,706	15
7	Gemini Lake	NUC7PJYH	Pentium J5005	1,193	2,901	10	$215	5.5	13.5
7	Gemini Lake	NUC7CJYH	Celeron J4005	1,150	1,544	10	$145	7.9	10.6
8	Kaby Lake-G	NUC8i7HNK	Core i7‑8705G	2,219	9,928	65	$880	2.5	11.3
8	Kaby Lake-G	NUC8i7HVK	Core i7‑8809G	2,335	10,996	100	$1,050	2.2	10.5
8	Coffee Lake-U	NUC8i7BEH	i7-8559U	2,568	12,224	28	$560	4.6	21.8
8	Coffee Lake-U	NUC8i5BEH	i5-8259U	2,220	10,994	28	$550	4.0	20.0
8	Coffee Lake-U	NUC8i5BEK	i5-8259U	2,220	10,994	28	$579	3.8	19.0
8	Coffee Lake-U	NUC8i3BEH	i3-8109U	2,148	6,154	28	$302	7.1	20.4
8	Coffee Lake-U	NUC8i3BEK	i3-8109U	2,148	6,154	28	$344	6.2	17.9
8	Cannon Lake-U	NUC8i3CYSM	i3-8121U	1,654	4,802	15	$600	2.8	8.0	8GB + 1TB
8	Cannon Lake-U	NUC8i3CYSN	i3-8121U	1,654	4,802	15	$550	3.0	8.7
8	Whiskey Lake-U	NUC8i7INH	i7-8565U	2,344	8,921	15
8	Whiskey Lake-U	NUC8i5INH	i5-8265U	2,146	8,025	15
8	Apollo Lake	NUC8CCHKR	Celeron N3350	763	1,111	6

Wallabag + CapRover in 5m

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Wallabag “is a self hostable application for saving web pages”

CapRover “is an extremely easy to use app/database deployment & web server manager”

This is a quick and dirty setup for testing Wallabag (without full database or redis, or email, etc).

5m setup

Setup new app with persistent data enabled in CapRover
In App Configs add the environmental variable SYMFONY__ENV__DOMAIN_NAME and set it to the full URL of where you want Wallabag. e.g. https://wallabag.rover.example.com
Add two persistent directories ofr /var/www/wallabag/data/ and /var/www/wallabag/web/assets/images/
In the deployment tab scroll down to method 4 and enter: FROM wallabag/wallabag and deploy
In 30s Wallabag should be available at https://wallabag.rover.example.com
Default login is wallabag / wallabag so you probably want to go change that

Example App Configs

Issues

No CSS or images: Need to make sure SYMFONY__ENV__DOMAIN_NAME points to the full URL including protocol. e.g. https://wallabag.rover.example.com
502 error: Log into to server and check Docket logs. e.g. `
- docker service logs srv-captain--wallabag --follow or
- docker service ps srv-captain--wallabag --no-trunc

Download steam images

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Little Python program to download your images from your Steam gallery.

For each file it just downloads the images by its id and attempts to include some meta data about the image in a separate json file. For example:

{"Id": 1474149818, "Game": "Crypt of the NecroDancer", "Desc": "Bat out of hell", "Url": "https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/974353539926239721/3591AA940A42F9217105C02EEA90190796893CED/"}

Code uses requests and has been tested with Python 3.7 on Windows.

import requests
import re
from pathlib import Path
import json
from typing import List


# Because I'm lazy and probably the only person to ever run this
STEAM_ID = 'Ardren'
DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY = r'c:\Users\Matthewd\Dropbox\Screenshots-Steam'


def scan_gallery(username):
    file_ids = []
    page = 1

    while True:
        url = f"https://steamcommunity.com/id/{username}/screenshots/?p={page}&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid&privacy=14"
        r = requests.get(url)

        matches = list(re.finditer(r'<a href="https://steamcommunity\.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/\?id=(\d+)"', r.text))

        if len(matches) == 0:
            print(f"No more files found on page {page}")
            break

        print(f"Found {len(matches)} images on page {page}")

        for match in matches:
            file_ids.append(int(match.group(1)))

        page += 1

    return file_ids


def download_file_ids(base_directory: Path, file_ids: List[int]):
    for file_id in file_ids:

        download_filename = base_directory / f"{file_id}.jpeg"
        metadata_filename = base_directory / f"{file_id}.json"

        if download_filename.exists():
            print(f"Already downloaded {download_filename}")
            continue

        url = f"https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id={file_id}"
        r = requests.get(url)

        match = re.search('<a href="(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/[^/]+/[^/]+/)" target=', r.text)
        if match is None:
            print(f"Unable to find image_src for file_id {file_id}")
            continue

        create_metadata(metadata_filename, file_id, r.text)

        with download_filename.open('wb+') as f:
            r = requests.get(match.group(1))
            bytes_written = f.write(r.content)
            print(f"Downloaded {bytes_written} bytes to {download_filename}")


def create_metadata(metadata_filename: Path, file_id: int, html_detail_contents: str):
    game_name_match = re.search('<h3 class="ellipsis apphub_responsive_menu_title">([^<]+)</h3>', html_detail_contents)
    game_desc_match = re.search('<textarea class="descField" name="description" id="description" class="dynInput" maxlength="140">([^<]*)</textarea>', html_detail_contents)
    image_url_match = re.search('<a href="(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/[^/]+/[^/]+/)" target="_blank">', html_detail_contents)

    data = {
        'Id': file_id,
        'Game': game_name_match.group(1),
        'Desc': game_desc_match.group(1),
        'Url': image_url_match.group(1)
    }

    with metadata_filename.open('w+') as f:
        json.dump(data, f)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    download_file_ids(Path(DOWNLOAD_DIRECTORY), scan_gallery(STEAM_ID))

Website update

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hey look, HTTPS and colors

Edit: and block-quotes, and tables, and responsive images, and page titles

Website back up

Sun, 08 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Website back up today after long period of down time.

I think I would like to go back to recording things I do.

Even if they are small and useless, I think it would be heathy for me.

About

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 13:53:51 +1100

TP-Link TD-W8961N

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Product Link
Don’t buy one
If you’re too lazy to replace it, and you want to monitor your ADSL stats when it rains…

tp-w8961n-status.py

import telnetlib
import re
import time


class TPW8961N(object):

    def __init__(self, host):
        self.host = host

    def __enter__(self):
        self.con = telnetlib.Telnet(self.host, 23, 5)
        self.con.read_until('Password: ')
        self.con.write('admin\n')
        self.con.read_until('TP-LINK> ')
        return self

    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
        self.con.write('exit\n')
        self.con.read_all()

    def send_cmd(self, cmd):
        self.con.write(cmd.get_cmd() + '\n')
        response = self.con.read_until('TP-LINK> ')
        return cmd.parse(response)


class Command(object):
    def __init__(self):
        pass

    def get_cmd(self):
        pass

    def parse(self, string):
        pass


class StatusCommand(Command):
    def get_cmd(self):
        return 'wan adsl status'

    def parse(self, response):
        match = re.search('current modem status: (.*?)\r\n', response)
        if match is not None and match.group(1) == 'up':
            return 'up'
        else:
            return 'down'


class RateCommand(Command):
    def get_cmd(self):
        return 'wan adsl c'

    def parse(self, response):
        dl_match = re.search('near-end interleaved channel bit rate: (.*?) kbps\r\n', response)
        ul_match = re.search('far-end interleaved channel bit rate: (.*?) kbps\r\n', response)

        if dl_match is None or ul_match is None:
            return {'dl_rate': 0, 'ul_rate': 0}

        return {'dl_rate': int(dl_match.group(1)), 'ul_rate': int(ul_match.group(1))}


class QualityCommand(Command):
    def __init__(self, direction):
        if direction not in ['downstream', 'upstream']:
            raise Exception('Unknown direction, must be "downstream" or "upstream"')
        self.direction = direction
        super(Command, self).__init__()

    def get_cmd(self):
        if self.direction == 'downstream':
            return 'wan adsl l n'
        return 'wan adsl l f'

    def parse(self, response):
        noise_match = re.search('noise margin ' + self.direction + ': (.*?) db\r\n', response)
        attenuation_match = re.search('attenuation ' + self.direction + ': (.*?) db\r\n', response)

        if noise_match is None or attenuation_match is None:
            return {'noise': 0.0, 'attenuation': 0.0}

        return {'noise': float(noise_match.group(1)), 'attenuation': float(attenuation_match.group(1))}


if __name__ == '__main__':

    while True:
        try:
            print time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M-%S')
            with TPW8961N('192.168.1.1') as modem:
                print modem.send_cmd(StatusCommand())
                print modem.send_cmd(RateCommand())
                print modem.send_cmd(QualityCommand('downstream'))
                print modem.send_cmd(QualityCommand('upstream'))
            time.sleep(60)
        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            raise
        except e:
            print e

Picking a Practice Lock

Mon, 22 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I bought a transparent practice lock (5 pin with spools) from Massdrop a while ago, and thanks to some procrastinating had a proper go at it today. While it is just a practice lock, I struggled judging the correct tension when dealing with false sets, and the whole process felt more delicate than a basic lock. I feel like I might have given up on a standard lock before understanding how the lock behaved and why. Still, I need much, much more practice.

KBT Pure Pro 60% Keyboard Layout

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There’s not that much information about the (Vortex) KBT Pure Pro keyboard on the internet so I thought I’d add my notes here.

Layout:
  1x15
  1.5 1x12 1.5
  1.75 1x11 2.25
  2 1x13
  1.25 1x2 1.25 4.5 1x6

(1 unit = 0.75" or about 19mm)

Notable weird key sizes:
  \          1
  Backspace  1
  Del        1.5
  L Shift    2
  R Shift    1
  R Ctrl     1
  System     1
  Space      4.5
  R Alt      1

I’ve been playing with using Lua to generate parts of my wiki pages, below is the code to generate a simple SVG of the Pure Pro’s layout.

LuaJIT Benchmarks

Thu, 07 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been playing with Lua a little bit recently and was interested in getting an idea of the performance difference between Lua 5.3 and LuaJIT. (The LuaJIT website has very good page covering benchmarks. I just wanted to play around myself). Like the LuaJIT page I picked a few example programs from The Computer Language Benchmarks Game. Programs were run on a AMD-6300FX running Windows 8.

nbody.lua-4.lua 50000000

<th>
  Elapsed time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Kernel time (s)
</th>

<th>
  User time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Working set (KB)
</th>

  <td>
    469.36
  </td>

  <td>
    0.05
  </td>

  <td>
    467.05
  </td>

  <td>
    2,356
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit203
  </th>

  <td>
    26.28
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    26.20
  </td>

  <td>
    2,504
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit21
  </th>

  <td>
    26.31
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    26.25
  </td>

  <td>
    2,512
  </td>
</tr>

Version
lua53

fannkuchredux.lua 12

<th>
  Elapsed time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Kernel time (s)
</th>

<th>
  User time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Working set (KB)
</th>

  <td>
    1717.53
  </td>

  <td>
    0.14
  </td>

  <td>
    1710.78
  </td>

  <td>
    2,284
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit203
  </th>

  <td>
    105.33
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    105.16
  </td>

  <td>
    2,528
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit21
  </th>

  <td>
    106.06
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    105.91
  </td>

  <td>
    2,536
  </td>
</tr>

Version
lua53

spectralnorm.lua 5500

<th>
  Elapsed time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Kernel time (s)
</th>

<th>
  User time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Working set (KB)
</th>

  <td>
    199.65
  </td>

  <td>
    0.03
  </td>

  <td>
    199.38
  </td>

  <td>
    2,864
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit203
  </th>

  <td>
    4.89
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    4.88
  </td>

  <td>
    2,724
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit21
  </th>

  <td>
    4.89
  </td>

  <td>
    0.00
  </td>

  <td>
    4.88
  </td>

  <td>
    2,728
  </td>
</tr>

Version
lua53

binarytrees.lua-2.lua 2

<th>
  Elapsed time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Kernel time (s)
</th>

<th>
  User time (s)
</th>

<th>
  Working set (KB)
</th>

  <td>
    439.98
  </td>

  <td>
    13.95
  </td>

  <td>
    423.66
  </td>

  <td>
    1,072,400
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit203
  </th>

  <td>
    78.34
  </td>

  <td>
    2.22
  </td>

  <td>
    75.86
  </td>

  <td>
    928,076
  </td>
</tr>

<tr>
  <th>
    luajit21
  </th>

  <td>
    77.92
  </td>

  <td>
    1.75
  </td>

  <td>
    75.91
  </td>

  <td>
    811,984
  </td>
</tr>

Version
lua53

Summary Relative increase in speed over Lua 5.3.

Benchmark	lua53	luajit203	luajit2
nbody.lua-4.lua 50000000	1.00	17.83	17.79
fannkuchredux.lua 12	1.00	16.27	16.15
spectralnorm.lua 5500	1.00	40.86	40.86
binarytrees.lua-2.lua 20	1.00	5.58	5.58

Needless Abuse of Lua

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So, this is pretty awful. Cool too. Bust mostly awful.

bestoptionsna.lua

local function setoptions(f)
    local options = {}
    local currentname = nil
    local env = setmetatable({},
    {
        __index = function(self, method)
            if method == 'set' then
                return function(name)
                    if currentname ~= nil then
                        error('need to call "to" first')
                    end
                    currentname = name
                end
            elseif method == 'to' then
                return function(value)
                    if currentname == nil then
                        error('need to call "set" before "to"')
                    end
                    options[currentname] = value
                    currentname = nil
                end
            elseif method == 'enable' then
                return function(name)
                    options[name] = true
                end
            end
        end
    })

    -- close enough to fsetenv
    load(string.dump(f), nil, nil, env)()

    return options
end


local function pptable(t)
    for k,v in pairs(t) do
        print(k, '=', v)
    end
end

-- Cool way
local options = setoptions(function()
    set "port" to "8080"
    set "listen" to "127.0.0.1"
    enable "debug"
end)

pptable(options)


-- Boring way
options = {port='8080', listen='127.0.0.1', debug=true}

pptable(options)

Output

debug	=	true
port	=	8080
listen	=	127.0.0.1

debug	=	true
port	=	8080
listen	=	127.0.0.1

Useless Lua Code

Tue, 28 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Got a hex dump of some firmware which was in kinda an odd format (offsets, data, checksum(maybe?) in hexadecimal ascii text). Wrote a small script to dump the printable characters. Not really interesting.

dump-text.lua

local function readsection(f)
    local colon = f:read(1)
    if colon == nil then return nil end
    if colon ~= ':' then error('section did not start with colon') end
    local data = ''
    while true do
        local char = f:read(1)
        if(char:byte() == 13) then
            f:read(1) -- eat cr
            return data
        end
        data = data .. char
    end
end


local function decodecharacter(c)
    if c:len() ~= 1 then error('must be single character') end
    local map = {['0']=0, ['1']=1, ['2']=2, ['3']=3, ['4']=4, ['5']=5, ['6']=6,
                 ['7']=7, ['8']=8, ['9']=9, A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15}
    return map[c]
end


local function decodepair(s)
    if s:len() ~= 2 then error('must be two characters in length') end
    return (decodecharacter(s:sub(1,1)) * 16) + decodecharacter(s:sub(2,2))
end


local function decodesection(s)
    local offset = {}
    local data = {}

    -- todo: last two chars = checksum(offset+data)?
    for i=1, s:len(), 2 do
        local pair = s:sub(i, i+1)
        local value = decodepair(pair)

        if i <= 8 then
            table.insert(offset, value)
        else
            table.insert(data, value)
        end
    end
    return offset, data
end


local function safeprintdata(data)
    local chars = {}
    for index, byte in ipairs(data) do
        if byte >= 32 and byte <= 126 then
            table.insert(chars, string.char(byte))
        else
            table.insert(chars, '.')
        end
    end
    return table.concat(chars)
end


local f = io.open('P2008-V-02.08.02.hex', 'rb')

while true do
    line = readsection(f)
    if line == nil then break end
    local offset, data = decodesection(line)
    print(string.format('%-42s  %s', line, safeprintdata(data)))
end

Output

102170005B204D317878205D2020000000000000B9  [ M1xx ]  .......
102180005B204D313133205D202000000000000035  [ M113 ]  ......5
10219000562D30322E30382E3032202000000000F4  V-02.08.02  .....
1021A00028632920616C6973746172207379737478  (c) alistar systx
1021B000656D732C20323030312D32303132202099  ems, 2001-2012  .

Crimsonland Pak Format Again

Sat, 29 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Have been spending a little bit of time playing with Lua and an early project was to rewrite the Python script for reading a Crimsonland Pak file. So far I’m enjoying Lua and its language design, even with the very limited standard libraries.

clpak.lua

BinaryFile = {}

BinaryFile.new = function(file)
    return setmetatable({file=file}, {__index=BinaryFile})
end

BinaryFile.readint32 = function(self)
    local data = self.file:read(4)
    return (data:byte(4) * (256^3)) +
           (data:byte(3) * (256^2)) +
           (data:byte(2) * (256^1)) +
           (data:byte(1) * (256^0))
end

BinaryFile.readnulstring = function(self)
    local buf = ''
    while true do
        local ch = self.file:read(1)
        if ch:byte() == 0 then break end
        buf = buf .. ch
    end
    return buf
end

BinaryFile.read = function(self, ...)
    return self.file:read(...)
end

BinaryFile.skip = BinaryFile.read

BinaryFile.seek = function(self, ...)
    return self.file:seek(...)
end


local readindex = function(filename)
    local f  = io.open(filename, 'rb')
    local bf = BinaryFile.new(f)

    -- Header
    assert(bf:readnulstring() == 'PAK')
    assert(bf:readnulstring() == 'V11')

    -- index offsets
    local indexstartoffset = bf:readint32()
    local indexendoffset   = bf:readint32()

    -- just to index
    bf:seek('set', indexstartoffset)

    -- number of entries
    local indexsize = bf:readint32()

    local index = {}

    for i=1, indexsize do
        table.insert(index, {
            name   = bf:readnulstring(),
            offset = bf:readint32(),
            length = bf:readint32()
        })

        -- Unknown (junk?)
        bf:skip(8)
    end

    f:close()

    return index
end


local index = readindex('D:\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\Crimsonland\\data.pak')

for _,v in ipairs(index) do
    print(string.format('name:%s offset:%d length:%d', v.name, v.offset, v.length))
end

CloudFlare FlexSSL

Sun, 12 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks to CloudFlare this website now sortof has a SSL cert. Lots of posts needed to be cleaned up with links and embedded content that forced http (rather than being agnostic). Was interesting looking to look back at the old posts (first was in Jan 2006!). So much awful code; but I’m happy that I recorded it somewhere.

Who Hung up an Asterisk Call

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Little snippet to work out which party hung up on a call in Asterisk.

extensions.conf

; Detect which party hungup an Asterisk call
; If we (the caller) hangup after Dial() we jump directly to h
; Because of the 'g' option if the other party hangs up we continue on
exten => s,1,Set(whoHungUp=CALLER)
exten => s,n,Dial(IAX2/provider/${number},,g)
exten => s,n,Set(whoHungUp=OTHERPARTY)
exten => s,n,Hangup
exten => h,1,NoOp(whoHungUp ${whoHungUp})

Crimsonland (Steam) Pak Format

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A remake of Crimsonland was recently released on Steam (and soon PS4/Vita) and I thought I’d take a look at the pak data file. Didn’t turn out to be anything really interesting, just art assets, sounds, music, and some frontend lua. But was good fun (even if it was a simple format).

clpak.py

import os
import struct


"""
Crimsonland (Steam) pak file format
Header format:
50 40 4B 00 56 31 31 00   ("PAK" NUL "V11" NUL)
int32 index offset     (eg: 28679361)
int32 end index offset (eg: 28885444)
Index Format:
int32 number of indexes?
Index_File format:
null terminated string
int32 absolute offset of file
int32 file length
unknown maybe always (?) equal to: FF 26 E2 50 20 00 00 00
"""


class ClPak(object):
    def __init__(self, filename):
        self.file = open(filename, 'rb')

    def read_header(self):
        self.file.seek(0)
        bytes = self.file.read(16)

        (magic_1, magic_2, index_start_offset, index_end_offset) = 
            struct.unpack('3sx3sxii', bytes)

        if magic_1 != 'PAK' or magic_2 != 'V11':
            raise Exception('Unknown file format')

        return index_start_offset, index_end_offset


    def read_index(self):
        start_offset, end_offset = self.read_header()

        self.file.seek(start_offset)
        bytes = self.file.read(end_offset - start_offset)

        # index_size = struct.unpack('i', bytes[:4])

        return self.read_index_file_details(bytes[4:])


    def read_index_file_details(self, bytes):

        details = {'name': '', 'offset': 0, 'length': 0, 'unknown': ''}

        sequence = iter(bytes)

        for char in sequence:
            if char != chr(0):
                details['name'] += char
            else:
                offset_bytes = sequence.next() + sequence.next() +
                               sequence.next() + sequence.next()
                length_bytes = sequence.next() + sequence.next() +
                               sequence.next() + sequence.next()

                (details['offset'],) = struct.unpack('i', offset_bytes)
                (details['length'],) = struct.unpack('i', length_bytes)

                for x in range(0, 8):
                    details['unknown'] += sequence.next()

                yield details

                details = {'name': '', 'offset': 0, 'length': 0, 'unknown': ''}


    def dump_file(self, details, base_directory):
        dest_filename = base_directory + '/' + details['name']

        if not os.path.exists(os.path.dirname(dest_filename)):
            os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(dest_filename))

        with open(dest_filename, 'wb') as dest:
            self.file.seek(details['offset'])
            dest.write(self.file.read(details['length']))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    cl_pak = ClPak(r'D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Crimsonland\data.pak')
    for file_details in cl_pak.read_index():
        print file_details
        cl_pak.dump_file(file_details, 'd:/clpak_files')

Global Hot Keys in Python for Windows

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I used to think I had a basic understanding of Python. I’m not so sure anymore…

globalhotkeys.py

import ctypes
import ctypes.wintypes
import win32con


class GlobalHotKeys(object):
    """
    Register a key using the register() method, or using the @register decorator
    Use listen() to start the message pump
    Example:
    from globalhotkeys import GlobalHotKeys
    @GlobalHotKeys.register(GlobalHotKeys.VK_F1)
    def hello_world():
        print 'Hello World'
    GlobalHotKeys.listen()
    """

    key_mapping = []
    user32 = ctypes.windll.user32

    MOD_ALT = win32con.MOD_ALT
    MOD_CTRL = win32con.MOD_CONTROL
    MOD_CONTROL = win32con.MOD_CONTROL
    MOD_SHIFT = win32con.MOD_SHIFT
    MOD_WIN = win32con.MOD_WIN

    @classmethod
    def register(cls, vk, modifier=0, func=None):
        """
        vk is a windows virtual key code
         - can use ord('X') for A-Z, and 0-1 (note uppercase letter only)
         - or win32con.VK_* constants
         - for full list of VKs see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd375731.aspx
        modifier is a win32con.MOD_* constant
        func is the function to run.  If False then break out of the message loop
        """

        # Called as a decorator?
        if func is None:
            def register_decorator(f):
                cls.register(vk, modifier, f)
                return f
            return register_decorator
        else:
            cls.key_mapping.append((vk, modifier, func))


    @classmethod
    def listen(cls):
        """
        Start the message pump
        """

        for index, (vk, modifiers, func) in enumerate(cls.key_mapping):
            if not cls.user32.RegisterHotKey(None, index, modifiers, vk):
                raise Exception('Unable to register hot key: ' + str(vk))

        try:
            msg = ctypes.wintypes.MSG()
            while cls.user32.GetMessageA(ctypes.byref(msg), None, 0, 0) != 0:
                if msg.message == win32con.WM_HOTKEY:
                    (vk, modifiers, func) = cls.key_mapping[msg.wParam]
                    if not func:
                        break
                    func()

                cls.user32.TranslateMessage(ctypes.byref(msg))
                cls.user32.DispatchMessageA(ctypes.byref(msg))

        finally:
            for index, (vk, modifiers, func) in enumerate(cls.key_mapping):
                cls.user32.UnregisterHotKey(None, index)


    @classmethod
    def _include_defined_vks(cls):
        for item in win32con.__dict__:
            item = str(item)
            if item[:3] == 'VK_':
                setattr(cls, item, win32con.__dict__[item])


    @classmethod
    def _include_alpha_numeric_vks(cls):
        for key_code in (range(ord('A'), ord('Z')) + range(ord('0'), ord('9'))):
            setattr(cls, 'VK_' + chr(key_code), key_code)


# Not sure if this is really a good idea or not?
#
# It makes decorators look a little nicer, and the user doesn't have to explicitly use win32con (and we add missing VKs
# for A-Z, 0-9
#
# But there no auto-complete (as it's done at run time), and lint'ers hate it
GlobalHotKeys._include_defined_vks()
GlobalHotKeys._include_alpha_numeric_vks()

globalhotkeys_test.py

from globalhotkeys import GlobalHotKeys


@GlobalHotKeys.register(GlobalHotKeys.VK_F1, GlobalHotKeys.MOD_SHIFT)
def hello_world():
    print "Hello World!"


@GlobalHotKeys.register(GlobalHotKeys.VK_F2)
def hello_world_2():
    print "Hello World again?"


# Q and ctrl will stop message loop
GlobalHotKeys.register(GlobalHotKeys.VK_Q, 0, False)
GlobalHotKeys.register(GlobalHotKeys.VK_C, GlobalHotKeys.MOD_CTRL, False)

# start main loop
GlobalHotKeys.listen()

Phone Fun (Snom300)

Thu, 29 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

"""
Finds all Snom brand phones in a /24 and tells them to key in 6405 turn on
the hands free speaker.  (6405 is an extension that plays the stock monkies
sound from Asterisk)
"""

import urllib2
import socket
import sys

def enumerate_snom_ips(base):
    original_timeout = socket.getdefaulttimeout()
    socket.setdefaulttimeout(0.2)

    ips_to_check = [base + '.' + str(i) for i in range(2, 255)]
    snom_ips = []

    for ip in ips_to_check:
        try:
            data = urllib2.urlopen('http://' + ip + '/index.htm').read()
            if '<TITLE>snom 300</TITLE>' in data:
                snom_ips.append(ip)
        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            sys.exit()
        except:
            pass

    socket.setdefaulttimeout(original_timeout)

    return snom_ips


def send_command(ip, key):
    urllib2.urlopen('http://' + ip + '/command.htm?key=' + key).read()

def monkies(ip):
    for key in ['6', '4', '0', '5', 'SPEAKER']:
        send_command(ip, key)

print 'monkies.py - Finding all Snom phones...'
for ip in enumerate_snom_ips('10.10.12'):
    print ip
    monkies(ip)

Python + matplotlib

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

After two hours solid of banging my head against a wall trying to get matplotlib do what I wanted, I was able to go from this LibreOffice graph:

To something a little nicer:

It’s still ugly, and confusing, but it’s a lot closer to what I wanted. The IPython environment is a interesting way of working with data too. I will have to play around with it more in the future.

OCAU for sale RSS feed (v2)

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

(View previous version of this page)

Based on the old hourly RSS feeds for Overclockers Australia marketplace forums, are a new set of feeds that update much faster (and are much nicer to the OCAU website).

As before the code to generate these files is avaiable on GitHub

Tyrian Music

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Tyrian is a vertical shooter by World Tree Games released in 1995 and published by Epic games. I have fond memories of the music (and game) but was having trouble finding a copy of the soundtrack as MP3s (etc).

Luckily this site has a copy of the original LDS (Loudness Sound System) files and using Foobar2k + AdPlug input component I was able to get them to play (note: the component expects the extension to be be ldsa). While I was at it, I also made a copy of them as MP3 files.

Website downtime

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

My website went down for around 1:30 to 2 hours today, which was a little odd. After it came back up I noticed the 15min load was > 30. Turns out someone tried to log into WordPress which isn’t that odd. It happens all the time, so much so that I run Limit Login Attempts plugin to apply a 20min timeout a IP address after 4 incorrect attempts (and then a 24 hour timeout after 16 attempts). This time though, it was a kind of a large attack.

MetaBright PHP Challenge

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

MetaBright is a quiz/community-challenges website focusing on programming and development. I recently found out about a new general PHP section and gave it a go. Overall it was a fun diversion, though a handful of questions were a little odd (like the hash size for RIPEMD vs Whirlpool vs GOST vs MD5). I managed to get to second place on the leader-board, and with a itsy-little bug managed to take first place (of course this is a new section so there isn’t much competition).

Bliss n Eso – Circus in the Sky (Official Trailer)

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The trailer for the new Bliss n Eso album Circus in the Sky, based/inspired by Kid’s Story from the Animatrix (the Animatrix DVD is visible falling from the locker).

Diablo3 Farming + Python

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t played that much Diablo 3 recently, but since the last patch I’ve done a little bit of Demonic Essence farming in Warrior’s Rest. To get an idea of how efficient it is, I wrote a really hack’ish Python script to track some stats and used Tim Golden’s example code for catching global key presses in Windows. The script allowed me to press Shift+F1 or Shift+F2 while inside Diablo 3 to record a time stamp and whether or not I got an essence in the previous run. Note that the code is pretty horrible, but it was a 20 minute project and I only needed something quick and dirty.

Christmas 2012

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

I swear I just don’t like people or something.

Mouth of the Powlett River

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

From Christmas 2012.

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

Portsea

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

DCUO: Healing Weapon Skills

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just for my own reference:

<th>
  Restoration
</th>

<th>
  Crit Chance
</th>

<th>
  Crit Multiplier
</th>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
  1
</td>

<td>
  12
</td>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  14
</td>

<td>
  45
</td>

<td>
  1
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  45
</td>

<td>
  1
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  45
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  2
</td>

<td>
  47
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  4
</td>

<td>
  2
</td>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
  2
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
  2
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  14
</td>

<td>
  3
</td>

<td>
</td>

<td>
  12
</td>

Type
Hand Blasters
One Handed
Dual Pistol
Shield
Martial Arts
Dual Wield
Two Handed
Brawling
Rifle
Staff
Bow

Firewall Fun: pf, tables, and state

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I hate firewalls. Hate them. If you are using pf and wish to block a specific ip address using a simple table and a block quick rule it turns out just adding an ip to the table isn’t enough… pf wont actually block a new ip if it already has state information about it, instead it continues to let all traffic through. The solution is to remove all the state rules for the ip too:

LoL + Firewall Problems

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Since upgrading my router to a Billion BiPAC 7800N I’ve been having trouble joining a new game in LoL; it sometimes takes up to 3 retries just to get to the loading screen. After connecting all is well but it’s a little annoying having to wait around every game. After doing some searching this seems to be a common problem with this router. Luckily there is a easy fix (even if it makes little sense). In the router configuration under Advanced -> Configuration -> QoS add a new QoS item.

League of Legends Login Screen

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Riot make some pretty nice login screens for their game League of Legends. They are frequently changing as they make a new one for each new champion released. The latest champion, Vi, has one the best login screens so far in my opinion. You can of course view it by downloading Lead of Legends, but I’ve also made a copy available here (may take a minute to load).

DCUO: CR Calculator

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_weapon">Weapon</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_weapon"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_weapon_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_head">Head</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_head"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_head_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_neck">Neck</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_neck"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_neck_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_back">Back</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_back"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_back_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_chest">Chest</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_chest"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_chest_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_legs">Legs</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_legs"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_legs_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_ring1">Ring 1</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_ring1"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_ring1_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_trinket">Trinket</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_trinket"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_trinket_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_face">Face</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_face"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_face_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_shoulders">Shoulders</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_shoulders"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_shoulders_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_hands">Hands</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_hands"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_hands_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_waist">Waist</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_waist"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_waist_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_feet">Feet</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_feet"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_feet_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_ring2">Ring 2</label></td>
    <td><input id="post615_ring2"     type="text" class="post615_input"></td>
    <td><input id="post615_ring2_mod" type="text" class="post615_input_mod"></td>
</tr>

<tr>
    <td><label for="post615_total"><strong>Total</strong></label></td>
    <td colspan="2"><input type="text" id="post615_total" disabled></td>
</tr>

Slot	Item Level	Mod Bonus

Reseting Saved Password in Eudora

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I was having trouble updating the password used for SMTP in Eudora 7. I couldn’t find a way to enter a new password, or get the client to forget the currently saved password. (Maybe be an issue with Gmail server sending a generic error message, rather than telling the client they have the wrong username/password?)

To manually reset the saved password in Eudora 7, close Eduora and find the Eduora.ini file located in:

Fireworks

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Got lost on my way to the kitchen for dinner.

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

(Dandenong Show 2012)

Yay manuals!

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

cannot alloc NNN bytes for lncntp
Fsck_ffs's request for memory for its virtual memory  tables
failed.  This  should  never  happen. Fsck_ffs terminates on
this error condition. See a guru.

Well that is useful.

(I fixed it with “ulimit -d unlimited”)

Unlimited Bandwidth

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

What happens after using a couple of terrabytes of bandwidth on a cheap VPS that advertises unmetered bandwidth:

root@section8:/tmp# wget freevps.us/downloads/bench.sh -O - -o /dev/null|bash
CPU model :  QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0
Number of cores : 1
CPU frequency :  2099.998 MHz
Total amount of ram : 242 MB
Total amount of swap : 0 MB
System uptime :   3 min,
Download speed from CacheFly: 5.70KB/s
Download speed from Linode, Atlanta GA: 8.46KB/s
^C

(After fresh restart with no other services running in the background)

Well, there’s your problem

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

RX packets:5997422 errors:0 dropped:2667581352578970 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3206993 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:509512605 (485.9 MiB)  TX bytes:323715702 (308.7 MiB)

Melb Gardens

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Little bit late to ‘screwing-around-with-multiple-exposures’ party…

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

Yosi Horikawa: Wandering EP

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Wandering EP by Yosi Horikawa

Yosi Horikawa is a Japanese producer whose music truly deserves the adjective original. Born in Osaka, Yosi first started making music at age 12, recording in his bedroom using his voice and various found and made sounds – tapping on the side of his bed soon became a kick drum for example. Overdubbing across two tape decks, Yosi started on his own musical journey in a DIY style that continues to define him today.

Armageddon 2012

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This really is quite unlike me 2 things in 2 weekends, but here are some photos from Armageddon 2012 in Melbourne.

(Re: Horrible quality. My poor camera+lense didn’t like what I was asking of them due to the poor lighting, position and my lack of skill. I need a media pass or something :-/)

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

EB Expo 2012

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend I attended the EB Expo 2012 in Sydney (really, it was just an excuse to wear my Teemo hat). I thought I’d just quickly note down my impressions of the games that I looked at and the event in general.

(Might go back and clean up this list later… [But I’ll never get around to it])

Venue

The venue itself was good with plenty of room; 2 halls and a 3rd building for extra stuff like inidie developers, tournaments, king comics, madman, etc. I thought there could have been more cool stuff from vendors, but I’m guessing EB wanted to be the only place selling stuff. There was also a distinct lack of swag, very few booths even had bags. I actually like getting random stickers, posters, mousepads, magazines, pens, notepads, etc.

Cardinia Reservoir

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Cardinia Reservoir

Mech warrior online weapons stats

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Lasted Updated 2012-10-26

Stats	Slots	Tons	Damage	Heat	Cooldown	Long Range	Max Range	Dps	Dps per ton
AutoCannon2	1.0	6.0	2.0	1.0	0.5	720.0	2160.0	4.0	0.67
AutoCannon5	4.0	8.0	5.0	1.0	1.7	540.0	1620.0	2.94	0.37
AutoCannon10	7.0	12.0	10.0	3.0	2.5	450.0	1350.0	4.0	0.33
AutoCannon20	10.0	14.0	20.0	7.0	4.0	270.0	810.0	5.0	0.36
LB10XAutoCannon	6.0	11.0	10.0	2.0	2.5	540.0	1620.0	4.0	0.36
UltraAutoCannon5	5.0	9.0	5.0	1.0	1.1	600.0	1800.0	4.55	0.51
SmallLaser	1.0	0.5	3.0	2.0	2.25	90.0	180.0	1.33	2.67
MediumLaser	1.0	1.0	5.0	4.0	3.0	270.0	540.0	1.67	1.67
LargeLaser	2.0	5.0	9.0	7.0	3.25	450.0	900.0	2.77	0.55
ERLargeLaser	2.0	5.0	9.0	10.0	3.25	675.0	1350.0	2.77	0.55
SmallPulseLaser	1.0	1.0	3.0	3.0	2.25	90.0	180.0	1.33	1.33
MediumPulseLaser	1.0	2.0	6.0	5.0	3.0	180.0	360.0	2.0	1.0
LargePulseLaser	2.0	7.0	10.0	9.0	3.25	300.0	600.0	3.08	0.44
PPC	3.0	7.0	10.0	9.0	3.0	540.0	1080.0	3.33	0.48
ERPPC	3.0	7.0	10.0	13.0	3.0	810.0	1620.0	3.33	0.48
StreakSRM2	1.0	1.5	5.0	2.0	3.5	270.0	270.0	1.43	0.95
SRM2	1.0	1.0	5.0	2.0	3.5	270.0	270.0	1.43	1.43
SRM4	1.0	2.0	10.0	3.0	3.75	270.0	270.0	2.67	1.33
SRM6	2.0	3.0	15.0	4.0	4.0	270.0	270.0	3.75	1.25
LRM5	1.0	2.0	10.0	2.0	3.25	1000.0	1000.0	3.08	1.54
LRM10	2.0	5.0	20.0	4.0	3.75	1000.0	1000.0	5.33	1.07
LRM15	3.0	7.0	30.0	5.0	4.25	1000.0	1000.0	7.06	1.01
LRM20	5.0	10.0	40.0	6.0	4.75	1000.0	1000.0	8.42	0.84
MachineGun	1.0	0.5	0.04	0.0	0.0	90.0	200.0	0.0	0.0
Flamer	1.0	1.0	0.4	0.6	0.0	64.0	64.0	0.0	0.0
GaussRifle	7.0	15.0	15.0	1.0	4.0	660.0	1980.0	3.75	0.25
Anti_Missile_System	1.0	0.5	2.0	0.0	0.0	90.0	200.0	0.0	0.0
NarcBeacon	2.0	3.0	0.0	0.0	3.5	270.0	270.0	0.0	0.0
TAG	1.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	450.0	450.0	0.0	0.0

PCRE and newlines (in PHP)

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I just wasted far too much time trying to work out why a regex would work for my example test cases but not with real data. Turns out “.”, DOT_ALL, and newlines are more complicated than I realised.

My problem essentially came down to not knowing that the IMAP messages I was working with used CRLF and that my OS/shell/applications were silently converting text to LF when I was constructing my test cases.

Guildwars 2 BWE Impressions

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The BWE is now over. I thought I’d record some of my thoughts (good and bad) from my play through this weekend. Overall I played ~25 hours split over two characters, a level 14 char Elementalist and a level 21 Norn Guardian.

Note: I’ve been following GW2 for a while now, and while getting hyped up, I still knew what to expect for the most part.. With that, I had high hopes and I think they were almost all met.

Guild Wars Hall of Monuments

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Today, over six years after I first played Guild Wars I’ve achieved 30 / 50 points in the Hall of Monuments.

Monument Collection (Text)

Post-Increment Variable Bug

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Found this little bug today in some old (untested code). I was amused that the code would have worked using pre-increment operator (and yet, still been wrong).

# Simplified example, in the original code this was 3 lines long
# Assume use_record_map = false;
record_id = (use_record_map) ? lookup_record_id(foo) : record_id++;

Pythons lack of ++ / — operators makes a little more sense now (one extra character in exchange for removing several type of bugs. Even if they are rather obvious bugs).

New Car :)

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Guild Wars: E/Me Vaettir Farm

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

E/Me Obsidian Flesh Vaettir Farm (HM)

Skills

OgVFI7QIlMPkLo0n2wXlBgMwSgWF
Elemental Lord (Optional)
Glyph of Swiftness
Obsidian Flesh
Stoneflesh Aura
Mantra of Earth
Wastrel’s Worry
Arcane Echo
Storm Djinn’s Haste (Optional)

Attributes

12 + 3 + 1 Earth Magic
3 + 1 Energy Storage
4 Air Magic
4 Inspiration Magic
11 Domination

Weapon

Guild Wars: Capturing a Black Widow spider

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Some more random Fraps footage this time from Guild Wars. Been busy getting points in the Hall of Monuments.

Nothing impressive, but I had never done much end-game content, and maybe it will help save someone else some gold after seeing how easy it is.

I took 6 heros: Three Discordway Necros, Prot Monk, Panic Mesmer and a SoS Ritulist. Ump came with me on his Barrage Ranger, and I had some stupid Ele/R spec (with unspent points…).

Diablo 2 Fun

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Just some fraps footage I had on my HDD taking up space

I follow Umpa around as he kills Lilith, Uber Izual, Uber Duriel, Uber Mephisto, Uber Baal and finally Pandemonium Diablo.

Recorded 2nd July 2011

US West Ladder

My Character

Roman Numerals

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

From reddit.com/r/programingchallenges:

I googled this and I haven’t found a similar challenge, so I’d like to pose this question to you all!

Let’s say I give you a range from 1 to 2000. Within this range, find the number that yields the most characters. I asked a friend of mine and he worked out that 1888 has a lot of characters (MDCCCLXXXVIII).

Solution

import time

SYMBOLS = [
    ('M',   1000),
    ('CM',  900),
    ('D',   500),
    ('CD',  400),
    ('C',   100),
    ('XC',  90),
    ('L',   50),
    ('XL',  40),    
    ('X',   10),
    ('IX',  9),
    ('V',   5),
    ('IV',  4),
    ('I',   1)]

def roman_numeral(number):
    roman_number = [];
    for (symbol, value) in SYMBOLS:
        while value <= number:
            roman_number.append(symbol)
            number -= value
    return ''.join(roman_number);


start = time.time();

pairs = [(i, roman_numeral(i)) for i in range(1, 2000)]
pairs.sort(lambda a,b: cmp(len(a[1]), len(b[1])))

print 'Longest roman numeral for numbers 1-2000 = %d -> %s' %  \
    (pairs[-1][0], pairs[-1][1])

print 'Took: %.2fsec' % (time.time() - start,)

Output

Longest roman numeral for numbers 1-2000 = 1888 -> MDCCCLXXXVIII
Took: 0.14sec

Notes

Turns out historically there wasn’t a strict set of rules for Roman numerals, for example IV and IIII are both valid representations of the number 4. Only recent rules have added limits on the number of repeated characters and what values can be subtracted from other values. [Reference][2].

IP Address Range PHP Class

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure how useful this piece of code really is, but it gave me the chance to write some funky PHP code (have a look at the next() method).

Example usage

<?php

// Single host:
foreach(new IpRange('10.10.10.10') as $ip)
{
    echo $ip . "\n"
}

// >>> 10.10.10.10


// All hosts on a private network:
foreach(new IpRange('192.168.0.1-255') as $ip)
{
    echo $ip . "\n";
}

// >>> 192.168.0.1
// >>> 192.168.0.2
// >>> ...
// >>> 192.168.0.254
// >>> 192.168.0.255


// All normal (not broadcast, or multicast) IP addresses:
foreach(new IpRange('1-232.0-255.0-255.0-255') as $k => $v)
{
    echo "$k => $v\n";
}

// >>> 0 => 1.0.0.0
// >>> 1 => 1.0.0.1
// >>> 2 => 1.0.0.2
// >>> ...
// >>> 7315795 => 1.111.161.83
// >>> 7315796 => 1.111.161.84
// >>> etc

Source

<?php

    /*

    Copyright (c) 2011, Matthew Davey <matthewd@project-2501.net>
    All rights reserved.

    Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
    modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

        Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
        this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

        Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
        notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
        documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

    THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
    AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
    IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
    ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
    LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
    CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
    SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
    INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
    CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
    ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
    POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

    */


    /*

    IpRange Class

    Given an IP address where each octet can either be a number between 0 and
    255, or a range i.e. 100-200.  Return an iterable object that returns all
    IP addresses in between.


    Examples
    --------


    Single host:
        foreach(new IpRange('10.10.10.10') as $ip)
        {
            echo $ip . "\n"
        }

        >>> 10.10.10.10


    All hosts on a private network:
        foreach(new IpRange('192.168.0.1-255') as $ip)
        {
            echo $ip . "\n";
        }

        >>> 192.168.0.1
        >>> 192.168.0.2
        >>> ...
        >>> 192.168.0.254
        >>> 192.168.0.255


    All normal (not broadcast, or multicast) IP addresses:
        foreach(new IpRange('1-232.0-255.0-255.0-255') as $key => $value)
        {
            echo "$key => $value\n";
        }

        >>> 0 => 1.0.0.0
        >>> 1 => 1.0.0.1
        >>> 2 => 1.0.0.2
        >>> ...
        >>> 7315795 => 1.111.161.83
        >>> 7315796 => 1.111.161.84
        >>> etc

    */

    class IpRange implements Iterator
    {
        protected $count; // Current position, used as the key

        protected $a; // ranges for each octet, l => low, h => high
        protected $b; //
        protected $c; // Most significant to least is aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
        protected $d; //

        protected $ca; // current value of a
        protected $cb; // current value of b
        protected $cc; // current value of c
        protected $cd; // current value of d

        protected $isValid; // flag set when next() is call at end of ranges

        public function __construct($string)
        {
            if(preg_match('#^(\d+|\d+-\d+)\.(\d+|\d+-\d+)\.(\d+|\d+-\d+)\.(\d+|\d+-\d+)$#', $string, $matches) !== 1)
            {
                throw new InvalidArgumentException('Invalid format.  Each octet should either be a number between 0 and 255, or a range "40-120"');
            }

            // Parse each octet and find the low/high values (high === low if there is no range specified)
            foreach(array(1 => 'a', 2 => 'b', 3 => 'c', 4 => 'd') as $i => $position)
            {
                $range = $matches[$i];

                if(strpos($range, '-') !== false)
                {
                    list($low, $high) = explode('-', $range);
                }
                else
                {
                    list($low, $high) = array($range, $range);
                }

                // Check the IP address is at least mostly valid.  We don't need to check for <0 as our regex will reject it first.
                if($high > 255) throw new InvalidArgumentException("Invalid IP address.  The octet '$high' cannot be greater than 255");

                // If given a range like 255-0, flip the high/low value over
                if($low > $high) list($high, $low) = array($low, $high);

                $this->{$position} = array('l' => $low, 'h' => $high);
            }

            $this->rewind();
        }

        public function current()
        {
            return "{$this->ca}.{$this->cb}.{$this->cc}.{$this->cd}";
        }

        public function key()
        {
            return $this->count;
        }

        public function rewind()
        {
            $this->ca = $this->a['l'];
            $this->cb = $this->b['l'];
            $this->cc = $this->c['l'];
            $this->cd = $this->d['l'];

            $this->count = 0;

            $this->isValid = true;
        }

        public function valid()
        {
            return $this->isValid;
        }

        public function next()
        {
            $this->count++;

            // Least significant to most.  Null is our guard.
            foreach(array('d', 'c', 'b', 'a', null) as $position)
            {
                // Check if unable to generate the next IP address
                if($position === null)
                {
                    $this->isValid = false;
                    break;
                }

                // Check if the value is less than the maximum for this
                // position, if so increment the value and stop.  Otherwise set
                // this position to its lowest value, and continue onto the next
                // highest position.
                if($this->{"c$position"} < $this->{$position}['h'])
                {
                    $this->{"c$position"}++;
                    break;
                }
                else
                {
                    $this->{"c$position"} = $this->{$position}['l'];
                }
            }
        }
    }

VPN Week – IPSec on OpenBSD

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This week I’ve spent a lot of time mucking around with IPSec VPNs. I thought I should informally document some of my settings in the hope that in a years time, when I’ve forgotten everything, I have some sort of base to build on.

OS: OpenBSD >= 3.8 / Windows 7

Protocol: IPSec

Part 1 – Common Configuration

Make sure the following are enabled (via /etc/sysctl.conf or the sysctl command)

net.inet.ip.forwarding=1
net.inet.esp.enable=1
net.inet.ah.enable=1

OpenBSD is awesome thanks to ipsecctl; a 4 line configuration file is all you need for a basic setup. But first we need to start isakmpd the IKEv1 key management daemon. As we are using ipsecctl to manage most of the setup, we use the -K option to ignore the isakmpd.policy file.

Code Smell

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

“In computer programming, code smell is any symptom in the source code of a program that possibly indicates a deeper problem.” — Wikipedia

I found this piece of code this morning, I think it counts as something gone terribly, terribly wrong:

return displayItemDetails(this.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode, 14059111);

(The code was in-line JavaScript, inserted into a onclick handler, generated in PHP)

Firefox, proxies and DNS

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Firefox by default does not use your proxy when making DNS requests. This can lead to a bit of confusion if your internal DNS servers are different from your public servers, thankfully there’s a simple fix:

Navigate to: about:config
Locate network.proxy.socks_remote_dns and set the value to true

Perlbal as a reverse proxy

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I recently needed to set up a new reverse proxy as an alternative to pound, and for no particularly good reason chose Perlbal.

The documentation is fairly good, but I didn’t find many (good) examples of working configurations. So I thought I’d include my very simple conf.

LOAD vhosts

# Management service via telnet
CREATE SERVICE mgmt
        SET role   = management
        SET listen = 127.0.0.1:16000
ENABLE mgmt

# Web server
CREATE POOL web
        POOL web ADD 10.10.42.41:80

# Trac server
CREATE POOL trac
        POOL trac ADD 10.10.42.42:80

CREATE SERVICE web_proxy
        SET role = reverse_proxy
        SET pool = web
ENABLE web_proxy

CREATE SERVICE trac_proxy
        SET role = reverse_proxy
        SET pool = trac
ENABLE trac_proxy

# Internally we use 'trac.internal.com' but externally it would
# be 'trac.external.com'.  So rather than creating a second
# virtual host on our trac webserver, we re-write the header
HEADER trac_proxy REMOVE Host
HEADER trac_proxy INSERT Host:trac.internal.com

# Listen on our external IP
CREATE SERVICE selector
        SET listen  = 100.110.120.130:80
        SET role    = selector
        SET plugins = vhosts

        VHOST external.com.au       = web_proxy
        VHOST www.external.com.au   = web_proxy
        VHOST trac.external.com.au  = trac_proxy
ENABLE selector

Clevo P150HM Notes

Sun, 29 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe this will help someone else with this laptop:

If the USB3.0 ports randomly stop working you just need to update the drivers. You can grab them from Station Drivers
Fn+1 Toggles the fan speed between 100% and normal

Servers and Stuff

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve migrated most of my sites / services away from Slicehost this week. I guess the trigger was a combination of the Rackspace migration news, and the desire for lower latency to the server. I’ve been with Slicehost for around 3 years with an almost perfect track record (at least when I don’t let a process use up all the memory and the OOM killer).

I was originally looking at Crucial Paradigm due to lots of positive feedback and good prices. However their prices are really only good for new customers as the double RAM offer is not extended to upgrades/download of plans, which could cause some problems if you ever want to resize your VPS. They also specifically disallow game servers in thier AUP (which is a problem as I’m currently running a Minecraft server).

Sources of Holy Power Generation

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Note: The information present in this post is a couple of months out of date. I’ve not had the time to re-update WoL data and create new graphs, but thought it might be interesting share the data/code anyway

When choosing a Holy Paladin spec for 10 mans I was never completely sure about benefits of Tower of Radiance or Blessed Life. ToR seems like a safe choice, though the frequency that you DL/FoL your beacon seemed low. Blessed Life on the other hand was obviously a PvP talent, but it would generate free HP from some raid damage.

Text Twist Bot

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I watched someone play a bit of the browser based game Text Twist. Upon trying myself I found that I was awful, so I did what any programmer would do; cheated.

Results of a few hours hacking:

Features:

Scan for game area and crash and burn if it’s not detected
(Crudely) detect what letters are shown
Find all 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter combinations, and then throw them against a basic word list + simple anagram lookup table
Send key presses to the window to (try and) solve all possible words (and overwrite any work you were doing when the window loses focus)
Reliably gets all but one or two words for each puzzle, leaving you plenty of time to go crazy trying to finish it

Horrible source for the curious (it should at least help anyone wondering how to send key presses, or capture the current screen in python)

Tyrande's Doll and Power Auras

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Quickstart guide for setting up a reminder for Tyrande’s Favorite Doll using Power Auras.

Create the first effect to track the mana gained buff. There is no need to adjust any of the aura visuals here as you won’t see this effect.
The effect should be activated by Buff with the name Recaptured Mana, and the tooltip should contain the string 4200
Close the effect window and disable the newly created effect (shift + click). Also made a note of its ID by mousing over it.
Create a second effect. This will track the cooldown on the trinket (1min) as well as reference the first effect.
Chose Action Usable and enter the name Tyrande’s Favorite Doll and finally enter the ID of the first effect into the next textbox (in the example the ID is 9.
Customize the visuals to suite, optionally add a sound effect, and you’re done.

Initial Divine Guardian Tests

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I been wanting to look in the effectiveness of the 20% raid wall granted by Divine Guardian (4th tier talent in a Paladin’s protection tree). To do this I wrote a very simple Python program to read the combat log, detect with DG goes up and then record all the damage that was taken while it was present on a unit, and work out how much was mitigated. Of course, as the script was hacked up, it has all sorts of limitations:

Javascript; sending me insane

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

>>> []
[]
>>> [] == true
false
>>> [] == false
true
>>> [] == []
false
>>> false == false
true

How to win friends and pad meters

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to Holy Paladin Healing in 3.2 / 3.3

Spec

Base Holy tree looks something like this talent tree
- Points in Imp Wis and Bless Hands can be moved about if you’d prefer
Then either go 17 points into Prot for Divine Guardian, or 20 points into Ret for Crit + Run Speed

Glyphs

Glyph of Holy Light
Glyph of Wisdom
Glyph of Beacon of Light (My preference)

Addons

Grid + Clique / Healbot / Fail Bindings + Blizzard frames. Just make sure you can see every-ones health, and debuffs (preferable with time + stacks)
Paladin Beacon of Light, Sacred Shield Tracker
Jaraxxus_DebuffHealingMonitor

Gear

Int > *
Use a Insightful Earthsiege Diamond Meta. Always
Socket +20 Int in everything, use a single Nightmare Tear (+10 all stats) to activate the meta
Haste is a great throughput stat, 500-650 is a nice area to aim for
Don’t worry too much about your crit / mp5. Keep them balance, it will come naturally on your gear

Healing

Assuming a non trivial fight (else do what ever the hell you want, it’s not important)
Your job will be to keep the tanks up, and help out on the raid when safe
Make sure you can see debuffs. If you use Grid either add the debuffs for each encounter yourself, or install a Grid addon that does it for you
Pick the player that will take most damage during the fight, this will normally be the MT
- Put Beacon on them. Keep it up. Don’t let it drop.
- Beacon has a 60yard range, use this to your advantage (e.g. If phase 2 of beasts you can spread out more than other healers and still heal both tanks)
- Note: With Multiple Paladins, if may be wise to split the Beacons depending on the fight. For example:
  - Beasts doesn’t matter, you’ll be healing the two tanks almost all the time (phase 1 + 2)
  - Jaraxxus split between OT and MT (the OT will take similar amounts of damage, that can be more spikey [Asmuing your interupters don’t suck])
  - Twins split, raid healing is very high compared to tank damage
Keep JotP up. Always. It’s one GCD every 60s for 15% Haste.
- Judge Light to pad meters, judge Wisdom to keep hunters from QQ’ing
- Don’t wait till 5s before refreshing the buff, do it when the tank isn’t taking much damage and the raid is nice and high
- Judge = Melee attack = Change of Seal of Wisdom proc
If you’re Holy/Prot; keep SS up, like judgements, refresh early when it’s safe
Spam HL on Target taking damage that you haven’t placed Beacon on (OT, or Raid members)
Be Awesome

Dealing with Mana

FoL isn’t useless, use it to save mana when you know the there is little damage (First 2-3 impales on beasts). Just don’t let anyone die.
Time Divine Plea with natural breaks in the fight (phase change, or little damage) don’t leave it till you’re out of mana
Use Divine Illumination early so you can use it several times during en encounter
Abuse Seal of Wisdom when it’s safe. e.g.
- Icehowl, after a stun (make sure you leave melee range before the stun wears off to avoid the knock back)
- Jarraxus when no adds are up (you need to pay very close attention to what’s going on)
- Twins, when there aren’t too many orbs about
- Anub’Arak, on phase change whack the Scarabs and even Anub himself in between Holy Lights

Total MySQL rows

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Turns out our Mysql server at work is a little bigger than I thought:

Databases 75
Tables    1,549
Rows      1,018,085,348

However over the last couple of months, we’ve only averaged 130 queries/second

Hacked up PHP to gather stats:

<?php

class MysqlCounter
{
    public function __construct($host, $username, $password)
    {
        $this->conn = mysql_connect($host, $username, $password, true);

        if($this->conn === false)
        {
            throw new Exception("Unable to connect to Mysql server: " . mysql_error());
        }

        $this->num_databases = 0;
        $this->num_tables = 0;
        $this->num_rows = 0;
    }

    private function query($sql)
    {
        $query = mysql_query($sql, $this->conn);

        if($query === false)
        {
            throw new Exception("Unable to run query: $sql\n" . mysql_error($this->conn));
        }

        if($query === true)
        {
            return array();
        }

        $rows = array();

        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query))
        {
            $rows[] = $row;
        }

        return $rows;
    }

    public function gather_stats($callback = false)
    {
        foreach($this->query("SHOW DATABASES") as $row_database)
        {
            $this->num_databases++;

            $this->query("USE `{$row_database['Database']}`");

            foreach($this->query("SHOW TABLE STATUS") as $row_table)
            {
                $this->num_tables++;
                $this->num_rows += $row_table['Rows'];

                if($callback !== false)
                {
                    $args = array($row_database['Database'], $row_table['Name'], $row_table['Rows']);
                    call_user_func_array($callback, $args);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public static function default_callback($database, $table, $rows)
    {
        printf("%s %s %d\n", $database, $table, $rows);
    }
}

$counter = new MysqlCounter('hostname', 'username', 'password');
$counter->gather_stats(array('MysqlCounter', 'default_callback'));

echo "Databases {$counter->num_databases}\n";
echo "Tables    {$counter->num_tables}\n";
echo "Rows      {$counter->num_rows}\n";

No One Likes a Tattletale

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

DesuToys

WoW Combat Log Splitter

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Something quick I whipped up last night, after noticing that after my log file was > 4GB the WorldOfLogs parser will no longer do real time logging.

Edit: Turns out that the WoW client itself stopped logging, even though the log file was a little over expected limit (4,334,806,196 bytes)

Note: The code is just a one off script; things are hard coded, and it’s pretty slow (100MB a minute)

#!/usr/bin/env python

import re
import datetime

GAP_SIZE_IN_SECONDS = 60 * 60

class CombatLog:
    def __init__(self, filename):
        self.filename = filename

    def process(self):
        last_timestamp = None
        line_count = 0
        split_log = None

        for line in open(self.filename):
            line_count += 1
            timestamp = self.parse_timestamp(line)

            if timestamp == None:
                print "Unparsable data on line %d" % (line_count,)
                print repr(line)
                print
                continue

            # To handle the first line
            if last_timestamp == None:
                last_timestamp = timestamp
                split_log = Appender(timestamp)
                print "Starting new file", split_log.filename

            difference = timestamp - last_timestamp

            if difference.seconds > GAP_SIZE_IN_SECONDS:
                # Close the old log file, and start a new one
                split_log.close()
                split_log = Appender(timestamp)

                print "Starting new file", split_log.filename


            split_log.append(line)
            last_timestamp = timestamp

            if line_count % 100000 == 0:
                print "Processed %d lines" % (line_count,)



    def parse_timestamp(self, line):
        # m/d hh:mm:ss.msec
        # 6/6 21:04:29.435
        regex = r"^(\d+)/(\d+) (\d+):(\d+):(\d+).(\d+) "

        matches = re.search(regex, line)

        if matches == None:
            return None

        timestamp = datetime.datetime(2009,
                                      int(matches.group(1)),
                                      int(matches.group(2)),
                                      int(matches.group(3)),
                                      int(matches.group(4)),
                                      int(matches.group(5)),
                                      int(matches.group(6))*1000);

        return timestamp


class Appender:
    def __init__(self, timestamp):
        self.filename = "WoWCombatLog_" + timestamp.strftime("%Y%m%d_%H%M%S") + ".txt"
        self.handle = open(self.filename, 'a')

    def append(self, line):
        self.handle.write(line)

    def close(self):
        self.handle.close()


splitter = CombatLog("../WoWCombatLog.20090904.txt")
splitter.process()

print "Done"

Comment from Cryoclasm on August 9th 2011

Hacked

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Yep, I was hacked 5 days ago. Seems I’ve been part of some DOS attack (I forgot to record the IPs of who, and it was only ~60GB of traffic).

From what I can tell, it exploited an (old, now patched) hole in PHPMyAdmin that let you write PHP files with what ever content you wanted. CVE-2009-1151. An implementation of that attack is available from GNU Citizen

Of course after that, you’re able to do anything the web server can. The command that was run on my server was:

that just happened

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

That Just Happened is a simple but very useful WoW addon that allows you announce (locally, or the party/raid) when certain events happen, like Guardian Spirit on someone, or when a Polymorph breaks.

Below are the rules I currently use:

event;source;target;spellname;affiliation;channel;spam
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Hand of Salvation;;RAID;Hand of Salvation on *target (*source)
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Hand of Sacrifice;;RW;Hand of Sacrifice on *target (*source)
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Guardian Spirit;;RW;Guardian Spirit on *target (*source)
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Shield Wall;;RW;Shield Wall on *source
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Divine Protection;;RW;Divine Protection on *source
SPELL_INTERRUPT;;;;;RAID;*source interrupted *target
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Pain Suppression;;RW;Pain Suppression on *target (*source)
SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS;;;Divine Sacrifice;;RW;Divine Sacrifice (*source)
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;Soran;;Holy Mending;;SELF;
SPELL_AURA_APPLIED;;;Hand of Protection;;RW;Hand of Protection on *target (*source)

(We’ve not had a DK tank for a long time, so no CDs listed for them)

3.2 Rolling FoL SS HoTs

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Holy Paladin changes in 3.2 seem pretty significant, I’m currently hoping the FoL/HoT mechanic works a little like ignite, where in effect you have n number of buffs up on the target, and WoW just consolidates them into one (As oppose to old ignite rolling, where each time the debuff was added, the damage was added to the previous debuff and the time reset, resulting in massive damage with lots of luck).

Vezax Holy Paladin Spec

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After much more fun with General Vezax on 25 this week, I thought I would make a small note about the spec I swapped to for this fight.

The basic spec is 28/43/0 which gives up most of our normal healing tools (no shock, no beacon, no bonus crit from the Retribution tree, etc) for Touched by the Light.

With Touched by the Light, my FoL hits for 6000 and crits for 11,000, which drastically changes the way you can heal. Rather than having to stop casting expensive Holy Lights, you’re able to use FoL almost exclusively and it’s no big deal to over heal a bit.

I before E except after C…

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I before E (yuccamuffin.com)

<?php

    $words = file('/usr/share/dict/words');
    $words = array_map('trim', $words);

    // Ignore words with any punctuation
    $words = array_filter($words, 'ctype_alpha');

    foreach($words as $word)
    {
        // ignore proper nouns (they start with an uppercase letter)
        if(ctype_upper($word[0]))
        {
            continue;
        }

        if(preg_match("#[^c]ei#", $word) === 1)
        {
            echo "$word\n";
        }
    }

?>

absenteeism
ageing
ageings
ageism
agreeing
albeit
anteing
apartheid
atheism
atheist
atheistic
atheists
aweigh
bantamweight
bantamweights
beige
being
beings
bingeing
birdieing
blueing
boogieing
caffeine
canoeist
canoeists
casein
clueing
codeine
counterfeit
counterfeited
counterfeiter
counterfeiters
counterfeiting
counterfeits
counterweight
counterweights
cueing
cuneiform
decaffeinate
decaffeinated
decaffeinates
decaffeinating
decreeing
deice
deiced
deicer
deicers
deices
deicing
deification
deified
deifies
deify
deifying
deign
deigned
deigning
deigns
deism
deities
deity
dieing
disagreeing
dyeing
edelweiss
emceeing
facsimileing
featherweight
featherweights
feign
feigned
feigning
feigns
feint
feinted
feinting
feints
feistier
feistiest
feisty
filigreeing
flambeing
fleeing
flyweight
flyweights
foreign
foreigner
foreigners
foreseeing
forfeit
forfeited
forfeiting
forfeits
forfeiture
freeing
freight
freighted
freighter
freighters
freighting
freights
fricasseeing
garnisheeing
geeing
geisha
geishas
gesundheit
glueing
gneiss
guaranteeing
heavyweight
heavyweights
heifer
heifers
height
heighten
heightened
heightening
heightens
heights
heinous
heinously
heinousness
heir
heiress
heiresses
heirloom
heirlooms
heirs
heist
heisted
heisting
heists
herein
heterogeneity
hieing
hoeing
homogeneity
horseshoeing
hundredweight
hundredweights
inveigh
inveighed
inveighing
inveighs
inveigle
inveigled
inveigles
inveigling
kaleidoscope
kaleidoscopes
kaleidoscopic
kneeing
lei
leis
leisure
leisurely
leitmotif
leitmotifs
lightweight
lightweights
middleweight
middleweights
monotheism
monotheist
monotheistic
monotheists
neigh
neighbor
neighbored
neighborhood
neighborhoods
neighboring
neighborliness
neighborly
neighbors
neighed
neighing
neighs
neither
nonpareil
nonpareils
nuclei
nucleic
obeisance
obeisances
obeisant
onomatopoeia
onomatopoeic
outweigh
outweighed
outweighing
outweighs
overseeing
overweight
pantheism
pantheist
pantheistic
pantheists
paperweight
paperweights
peeing
pennyweight
pennyweights
pharmacopoeia
pharmacopoeias
pieing
plebeian
plebeians
poltergeist
poltergeists
polytheism
polytheist
polytheistic
polytheists
protein
proteins
pureeing
queueing
refereeing
reign
reigned
reigning
reigns
reimburse
reimbursed
reimbursement
reimbursements
reimburses
reimbursing
reimpose
reimposed
reimposes
reimposing
rein
reincarnate
reincarnated
reincarnates
reincarnating
reincarnation
reincarnations
reindeer
reindeers
reined
reinforce
reinforced
reinforcement
reinforcements
reinforces
reinforcing
reining
reinitialize
reinitialized
reins
reinsert
reinserted
reinserting
reinserts
reinstate
reinstated
reinstatement
reinstates
reinstating
reinterpret
reinterpretation
reinterpretations
reinterpreted
reinterpreting
reinterprets
reinvent
reinvented
reinventing
reinvents
reinvest
reinvested
reinvesting
reinvests
reissue
reissued
reissues
reissuing
reiterate
reiterated
reiterates
reiterating
reiteration
reiterations
reparteeing
reveille
seeing
seeings
segueing
seismic
seismically
seismograph
seismographic
seismographs
seismologist
seismologists
seismology
seize
seized
seizes
seizing
seizure
seizures
sheik
sheikdom
sheikdoms
sheikh
sheikhs
sheiks
shoeing
sightseeing
singeing
skein
skeined
skeining
skeins
sleigh
sleighed
sleighing
sleighs
snowshoeing
sortieing
sovereign
sovereigns
sovereignty
spontaneity
spreeing
squeegeeing
stein
steined
steining
steins
stymieing
surfeit
surfeited
surfeiting
surfeits
surveillance
teeing
theeing
their
theirs
theism
theist
theistic
theists
therein
throeing
tieing
tingeing
tiptoeing
toeing
treeing
trueing
twingeing
underweight
unfeigned
unseeing
unveil
unveiled
unveiling
unveils
vagueing
veil
veiled
veiling
veils
vein
veined
veining
veins
villein
villeins
vogueing
weeing
weigh
weighed
weighing
weighs
weight
weighted
weightier
weightiest
weightiness
weighting
weightless
weightlessness
weightlifter
weightlifters
weightlifting
weights
weighty
weir
weird
weirded
weirder
weirdest
weirding
weirdly
weirdness
weirdo
weirdos
weirds
weired
weiring
weirs
welterweight
welterweights
wherein

array_unique javascript snippet

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

function array_unique(a)
{
    return a.reduce(function(u, e)
    {
        if(!(e in u))
            u.push(e);

        return u;
    }, []);
}

Sacred Shield vs Aura

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure how correct this is, but I thought it would be fun to compared how much Sacred Shield can absorb against a regular source of raid damage (in this case Sapphiron’s frost aura in Naxx25)

The mechanics of SS is a little strange, best to read up on the skill on WoWHead, or WoWWiki

Each tick of Sacred Shield absorbs, 500 + 0.75% of your Spell power.
Each tick has a 6 second cooldown, and the buff lasts for 30 seconds
We are using Sapphiron’s frost aura in Naxx25 for this example. 1600 frost damage every two seconds, to ever member of the raid
Our paladin also has has 2000 spell power (which works out to be 2000 absorbed each tick)

Example time line (2 ticks):

Divine Plea returns in WoW

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Divine Plea is one of a Holy Paladins two main sources of mana regen (along with illumination). The spell is on a one minute cool down and returns 25% of your total (maximum) mana over 15 seconds while reducing healing done by 20%. Because the spell is based off total mana, it scales with intellect, and raid buffs (Mark, Kings and AI).

Note, when considering to stack Int, remember that each point also gives a small amount of spell crit and spell power (which is not considered here).

obsessed with anonymous functions

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Any normal person would just live without anonymous functions in PHP, they are buggy and non trivial ones are pain to write and read. I’m not sure why I seam to obsess over them.

At the very least, the below code will test unicode in your dev tools

Edit: Of course after I wrote that I discovered that WordPress was ignoring the λ character. A little fix from here and everything is working again.

Javascript map-sort

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sure sorting method has a real name, but I’ve had no luck searching for it.

function mapSort(array, mapFunction, sortFunction)
{
    // Store both original value, and transformed value
    var mapData = array.map(function(e)
    {
        return [e, mapFunction(e)];
    });

    // Sort the data using the second element of each array item (the mapped one)
    var sortedData = mapData.sort(function(a, b)
    {
        return sortFunction(a[1], b[1]);
    });

    // Remove the extra transformed value from the sorted array
    return sortedData.map(function(e)
    {
        return e[0];
    });
}

// Example

var data = ["a", "b", "A", "B", "C", "c"];
var cmp  = function(a, b) { return a > b; };
var map  = function(ch) { return ch.toLowerCase(); };

print("Normal:   " + data.sort(cmp));
print("Map Sort: " + mapSort(data, map, cmp));

// Normal:   A,B,C,a,b,c
// Map Sort: a,A,B,b,c,C

I hate working with dates

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This little snippet gets all the days in a month, and groups them by week.

<?php

    error_reporting(E_ALL);

    // Return an array of all the days in a month grouped by week number
    // (Sunday is considered to be the first day of the week)
    function weeksInMonth($month, $year)
    {
        $firstDay    = mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, 1, $year);
        $daysInMonth = date('t', $firstDay);

        $week        = 1;
        $breakdown   = array();

        for($i = 1; $i <= $daysInMonth; $i++)
        {
            $date = mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $i, $year);
            $day  = date('l', $date);

            // Sunday triggers the start of a new week, except if it's
            // also the first day of the month.
            if(($day == 'Sunday') && ($i != 1))
            {
                $week++;
            }

            $breakdown[$week][] = $date;
        }

        return $breakdown;
    }


    $results = monthToWeek(6, 2008);

    printf("There are %d weeks in June 2008\n\n", count($results));

    foreach($results as $weekNumber => $days)
    {
        printf("Week %d\n", $weekNumber);

        foreach($days as $day)
        {
            printf("%10s  %s\n", date("l", $day), date("Y-m-d", $day));
        }

        printf("\n");
    }

/*
There are 5 weeks in June 2008

Week 1
    Sunday  2008-06-01
    Monday  2008-06-02
   Tuesday  2008-06-03
 Wednesday  2008-06-04
  Thursday  2008-06-05
    Friday  2008-06-06
  Saturday  2008-06-07

Week 2
    Sunday  2008-06-08
    Monday  2008-06-09
   Tuesday  2008-06-10
 Wednesday  2008-06-11
  Thursday  2008-06-12
    Friday  2008-06-13
  Saturday  2008-06-14

Week 3
    Sunday  2008-06-15
    Monday  2008-06-16
   Tuesday  2008-06-17
 Wednesday  2008-06-18
  Thursday  2008-06-19
    Friday  2008-06-20
  Saturday  2008-06-21

Week 4
    Sunday  2008-06-22
    Monday  2008-06-23
   Tuesday  2008-06-24
 Wednesday  2008-06-25
  Thursday  2008-06-26
    Friday  2008-06-27
  Saturday  2008-06-28

Week 5
    Sunday  2008-06-29
    Monday  2008-06-30
*/
?>

K100D Gallery Added

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just added a couple of quick photos to the k100d gallery. Really wish I could have spent longer watching the surfers near The Spit

Camera is Pentax K100D 6MP with a Sigma 70-300 / Sigma 28-70 F2.8

Edit: 2022-04-10 - New Gallery link

auth.log noise

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Below are the top 50 login names when trying to gain access to this web server over the last 4 weeks

Name	Attempts
root	3273
admin	119
mysql	44
test	110
guest	41
user	37
oracle	37
temp	25
sales	24
info	21
webmaster	21
dan	18
postgres	21
robert	18
student	17
ftpuser	17
ftp	17
richard	16
apache	16
web	15
adm	15
webadmin	15
john	15
paul	15
office	15
tony	14
james	14
postfix	13
michael	13
alex	13
david	13
amanda	13
adam	12
mike	12
staff	12
steven	12
recruit	12
jeff	12
pgsql	12
library	12
username	12
frank	12
susan	11
cyrus	11
dave	11
gast	10
postmaster	10
nagios	10
martin	10
admins	10

Note: No external connections are allowed to log in as root (of course)

import life

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A console based implementation of Conway’s Game of Life in Python.

As fascinating as it is useless.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys
import random
import time
import os
import copy

WIDTH = 32
HEIGHT = 16

class Grid:
    def __init__(self, width, height):
        self.width  = width
        self.height = height
        self.create_blank_grid()

    def create_blank_grid(self):
        self.grid = []

        for x in range(0, self.width):
            self.grid.append([0 for y in range(0, self.height)])

    def seed(self, chance = 0.4):
        for x in range(0, self.width):
            for y in range(0, self.height):
                if random.random() < chance:
                    self.grid[x][y] = 1
                else:
                    self.grid[x][y] = 0

    def add_glider(self):
        self.grid[1][0] = 1
        self.grid[2][1] = 1
        self.grid[0][2] = 1
        self.grid[1][2] = 1
        self.grid[2][2] = 1


    def __str__(self):
        buffer = ''

        for y in range(0, self.height):
            for x in range(0, self.width):
                str = ' '
                if self.grid[x][y] == 1:
                    str = '#'

                buffer += str
            buffer += '\n';
        buffer += '\n';

        return buffer

    def get_number_neighbours(self, x, y):

        def get_value(i,j):
            try:
                return self.grid[i][j]
            except:
                return 0

        number_neighbours = get_value(x-1, y-1) + get_value(x, y-1)   + get_value(x+1, y-1) +  \
                            get_value(x-1, y)   +                       get_value(x+1, y)   +  \
                            get_value(x-1, y+1) + get_value(x, y+1)   + get_value(x+1, y+1)

        return number_neighbours


    def tick(self):
        new_grid = copy.deepcopy(self.grid)

        for x in range(0, self.width):
            for y in range(0, self.height):

                number_neighbours = self.get_number_neighbours(x,y)

                if self.grid[x][y] == 1:
                    if number_neighbours < 2:
                        new_grid[x][y] = 0
                    elif number_neighbours > 3:
                        new_grid[x][y] = 0
                else:
                    if number_neighbours == 3:
                        new_grid[x][y] = 1

        self.grid = new_grid

if __name__ == "__main__":
    grid = Grid(WIDTH, HEIGHT)
    # chance for a cell to be 'alive'
    grid.seed(0.2)
    # grid.add_glider()

    # 100 generations
    for x in range(0, 100):
        os.system('clear')
        print grid
        grid.tick()
        time.sleep(1)

Pretending PHP doesn’t suck

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

<?php

// Perhaps the simplest practical use of a fold?
//
// (While this is fairly consise (even in PHP) it calculates the length of a
// string 2n-2 times [which is n-2 times more than needed])
function getLongestWord($words)
{
  $fun = create_function('$a,$b', 'return (strlen($a) > strlen($b)) ? $a : $b;');

  return array_reduce($words, $fun);
}

// This looks a little better, but it loses a lot of the simplicity of the above
function getLongestWord_2($words)
{  
  $map  = create_function('$a', 'return array($a, strlen($a));');
  $fold = create_function('$a,$b', 'return ($a[1] > $b[1]) ? $a : $b;');

  $word = array_reduce(array_map($map, $words), $fold);

  return $word[0];
}

$words = array('a', 'bb', 'ccc', 'dd', 'eeee', 'fff', 'gg');

var_dump(getLongestWord($words));
// string(4) "eeee"

var_dump(getLongestWord_2($words));
// string(4) "eeee"

?>

Is there an even simpler way to find the longest string in an array?

Extracting links from HTML using PHP

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Many months ago there was a PHP competition to make the smallest script to extract all the links from a document. I’ve lost a link to the actual site, but the rules and conditions were set up expecting everyone to solve the problem with regular expressions. In my opinion relying on regular expressions to parse HTML would be a terrible idea (and may actually be impossible to do with a normal engine), so I tried a slightly different approach:

Simple type checking in PHP

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

<?php

    error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

/*

Manual optional type checking for PHP functions

Basic example:

    function log_error($line_number, $filename, $desc)
    {
        CheckFunctionArgs('integer', 'string', 'string');
        [snip]
    }

Object example:

    class LogObject {}
    function register_object($obj)
    {
        //  Check for an object
        CheckFunctionArgs('object');    

        //  When an object is passed, you can optionally check for the class name
        CheckFunctionArgs('LogObject');

        [snip]
    }

Wildcard example:

    function log_anything($line, $thing)
    {
        //  '*' really means anything, included true/false/null or an empty string
        //  however it doesn't mean the argument in optional
        CheckFunctionArgs('integer', '*');
    }

Notes:

    Throws an exception on error
    No support for functions that take a variable number of arguments
    Must define the types of all arguments
    The type '*' acts as a wild card, matching anything (including null)
    Works with public and private methods in classes

*/

    function CheckFunctionArgs()
    {
        $types = func_get_args();
        $stack = debug_backtrace();

        //  Make sure there is some stack information
        //  Stack[1] contains the details about the function that called this function
        if(!isset($stack[1]))
        {
            throw new Exception("No function stack present.  Make sure CheckFunctionArgs() isn't called from the global scope");
        }

        //  The arguments that were passed to the function we are checking
        $arguments = $stack[1]['args'];


        //  Get the name of the class/function/file
        $functionClass = (isset($stack[1]['class'])) ? $stack[1]['class'] . "::" : '';
        $functionFile  = (isset($stack[1]['file'])) ? basename($stack[1]['file']) . ':' . $stack[1]['line'] : '[No file information]';
        $functionName  = "{$functionClass}{$stack[1]['function']}()";


        //  Basic check, make sure the correct numbers of arguments were passed
        if(count($arguments) != count($types))
        {
            $passed = count($arguments);
            $expected = count($types);

            throw new Exception("Incorrect number of argumemts passed to {$functionName} in {$functionFile}.  Expected {$expected} got {$passed}");
        }


        //  Now try and check each argument
        for($i = 0; $i < count($arguments); $i++)
        {
            //  Allow a check to be skiped, if the type equals '*'
            if($types[$i] == '*')
            {
                continue;
            }

            $argumentType = gettype($arguments[$i]);

            //  Check basic types like integer/object ect
            if($argumentType == $types[$i])
            {
                continue;
            }

            //  Check to see if the type matches the classname of an object
            if(($argumentType == 'object') && (get_class($arguments[$i]) == $types[$i]))
            {
                continue;
            }

            throw new Exception("Incorrect argument passed to {$functionName} in {$functionFile}.  Argument {$i} was type {$argumentType} expected {$types[$i]}");
        }


        return true;
    }

    //  Some really basic tests

    function assertException($fun, $args)
    {
        try
        {
            call_user_func_array($fun, $args);
            throw new Exception(sprintf("Error: No exception thrown in function %s\n", $fun));
        }
        catch(Exception $e)
        {
        }
    }

    function assertNoException($fun, $args)
    {
        try
        {
            call_user_func_array($fun, $args);
        }
        catch(Exception $e)
        {
            throw new Exception(sprintf("Error: Exception thrown in function %s\n", $fun));
        }
    }


    function test_string($a)
    {
        CheckFunctionArgs('string');
    }

    assertNoException('test_string', array('abc'));
    assertNoException('test_string', array(''));
    assertNoException('test_string', array('123'));

    @assertException('test_string', array());
    assertException('test_string', array(123));
    assertException('test_string', array(null));


    function test_integer($a)
    {
        CheckFunctionArgs('integer');
    }

    assertNoException('test_integer', array(0));
    assertNoException('test_integer', array(123));

    @assertException('test_integer', array());
    assertException('test_integer', array(null));
    assertException('test_integer', array(''));
    assertException('test_integer', array('a'));
    assertException('test_integer', array(1.0));
    assertException('test_integer', array(1.2));


    function test_wildcard($a)
    {
        CheckFunctionArgs('*');
    }

    assertNoException('test_wildcard', array('a'));
    assertNoException('test_wildcard', array(1233));
    assertNoException('test_wildcard', array(null));
    @assertException('test_wildcard', array());


    class Foobar {}
    $foobar = new Foobar();
    function test_classname($a)
    {
        CheckFunctionArgs('Foobar');
        CheckFunctionArgs('object');
    }

    assertNoException('test_classname', array($foobar));
    assertException('test_classname', array('Foobar'));

?>

sizeof(int) = 68

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Pankaj Kumar has a slightly disturbing look at memory usage in PHP.

Each element requires a value structure (zval) which takes 16 bytes.

Also requires a hash bucket – which takes 36 bytes. That gives 52 bytes

per value. Memory allocation headers take another 8 bytes*2 – which

gives 68 bytes. Pretty close to what you have.

Fun with anagrams

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

<?php

define('WORD_LIST_FILENAME', '/usr/share/dict/words');


class AnagramLookup
{
    private $lookup;

    //  Loads a file with one word per line
    private function load_word_list($filename)
    {
        $lines = file($filename);                     // One word per line
        $lines = array_map('trim', $lines);           // Strip any excess whitespace
        $lines = array_filter($lines, 'ctype_alpha'); // Words been to match [a-zA-Z]
        $lines = array_map('strtolower', $lines);     // Set all the words to lowercase
        $lines = array_unique($lines);                // Remove any duplicate words
        $lines = array_diff($lines, array(''));       // Remove any empty lines

        return $lines;
    }

    //  Sort the individual letters in a string
    //  i.e.   tale  =>  aelt
    private function sort_letters($word)
    {
        $letters = str_split($word);

        sort($letters);

        $sorted_word = implode('', $letters);

        return $sorted_word;
    }

    //  Generate our lookup table.  This takes ~1.5second for 70,000 words
    //  $lookup ends up looking like:
    //
    //  $lookup[4] = array
    //  (
    //      'aelt' => array('late', 'tale', 'leta', 'teal'),
    //      'belu' => array('blue', 'lube'),
    //      [etc...]
    //  )
    //  $lookup[5] = array
    //  (
    //      'allms' => array('small', 'malls'),
    //      [etc...]
    //  )
    //
    //  4 and 5 are the word lengths, while 'aelt', 'belu' and 'allms'  contains
    //  an array of all the words that can be spelt using these letters
    public function __construct($filename)
    {
        $word_list = $this->load_word_list($filename);

        $lookup = array();

        foreach($word_list as $word)
        {
            $length = strlen($word);

            if(!isset($lookup[$length]))
            {
                $lookup[$length] = array();
            }

            $sorted_word = $this->sort_letters($word);

            if(!isset($lookup[$length][$sorted_word]))
            {
                $lookup[$length][$sorted_word] = array();
            }

            $lookup[$length][$sorted_word][] = $word;
        }

        $this->lookup = $lookup;
    }

    //  Return all the anagrams of the passed word
    public function lookup_word($word)
    {
        $word_length = strlen($word);
        $sorted_word = $this->sort_letters($word);

        if(isset($this->lookup[$word_length][$sorted_word]))
        {
            return $this->lookup[$word_length][$sorted_word];
        }

        return array();
    }

    //  Return an array of all the sets of anagrams with a specific length
    //
    //  Example result for a word length of 14:
    //
    //  array
    //  (
    //      [0] => array('certifications','rectifications'),
    //      [1] => array('impressiveness','permissiveness'),
    //      [2] => array('tablespoonfuls','tablespoonsful'),
    //  )
    public function all_of_length($word_length)
    {
        if(!isset($this->lookup[$word_length]))
        {
            return array();
        }

        $results = array();

        foreach($this->lookup[$word_length] as $words)
        {
            if(count($words) > 1)
            {
                $results[] = $words;
            }
        }

        return $results;
    }
}


$anagram = new AnagramLookup(WORD_LIST_FILENAME);

printf("Anagrams of 'blue': %s\n", implode(', ', $anagram->lookup_word('blue')));
printf("Anagrams of 'late': %s\n", implode(', ', $anagram->lookup_word('late')));
printf("Anagrams of 'slow': %s\n", implode(', ', $anagram->lookup_word('slow')));
printf("Anagrams of 'seven':  %s\n", implode(', ', $anagram->lookup_word('seven')));
printf("Anagrams of 'anagram': %s\n", implode(', ', $anagram->lookup_word('anagram')));

printf("All anagrams of word length 14\n");

foreach($anagram->all_of_length(7) as $words)
{
    printf(" * %s\n", implode(', ', $words));
}


?>

Fun with a n800

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My respect for the N800 just went up, the whole procedure must have taken 15-20 seconds.

Nokia-N800-50-2:~# wget
-sh: wget: not found
Nokia-N800-50-2:~# curl
-sh: curl: not found
Nokia-N800-50-2:~# apt-get install wget
[snip apt downloading and install wget]
Nokia-N800-50-2:~# wget
wget: missing URL
Usage: wget [OPTION]... [URL]...

Try `wget --help' for more options.
Nokia-N800-50-2:~#

Javascript…

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Javascript is both infuriating and awesome at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever speant so much time tracking down annoying bugs (even compared to PHP), yet at the same time it makes functions like the one below very simple to write.

For reference, the below code returns a `getter` method that we use to instantiate objects via a cache system.

var buildSimpleObjectGetter = function(cacheRef, objectRef)
{
   var f = "buildSimpleObjectGetter()";
   UTILS.checkArgs(f, arguments, [ObjectCache, Function]);

   return function(idRecord, idArg)
   {
      return cacheRef.get('' + idArg, function()
      {
         return new objectRef(idRecord, idArg);
      });
   }
}

Update 20080327:

Thankyou TPG

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
    Packets: Sent = 15312, Received = 11515, Lost = 3797 (24% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 232ms, Maximum = 537ms, Average = 237ms

Project Euler

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

My current solutions for Project Euler

Big Disclaimer: The below is not not friendly, it’s quick and dirty with the only requirement being getting the correct result quickly (programming time, not run time). Please don’t use this code to cheat either the fun really is in solving these yourself.

<th>
  Problem
</th>

<th>
  Solution
</th>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=01'>Problem 01</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p01.py'>p01.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=02'>Problem 02</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p02.py'>p02.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=03'>Problem 03</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p03.py'>p03.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=04'>Problem 04</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p04.py'>p04.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=05'>Problem 05</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p05.py'>p05.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=06'>Problem 06</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p06.py'>p06.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=07'>Problem 07</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p07.py'>p07.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=08'>Problem 08</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p08.py'>p08.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=09'>Problem 09</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p09.py'>p09.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=10'>Problem 10</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p10.py'>p10.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=11'>Problem 11</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p11.py'>p11.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=12'>Problem 12</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p12.py'>p12.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=13'>Problem 13</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p13.py'>p13.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=14'>Problem 14</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p14.py'>p14.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=16'>Problem 16</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p16.py'>p16.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=20'>Problem 20</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p20.py'>p20.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=21'>Problem 21</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p21.py'>p21.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=22'>Problem 22</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p22.py'>p22.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=25'>Problem 25</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p25.py'>p25.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=30'>Problem 30</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p30.py'>p30.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=36'>Problem 36</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p36.py'>p36.py</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&#038;id=48'>Problem 48</a>
</td>

<td>
  <a href='http://project-2501.net/project-euler/p48.py'>p48.py</a>
</td>

#
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09
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11
12
13
14
16
20
21
22
25
30
36
48

LimerickDB

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There once was a buggy AI

Who decided her subject should die.

When the plot was uncovered,

The subjected discovered

That sadly the cake was a lie.

http://limerickdb.com/

PHPT testing framework

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

PHPT is the kind framework that encourages testing simply by making everything so easy. All that’s needed is a file with your PHP code and expected output. It wont replace SimpleTest or PhpUnit for anything complicated (say, like PHP itself…) but it seems to be just what I’m after.

There’s little documentation about (PHP QA website was the best resource I found), but thanks to its simplicity all you need to get started is an example or two.

Karazhan DPS

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Think I’m getting the hang of this Kara thing. Damage stats for Prince:

Character	Damage	DPS	Comment
Ardren	271565 (23.8%)	863.2	Fire Mage (Me!)
Sormoran	189466 (16.6%)	577.4	Shadow Priest
Quickcrit	180886 (15.8%)	541.5	Hunter
Umparevoker	174769 (15.3%)	533.9	Combat Rogue
Llonjudd	160488 (14.1%)	549.7	Warlock
Taeghas	87207 (7.6%)	255.4	Prot Warrior (Main Tank)
Noobjuicer	73363 (6.4%)	248.6	Prot Warrior

This sounds like a fun project: Extract all the data out of recount (WoW addon) and present it as a webpage.

Awful code I’ve written today

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

$row = $table->tr();

if(!($amIAltOrNot = !$amIAltOrNot))
{
    $row->class = "alt";
}


//  Edit: Much better now
$row = $table->tr();

$row->class = ($amIAltOrNot = !$amIAltOrNot) ? "" : "alt";

Now with added Slicehost

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This website is now hosted on Slicehost (along with section99.net). It’s a little early to know how it will turn out, but so far I’m loving having not only a shell, but root access.

Signing up was completely painless and the the VPS was provisioned within minutes with several different operating system options (though I’m aware that this can sometimes take weeks depending on current capacity). While I run the bleeding edge version of Ubuntu at work, I opted for the slightly safer option, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

More useless PHP – Inplace Reverse

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Code

<?php

/*

    PHP implementation of a common programming problem:

        Reversing a singly linked list

*/


    error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);


    //  This is our basic node
    class WordNode
    {
        public $word;
        public $nextNode;

        public function __construct($word = null)
        {
            $this->word = $word;
        }

        //  Print all content of this node, and linked nodes
        public function __toString($separator = '')
        {
            $buffer  = '';
            $current = $this;

            do
            {
                //  Append the separator as long as there is a next node
                $buffer .= $current->word . (($current->nextNode !== null) ? $separator : '');
            }
            while(($current = $current->nextNode) !== null);

            return $buffer;
        }
    }


    //  Takes an array and turns it into a linked list
    //  (Remember this is purely an academic exercise :-)
    function buildWordNodeList($sourceArray)
    {
        //  First step create the linked list
        $firstNode = new WordNode($sourceArray[0]);

        $lastNode = $firstNode;

        foreach(array_slice($sourceArray, 1) as $word)
        {
            $thisNode = new WordNode($word);

            $lastNode->nextNode = $thisNode;

            $lastNode = $thisNode;
        }

        return $firstNode;
    }


    //  Inplace reverse
    function reverseWordNodeListInplace(WordNode &$head)
    {
        //  Init the loop by separating the top node, and
        //  keeping track of what is left ($tail)
        $tail = $head->nextNode;

        //  This is set to null as it will end up being the
        //  last node and shouldn't point anywhere
        $head->nextNode = null;

        while($tail !== null)
        {
            //  Take the next node, and seperate it, and again
            //  keep track of what's left
            $next = $tail;
            $tail = $next->nextNode;

            //  Now make this node the parent of the previous top node
            $next->nextNode = $head;

            //  This node is now at the top
            $head = $next;
        }
    }


    $list = buildWordNodeList(array("a","b","c","d","e","f","g","h", "i", "j", "k"));

    echo $list . "\n";

    reverseWordNodeListInplace($list);

    echo $list . "\n";

    reverseWordNodeListInplace($list);

    echo $list . "\n";

    echo $list->__toString(" ") . "\n";

?>

Output

No More WoW Complaning

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not allowed to complain about raiding any more.

Went to Zul’Aman a couple of weeks back, after a few tries took down the first boss, and then a couple of tries on the second boss, but things didn’t go so well (I kinda wiped the raid). Also did a Kara run with 7 guildies to one shot everything up to Curator (and then called it without attempting). Was pretty happy then about the guilds progress, alot of it is thanks to a > Kara geared tank who been organizing the guild raids.

More WoW

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Can’t have a post about PHP at the top of the page for more that an couple of days. So on with the WoW gloating and moaning.

Karazhan — Nothing at all to report. Haven’t run for weeks, no one seems interested (two that were interested left yesterday. Kara group one leader, and Kara group two leader). Would be seriously looking for another guild, but I feel bad now that I have highest guild rank next to the GM
3 more epics since last post
Eternium Runed Blade – Highest DPS crafted dagger (168 spell damage)
Icon of the Silver Crescent – Finally, took a long time to get all 41 badges
Bands of Rarefied Magic – Actually slightly lower damage than the Bracers of Havoc, but much more balanced. Now with a +15 spell damage enchant too

Stats are looking pretty good. Hit is suffering a little though (says someone who can count his Kara raids on one hand :-(

Very Simple (Pretend) SQL Paramaters

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

<?php

/*

    Some hacked up code for Very Simple (Pretend) SQL Paramaters
    -- For when you don't have PDO, or just can't be bothered

    Examples:

        >>> SQL("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=? AND name LIKE ?", 123, '"123\"');
        SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=123 AND name LIKE "\"123\\\""

        >>> SQL("INSERT INTO user (nameFirst, nameLast) VALUES (?, ?)", "Fred", "Nurk");
        INSERT INTO user (nameFirst, nameLast) VALUES ("Fred", "Nurk")

*/

function SQL($sql)
{
    $params = func_get_args();
    $params = array_map('mysql_real_escape_string', $params);
    $sql    = explode('?', $sql);

    if(count($params) != (count($sql)-1))
    {
        throw new Exception(sprintf("Incorrect number of paramaters.  Expected %d got %d", count($sql)-1, count($params)));
    }

    $newSql = '';

    for($i = 0; $i < count($params); $i++)
    {
        $newSql .= $sql[$i] . (is_numeric($params[$i]) ? $params[$i] : '"' . $params[$i] . '"');
    }

    return $newSql . $sql[$i];
}

?>

Update: This is not only the wrong way to escaping, but introduces more bugs. Don’t ever use.

PHP interface for the DecentUrl API

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

PHP version of the Python script located at http://decenturl.com/tools#api.

Update: Thanks to a quick update by Ben, DecentURL now returns valid JSON, so the quote workaround is no longer needed.

<?php

/*

    PHP interface for the DecentUrl service
        by Matthew D (project-2501.net)

    Based on the Python script by Ben Hoyt
    See http://decenturl.com/tools#api

    Example:


    <?php

        require_once("decenturl_interface.php");

        //  returns: "youtube/medieval-helpdesk-with-english"
        DecentUrl::Get('http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ');

        //  returns: "http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ"
        DecentUrl::Resolve('youtube/medieval-helpdesk-with-english');

        //  returns: array("DecentURL - Making ugly URLs decent", "making-ugly-urls-decent")
        DecentUrl::Title('http://decenturl.com/');

        //  returns: "brush.co.nz"
        DecentUrl::Domain('http://brush.co.nz');

        //  throws a DecentUrlException("resolve request failed:  notfound")
        DecentUrl::Resolve('baddy');
    ?>

*/

    class DecentUrlException extends Exception {}
    class DecentUrl
    {
        const BASE_URL = 'http://decenturl.com/api-';

        //  Create or get decent URL from given ugly one and return it
        public static function Get($url, $title="")
        {
            $response = self::Request("get", array("u" => $url, "t" => $title), 2);

            return $response[0];
        }

        //  Resolve decent URL and return ugly original
        public static function Resolve($decentUrl)
        {
            $response = self::Request("resolve", array("d" => $decentUrl), 2);

            return $response[0];
        }

        //  Return tuple of full <title> and decent title for given URL
        public static function Title($url, $maxLength = 1000)
        {
            return self::Request("title", array("u" => $url, "l" => $maxLength), 2);
        }

        //  Return URL's base domain
        public static function Domain($url, $maxLength = 1000)
        {
            $response = self::Request("domain", array("u" => $url, "l" => $maxLength), 1);

            return $response[0];
        }

        //  Call generic DecentUul API function, throw DecentUrlException if not ok
        private static function Request($type, $parameters, $expectedResponseSize = false)
        {
            //  Take a key value pair, and join them together, making sure to
            //  urlencode the value
            foreach($parameters as $key => $value)
            {
                $parameters[$key] = sprintf("%s=%s", $key, urlencode($value));
            }

            $queryString = implode("&", array_values($parameters));

            $url = sprintf("%s%s?%s", self::BASE_URL, $type, $queryString);

            $contents = file_get_contents($url);

            $response = json_decode($contents);

            if($response == null)
            {
                throw new DecentUrlException("Response was not valid JSON");
            }

            if($response[0] != "ok")
            {
                throw new DecentUrlException("{$type} request failed:  {$response[0]}");
            }

            //  Remove the first element (which we proved was 'ok' above)
            $trimedResponse = array_slice($response, 1);

            //  If requested, we check to see that the response is the correct
            //  size.
            if(($expectedResponseSize !== false) && (count($trimedResponse) != $expectedResponseSize))
            {
                throw new DecentUrlException("{$type} request failed:  expected {$expectedResponseSize} fields, got " . count($trimedResponse));
            }

            return $trimedResponse;
        }
    }

?>

The timewaster

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yep, another WoW post.

Karazhan is still at exactly the same place it was last time… That is pretty embarrassing :-)
I’ve respec’d yet again. Now 10/48/3 Fire
My health and mana are now tiny, at 6463 / 7166 unbuffed
Spell damage is now: +885 fire unbuffed (Including Wrath of Spellfire Set bonus)
I think most impressively upgrade is my hit: +129 (10.23%) not including the 3% bonus from Elemental Precision :D

Future Upgrades

5 Things I hate about PHP

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Articles on why PHP sucks are fairly common (PHP is a really easy target). So rather than repeat what’s already been said (lack of namespaces, function naming, and argument positions, etc), I though I’d try and come up some more obscure ‘features’ and ‘bugs’ in PHP that I hate.

create_function()

//  Actually creates a new named function, in the global namespace every
//  time it's called, even if it's called with the exact same arguments.
//  Syntax is pretty bad too, need to pay close attention to quoting strings

$args = '$r';
$body = 'return $r;'

$f1 = create_function($args, $body);
$f2 = create_function($args, $body);

// Displays false
var_dump($f1 == $f2);

Automatic creation of class members

WoW Update

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, almost two weeks since my last WoW post. In short:

Respect to Arcane/Fire, for (hopfully) better mana management
Frostsabre mount from Darnassus
Picked up Boots of Blasphemy
Went to Karazhan with my guild Gankers Inc. Wasn’t a great result, but was fun

Fun with ‘anonymous’ functions in PHP

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just some fun with anonymous functions in PHP (which are surprisingly rare due to silly syntax, and a buggy implementation)

<?php

    class LambdaException extends Exception {}
    class Lambda
    {
        private static $cache;

        public static function Create($functionString)
        {
            if(!isset(self::$cache[$functionString]))
            {
                list($args, $body) = self::BreakupFunctionString($functionString);
                self::$cache[$functionString] = new self($args, $body);
            }

            return self::$cache[$functionString];
        }

        private static function BreakupFunctionString($functionString)
        {
            $errorMessage = "Unable to understand the function: '$functionString'." .
                            "Format should follow function (\$arg1, \$arg2) { return rand(\$arg1, \$arg2); }";

            $regex = "^function\s*\(([^\)]*)\)\s*\{(.*?)\}$";
            if(preg_match("#$regex#si", trim($functionString), $matches) !== 1)
            {
                throw new LambdaException($errorMessage);
            }

            list(, $args, $body) = $matches;

            $args = explode(',', $args);
            $args = array_map('trim', $args);
            $args = array_diff($args, array(''));

            return array($args, $body);
        }

        //--------------------------------------------------------------------


        private $args;
        private $body;
        private $function;

        private function __construct($args, $body)
        {
            assert('is_array($args)');
            assert('is_string($body)');

            $this->args = $args;
            $this->body = $body;
            $this->function = create_function(implode(',', $this->args), $this->body);
        }

        public function map($array)
        {
            //  We could actually test if the number of args is two
            //  and do a array_map with keys as well
            assert('count($this->args) == 1');
            return array_map($this->function, $array);
        }

        public function filter($array)
        {
            assert('count($this->args) == 1');
            return array_filter($array, $this->function);
        }

        public function sort($array)
        {
            assert('count($this->args) == 2');
            usort($array, $this->function);
            return $array;
        }

        public function call()
        {
            $args = func_get_args();

            return call_user_func_array($this->function, $args);
        }

        public function getFunction()
        {
            return $this->function;
        }

        public function __toString()
        {
            return $this->function;
        }
    }

    $extractRowId = Lambda::Create('function ($row) { return $row["id"]; }');
    print_r($extractRowId->map(array(array('id' => 'a'), array('id' => 'b'))));

    $randomise = Lambda::Create('function ($v, $v) { return rand(0,1) == 0 ? -1 : 1; }');
    print_r($randomise->sort(array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)));

    $greaterThanFive = Lambda::Create('function ($var) { return $var > 5; }');
    print_r(array_filter(array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), $greaterThanFive->getFunction()));
    print_r(array_filter(array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9), (string)$greaterThanFive));

    $printString = Lambda::Create('function($str) { echo $str . "\n"; }');
    $printString->call("Hello World");


    function formatString($s)
    {
        $args = func_get_args();

        for($i = 1; $i < count($args); $i++)
        {
            $s = $args[$i]->call($s);
        }

        return $s;
    }


    $italic = Lambda::Create('function($s) { return "<i>" . $s . "</i>"; }');
    $bold   = Lambda::Create('function($s) { return "<bold>" . $s . "</bold>"; }');

    $tag        = Lambda::Create('function($t) { return Lambda::Create("function(\$s) { return \"<$t>\" . \$s . \"</$t>\"; }"); }');
    $heading    = $tag->call('h1');
    $para       = $tag->call('p');

    echo formatString('Weird Formatting', $italic, $bold, $heading) . "\n";


    $content    = Lambda::Create('function($s) { return "Hello Lambda!" . $s; }');
    $newLine    = Lambda::Create('function($s) { return $s . "<br/>"; }');

    echo formatString('', $content, $bold, $italic, $newLine, $para) . "\n";

?>

Output

explodeTree

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

While reading a blog post by Kevin Van Zonneveld’s on converting arrays to trees in PHP, I was shocked to see his approach to the problem. To paraphrase a popular quote:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think
“I know, I’ll use eval.” Now they have two problems.

Below is the same function, but using a reference rather than eval to keep track of the current branch. (After reading the comments on the blog, my code is surprisingly similar to lachlan’s. Great minds, or something like that I guess :))

qpsmon v0.1

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This is a simple script that will print the average qps (using a specified period) for one or more MySQL databases. If doesn’t have many practical uses, but it’s fun to watch when running large imports or exports.

<?php
/*

    qpsmon.php  v0.1

    This is an (extremely) simple script that will get the average
    number of queries/second for several MySQL databases.


    Example Output:

        qpsmon v0.1
        Sample size 120 seconds.  [60 times every 2 seconds]

          Margaret   176 qps
             Yarra    11 qps
            Murray  1066 qps

*/


    error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);


    define('NUMBER_SAMPLES', 60);   //  Number of samples to keep
    define('PEROID_LENGTH', 2);     //  How often (in seconds) to take a simple
    define('AUTO_CLEAR', true);     //  Automatically clear the screen each refresh


    define('PROGRAM_NAME', 'qpsmon');
    define('PROGRAM_VERSION', '0.1');


    $databases = array
    (
        //  Define you MySQL databases here.  E.G.
        'My Server' => new MysqlConn('localhost', 'username', 'password', MysqlConn::MYSQL_VERSION_5),
    );


    class LimBuffer
    {
        private $maxSize;
        private $buffer = array();

        public function __construct($maxSize = 20)
        {
            $this->maxSize = $maxSize;
        }

        public function add($v)
        {
            $this->buffer[] = $v;

            if(count($this->buffer) > $this->maxSize)
            {
                $this->buffer = array_slice($this->buffer, -$this->maxSize);
            }
        }

        public function get()
        {
            return $this->buffer;
        }

        public function first()
        {
            return $this->buffer[0];
        }

        public function last()
        {
            return $this->buffer[count($this->buffer) - 1];
        }
    }

    class MysqlConn
    {
        const MYSQL_VERSION_4 = 1010;
        const MYSQL_VERSION_5 = 2020;

        private $host;
        private $username;
        private $password;
        private $mysqlVersion;

        private $conn = false;

        public function __construct($host, $username, $password, $mysqlVersion = self::MYSQL_VERSION_5)
        {
            if(!in_array($mysqlVersion, array(self::MYSQL_VERSION_4, self::MYSQL_VERSION_5)))
            {
                die("Invalid mysql version specified\n");
            }

            $this->host         = $host;
            $this->username     = $username;
            $this->password     = $password;
            $this->mysqlVersion = $mysqlVersion;
        }

        public function getQueryCount()
        {
            if(!$this->conn)
            {
                $this->connect();
            }

            $sql    = ($this->mysqlVersion == self::MYSQL_VERSION_4) ? ' SHOW STATUS' : 'SHOW GLOBAL STATUS';

            $query  = mysql_query($sql, $this->conn);

            while(($row = mysql_fetch_row($query)) !== false)
            {
                if($row[0] == 'Questions')
                {
                    return $row[1];
                }
            }

            return 0;
        }

        private function connect()
        {
            $this->conn = mysql_connect($this->host, $this->username, $this->password, true);
        }
    }

    function printHeader()
    {
        printf("%s v%s\n", PROGRAM_NAME, PROGRAM_VERSION);
        printf("Sample size %d seconds.  [%d times every %d seconds]\n", NUMBER_SAMPLES * PEROID_LENGTH, NUMBER_SAMPLES, PEROID_LENGTH);
        printf("\n");
    }


    //  For nicer formatting, here we get the maximum length of the
    //  databases names.
    $maxDatabaseNameSize = 0;
    foreach($databases as $name => $connection)
    {
        $maxDatabaseNameSize = (strlen($name) > $maxDatabaseNameSize) ? strlen($name) : $maxDatabaseNameSize;
    }


    if(!AUTO_CLEAR)
    {
        printHeader();
    }


    //  Our main loop
    $stats = array();

    while(true)
    {
        foreach($databases as $name => $connection)
        {
            //  First time round we need to init our stats array with
            //  a new Limit buffer with the correct sample size
            if(!isset($stats[$name]))
            {
                $stats[$name] = new LimBuffer(NUMBER_SAMPLES);
            }

            //  Add a new item, with the current time, and the total number
            //  of queries
            $stats[$name]->add(array('time' => time(), 'count' => $connection->getQueryCount()));
        }

        //  No point doing anything on the first run through
        //  Abusing scope here: $name is the from the last loop for the for statement above
        if(count($stats[$name]->get()) == 1)
        {
            sleep(PEROID_LENGTH);
            continue;
        }

        if(AUTO_CLEAR)
        {
            system("clear");
            printHeader();
        }

        foreach($stats as $name => $stat)
        {
            $first  = $stat->first();
            $last   = $stat->last();

            $period     = $last['time'] - $first['time'];
            $queryCount = $last['count'] - $first['count'];
            $qps        = $queryCount / ($period == 0 ? 1 : $period);

            printf("  %{$maxDatabaseNameSize}s %5d qps\n", $name, $qps);
        }

        printf("\n");

        //  Warn the user that we have yet to fill up out buffer
        if(count($stats[$name]->get()) != NUMBER_SAMPLES)
        {
            printf("Warming up...\n");
            printf("\n");
        }

        sleep(PEROID_LENGTH);
    }

?>

AYBABTU

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

#544203

<atrus> i worked on a project once where somebody named variables defined in
        various places explicity so on one line of code, it showed up as:
<atrus> function_name($all, $urBase, $rBelong, $toUs);
<atrus> closest i've ever come to manslaughter

WoW Progress

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

First trip to Kara on the weekend, being mostly a PUG we started off really poorly. We eventually replaced our off tank (who was arms :/) with a well geared (epic) tank which helped substantially. Though, we still only managed to down Huntsman and Maiden of Virtue.

I have most of the standard instances down pretty well (ran SV the other night with a naked healer without any trouble :)). Though without a good group of people, heroics seem really hits and miss (so far, mostly miss) which is a little annoying as the progression seems pretty steep after the standard 5 mans. As I (slowly) improve I’m sure it will get better.

Random code: Comic Calendar

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote this the other night in response to a question on the OCAU forums, and though that perhaps someone else might benefit from it (though please take note of the below disclaimer). The script is a really basic image archive (in this case comics), showing (and linking) the when images were created (based upon the filename). I’m not very happy with the code, but it took just over an hour and was meant as a POC more than anything.

Bad code I’m proud of

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Some days I feel like I’m fighting with PHP every step (I’m sure most PHP programmers know what I mean). To stop it getting to me, I often try to come up creative ways to implement some code (often hacked up and unreadable) just to prove that I’m better than it is. :-)

The code below is used to transform rows from a database query, and has an ugly hack to work around a bug (atleast IMO) regarding the scope of functions created with `create_function`

Better anonymous functions in PHP5

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m sure everyone knows that create_function is evil, while at the same time, so very appealing. The most significant problem are the memory leaks that occur every time `create_function()` is called (as it’s not really an anonymous function, just a randomly named function in the global scope). The below class sidesteps the problem by caching `create_function()` results, minimizing the actual number of functions that are created.

<?php

    /**
    * A create_function() wrapper to stop memory leaks when calling
    * create_function multiple times with the same arguments
    *
    * @author Matthew Davey
    */
    class AnonFunction
    {
        /**
        * 'Hash' to hold our functions.  The key is the function arguments
        * concatenated with the function body.
        *
        * @var $functions array
        * @private
        * @static
        */
        private static $functions = array();

        /**
        * Create a new function, or return a previous function
        *
        * @param string $arg function arguments
        * @param string $body function body
        * @return string name of function
        */
        public static function Create($arg, $body)
        {
            if(!isset(self::$functions[$arg . $body]))
            {
                self::$functions[$arg . $body] = create_function($arg, $body);
            }

            return self::$functions[$arg . $body];
        }
    }

?>

Example

WoW

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Progress

Hmm, seems the the numbers I was reporting weren’t actually that useful thanks to arcane talents. After a respec back to a more conventional fire spec, I now have: +632 spell damage, +172 fire damage, and +26 more from set bonus. Giving a total (before talents) of: +830 fire damage, again, it all came at a cost of stam and int.

Actually start running Karazhan… Guild doesn’t look to be able to do this any time soon, might need to swap again
~~Enchant Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower on my Greatsword of Horrid Dreams~~ – Done
~~Craft Spellfire Robe to finish the Wrath of Spellfire set~~ – Done

Fun with relative dates

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

$ date
Fri Sep 14 12:48:47 EST 2007

$ php -r "echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('Friday'));"
2007-09-14 00:00:00

$ php -r "echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('next Friday'));"
2007-09-21 00:00:00

$ date -d "Friday"
Fri Sep 14 00:00:00 EST 2007

$ date -d "next Friday"
Fri Sep 14 00:00:00 EST 2007

My first thought was that PHP was a POS, but according to the documentation on GNU.org (which is the same as ‘info date’) ‘date’ seems to be incorrect.

Yet more wow

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Progress

+834 Fire (+845 With Arcane Intellect) with one Metagem slot to fill and without Major Spellpower on my weapon. Though, it did cost a bit of Int and Stam.

Enchant Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower on my Greatsword of Horrid Dreams
Actually start running Karazhan
Craft Spellfire Robe to finish the Wrath of Spellfire set
~~Karazhan Attunement~~ – Done
~~Level tailoring to 375~~ – Done

More WoW

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

+783 Fire Damage

While only a small change I’ve now a new necklace + ring + boots, each giving more +int and +crit, so overall a nice improvement.

Progress – Day 1

~~Flying mount~~ – Done
Karazhan Attunement. 1 Key down.
Purchase Bracers of Havok
Enchant Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower on my The Bringer of Death
Level tailoring to 375
Craft Spellfire Robe to finish the Wrath of Spellfire set

Progress – Day 2

Not enough hours in a day

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

+777 Damage now

Next up

Flying mount
Enchant Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower on my The Bringer of Death
Level tailoring to 375
Craft Spellfire Robe to finish the Wrath of Spellfire set

… Just wish I had more time to play WoW :-)

Internet Connection

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Yay, about time too

Though the speed is pretty similar to what I had with Internode on ADSL1 :-(

Upstream:         990500
Downstream:       8362800

Downstream
SNR Margin        6.0 dB
Line Attenuation  35.0 dB

Upstream
SNR Margin        6.0 dB
Line Attenuation  21.0 dB

The Start...

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Today I received the keys to my new home, and, not unsurprisingly, I’m quite happy.

It’s a moderate sized two bedroom standalone unit, located in Dandenong (though quite close to the Yarraman train station). It’s in a relatively quiet area and located off the road (the driveway into the block of 8 units is on a standard house block). It’s was great value (atleast, so far :)) too. I’m really looking forward to moving in out of my tiny rented flat (even if it is much closer to work).

VIM Autocompletion for MySql Table Columns

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Even after working with a database schema for over a year now, I still have to think hard about (and sometimes just guess) some column names (e.g. record.idInteractionRecent vs record.idRecentInteraction, and moduleInfo.valueShort vs moduleInfo.nameShort). The below PHP script will generate a list of column names that can be used in VIM for autocompletion.

<?php

    //  This script outputs a complete list of fully qualified database
    //  columns (ie. table.column) for the specified MySQL database suitable for
    //  VIM's autocompletion feature.
    //
    //  To add to Vim's complete list:
    //  set complete+=k/path/to/dictionary isk+=.,
    //
    //  - Matthew  (buzzard@project-2501.net)


    $usage = <<<EOT

Usage:
php {$_SERVER['argv'][0]} username:password@host/database
php {$_SERVER['argv'][0]} username@host/database
php {$_SERVER['argv'][0]} host/database


EOT;


    if(count($_SERVER['argv']) != 2)
    {
        die($usage);
    }

    if(preg_match("#^(.*):(.*)@(.*)/(.*)$#i", $_SERVER['argv'][1], $matches) == 1)
    {
        list(,$username, $password, $host, $database) = $matches;

        if(($conn = @mysql_connect($host, $username, $password)) === false)
        {
            die("Unable to connect to {$_SERVER['argv'][1]}\n" . mysql_error($conn) . "\n");
        }
    }
    else if(preg_match("#^(.*)@(.*)/(.*)$#i", $_SERVER['argv'][1], $matches) == 1)
    {
        list(, $username, $host, $database) = $matches;

        if(($conn = @mysql_connect($host, $username)) === false)
        {
            die("Unable to connect to {$_SERVER['argv'][1]}\n" . mysql_error($conn) . "\n");
        }
    }
    else if(preg_match("#^(.*)/(.*)$#i", $_SERVER['argv'][1], $matches) == 1)
    {
        list(, $host, $database) = $matches;

        if(($conn = @mysql_connect($host)) === false)
        {
            die("Unable to connect to {$_SERVER['argv'][1]}\n" . mysql_error($conn) . "\n");
        }
    }
    else
    {
        die($usage);
    }


    if(@mysql_select_db($database, $conn) === false)
    {
        die("Unable to select database '$database'\n" . mysql_error($conn) . "\n");
    }


    $tableList = queryGetFirstColumn($conn, 'SHOW TABLES');

    foreach($tableList as $tableName)
    {
        $columnList = queryGetFirstColumn($conn, "DESCRIBE `$tableName`");

        foreach($columnList as $columnName)
        {
            printf("%s.%s\n", $tableName, $columnName);
        }
    }


    function queryGetFirstColumn($conn, $sql)
    {
        if(($query = mysql_query($sql, $conn)) == false)
        {
            die("Unable to execute query '$sql'\n" . mysql_error($conn) . "\n");
        }

        $rows = array();

        while(($row = mysql_fetch_row($query)) !== false)
        {
            $rows[] = $row[0];
        }

        return $rows;
    }

MySql: Always learning something new

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

mysql>  SELECT "50" > 100, 50 > "100", "100" > 50, 100 > "50", "100" > "50", "50" > "100";
+------------+------------+------------+------------+--------------+--------------+
| "50" > 100 | 50 > "100" | "100" > 50 | 100 > "50" | "100" > "50" | "50" > "100" |
+------------+------------+------------+------------+--------------+--------------+
|          0 |          0 |          1 |          1 |            0 |            1 |
+------------+------------+------------+------------+--------------+--------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

mysql>

I guess it does make sense, though I’d rather it was more like PHP (do what I mean, not what I say) or even the other extreme and throw errors (enforcing a correct database schema to start with).

PHP:

"50" > 100    --  false
50 > "100"    --  false
"100" > 50    --  true
100 > "50"    --  true
"100" > "50"  --  true
"50" > "100"  --  false

Finally, a real window manager

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve recently started using (well, playing with) Ion3 and while I’ve not really got a hang of all the keyboard shortcuts yet, it’s proving to be a very usable (and fast) window manager.

I’m not addicted…

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Bought within minutes of server shutdown so no interesting background :-)

Working with MySQL

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

matthewd@carbonara:~$ mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2792799
Server version: 5.0.38-log Gentoo Linux mysql-5.0.38

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> use b3
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

Database changed
mysql> SELECT count(*) FROM interaction WHERE idRecord=3720322;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
|       30 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT count(*) FROM interaction WHERE idRecord=3720322 ORDER BY `create` DESC, `id` DESC;
+----------+
| count(*) |
+----------+
|       30 |
+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM interaction WHERE idRecord=3720322;
+---------+---------------------+----------+--------+-----------+
| id      | create              | idRecord | idUser | idOutcome |
+---------+---------------------+----------+--------+-----------+
... snip 30 rows ...
+---------+---------------------+----------+--------+-----------+
30 rows in set (0.01 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM interaction WHERE idRecord=3720322 ORDER BY `create` DESC, `id` DESC;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Isn’t MySQL grand?

brainfucked.py again. Or: How not to optimise

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After slaving over a warm laptop (while getting lost on the train), I re-wrote my bf interpreter to use a kind of psudo-bytecode to optimise jumps, and big sets of increments and movement operations. Below is the new code.

#!/usr/bin/python

"""
brainfucked.py a simple (and hopefully easy to understand)
Brainfuck interpreter written in Python.

Official page:   http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/
Wikipedia:       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
Program archive: .


Copyright (C) 2007  Matthew Davey

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  
02110-1301, USA.
"""


from time import time
import sys
import re
import os


class BytecodeInstruction:

    OP_MOV        = 1  
    OP_INC        = 2
    OP_LOOP_START = 3
    OP_LOOP_END   = 4
    OP_INPUT      = 5
    OP_OUTPUT     = 6

    def __init__(self, opcode, value):
        self.opcode = opcode
        self.value  = value

    def __str__(self):
        if self.opcode == self.OP_MOV:
            return "MOVE %d" % (self.value,)
        elif self.opcode == self.OP_INC:
            return "INCREMENT %d" % (self.value,)
        elif self.opcode == self.OP_LOOP_START:
            return "OPEN LOOP (END: %d)" % (self.value,)
        elif self.opcode == self.OP_LOOP_END:
            return "CLOSE LOOP (START: %d)" % (self.value,)
        elif self.opcode == self.OP_INPUT:
            return "INPUT"
        elif self.opcode == self.OP_OUTPUT:
            return "OUTPUT"


class BytecodeException(Exception):
    pass


class BrainfuckedInterpreter:

    def compile_to_bytecode(self, program):
        """
        Turn the passed brainfuck program into our pretend bytecode  

        TODO: Check for NO_OPs  (OP_MOV, 0)  or  (OP_INC, 0)
        TODO: Try to find some patterns that can be expressed simplier
        """        

        # Remove all non-instructions
        program = re.findall("[[\]<>+-.,]", program)

        # Holds the generated bytecode
        bytecode = []

        # Prime the byte code to simplify the checks when compiling the first
        # instruction.  NOTE:  This should be remove at the end if it's a NOOP
        bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_MOV, 0))

        # A stack for open brackets.  Holds the bytecode location, no program_data
        bracket_stack  = []

        for instruction in program:

            if instruction in ['+', '-']:

                # If the last instruction wasn't a OP_INC, then create a new
                # OP_INC instruction initilised to '0'
                if bytecode[-1].opcode != BytecodeInstruction.OP_INC:
                    bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_INC, 0))

                if instruction == '+':
                    bytecode[-1].value += 1
                else:
                    bytecode[-1].value -= 1


            elif instruction in ['>', '<']:

                # Just like above, if the previous instruction was the same
                # type, then just change the amoutn moved                
                if bytecode[-1].opcode != BytecodeInstruction.OP_MOV:
                    bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_MOV, 0))

                if instruction == '>':
                    bytecode[-1].value += 1
                else:
                    bytecode[-1].value -= 1


            elif instruction == ',':
                bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_INPUT, False))


            elif instruction == '.':
                bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_OUTPUT, False))


            elif instruction == '[':

                # We don't know where to jump to yet, so just store False
                bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_LOOP_START, False))

                # Use a stack to store our current location so we can match
                # up brackets correctly
                bracket_stack.append(len(bytecode)-1)


            elif instruction == ']':

                # The location (bytecode, not program) of the open bracket
                try:
                    bracket_location = bracket_stack.pop()
                except IndexError:
                    raise BytecodeException("Unmatched ']' encoutered")

                # Add the closeing bracket here, and point it to the location
                # of the opening bracket               
                bytecode.append(BytecodeInstruction(BytecodeInstruction.OP_LOOP_END, bracket_location))

                # Now, we go back to the open bracket and fill in the location
                # that is should jump too when the cell = 0
                bytecode[bracket_location].value = len(bytecode) - 1


        # Make sure all the brackets have been matched
        if len(bracket_stack) != 0:
            raise BytecodeException("Unmatched '[' encoutered")

        return bytecode



    def run_bytecode(self, bytecode, use_stdout = False, debug = False):

        # Program output
        output = ''

        # Out Tape/Memory
        memory         = [0]
        memory_pointer = 0

        # How we are doing processing the bytecode
        bytecode_length  = len(bytecode)
        bytecode_pointer = 0


        while bytecode_pointer < bytecode_length:

            instruction = bytecode[bytecode_pointer]

            if debug:
                print instruction


            if instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_INC:
                memory[memory_pointer] += instruction.value

            elif instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_MOV:

                # Can't move before cell: 0
                if memory_pointer + instruction.value < 0:
                    raise Exception("Tried to move before the start of the memory block")

                # Are we going past the end of the list?  Then we need to expand it
                if memory_pointer + instruction.value > len(memory)-1:

                    # Wow, talk about naive :)
                    # FIXME later
                    for i in range(0, instruction.value):
                        memory.append(0)

                memory_pointer += instruction.value

            elif instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_LOOP_START:
                if memory[memory_pointer] == 0:
                    bytecode_pointer = instruction.value


            elif instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_LOOP_END:
                if memory[memory_pointer] != 0:
                    bytecode_pointer = instruction.value


            elif instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_INPUT:
                char = sys.stdin.read(1)

                if char == '':
                    memory[memory_pointer] = 0
                else:
                    # Remember to turn character 'A' into it's ASCII number
                    memory[memory_pointer] = ord(char)            


            elif instruction.opcode == BytecodeInstruction.OP_OUTPUT:     
                output += chr(memory[memory_pointer])

                if use_stdout:
                    sys.stdout.write(chr(memory[memory_pointer]))            


            if debug:
                print memory


            bytecode_pointer += 1


        return output




if __name__ == '__main__':

    usage = "Usage: %s <filename> [enable_timer: True | False]" % (sys.argv[0],)
    timer = False

    if len(sys.argv) not in [2,3] or sys.argv[1] == 'help':
        print usage
        sys.exit(1)


    if not os.path.exists(sys.argv[1]):
        print usage
        print "File not found"
        sys.exit(1)


    try:
        program = open(sys.argv[1]).read()
    except Exception, e:
        print usage
        print "Unable to open file: %s" % (e.__str__(),)
        sys.exit(1)


    if len(sys.argv) == 3:
        if sys.argv[2] not in ['True', 'False']:
            print usage
            print "Second argument must be 'True' or 'False'"
            sys.exit(1)

        if sys.argv[2] == 'True':
            timer = True


    if timer:
        start_time = time()


    bf = BrainfuckedInterpreter()

    bytecode = bf.compile_to_bytecode(program)

    if timer:
        compile_time = time()

    bf.run_bytecode(bytecode, use_stdout=True)
    # print bf.run_bytecode(bytecode, use_stdout=False)


    if timer:
        print
        print "Elapsed time: %0.2f  Compile time: %0.2f" % (time() - start_time, compile_time - start_time)

Now, proof that all my work paid off…

Real editors

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m neither a Vim or Emacs user, but this post makes me wonder why not.

ktr73 posted the Vim equiv. to reddit

map \( s()<Esc>P
map \[ s[]<Esc>P

Rewriting from Scratch

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Joel on Software: Things You Should Never Do, Part I

Since that article was originally posted, I’ve read it three or four times, and each time I get more out of it. When working on a non-trivial program there is a real desire to throw away the code and ‘do-it-right’, one rarely wonders just how hard would it be to fixed the program, one problem at a time. Now that I’ve finally got my chance to ‘do-it-right’, I feel that there’s a distinct possibility that it will cause more problems than it will ever solve.

brainfucked.py

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Code:

#!/usr/bin/python

"""
brainfucked.py a simple (and hopefully easy to understand) Brainfuck interrupter
written in Python.

Official page:   http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/
Wikipedia:       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
Program archive: http://esoteric.sange.fi/brainfuck/bf-source/prog/

Only one program confirmed not working:
 * Ben Olmstead 99 Bottles of Beer.  Appears to be caused by non-wrapping 8bit
   cells (after 91 bottles, cell becomes -1 and then enters infinte loop)


Copyright (C) 2007  Matthew Davey  <buzzard AT project DASH 2501 DOT net>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301, USA.
"""


from time import time
import sys
import re
import os


"""
Find matching '[' and ']' brackets.  Use a FIFO stack to keep brackets matched,
and a dictionary to map both left->right and right->left.
"""
def find_matching_brackets(program_data):

    stack = []
    brackets = {}

    program_length = len(program_data)
    program_pointer = 0

    while program_pointer < program_length:

        if program_data[program_pointer] == '[':
            stack.append(program_pointer)

        elif program_data[program_pointer] == ']':
            if len(stack) == 0:
                raise Exception("Unmatched brackets, extra closing ']'")

            # Pull the location of the last open bracket from the stack
            val = stack.pop()

            # Creating a mapping left->right as well as right->left
            brackets[val] = program_pointer;
            brackets[program_pointer] = val;

        program_pointer += 1

    if len(stack) > 0:
        raise Exception("Unmatched brackets, too many opening '['")

    return brackets



"""
Runs a Brainfuck program, passed as a string.  All comments are striped out at
start.

 * use_stdout flag indicates is we should print after each '.'
 * strict_eight_bit_cell indicates if we should enforce each cells range to be 0
   to 255 inclusive with no wrapping

Function returns outputted characters as a string (even if use_stdout is True)
"""
def run_program(program, use_stdout = False, strict_eight_bit_cell = False):

    # Remove all non-instructions
    program = re.findall("[[\]<>+-.,]", program)

    # Contains all printed characters
    output = ''

    # Points to the location of the current instruction
    instruction_pointer = 0
    program_length = len(program)

    # Memory or Tape.  Initialised to a single cell with the value 0
    tape = [0]

    # Pointer to the 'head' running over the tape
    tape_pointer = 0

    # Returns a dictionary of matching left->right and right->left brackets
    brackets = find_matching_brackets(program)

    # Until end of the program
    while instruction_pointer < program_length:

        current_operator = program[instruction_pointer]


        # Move to next cell
        if current_operator == '>':

            tape_pointer += 1

            # We are going passed the end of the tape
            if tape_pointer > len(tape)-1:
                tape.append(0)


        # Move to previous cell
        elif current_operator == '<':

            # Test for leaving the start of the tape
            if tape_pointer <= 0:
                raise Exception("Tried to move left 1 cell at position 0")

            tape_pointer -= 1


        # Decrement current cell
        elif current_operator == '+':
            tape[tape_pointer] += 1

            if strict_eight_bit_cell and tape[tape_pointer] > 0xff:
                raise Exception("Tried to increment past 255")


        # Increment current cell
        elif current_operator == '-':
            tape[tape_pointer] -= 1

            if strict_eight_bit_cell and tape[tape_pointer] < 0:
                raise Exception("Tried to decrement below 0")


        # Open bracket  
        elif current_operator == '[':
            if tape[tape_pointer] == 0:
                # We know the left bracket, so jump to the right one
                instruction_pointer = brackets[instruction_pointer]


        # Close bracket
        elif current_operator == ']':
            if tape[tape_pointer] != 0:
                # We know the right bracket, so jump to the left one
                instruction_pointer = brackets[instruction_pointer]


        # Read a single character, set current cell to '0' on EOF
        elif current_operator == ',':
            char = sys.stdin.read(1)

            if char == '':
                tape[tape_pointer] = 0
            else:
                # Remember to turn character 'A' into it's ASCII number
                tape[tape_pointer] = ord(char)


        # Record outputted character, and if use_stdout is True, output the
        # character as well (to stdout)
        elif current_operator == '.':
            output += chr(tape[tape_pointer])

            if use_stdout:
                sys.stdout.write(chr(tape[tape_pointer]))


        instruction_pointer += 1

    return output



if __name__ == '__main__':

    usage = "Usage: %s <filename> [enable_timer: True | False]" % (sys.argv[0],)
    timer = False

    if len(sys.argv) not in [2,3] or sys.argv[1] == 'help':
        print usage
        sys.exit(1)


    if not os.path.exists(sys.argv[1]):
        print usage
        print "File not found"
        sys.exit(1)


    try:
        program = open(sys.argv[1]).read()
    except Exception, e:
        print usage
        print "Unable to open file: %s" % (e.__str__(),)
        sys.exit(1)


    if len(sys.argv) == 3:
        if sys.argv[2] not in ['True', 'False']:
            print usage
            print "Second argument must be 'True' or 'False'"
            sys.exit(1)

        if sys.argv[2] == 'True':
            timer = True


    if timer:
        start_time = time()


    run_program(program, use_stdout = True, strict_eight_bit_cell = False)


    if timer:
        print
        print "Elapsed time: %0.2f" % (time() - start_time,)

Example output:

WWDC07

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Just for the record; my Leopard predictions:

ZFS will be default file system
Time Machine will thus become a free feature due to copy-on-write

Edit: Why ZFS is cool [PDF]

My weekend timesink

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I hope everybody’s weekend was just as productive as my own:

Lightsabers are cool

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

“This is not a rootkit...”

Fri, 18 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

matthewd@carbonara:~$ telnet 10.10.42.45 9090
Trying 10.10.42.45...
Connected to 10.10.42.45.
Escape character is '^]'.


This is not a rootkit or other backdoor, it's a BitTorrent
client. Really. Why should you be worried, can't you read this
reassuring message? Now just listen to this social engi, er, I mean,
completely truthful statement, and go about your business. Your box is
safe and completely impregnable, the marketing hype for your OS even
says so. You can believe everything you read. Now move along, nothing
to see here.Connection closed by foreign host.
matthewd@carbonara:~$

What’s wrong with this code

Fri, 18 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Ten points if you can figure out why the below code doesn’t work as expected

$s = "$123,456.78";

if(preg_match("#^\$([,0-9]+)\.\d\d$#", $s, $matches) == 1)
{
    echo "It works!\n";
}

Yep, because I was using double quotes. PHP thought that ‘$’ meant the literal ‘$’ (as opposed to a variable substitution) not ‘$’ which was what I wanted to pass to preg_match.

I should have either escaped the back slash (’\$’) or just used single quotes (as they don’t support variable substitution).

Future Food

Sun, 06 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America — a revolution that is transforming the very nature … all » of the food we eat.

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

Watch @ Google Video

Tiger got to hunt…

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’ Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.

Cat’s Cradle — Kurt Vonnegut

The Typing of the Dead II

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Finally, a sequel to one of most unique games out there. Unfortunately the protagonists have hung up their Dreamcast’s and oversized batteries for more conventional weapons :-(

The Corporation

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Provoking, witty, stylish and sweepingly informative, THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Part film and part movement, The Corporation is transforming audiences and dazzling critics with its insightful and compelling analysis. Taking its status as a legal “person” to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” The Corporation includes interviews with 40 corporate insiders and critics – including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore – plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

SGW: Ascended life force

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Probably should have done this soon as the war started, but better late than never :-)

Name	Value
Ascended Life Force	1,001,449 / 16,763
Ascended Life Force Reserves	167,749 / 167,630

Now back to trying to break rank 100 for influence :-)

The Code Club

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Code Club

Deconvolution wavelet algorithm

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Charlie Epps running a deconvolution wavelet algorithm in Numb3rs episode 03x19 (19m 20s). Looks to me more like a Word HTML document, but then again, I’m not a professor of applied mathematics :-)

Editing files via SSH

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m amazed that some things just work: I’m currently editing a remote file in Komodo Edit (on Windows) via SFTP, to a computer inside another network via a SSH tunnel (as it’s not directly accessible from outside), which has a sshfs (fuse) mount to another computer (on the same network though).

Still, I do wish for a free alternative to SftpDrive, that said, maybe I should just bite the bullet and run a Samba-sshfs virtual machine

OCAU for sale RSS feed (Old)

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Hourly updated RSS feeds for marketplace forums on Overclockers Australia

The individual feeds contain the last 25 posts from a single forum, while the combined feed contains the last 50 posts over all five of the forums.

The (ugly) source is available here: updated3.phps

**Note:**Usernames and email addresses are intentionally omitted to stop new users avoiding the 90 day waiting period. If you wish to use this code, please don’t remove this feature.

OCAU for sale RSS feed up

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well I’ve fixed and updated the OCAU For sale RSS feed. It’s updated every hour and is located here

Gallery Implemented

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Hacked up my gallery script into a WordPress plugin. Was a heck of a lot easier that I thought it would be.

Next up: OCAU rss feed

New blog

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I’ve reached the point were I would rather a working website than one I’ve written myself, thus project-2501.net has become yet another WordPress blog.

I will attempt to get the OCAU rss feed up soon.

Ubuntu on my laptop

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

This (almost) marks the end of my running Linux (Ubuntu 6.10) on my laptop. I run Ubuntu at work, so this is more about compatibility than Ubuntu as a distro.

Laptop:

HP Compaq Presario v6000-something-or-other (the Core2Duo one with the 100GB HDD)

Good things:

Installed without any problems
Audio and video acceleration worked out of the box
Fast and responsive (well it is a Core2Duo)
Only taking 10 minutes to install and play with Beryl

Livable things:

Very simple captcha decoding using the Canvas tag

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Ever since learning about the [canvas tag] 1 I’ve been wanting to try this. Yes, the captcha I used is amazingly simple to break, but, I doubt I’m smart enough to tackle anything more complicated. Though I feel it still serves a good proof of concept (espcially when combined with [Greasemonkey] 2)

Digg: Javascript overload?

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

The Digg front page (28KB) requires 2 (3?) CSS files and 17 Javascript files to be downloaded before it can be displayed. This shouldn’t be a problem as the files should be cached on the first visit. But I wouldn’t’ be here writing this if that was the case. It appears that max-age is set to 60 minutes on almost everything, even the images.

I used the Live HTTP Headers extension for Firefox to examine all the HTTP responses sent when doing a full refresh, to see just how much data was being transferred.