Spring has arrived early here. The birds are frequenting the feeders I set up, though they seem to spend as much time picking through the seeds in the grass as they do taking what they don’t like out of the feeders and dropping them there. But there’s also been some big blue jays show up that I’ve never seen around here before and a couple other squirrel-sized birds that were still light enough to rest on the feeder posts without causing them to sink and close the openings.
And somehow, I have some crocuses growing in the grass that weren’t there the year before and they’re already blooming. I’ll have to see if I can separate them and transplant them to a better spot.
Today I was feeling a little glum, and I had to get some shopping in for dinner.
One of the lovely people at Asda (Wal•Mart) saw that I was feeling down and gave me an extra large free sample of their own-brand sticky-toffee-chocolate cake.
I finished working my way through Hacking Secret Ciphers With Python on the plane today. Also finished The Code Book, which that author recommended for a very approachable history of cryptography.
And this was a few days ago, but I’m still happy: made my last student loan payment.
Came in this morning and solved a weird Javascript/Windows bug I spent almost an hour on yesterday and was getting totally annoyed with. Took about 10 minutes and a google search this morning.
There’s some tricks to allow a Javascript to create files. For my use, it’s convenient to do so, so I got some code working (I.E. I copied a bunch from online) that I tweaked slightly. It takes the contents of a key text field for this script extractor/converter and saves it to a neat, named file.
However, Windows: Specifically, Windows line breaks. So my nice neat config file loses all line breaks when opened in notepad. Which is the tool my boss uses, as there’s been concerns about configs/csv files/etc that go through other applications getting text formatting.
So it turned out I was able to tweak one line from:
var textFileAsBlob = new Blob([textToWrite], {type:'text/plain});'
to:
var textFileAsBlob = new Blob([textToWrite], {type:'text/plain', endings:'native'});
Problem solved, thanks to a quick google of the Javacript Blob stuff, which I’ve never messed with.
TL;DR: I’ve achieved the IT Achievement of replacing myself with a small script!
My new tablet arrived today and I have just finished configuring it. The magnetically attached keyboard is nice, especially since it functions as a cover for the tablet too. The round grip is nice for handling the tablet, but it doesn’t fit in the stand I use with my exercise bike.
The tablet itself is lighter than my ASUS Transformer, but a bit thicker. The keyboard is surprisingly heavy. The display is very pretty. Sound is pretty good too. The round grip contains the speakers, and I get actual stereo sound out of them.
Edit: The one flaw is that sometimes it takes several seconds for it to decide to rotate the screen when I turn it.
My son has a FIRST Robotics mini-regional competition in Sussex, WI today. I hope him and the rest of the Bond Brigade 5586 team do well, but no matter how they place, I couldn’t be a prouder geek father this morning.
I bought some Hickory Farms Turkey Summer Sausage a couple of weeks ago that has brown sugar and honey in it. Very yummy. If I can remember where I bought it, I’m going back and buying 10 more.
I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask him but he may not know why. He’s more on the programming side of things in his first year. He’s pretty raw at it as far as I can tell at this point. The main point was that he had a blast doing something he could make a good career out of someday.
I looked the other day when you mentioned it. Hickory Farms website said unavailable, out of season, or something. Amazon had it for a couple bucks more, but dang, it was expensive even from Hickory Farms.
My old one wasn’t up to date enough.
