Author archives: Mike

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Twisted web client and ssl (Since it took close to an hour to figure this out...)


The secret: twisted.web.client.getPage(url) handles SSL (https://) protocols automatically. Nothing I could find in the documentation mentions that. There are references to the ContextFactory, but nothing is mentioned about whether you need to pass one in or not (you don't). So, a simple script to download an SSL page with Twisted looks something like this:

from ...

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Let there be light! (Rosey's excursion to Canadian Tire)


Rosey went to Canadian Tire to pick up some lamps (her room and the living room are unlivably dark (I get horribly depressed when it's always dark)). Apparently she didn't have time to find any lamps she liked, but she did pick up a replacement bulb for my big halogen floor lamp.

That lamp almost ...

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Change and rests and suchalike (MediaCorp project work for most of the day...)


Tim came by and we discussed the EFT server project for an hour or so (I am so not looking forward to that project now). After that we switched to discussing the MediaCorp page-checker project, much better specified (i.e. at least minimally specified).

Spent a solid 7 hours on that, with the result being a ...

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Hacking doesn't cut it yet (CD-ROM is flaky)


The machine with the little switch hanging off it is basically all old hardware. Unfortunately, the CD-ROM seems to work only for the first 2 or 3 minutes that the machine is up, just enough to boot Knoppix 3.3, but not Knoppix 3.4, and just enough to start booting Gentoo (then it starts getting I/O ...

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Ooh, hardware hacking (Almost forgot to mention this... and wouldn't *that* be a trajedy ;) .)


As some of you will undoubtedly remember, I haven't been having stellar luck with the hardware I ordered from TigerDirect. The CPU cooler doesn't seem to be properly cooling the Athlon64 (though I seem to have got it to the point where it's stable and reliable, though still 10 degrees warmer than it really should ...

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Another small step forward for demo-kind (Sure it's a trivial environment, but it's got a certain charm...)


After visiting grams (score 3 games to 1 IIRC), spent another few hours playing with the demo "world" for OpenGLContext. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the shadows to bake properly in OpenGLContext, but here's the current state (I'm about to switch back to work-work, so this is where it'll stay for approximately another 2 ...

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What to do about a demo for OpenGLContext (Need free-to-distribute content...)


One of the things that OpenGLContext really needs is a little demo of what it can do. Unfortunately, though there was a gentleman's agreement that I could use my design work with VRTelecom for reasonable personal use, that wouldn't include dropping it into a package that hundreds of people are going to recieve.

So, I ...

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PyGTA this Tuesday (Don't forget!)


Since I missed the last meeting I'm rather looking forward to this one. Peter's going to do a presentation on his robotic interface. You can find more information on the wiki. As usual, we'll try to have time for general questions and discussion of Python news.

Parsing for fun and profit (Data importers are *fun* )


Spent the day working with SimpleParse. The easy part was defining a grammar, took maybe an hour. After that the annoying work of building the interpreter began. It was annoying because I realised that there is a fundamental flaw in my plan for this sub-project, namely, I'm not forcing the user to differentiate between objects ...

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What's missing? (Loneliness strikes in the middle of the night...)


I'm a people junkie.

I admit that I have a problem.

I need regular conversations with intelligent individuals with wide-ranging interests to be happy. The problem is that I don't really have regular conversations with anyone any more.

This may seem strange, but the thing I miss most about being with Natasha is just having ...

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