Python 2.4 final is out. A big thank you to Guido and the Python-dev team.
(See also my comments on Python 2.4 release candidate 1).
One with Python 2.4 is one I only discovered after having a go with release candidate 1 - extensions.
Python is build using Visual Studio on Windows. Python 2.3 and prior versions (at least as far back as Python 1.5.2) were build using Visual C++ version 6, so I was able to use distutils to build all my extensions. Python 2.4 is build with Visual C++ version 7.1, which I don't have, so it's not quite so easy. (Since I'm the one telling everyone around the office that we shouldn't go near .NET, I'm hardly in a position to ask for a copy!)
It is possible to build Python 2.4 extension using free (as in beer) tools from Microsoft - see Python 2.4 Extensions w/ the MS Toolkit Compiler - but I've not had the time to download (at least 380 MB!) and install everything that's required as yet. In particular, I can't find anywhere to download the .NET Runtime.
Still, I'm sure pre-built binaries will be available soon enough.
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:53:39 -0800 (PST), Web Administration <whpadm@hpat542.atl.hp.com> wrote:
> Re your message to: support@hp.com
> with subject: HP PSC 1355 installation problems
>
> Dear Valued HP Customer,
Not *that* fucking valued, clearly.
> The e-mail address you have used is not a valid HP address.
> Please visit our contact information page at
> http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact_us.html
> for information about how to email, call or locate HP.
> Thank you for your interest in HP and its products and services.
I've been to a web site or two in the past, but it took me a good fifteen minutes to find the form that I need to fill in in order to get support from you. Unfortunately, I didn't have the serial number of the device that I can't get to install, because it's at my parents' house, and I'm at work, where I have an Internet link fast enough to find the fight part of your site in less than a week.
Sigh. I'll email them and see if I can find out. But your support is a *nightmare*. Try breaking your iPod - *then* you'll see what support should be like.
--
Cheers,
Simon B,
simon@brunningonline.net
Freja is a torrent of questions at the moment. I do my best to answer her as best I can, no matter how wearing it gets, but when she asked me why there are seat-belts in cars and on planes, but not on busses or trains, I was at a loss. Now it seems there is no good reason.
Even if they were optional, they'd still save lives. I'd probably wear them, and I'd make the girls wear them without a doubt.
Family tech support. Sigh.
Now, I'm not claiming to be any great expert, but I think it's fair to say that I know my way around a PC rather better than the avarage home user. So, if I can't get that bloody HP PSC 1355 working, what chance does Joe-public have?
No matter what I did, the "New Hardware Wizard" showed up during the installation process. The troubleshooter suggested that I just restart the installer shoudl this happen, but there's only so many times I'm going to do that. The support site is a maze, but I'll try sending them an email.
I'd like to thank Kimberley Quinn for a genuinely novel experience - feeling sorry for David Blunkett.
Not satisfied with dumping him and denying him paternity and access to his children, she wants to destroy his career for him, too. That's women for you.
Can we expect to see measures allowing the indefinite detention without trial of vindictive ex-mistresses in one of his new bills?
Jokes apart, it would be superb if Blunkett lost his job, over this or for any other reason. The man seems not to value civil liberties at all. But don't hold your breath - we all know what happens when this lot set up an investigation...
Update: Blunkett orders his own indefinite detainment as ID card law introduced.
My iPod is poorly. :-(
I tried formatting the disk, as Apple suggested on Friday. Didn't work. I initially just right-clicked on the drive in Explorer and selected 'Format...', but this just hung for hours, and made no progress.
I also tried re-formatting from the command line, and using Windows Disk Management as per this Apple support article. Same deal.
Still, support seems pretty good thus far. They are sending someone to pick up my iPod for me. And you can tell that they are a class act, 'cos their hold music was Kind of Blue.
Anyone else had to sent their iPod away for repair? How long should I expect to have to wait?
"Some candidates have the audacity to view the organization of an interview as being representative of the organizational capabilities of your company as a whole. They reason that finding someone to fill a role is effectively a mini-project in itself, and if you can't schedule and coordinate even a minor project like that, how could you manage a larger and more complex undertaking like a software project? These people are clearly thinking too hard and too critically. They are exactly the ones that you want to turn off."
So true it hurts - Interview with the Sociopath.
Running iTunes on Windows, whenever I try to update my iPod, I get the following error dialog:
Windows - Delayed Write Failed
-
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Device\Harddisk2\DP(1)0-0+6\iPod_Control\Music\F09\07 Cryin_ Won_t Help You No.mp3. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.
This doesn't always happen after the same amount of time - it may happen after loading 50 tunes, it may get to 150. It's not always the same tune, either.
The iPod will have frozen at this point, and needs a reset. Sometimes I need to reload the iPod software after this happens, sometimes not.
I've recreated this issue connecting to two seperate Windows machines, so whatever the problem is, it's on the iPod side. I rang Apple Support, and they suggested that I re-format the iPod's HD. I'd thought that reloading the iPod software did that, but apparently not.
I'll try this when I get home. I can't do it now - I'm on a client site in Orpington again. Wish me luck, 'cos if that doesn't work, it's got to be sent away to the menders. :-(
Oh dear. Economic 'Armageddon' predicted (vis boing boing). I'd better pick up some earphones while I can still afford them, then.
Update: see also The enemy within. ;-)
London Java Xmas Party. Be there, or be square. Or, as empirical evidence shows to be not uncommon, both.
No music today. :-(
The bad new is that my earphones have died. The good news is that the iPod is still happy. :-)
Still, I can't live without music for long, so I'll have to get some new earphones this evening. Anyone got any recommendations as to good in-ear 'phones at a fairly reasonable price? I'm not an audiophile, but I do need something fairly decent.
I'll pick them up on the way to Genes, worms and the new genetics. Anyone else going?
Rate how much your beliefs fit in with those of major religions - Belief-O-Matic.
I came out as:
1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Secular Humanism (95%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (87%)
4. Liberal Quakers (86%)
5. Nontheist (72%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (70%)
7. Neo-Pagan (66%)
8. Bahá'í Faith (64%)
9. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (56%)
10. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (52%)
11. Taoism (50%)
12. New Age (48%)
13. Reform Judaism (48%)
14. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (40%)
15. New Thought (40%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (38%)
17. Mahayana Buddhism (35%)
18. Sikhism (35%)
19. Jehovah's Witness (33%)
20. Scientology (33%)
21. Jainism (22%)
22. Eastern Orthodox (20%)
23. Islam (20%)
24. Orthodox Judaism (20%)
25. Roman Catholic (20%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (17%)
27. Hinduism (12%)
I'm not sure about the 87% Christian bit...
iTunes isn't too great at working with selected and de-selected tracks. You can't sort by selection, for instance - you can't sort your library so as to show all de-selected tracks then all selected tracks. Nor can you build smart playlists based on whether a tune is selected or not.
Well, not without getting your hands dirty, that is. ;-)
Since my iPod is now rather full, I've de-selected some albums, and some individual tracks. Now, I'd like to burn the albums that I've de-selected onto CD, and remove them from iTunes altogether. My hard disk is getting a bit full, too. ;-) But, I only want to do this with whole albums - individual de-selected tracks should be left alone.
My library isn't that big. Any normal person would just scroll down through the library, and manually set up a playlist of stuff to remove. Not me, oh no, I'd much rather spend several times the time writing a script to do it all for me. Plonker. Anyway, here it is - create_deselected_albums_playlist.py. I hope someone finds it handy - it would be nice if I hadn't wasted my time entirely.
See also Driving iTunes from Python on Windows.
Cool. They are running previews of The Incredibles at the Clapham Picture House tomorrow. The girls and I will be there...
'Lifestyle' magazine for police. And here's what it might look like - Fuzz.
Google Scholar. I'm not first hit for brunning in that one...
I've had my say about fox hunting and country affairs before, and I've not changed my mind.
The thing that strikes me at the moment, though, is that I seem to find myself in violent disagreement with whatever is said by any of the politicians or faction leaders involved in this, whichever side they are on. It's almost as if I'm always on the side of whoever is keeping their mouths shut for a change.
When one of the bumpkins country types is banging on about how city folk should stop interfering with their lives, I'm ranting "Yeah, and we'll start by ceasing to interfere with your economies - no more agricultural subsidies or loss making public transport for you lot, then. See how you like that."
Then Gerald Kaufman pops up, and I'm shouting "Did you know that children in care in this country get an average of one GCSE each? What kind of a future do you think they are going to have with that? Oh, and remember the war in Iraq? How many people are being killed over there? And you are worried about bloody foxes. What a shameful waste of parliamentary time."
Makes me sick, it really does.
Don't worry, perfectly safe for work - just not safe to eat. Hardee's Monster Thickburger More Porno Than Ever. They are bucking the trend, clearly, but who's to say the trend will last? And I must say, that looks like a mighty tasty burger.
I mean, just to make sure that there isn't a cubic millimetre of the burger that might be healthy, they even butter the bun. Now that's what I call attention to detail. ;-)
Update: Picture here.
Made in USA - why americans make good software, and good movies, but bad places to live, and bad cars. By Paul Graham.
Paul himself points out the most obvious counter example, Apple, an island of beautiful design in a sea of cack.
Python 2.4 release candidate 1 is out.
As usual, Andy Kuchling's What's New in Python document is the best place to start. Highlights for me are Generator Expressions and the Decimal Data Type. I've blogged about the first of these before - see my Generator Expressions post. And I've mentioned the need for a decimal type before, too. Great stuff.
Congratulations and thanks to Guido and the Python-dev team.
As to the controversial Decorators for Functions and Methods, the jury's still out. The syntax still looks a little odd to me, but the same could have been said of the syntax for Slicing and List Comprehensions at first, to name but two things. Time has taught me that these syntaxes are actually really good. Guido knows what he's doing. And there's no doubt that decorators can be useful - see Decorator for BindingConstants at compile time and Memoize Decorator with Timeout for examples.
Update November 30th: Python 2.4 final is out.
Is a good day.
I've just been for a lunchtime curry, a snap decision from Pete.
This evening, I'm meeting Michael at The Traf before heading off to the Lahore Karahi.
It's just given me the error message:
Server: Msg 170, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
Line 3: Incorrect syntax near '('.
Line three is, of course, a comment. The full script is over fifteen hundred lines long, and has a lot of parenthisies in it. How am I supposed to work out what's wrong?
Before we rant about stupid Americans, it behoves us to remember that there are two Americas. Well, there are several - but there are two USAs.
The Urban Archipelago (via Ian Bicking) is a very interesting read. It seems that the US has a similar urban versus country folk thing going as we do.
Fuck the South (via Gimboland) is pure rant - but sublime rant.
Konfabulator looks lovely - but who needs the iTunes widget?
I love the Steam Gauge Widget, though - it would really suit my cranky old PC. Some of the clocks are nice, too.
Update: Jokes apart the mini iTunes Remote is very nice, and Sing that iTune! is fun, too.
Orpington, day three. Sigh. Still, I'm writing some kick-ass SQL. All standard stuff, too - none of your nasty vendor extensions here.
Anyway, I do hope to be able to make tonight's London Java Meetup. Do try and get along, London based nerds.
Make your own iPod cover, via burnbitter. I'm sure I can find something to use as an image...
I'm on a client site tomorrow, in Orpington, but I hope to be able to back in London in time for Magnetic brain stimulation: what can it tell us about brain function?
Interview questions: Preparing replies about your current or former employer.
Apparently, "they're a shower of bastards" isn't the right answer. Who'd have guessed?
Is it just me, or is the Great Western Main Line suffering more than its fair share of accidents? Southall, Ladbroke Grove, and now Ufton Nervet? I mean, I know it's still far safer to go by train than it is to go by car, and I'm not going to stop using the train to pick up the girls from Reading, but I'll admit to being a bit uneasy.
Anyway, I didn't have the girls this weekend, so I wasn't anywhere near Reading at any time. I rang early on Saturday morning, as soon as I heard the news, and the girls, Cath, Dan and Ruben weren't on the train either. This was as I suspected - they drive everywhere - but I wanted to be sure.
My thoughts are with the families of those killed, and those injured, and with Amanda, for whom this must be a horrible reminder of her nightmare.
Update: Via Aurlog, some interesting numbers from Transport 2000 - during 2001, road deaths ran at nearly ten a day.
Update: Girl, nine, among rail crash dead. Horrible.
If, as it appears, this was a suicide, then there's almost certainly nothing that could have been done to prevent it. I know that a lot of people will be seeing this as the ultimate in selfish acts, but I don't think that that would be quite right. Thoughtless, yes, but I doubt that it occurred for a moment to the poor suffering individual who caused this that they might take anyone else with them. In the unlikely event that they gave the matter any thought at all, they probably assumed that only they would be hurt. After all, that's the case in the overwhelming number of level crossing incidents.
Inspired by David Janes' pytunes, I've been having a play with driving iTunes with Python.
The first thing that I've discovered is that running EnsureDispatch over iTunes utterly screws up pytunes. The lesson here is to always use EnsureDispatch. If you don't, your code might break as soon as somebody else's code does. This applies to COM scripting with Python in general, I think.
It's all pretty easy. If you're familiar with COM scripting with Python, then you already know almost everything you'll need to know. Grab the iTunes COM for Windows SDK, and off you go! Fun, if utterly useless, is driving iTunes from a Python interpreter:
>>> import win32com.client
>>> iTunes = win32com.client.gencache.EnsureDispatch("iTunes.Application")
>>> iTunes.LibrarySource.Playlists.ItemByName('Party Shuffle').PlayFirstTrack()
>>> iTunes.Pause()
>>> iTunes.Play()
>>> iTunes.PreviousTrack()
>>> iTunes.NextTrack()
>>> iTunes.CurrentTrack.Name
u'Would Not Come'
>>> iTunes.SoundVolume
50
>>> iTunes.SoundVolume = 25
>>> iTunes.SoundVolume
25
>>> iTunes.SoundVolume = 50
>>> iTunes.Windows.Item(1).Minimized = True
Perhaps slightly more usefully, you can also edit your tracks' metadata. For example, here's a mickey-mouse script that I used to clean up some dodgy quote marks in my library - quote_clean.py.
Update: This one is actually marginally useful - find tracks that have no images, or more than one, with wrong_image_count.py. Anyone know where I can find cover art for "River Station" by Jimmy Giuffre & André Jaume? Google doesn't know it exists. Perhaps it doesn't...
Update: See also See also More Pointless iTunes fun with Python.
A couple of great games via DiVERSiONZ - Tail Gunner and Thrust. (Beware nasty pop-ups on that 2nd one.) And another via Spod - Road Blocks.
IQ/Voting pattern correlation, via rhodri. See, they aren't all thick - only the ones who voted for Bush.
Not that I believe in IQs, you understand, but still, this is fantastic.
Update: Simon Schama: The Divided States of America.
"American liberals - already a threatened species - will be desperate to escape". Marry an American.
For I long time, the girls and I have been regulars at Wimbledon Swimming Baths Leisure Centre. I thought I'd give Tooting a go.
It's really wierd. In some ways, it's nicer - the changing area and kids pool are really nice. But theres one thing that really bothers me. In the Wimbledon pool, the parents swim with their children. Perfectly normal, you'd have thought. But in Tooting, some 90% of the parents just sit around the fool fully clothed. What's that all about?
I present to you the voice controlled blender. First Bush gets in again, now this. Has the world gone mad?
I'll be meeting Steve and the famous (but as yet unmet) Swiss Toni at the Old Fire Station this evening.
If you haven't any frinds, you'd be more than welcome to come along and be ours for the evening. Don't be put off by the name of the pub - it's not all YMCA, with everyone dressed up as firemen or anything. It just an ordinary if rather overcrowded pub. Honest.
It won't be the same without Andy, though. :-(
Straw: war on Iran 'inconceivable'. And the wouldn't lie to us. Would they?