Bike Touring Packing List
When preparing for my first bike tour, the packing lists I found on the Internet really helped me. Now that I have a bit of experience, my own bicycle touring packing list is good enough to share.
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Blognado
My blog about the adventure of life: travel, personal finance, life hacks and tech.
Verify Their Identity Before Sending Money
A relative recently fell victim to the virtual kidnapping scam, where criminals demand ransom for a loved one whom they only claim to have kidnapped. To make their claim more convincing, the perpetrators make their ransom demand when the purported kidnapping victim cannot be contacted. They might simply know when the person is isolated and unavailable, or they might force them to go incommunicado by stealing their mobile phone.
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Test XML Output Using Python doctest
Python doctest combines unit testing with documentation. With doctest, you put your unit tests in the Python docstring, and documentation generators like Sphinx render your tests as usage examples. It’s easy to compare a method’s output to an XML string using doctest. It’s not so easy when you want the XML string pretty-printed for the sake of clear documentation. Here is a simple solution.More
My Encounter with Libyan Agents
It was 1986 and the US had recently attacked Libya in retaliation for the Berlin discotheque bombing and other mischief. I was living In Tokyo, and at a social function for foreigners, I met two young men who worked at the Libyan Embassy. We had an interesting conversation as I was more willing than most Americans to hear the Libyan side of the story. Besides, I fancied myself an international man of intrigue whose associates included real live Libyan agents. More
Test PyQt GUIs with QTest and unittest
PyQt is the Python binding of the popular Qt cross-platform UI and application framework. For unit testing, PyQt clients are expected to use the standard Python unittest module, with just a little help from the PyQt QtTest module. It is not immediately apparent how to blend these two frameworks into a unified unit testing strategy. In this article, I show you how to unit test a PyQt GUI dialog using only modules included in PyQt and Python.
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Repair Fencing with Hog Rings
As a boy I spent a summer on my grandfather’s farm in Mississippi. I learned a lot about farming. Grandpa taught me about hog rings, a piercing applied to a pig’s nose to prevent rooting (digging with its nose). He said they came in three sizes: pig, shoat and hog.
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First Check Power, Then Check Clocks
It was during my first job as a computer technician in high school that I developed the maxim: first check power, then check clocks.More
The Reef Lounge
When I was about four, we vacationed at the Handerly Hotel & Resort in San Diego (formerly the Stardust Motor Hotel). That place was heaven on earth as far as I was concerned. I loved the pool. Next to the pool there was a bar, and behind the bar was an underwater theater. It was here that I saw one of the most outlandish scenes I have ever witnessed.
OpenAccess Scripting Language Interfaces Architecture
At DAC 2011 I gave a presentation on the architecture of oaScript at Si2’s OpenAccess Scripting Language Workshop.
Polymorphic C# and Java Using SWIG
By default SWIG generates C# and Java code that does not support downcast for polymorphic return types. I found a straightforward way to solve this, provided your C++ code has a way to identify the concrete class of the C++ instances that are returned. That is, this technique will work only if the C++ API you are wrapping with SWIG has something similar to C# object.GetType() or Java Object.getClass().More