Sand Pile Model

Sand Pile Model: "This cellular automata models a granular material in a gravitational field. There are two kinds of cells. Immovable ground cells and movable sand grains. Grains fall from a source at the top of the window and proceed down to the ground. Grains pile up and redistribute themselves according to the cellular automata rules. Application of the rule is a little more sophisticated than the Game of Life or Forest Fire rules."

Ronald Rood's oracle blog: oracle 10.1.0.5 on Leopard

Ronald Rood's oracle blog: oracle 10.1.0.5 on Leopard: "I had my installation upgraded to 10.1.0.5 while running Tiger. After the leopard installation (I installed on a new volume and imported the users from the old volume) I only had to create the dba group like it was in tiger and assign it to my dba account."

Bitstrips: Page One

Bitstrips: Page One: "Top Bitstrips"

Vying Games : Cephalopod : Play

Vying Games : Cephalopod : Play: "Vying Games : Cephalopod |"

Dayrobber.com - 2. Jamaican Fried Dumplings

Dayrobber.com - 2. Jamaican Fried Dumplings: "This is how you make Jamaican Fried Dumplings!"

Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot - New York Times

Camcorder Brings Zen to the Shoot - New York Times: "But come on -- 13 percent of the camcorder market? This limited little thing? What's going on here? Having finally lived with the Flip, I finally know the answer: it's a blast. It's always ready, always with you, always trustworthy. Instead of crippling this 'camcorder,' the simplicity elevates it. Comparisons with a real camcorder are nonsensical, because the Flip is something else altogether: it's the video equivalent of a Kodak point-and-shoot camera. It's the very definition of 'less is more.'"

CSS Tutorial

CSS Tutorial: "Save a lot of work with CSS!

In our CSS tutorial you will learn how to use CSS to control the style and layout of multiple Web pages all at once."

ORACLE-BASE - Schema Owners and Application Users

ORACLE-BASE - Schema Owners and Application Users: "In the context of this article, the schema owner represents the Oracle user that owns all your database objects, while application users are Oracle users that need access to those schema objects.

Allowing applications to make direct connections to the schema owner is a bad idea because it gives those applications far to many privileges, which can easily result in damage to your data and the objects themselves. Instead, it is better to define application users and grant those users the necessary privileges on the schema owners objects.

This article presents two methods for achieving this separation and highlights their pros and cons. For simplicities sake I've only defined two roles, but you can define as many roles as you wish, making the security as granular as you need for each type of application user."

Tom White: "Disks have become tapes"

Tom White: "Disks have become tapes": "MapReduce is a programming model for processing vast amounts of data. One of the reasons that it works so well is because it exploits a sweet spot of modern disk drive technology trends. In essence MapReduce works by repeatedly sorting and merging data that is streamed to and from disk at the transfer rate of the disk. Contrast this to accessing data from a relational database that operates at the seek rate of the disk"

wattzon.org

"The Game Plan : A solution framework for climate change and energy."

The Nine Billion Names of God

The Nine Billion Names of God: "By Arthur Clarke"

Retirement Planner - MSN Money

Retirement Planner - MSN Money: "Socking away money for retirement is a great idea, but how much do you really need to save? How long do you need to work to set yourself up comfortably in your golden years? Enter your information below, the charts and numbers on the right will change as you go along, so try a few different numbers and see how different scenarios might play out for you.

All amounts are calculated using today's dollar values. The rate of return on investments is adjusted for a 3% inflation rate."

Burn a DVD on Your Mac - Wired How-To Wiki

Burn a DVD on Your Mac - Wired How-To Wiki: "Apple first sold all of us on the digital music revolution using the slogan 'Rip, Mix, Burn.' Indeed, thanks to Apple software, it was suddenly dead simple to copy and burn music CDs using your Mac. But what about video DVDs? It turns out there are a few hoops to jump through, but in the end, it's pretty easy, even though you may need to invest in some additional software."

The Nuclear Weapon Archive - A Guide to Nuclear Weapons

The Nuclear Weapon Archive - A Guide to Nuclear Weapons: "A 'sister site' relationship has been established with Gregory Walker's Trinity Site. Greg and I are actively collaborating to provide the broadest variety of nuclear weapon information, in the most convenient form that we can. The two sites each have a different focus. The Nuclear Weapon Archive provides current information, technical data, and informative write-ups. The Trinity Site focuses on historical information, especially reproductions of public domain documents."

smuglispweeny: Tilton's Law: Solve the First Problem

smuglispweeny: Tilton's Law: Solve the First Problem: "Now they were stuck on some software problem and needed help fast. Their stack was Tandy, Cobol, and some micro database package. My skills were Apple, Cobol, and ISAM and in those days that was a deerskin glove fit so off I went for a mutual look-see."

Toolbox - Graphics program for Mac

Toolbox - Graphics program for Mac: "Toolbox is a visual programming tool which enables you to combine bitmaps, vector graphics and effects into amazing works of digital art."

:: DESTRUCTOID PC blog - Hardcore Gamer Community :: PC News, PC Hints, PC Cheats, and Codes on Video Games: PC, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 2, Gam

:: DESTRUCTOID PC blog - Hardcore Gamer Community :: PC News, PC Hints, PC Cheats, and Codes on Video Games: PC, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, PSP, DS, GBA & Retro: "Fez is obviously a platformer with a ridiculously cute (and adorably animated) main character. That is all well and good, but the minute I saw the game break the traditional 2D perspective and morph into this crazy 2D/3D ridiculously well-designed hybrid I almost fell of my chair and cried with happiness."

Subterranean Press � Audio: Trunk and Disorderly by Charles Stross

Subterranean Press � Audio: Trunk and Disorderly by Charles Stross: "[Editor’s note: Charles Stross is damned funny, both in person and on the page. You’ll have to take my word on the first count. As to the second, here’s a P. G. Wodehouse meets Robert A. Heinlein as filtered through Mr. Stross’s sensibilities. In other words, it’s funny and indescribable as hell, and probably my favorite story this year.]"

The Art of the Push-Up - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog

The Art of the Push-Up - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog: "Here’s a calculator to tell you how many push-ups you should be doing if you are in good shape."

An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up - New York Times

An Enduring Measure of Fitness: The Simple Push-Up - New York Times: "The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs. It requires the body to be taut like a plank with toes and palms on the floor. The act of lifting and lowering one’s entire weight is taxing even for the very fit."

Buzzard Blog: Tim Keller Speaks at Google

Buzzard Blog: Tim Keller Speaks at Google: "Tim spoke for about 35 minutes on 'The Reasoning Behind Belief in God,' the topic of his new book. Below is an outline and a few quotes and notes from Tim's 3-point message, the bulk of which centered on his 3rd point."

Youpi Key

Youpi Key keyboard macro "iKey is a utility that can eliminate repetitive actions. iKey allows creation of shortcuts that perform an action or sequence of actions each of which can be launched by key combinations, menu, timer, event or USB devices."

cx_Oracle executemany() Example

cx_Oracle executemany() Example: "executemany() is that it takes a sequence of mappings, as its second argument, not a sequence of sequences. The first argument is the statement itself. More specifically, that means a list of dictionaries."

def convertSequenceToDict(list):
"""For each element in the sequence, creates a dictionary item equal
to the element and keyed by the position of the item in the list.
Thanks to Dick Wall.
Example:
>>> convertListToDict(("Matt", 1))
{'1': 'Matt', '2': 1}
"""
dict = {}
argList = range(1,len(list)+1)
for k,v in zip(argList, list): dict[str(k)] = v
return dict

Getting the difference between dates

Getting the difference between dates: "Frequently we are asked -- how can I find the number of minutes between two dates or what is the amount of elapsed time. With Oracle Dates, this is pretty trivial, you can get either TOTAL (days, hours, minutes, seconds) between 2 dates simply by subtracting them or with a little mod'ing you can get Days/Hours/Minutes/Seconds between."

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control: "When you finally decide it's time to do something about that rat's nest of cables that's spreading like kudzu, you don't have to spend a lot of time and money to get it under control. Whether you're looking to stow your headphone wires tangle-free in your gym bag, hide the ugly wire spaghetti you keep kicking further under your desk, or organize your gadget chargers and power plugs, we've got some cord management tricks for you. Hit the jump for photos and videos of our top 10 favorite ways to get cables under control."

mozdev.org - livehttpheaders: index

mozdev.org - livehttpheaders: index: "Welcome to the livehttpheaders project.

The goal of this project is to adds information about the HTTP headers in two ways:

* First by adding a 'Headers' tab in 'View Page Info' of a web page.
* Second by adding a tool in the 'Tools->Web Development' menu to be able to display http headers in real time (while pages are being downloaded from the Internet.
* Third by letting you edit request headers and replay an URL (beta). Look for the Replay button in the live window!"

How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data

How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data: "Apple's .Mac syncing features are sometimes no exception to these problems, and even though Apple provides a number of decent solutions in its .Mac sync support pages, they don't always work. Fortunately, a brief adventure using .Mac sync chat support (found at the bottom of that aforelinked page) cleared up a repeating 'merge/overwrite' sync dialog problem for me, and we felt the procedure was worth sharing."

Ulf Wiger � Satnam Singh: Declarative Programming Techniques for Many-Core Architectures

Ulf Wiger � Satnam Singh: Declarative Programming Techniques for Many-Core Architectures: "From a Functional Programming seminar at Ericsson, 21 February 2008"

Programming in python: Lisp in a single expression

Programming in python: Lisp in a single expression: "#An interpreter for a simple scheme like lexically
#scoped language implemented as single python expression."

Retirement Planner - MSN Money

Retirement Planner - MSN Money: "Socking away money for retirement is a great idea, but how much do you really need to save? How long do you need to work to set yourself up comfortably in your golden years? Enter your information below, the charts and numbers on the right will change as you go along, so try a few different numbers and see how different scenarios might play out for you."

Top 10 Worst Captchas | John M Willis ESM Blog

Top 10 Worst Captchas | John M Willis ESM Blog: " Here are my top 10 worst Captcha’s ever."

Where to Find Free Math Courses Online -- Education-Portal.com

Where to Find Free Math Courses Online -- Education-Portal.com: "Taking a math course doesn't have to be expensive. There are many colleges, universities and other educational institutions that offer free math courses online."

How one man made an MMO: an interview with Gene Endrody

blog.hanfordlemoore - How one man made an MMO: an interview with Gene Endrody: "Gene Endrody is the man behind the free MMORPG Sherwood Dungeon and other multi-player games on maidmarian.com. Despite the fact that Gene had little programming experience, he’s managed to do all the development himself using off-the-shelf tools and build a loyal following that often reaches 4000 simultaneous players.

So how did this one-man-team do it? I wanted to know, so I interviewed him. We talked about his background, the technical aspects of doing an MMO with off the shelf tools, and how he built up his user base."

The Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 146

The Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 146:

William F. Buckley:
"It means a lot to me to say this: when I set out to explore the scene, I was determined to avoid one thing, and that was the kind of ambiguity for which Graham Greene and to a certain extent Le Carr�became famous. There you will find that the agent of the West is, in the first place, almost necessarily unappealing physically. He drinks too much, he screws too much and he’s always being cuckolded. Then, at some dramatic moment there is the conversation or the moment of reflection in which the reader is asked to contemplate the difficulty in asserting that there is a qualitative difference between Them and Us. This I wanted to avoid. So I was searching, really, for a little bit of the purity of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd in Blackford Oakes. Billy Budd has no sense of humor, and without a sense of humor you can’t be genuinely American. Therefore, Blackford Oakes couldn’t be Billy Budd. Furthermore, I made him almost spectacularly good-looking in defiant reaction to these semidisfigured characters that Greene and Le Carr�and Len Deighton specialize in."

Apache 2 Web server documentation: Apache2: Apache Portability Runtime library

Apache 2 Web server documentation: Apache2: Apache Portability Runtime library: "Apache Portability Runtime library"

Rogue Amoeba - Fission: Lossless Audio Editor for Mac OS X

Rogue Amoeba - Fission: Lossless Audio Editor for Mac OS X: "Fission is a streamlined audio editor designed to get you editing in minutes, not hours. Fission lets you copy, paste and trim audio, as well as split files, all with no quality loss! Rapidly edit mono and stereo files in MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless and AIFF formats."

gperf example for keyword lookup

test_mimetype: test_mimetype.c mimetype.gperf
        $(GPERF) --ignore-case --struct-type --output=mimetype.c mimetype.gperf
        $(CC) $(COPTS) -o test_mimetype test_mimetype.c


%define lookup-function-name gperf_mimetype
%includes
struct mimetype_tbl { char *name; char *val; };
%%
"ai", "application/postscript"
"aif", "audio/x-aiff"
"aifc", "audio/x-aiff"
"zip", "application/zip"
%%
static char *mimetype(char *ext)
{
    struct mimetype_tbl *v = gperf_mimetype(ext, strlen(ext));
    return v ? v->val : NULL;
}


#include <stdio.h%gt;
#include "mimetype.c"

void t1(char *ext)
{
    printf("ext=:%s: type=:%s:\n",ext, mimetype(ext));
}

int main()
{
    t1("mp3");
    t1("jpg");
    t1("JPG");
    t1("JpG");
    t1("foo");
    return 0;
}

XML Editor

XML Editor: "Altova XMLSpy 2008 is the industry-standard XML editor and development environment for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML-related technologies. It offers the world’s leading XML editor, the original graphical schema designer, a code generator, file converters, debuggers, profilers, full database integration, support for XSLT, XPath, XQuery, WSDL, SOAP, and Office Open XML documents, plus Visual Studio .NET and Eclipse plug-ins, and more."

#76 Bottles of Water � Stuff White People Like

#76 Bottles of Water � Stuff White People Like: "Water seems like a fairly simple concept. You turn on the tap, put glass underneath, and drink. Sadly, it is not this simple for white people."

An Unorthodox Approach to Database Design : The Coming of the Shard | High Scalability

An Unorthodox Approach to Database Design : The Coming of the Shard | High Scalability: "While working at Auction Watch, Dathan got the idea to solve their scaling problems by creating a database server for a group of users and running those servers on cheap Linux boxes. In this scheme the data for User A is stored on one server and the data for User B is stored on another server. It's a federated model. Groups of 500K users are stored together in what are called shards."

5. Data Structures

5. Data Structures: "List comprehensions are much more flexible than map() and can be applied to complex expressions and nested functions:

[str(round(355/113.0, i)) for i in range(1,6)]
['3.1', '3.14', '3.142', '3.1416', '3.14159']"

Databases: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Dr. Dobb's Database Report: "There's the old story about a great-grandfather's axe that had its head replaced twice and its handle three times. That's where I think relational databases are going. We'll change the data model, the data types, the application topology, and the network interface, but they'll still be relational databases."

sqldeveloper EA2 - migrate screen geometry badness

This is on a G5... on my laptop, the top is a little bit squished but still usable. For this one, it's too squished to select the source schema

The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors - New York Times

The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors - New York Times: "The next time you’re juggling options — which friend to see, which house to buy, which career to pursue — try asking yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do?"

sqldev, bad screen layout on autotrace

here's a screenshot after clicking the autotrace button.

note the weirdness with the scrollbar in the autotrace tab, and the odd horizontal split.

Azithromycin

Product Search: "Azithromycin Tablets
Strength : 250 mg
Brand Name : Zithromax� Tablets
Rating : AB
Imprint Code : 93/7146
OTC/Rx : Rx
Description : Modified-Oval, Mottled Pink
Therapeutic Category : Antibacterial"

First Course in Database Systems Oracle Guide

First Course in Database Systems Oracle Guide: "Notes on the Oracle DBMS"

Music special: Five great auditory illusions - being-human - 24 February 2008 - New Scientist

Music special: Five great auditory illusions - being-human - 24 February 2008 - New Scientist: "As part of our special issue on music, Daniel Levitin has written The Music Illusion, which looks at auditory illusions and how they can help us understand the workings of the human brain. Here we have compiled five of the most striking auditory illusions discovered so far."

R Todd King: China Photos 2007 - Harbin

R Todd King: China Photos 2007 - Harbin: "Welcome to... Beijing after an ice storm? No, this is “The Eighth Annual Harbin Ice and Snow World”, China’s premiere winter event. Unlike my previous visits to this ice festival, first in 2003 and then again in 2005, I decided to start my visit here near sunset - around 4pm - to see its layout before dark. I’m glad I did: the festival seemed far larger than before and it now takes a while to see the full setup. Additionally, the festival, which used to be laid out from south to north, is now oriented from east to west, allowing for some dramatic sunset photographs of the main ice structures. This is the Harbin Ice and Snow World entrance, which itself grows more grand every year, before the crowds arrive."

Viktor's Home Page: Oracle Cheat Sheet

Viktor's Home Page: Oracle Cheat Sheet: "I did a fair bit of work recently with Oracle. Being a regular MySQL user, I found some Oracle-isms a little strange, so I put together a cheat sheet:"

Date / Time Arithmetic with Oracle

Date / Time Arithmetic with Oracle: "If you store date and time information in Oracle, you have two different options for the column's datatype - DATE and TIMESTAMP."

Unbelievable Water Rockets

Unbelievable Water Rockets: "Safe, simple fun with a pop bottle and a bicycle pump. Fly to 600 feet.
AntiGravity Research Corporation
Professional Water Rocketry"

SQL Injection Tutorial

SQL Injection Tutorial :
Welcome to the Tutorial on Defending Against SQL Injection Attacks!

SourceForge.net: GIS extension for Oracle SQL Developer

SourceForge.net: GIS extension for Oracle SQL Developer: "The purpose of GeoRaptor project is to extend Oracle SQL Developer development tool with additional functionality that is needed by database administrators of Oracle Spatial data, ESRI ArcSDE administrators or advanced GIS user."

The Revised Maclisp Manual (The Pitmanual)

The Revised Maclisp Manual (The Pitmanual): "Internet, December 16, 2007—The Revised Maclisp Manual, originally published in hardcopy at MIT in 1983 as the Saturday Evening Edition, is now available on the web as the Sunday Morning Edition.

Nicknamed The Pitmanual, The Revised Maclisp Manual describes the programming language MACLISP, which ran on the DEC PDP-10 and Honeywell 6180/6880. This newly-updated Sunday Morning Edition features many editorial corrections, an enhanced hypertext index, and a Common Lisp Conversion guide that offers advice on upgrading old MACLISP programs to run in Common Lisp."

fo.py, mighty Forth Lisp SmallTalk mix in Python

fo.py, mighty Forth Lisp SmallTalk mix in Python: "Blending Forth, Lisp and SmallTalk produced first results.

I mixed late binding, reflection, concatenation and dynamics in a small python file. 17 lines of VM. 18 lines of compiler.

Simple ping-pong program below."

World War II Posters Keep Secrets

World War II Posters Keep Secrets: "World War II Posters: Don't talk about ship movement or cargo"

Sql Develop EA1 worksheet hilight issue

Here is the worksheet highlight from the released version (1.2?) which is nicely readable:



Here is the worksheet highlight from EA1 which is too dark and not readable:

Chumble Spuzz! � peer-see

Chumble Spuzz! � peer-see: "A colleague of ours found this set of building blocks to help children learn English. One of the things that is so amazing about teaching English as a foreign language is that it forces you to rethink components of English you take for granted and experience the language in a completely new way. With that in mind, try to remember back…far back…to yourself at a more innocent time."

Oracle: Unindexed Foreign Keys

"Also consider that for most (not all, most) parent child relationships, we query the objects from the 'master' table to the 'detail' table. The glaring exception to this is a code table (short code to long description). For master/detail relationships, if you do not index the foreign key, a full scan of the child table will result.

So, how do you easily discover if you have unindexed foreign keys in your schema? This script can help."

Woot : Savage Sounds of the Woot Podcast!

Woot : Savage Sounds of the Woot Podcast!: "Super Bowl, schmuper bowl—we spent most of the weekend combing through our archives looking for forgotten treasures. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t rewarding, and it wasn’t even very much fun.

But from literally hundreds of recordings, finally we selected a few that might stand up to a second listen.

So, just as we promised last week, here’s a plumber’s dozen of the least-terrible Woot podcasts for your listening pleasure. We’ve also provided album cover art below, in case your fancy newfangled mp3 player supports it."

Video: "How to Speak"

Video: "How to Speak": "In this skillful lecture, Professor Patrick Winston of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers tips on how to give an effective talk, cleverly illustrating his suggestions by using them himself. He emphasizes how to start a lecture, cycling in on the material, using verbal punctuation to indicate transitions, describing 'near misses' that strengthen the intended concept, and asking questions. He also talks about using the blackboard, overhead projections, props, and 'how to stop.'
Running time: 45 minutes."

A Whole Lotta Nothing – How to record a kickass podcast between two macs — and cheap!

A Whole Lotta Nothing – How to record a kickass podcast between two macs — and cheap!: "The beauty of the approach I describe is that you can get an output file that sounds almost as good as an expensive thing like maintaining two professional studios cross-country for about $100 with just a couple laptops and some software."

Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Some of the Best Speaking Advice Ever

Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Some of the Best Speaking Advice Ever: "MIT Professor Harry Winston every year gives a famed lecture on 'The Art of Speaking'. Cal Newport attended the lecture this year and posted the notes. They're awesome - some of the best advice on speaking I've read. Read the whole thing, excerpted below are my favorite parts. In particular, I found the advice 'don't thank your audience at the end' pretty interesting."

Study Hacks � Blog Archive � The Art of Speaking: "There is a special circle in hell for those who use laser pointers," this and other advice from a m

Study Hacks � Blog Archive � The Art of Speaking: "There is a special circle in hell for those who use laser pointers," this and other advice from a master speaker.: "Every January, during MIT’s Independent Activities Period, Computer Science Professor Patrick Henry Winston gives a famed lecture titled: How to Speak. During this perennially popular event, Professor Winston walks his audience through a series of tips and strategies, developed and honed over decades, for mastering the art of speaking. I attended his lecture for the first time this year, and was not disappointed."

Advantage CA-Dataquery for CA-Datacom

"Advantage CA-Dataquery for CA-Datacom provides users throughout the organization with the ability to easily access, retrieve, report, and update information in Advantage CA-Datacom/DB Database. This power is available to users on an ad hoc basis and does not require involvement with IT. The software provides an integrated design for ease of use by all levels of users. Advantage CA-Dataquery for Advantage CA-Datacom/DB Database is completely integrated with other CA software solutions within Advantage CA-Datacom/DB Database, providing for central control and access of the database."

ORACLE-BASE - Auditing in Oracle 10g Release 2

ORACLE-BASE - Auditing in Oracle 10g Release 2: "This article presents an overview of auditing in Oracle 10g Release 2. Many of the topics presented here have been covered in previous articles, but this serves to bring them all together.

* Server Setup
* Audit Options
* View Audit Trail
* Maintenance and Security
* Fine Grained Auditing"

Oracle DBA Queries - Database status, uptime, how big is it, etc...

Oracle DBA Queries - Database status, uptime, how big is it, etc...: "Administration - Status

* Startup time
* How large is the database
* Distribution of objects and data
* Show the ten largest objects in the database
* Is java installed in the database?
* Display character set information
* Show all used features"

Bacon!

"The Ultimate Bacon Sandwich
Bacon Cereal
Bacon Cheese Baconburger"

Keys to the Kingdom: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

Keys to the Kingdom: Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com: "Between them, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have made 13 of the 100 top-grossing movies of all time. Yet they struggled for more than a decade with the upcoming fourth installment of their billion-dollar Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Annie Leibovitz gets exclusive access to the set, while Lucas, Spielberg, and their star, Harrison Ford, tell Jim Windolf about the long standoff over the plot, why critics and fans will be upset, and how they’ve updated Indy."

Toad World > Community > Experts' Blog - Error Management functions and features for PL/SQL Developers

Toad World Community Experts' Blog - Error Management functions and features for PL/SQL Developers: "I thought I would share with you some of the features and functions available in PL/SQL, especially those introduced in recent versions of Oracle, which will help you trap and log error information."

How Can I find out who called me or what my name is

How Can I find out who called me or what my name is: "Many times we are asked 'in a procedure/function, can I find out who called me' or 'can I dynamically figure out the name of the procedure or package that is currently executing'.

You can find it in the call stack returned by dbms_utility.format_call_stack."

Stranded at the airport? Don’t forget Rule 240 - TODAY: Travel - MSNBC.com

Stranded at the airport? Don’t forget Rule 240 - TODAY: Travel - MSNBC.com: "Rule 240 mandated that an airline facing a delayed or canceled flight had to transfer you to another carrier if 1) the second carrier could get you to your destination more quickly than the original line and 2) it had available seats. In pre-deregulation days, all the big U.S. airlines adhered to this practice."

Looney Labs - Free Computer Card with $25 purchase

Looney Labs - Free Computer Card with $25 purchase: "How To Play Fluxx:"

Buy Fluxx

Buy Fluxx: "Fluxx: the card game with ever changing rules! It starts out simple, with the rules being only to draw 1 card and play 1 card during each player's turn. But New Rule cards quickly make things chaotic, and even the object of the game will often change as you play. Can you get the Rocket to the Moon before someone changes the goal to Death by Chocolate?"

Stevey's Blog Rants: Emergency Elisp

Stevey's Blog Rants: Emergency Elisp: "Most Lisp introductions try to give you the 'Tao of Lisp', complete with incense-burning, chanting, yoga and all that stuff. What I really wanted in the beginning was a simple cookbook for doing my 'normal' stuff in Lisp. So that's what this is. It's an introduction to how to write C, Java or JavaScript code in Emacs Lisp, more or less."

A good tiny X font

A good tiny X font: "I sometimes find myself using a low-resolution screen and I want as small a (fixed) font as possible while still having it readable. Some time ago I made this 5x9 font and I've used it since. I think it's the best font of its size possible."

$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod

$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod: "Don't be a slave to your tripod. Build this stabilizer and see how much better you photos and video can be. Get professional results. This instructional video shows yo... More�u how to build your own stabilizer in 5 minutes for less than $1. It is super light weight and folds up small enough to fit in your pocket. With this stabilizer, you can hand-hold your camera with shutter speeds at least 3 stops slower than without. It works just as well with video cameras."

memcached: a distributed memory object caching system

memcached: a distributed memory object caching system: "memcached is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.

Danga Interactive developed memcached to enhance the speed of LiveJournal.com, a site which was already doing 20 million dynamic page views per day for 1 million users with a bunch of webservers and a bunch of database servers. memcached dropped the database load to almost nothing, yielding faster page load times for users, better resource utilization, and faster access to the databases on a memcache miss."

Careers - Job Hunting - What if Companies Paid to Interview You?

Careers - Job Hunting - What if Companies Paid to Interview You?: "Add another one to the list: the best candidates don't put their resumes up on them, and--what else--a new job site hopes to address this, but in a completely unusual way. NotchUp makes companies pay to interview you."

Writing a Book in Google Docs

Writing a Book in Google Docs: "Currently, my editor Brian Jepson and I are collaboratively writing the book (tentatively titled) Google Office Hacks by O'Reilly using Google Docs. I wanted to outline the process we came up with, and maybe it's helpful for you too for certain needs."

Amazon Web Services Developer Connection : Building a Small Business Backup System Using Amazon S3

Amazon Web Services Developer Connection : Building a Small Business Backup System Using Amazon S3: "This article focuses on Amazon S3. Amazon S3 offers a hosted storage solution for just pennies on the gigabyte (GB). Using Amazon S3, you can store data objects up to 5 GB in size in containers called buckets, and then retrieve that data at a later date.

Why use Amazon S3? Instead of spending money on servers or external hard drives, paying money to connect those machines to the network (or paying co-location fees), and then paying more money to secure, maintain, and update those servers, you can pay a fraction of that money for a high-bandwidth, high-reliability service provided by Amazon."

GTD: Project Verbs vs. Next-Action Verbs | 43 Folders

GTD: Project Verbs vs. Next-Action Verbs | 43 Folders:

"Project verbs

Finalize	Resolve	Handle
Look into	Submit	Maximize
Organize	Design	Complete
Ensure	Roll out	Update
Install	Implement	Set-up

Next-action verbs

Call	Organize	Review
Buy	Fill out	Find
Purge	Look into (Web)	Gather
Print	Take	Waiting for
Load	Draft	Email

Get the distinction? Most all of those big verbs can and should be uncorked to reveal that they contain nothing but dozens of smaller verbs. And those little fellas are your physical next actions. That’s your work."

GTD: Project Verbs vs. Next-Action Verbs | 43 Folders

GTD: Project Verbs vs. Next-Action Verbs | 43 Folders: "It’s a list of “Project Verbs” versus “Next-Action Verbs” and, man, is it ever useful."

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Summary - WikiSummaries, free book summaries

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity Summary - WikiSummaries, free book summaries: "Part 1 provides an outline for getting control of your life through the five stages of mastering workflow: collection, processing, organizing, reviewing and doing. Part 2, which is well over half the book, repeats a lot of what is said in Part 1, but provides much more detail on the application of Allen’s methodology. Part 3 explains why Allen’s methods work and the benefits to be gained from using his approach."

Cable Messes: Want meatballs with that?

Cable Messes: Want meatballs with that?: "The following are some of my favorite images of nasty cable messes."

macosxhints.com - Make a Nokia 6126 work with iSync

macosxhints.com - Make a Nokia 6126 work with iSync

Executive Summary:

1. edit /Applications/iSync.app/Contents/PlugIns/ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice/Contents/PlugIns/PhoneModelsSync.phoneplugin/Contents/Resources/MetaClasses.plist

2. Find the entry for the Nokia 6111.

3. Copy this entry and s/6111/6126/.

"While trying to get my Nokia 6126 to work with iSync (it is not supported at the time of writing) I came across some info at chromewalker.com about getting a 6131 to work. Since the 6126 is essentially a 6131 but for North America, I gave it a try and it worked.

1. Make sure iSync is not running, and un-pair the phone from your Bluetooth preferences.
2. Go to your applications folder and right click on the iSync application.
3. Click on 'Show Package Contents'
4. Navigate to Contents -> Plugins -> ApplePhoneConduit.Syncdevice -> Contents-> Plugins -> PhoneModelsSync.phoneplugin -> Contents -> Resources
5. Within this last folder there will be a file called Metaclasses.plist
6. Copy this file and rename it something like Metaclasses.plist.bkp, if you do not know how to do this, you shouldn't even be trying this.
7. Once you have made a backup of the file, open the original file in a text editor and do a search for the Nokia 6111. When you find it, you will see that it is a Series 40 v3 device.
8. Look at all the stuff that precedes it and follows it and make sure to copy only the stuff that pertains to the Nokia 6111 and copy/paste it right below it. This will give you two Nokia 6111's in a row. Then on the second Nokia 6111 change every instance of the 6111 with a 6126 and save the file.
9. Pair the phone with your mac, and then launch isync.

How to Start Fire with Water! - Instructables - DIY, How To, offbeat

How to Start Fire with Water! - Instructables - DIY, How To, offbeat: "You probably already know a few ways to do this, but none that beats this method! It will not only make you be able to start a combustion with a drop of water, but it will be the coolest GREEN flame!"

Mastering Oracle Python, Part 1: Querying Best Practices

Mastering Oracle Python, Part 1: Querying Best Practices: "Among the core principles of Python's way of doing things there is a rule about having high-level interfaces to APIs. The Database API (in this case the Oracle API) is one example. Using the cx_Oracle Python module from Computronix, you can take command over the Oracle query model while maintaining compatibility with Python Database API Specification v2.0."

Fogonazos: Most popular

Fogonazos: Most popular

Fogonazos: 13 time-lapse wonders

Fogonazos: 13 time-lapse wonders: "Time-lapse is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography."

What Is Truth? - The Daily WTF - 2005-10-24

What Is Truth? - The Daily WTF - 2005-10-24: "

The problem with "logic" is that it makes things out to be nothing but simple dualities. Proponents of logic want us to believe that everything is true or false, black or white, yes or no, paper or plastic, etc. Thankfully, there are some among us, like Mark Harrison's colleague, who are not afraid to stand up to these logic advocates and shout "no, I will not succumb to your false dichotomies!" Today, I think we all should salute those few brave people ...

enum Bool
{
   True,
   False,
   FileNotFound
};

Sex, Science & Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money by Terence Kealey review | Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online

Sex, Science & Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money by Terence Kealey review | Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online: "What does marijuana tell us about the government funding of science? Well, a vast amount of taxpayers’ money around the world is spent on agricultural research to improve yields. Yet, according to Terence Kealey, pot-growers manage nicely without that aid and have developed “ever stronger and ever more disease-resistant strains” of literally mind-blowing potency.

The case of the cannabis cultivators is characteristic of the irreverence and eclecticism that make Sex, Science & Profits such an absorbing read. The author, who is a clinical biochemist at the University of Buckingham, seeks to demolish the myth that the advancement of scientific learning depends in any way on government intervention."

Bullet Continuous Collision Detection and Physics Library

Bullet Continuous Collision Detection and Physics Library: "Bullet is a 3D Collision Detection and Rigid Body Dynamics Library for games and animation.
Free for commercial use, including PlayStation 3, Open Source multiplatform C under the ZLib License.
Discrete and continuous collision detection, integrated into Blender 3D and COLLADA 1.4 Physics tools support."

Karl King Compositions

Karl King Compositions: "MP3s of Karl King Marches"

Air Force Link - Ceremonial Music

Air Force Link - Ceremonial Music: "Ceremonial Music"

"Reflections: The Cleave Cartmill Affair: Two" by Robert Silverberg

"Reflections: The Cleave Cartmill Affair: Two" by Robert Silverberg: "'Deadline' is often cited today as an example of science fiction’s ability to predict the future. As Campbell went to such pains to demonstrate long ago, it did no such thing. It simply recycled existing data. A far better example of prophetic power is Heinlein’s 'Solution Unsatisfactory' of 1941, in which atomic bombs are developed by the United States and the quasi-Soviet 'Eurasian Union,' a brief atomic war breaks out that we win, and America thereafter finds it necessary to impose a military dictatorship over the rest of the world to prevent future nuclear warfare. Now there’s true extrapolation by a master of the form!"

"Reflections: The Cleve Cartmill Affair: One" by Robert Silverberg

"Reflections: The Cleve Cartmill Affair: One" by Robert Silverberg: "And before long it began to seem as though a whole network of science fiction writers might be involved–a chain of conspirators. For example, the report continues, 'It is established that Cartmill is very friendly with [ ], Retired U.S.N.R., who is associated with [ ] at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. This [ ] formerly was doing research work at Columbia University, and he is said to have accepted some material thought to be atomic copper from [ ] in order to measure it in the mass spectroscope at Columbia University. [ ] was advised by [ ] that the device was broken. He never received the material back from [ ]. One [ ] who has written for [ ] Magazine is said to be working with [ ] also. The possibility of the transmittal through [ ] to Cartmill has not so far been resolved. . . .'

Well, now it can be told, and you are quite familiar with the names of these sinister people. The retired naval man was Robert A. Heinlein. His Philadelphia Navy Yard associate, the former Columbia man, was Isaac Asimov. The one who sent the copper to Asimov and never got it back was Will F. Jenkins, who wrote science fiction under the pseudonym of Murray Leinster. The blanked-out magazine was Astounding, and the other writer working at the Navy Yard with Heinlein and Asimov was L. Sprague de Camp."

marknet - Google Code

marknet - Google Code: "This is an aggregation of several projects too small to bundle up by themselves."

Oracle Tips - PL/SQL Basic Structure - INOUT

Oracle Tips - PL/SQL Basic Structure - INOUT:

"Here is an example of a simple block:

SQL> declare
2 v_line varchar2(40);
3 begin
4 v_line := 'Hello World';
5 dbms_output.put_line (v_line);
6 end;
7 /

Hello World

"