Audible car alarms are a public nuisance. Their use is thus prohibited, with the following exception:
The owner or operator of an automobile may actively trigger an audible car alarm if it would serve the interests of public safety. Any activation of an audible car alarm must be accompanied by a request for emergency services. Any button which triggers an audible car alarm must also send an automated distress signal to public safety authorities. If authorities do not respond in a timely fashion, concerned citizens are empowered to act on the behalf of the authorities.
If an alarm is raised in error, the responding authority must respond in one of two ways, at their discretion:
1) Use “the jaws of life” or comparable apparatus to remove or destroy the audible portion of the car alarm. If this apparatus is not available, sledge hammers, firearms, explosives and other such tools may be used, if they can be safely deployed without jeopardizing public safety.
2) Impound the automobile for not more than 90 days. Upon confiscation, all audible alarm technologies will be removed or rendered permanently inoperable, and the automobile will be made available to members of the impounding organization for their use for either official business or employee leisure.
This drives me insane. Part of the challenge is that most software dictionaries are unaware of the word “colocation” and are happy to offer “collocation” as an alternative, but that is wrong wrong wrong wrong and it makes me a little nuts every time.
So, here is some explanation I just sent to the NOC and copied to the Sales team of a “Colocation Provider” who keeps sending me messages from something called “Collocation Status Report”:
Dear NOC:
A collocation is a statistic used by linguists to determine the
frequency with which words and phrases are found together.
On your contact information page, there is an option to contact Sales
about “Colocation”
Assuming that you are indeed in the business of Colocation, and not
actually updating us on the status of word frequencies, please fix the
name in your outgoing envelope from “Collocation Status Reports” to
“Colocation Status Reports”
A MAN who was caught growing cannabis in his cellar months after being given a suspended sentence for the same offence has been sent to jail.
Daniel Howard’s second illegal enterprise was discovered by police when they went to his home in Harehills, Leeds, looking for another person who was wanted for arrest.
FREMONT, Calif.—A Fremont man is facing charges that he tried to hang his girlfriend from a backyard tree.
Thirty-one-year-old Daniel Howard is scheduled to be arraigned on attempted murder and criminal threat charges on Tuesday.
Police say they found Howard Sunday evening standing behind his girlfriend, who was tied to a tree with a rope fashioned as a noose around her neck. Her hands were tied behind her back.
Howard was allegedly continuing to wrap the rope around her neck.
On the Friday immediately following Thanksgiving, no store may open any earlier than it does on any other Friday.
On Thanksgiving, a store may extend their hours beyond the time they usually close, but all customers must be offered a complimentary slice of pie, of a size not less than 1/8 of a 9″ diameter pie, and no less than 1″ deep. A store must offer either pumpkin, sweet potato, or pecan pie, but may offer additional flavors. Customers will be allowed their fill of complimentary coffee, tea, drinking water, and whipped cream.
Modern retailers have a challenge we have come to call “showrooming” where a consumer visits the local store to try out a product, then they go and order the product off Amazon.com or another retailer for less money. Some retailers will do online price matching, which is reasonable because even though that lowers their margin, they still get the sale, and can upsell you a few accessories. I saved a few dollars this way while buying a TV from Fry’s.
However, I was just browsing Amazon.com for a resin adirondack chair, where I saw:
Twenty six bucks!? Sounds good . . . not eligible for Prime, so let’s check the shipping . . .
Whiskey . . . Tango . . . Foxtrot . . . $192 shipping you say?!! Something is fishy here . . .
So, I surf on over to True Value’s web site, where the chairs are $20, and they’ll ship to the local store.
Which makes me wonder if this is a case of “reverse showrooming” . . . I go to Amazon.com because I can probably find what I am looking for, then I am led to a local retailer to save money. Very clever . . .
It took a few hours to figure this hook out, so I’m including my hard-won lines of code here.
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
# Check if PARENT is resolved.
# Monitoring creates Events in the Event queue, these Events
# automatically create Incident children.
# We don't want to resolve any Incident children until the parent Event
# resolves.
#
# (Normally you want to block on your children instead of your parent.)
from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager
from com.atlassian.jira.issue.link import IssueLinkManager
ilm = ComponentManager.getInstance().getIssueLinkManager()
# Assume we are okay ...
result = True
for link in ilm.getInwardLinks(issue.getId()):
if link.getIssueLinkType().getName() == "Parent" and link.getSourceObject().getResolution() == None:
result = False
From a survey I just filled out regarding a business trip to London:
Internet access … kept dropping packets, and I had to keep logging in to it via iPass. Don’t gouge customers, just let them on. This is seriously trivial, low-hanging fruit, which can make all the difference in the world esp for an international business traveler avoiding mobile roaming charges.
I would without hesitation stay at a more mediocre hotel that could deliver hassle-free, reliable Internet service, and the hassle-free starts with avoiding the damn tariff screen and just letting your guests on … guests who will appreciate this no-nonsense convenience far more than whether the staff have been properly trained to smile, &c.
I gotta say … we seem to “get this” in America … I’ve stayed at plenty of budget motels which offered complimentary, hassle-free, reliable Internet access. Though, I don’t recall having the same pleasure at a hotel in New York, where you could get free Internet in the lobby, but had to pay for it upstairs in your room.
For many of us, network access is kind of like tap water: we take it for granted that it should just flow, and not require one to jump through hoops to pay an additional $20/day. If there’s a business hotel chain that has figured this out, let me know, because my loyalty would be easily won.
“According to Islamic tradition the Kaaba was re-constructed by Abraham. It is stated in the Qur’an that this was the first house that was built for humanity to worship Allah.”
Malcolm X, an American human rights activist, describes the sociological atmosphere he experienced at Hajj as follows:
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.
A 2008 study on the longer-term effect of participating in the Islamic pilgrimage found that Muslims’ communities become more open after the Hajj experience. Entitled “Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam’s Global Gathering”, a study conducted in conjunction with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government found that the Hajj experience promotes peaceful coexistence, equality, and harmony. Specifically, the report states that the Hajj “increases belief in equality and harmony among ethnic groups and Islamic community and that “Hajjis (those who have performed the Hajj) show increased belief in peace, and in equality and harmony among adherents of different religions”
I kinda like just listening to the guy praying along in Arabic. Very relaxing. Even when I was a kid, I thought it was a cool idea that when Muslims pray, wherever they are, they face the same spot. Reading observations that having what amounts to a yearly conference that brings people from across the world together in fellowship . . . that is also a good thing.
Organized religion, and especially Islam, are not without some serious problems, so it is reassuring to see some of the spiritual unity and good spirit that result from a practice that so many people today and throughout history have dedicated their lives to.
For a project at work I was asked if I could lay out a long table-of-contents in our CMS as multiple columns. Logically enough, the table-of-contents renders as a flat, unordered list (UL) of list items (LI) … arranging that as multiple columns is a preposterous idea! Of course, preposterous questions can be very interesting.
So, we start with something like this:
Yadda Yadda
BLAH blah blah one
BLAH blah blah two
BLAH blah blah three
BLAH blah blah four
BLAH blah blah five
BLAH blah blah six
BLAH blah blah seven
BLAH blah blah eight really long example
BLAH blah blah nine
BLAH blah blah ten
BLAH blah blah eleven
BLAH blah blah twelve
Yappa Yappa
Which renders as:
Yadda Yadda
BLAH blah blah one
BLAH blah blah two
BLAH blah blah three
BLAH blah blah four
BLAH blah blah five
BLAH blah blah six
BLAH blah blah seven
BLAH blah blah eight really long example
BLAH blah blah nine
BLAH blah blah ten
BLAH blah blah eleven
BLAH blah blah twelve
Yappa Yappa
Okay. So, multiple columns? That is what TABLE is for, but we are dealing with UL. But I have my old friend the float attribute, so I define a style sheet:
It is not perfect. The content renders left-to-right, so strictly speaking, these aren’t columns.
If you narrow enough to cause wrapping you get some odd gaps.
Due to margins and the like, you can’t just say three columns is 33%, two columns is 50% . . . if you narrow this page enough you’ll see a graceful degradation from more columns to fewer.
Here’s a more dynamic example, where wider pages will get more columns:
Somewhat elaborate: enforce that time worked has been logged, except under certain circumstances. See original post.
import com.atlassian.jira.issue.worklog.Worklog
from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager
# Time Already Logged
timespent = issue.getTimeSpent()
# Time Logged via current screen
try:
timelogged = dict(issue.getModifiedFields())['worklog']
except:
timelogged = False
# Duplicate Issue? It is as good as logged!
resolution = issue.getResolution()
if resolution['name'] == "Duplicate":
timelogged = True
if resolution['name'] == "Self Corrected":
timelogged = True
# Nagios likes to close tickets, but doesn't get paid
user = ComponentManager.getInstance().getJiraAuthenticationContext().getUser()
if user.getName() == "nagios":
timelogged = True
if timespent < = 0 and timelogged == False:
result = False
description = "Please log the time you spent on this ticket."
Assign Unassigned Issue to User
This helps make sure tickets get assigned.
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-
from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager
assignee = issue.getAssignee()
user = ComponentManager.getInstance().getJiraAuthenticationContext().getUser()
if not issue.getAssignee():
issue.setAssignee(ComponentManager.getInstance().getJiraAuthenticationContext().getUser())
Validate Custom Field Value
We have a particular custom field which can be set UNKNOWN by the Reporter, but which should be cleaned up by the Assignee.
from com.atlassian.jira import ComponentManager
cfm = ComponentManager.getInstance().getCustomFieldManager()
product = issue.getCustomFieldValue(cfm.getCustomFieldObject('customfield_12345'))
if product == 'UNKNOWN':
result = False
description = "Please set CUSTOM_FIELD value appropriately."
So, I really like Ubuntu. Its Linux and it just mostly works. Except when they try to force everyone into some experimental new desktop environment. That is pretty awful, but I’m happy again now that I switched to kubuntu-desktop. (apt-get install kubuntu-desktop)
Kubuntu is Ubuntu with a nicely set-up KDE environment. They try to get you to use their own home-grown web browser, and the file manager takes some getting used to, but you can pretty quickly get under the hood, set up all your little window manager preferences, and get back to jamming. (Focus Follows Mouse in my house!)
The only thing that was missing is the fonts were rendering . . . not as pretty as regular Ubuntu. Kubuntu is set up to use the Ubuntu font, but in KDE things render kind of pixelly looking, like I was still in the 90s. A bit of searching and they seem to look nicer:
System Settings > Application Appearance > Fonts
Use anti-aliasing: Enabled
Configure…
Use sub-pixel rendering: RGB
Hinting style: Slight
