Autarchy of the Private Cave

Tiny bits of bioinformatics, [web-]programming etc

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    Archive for April, 2008

    Developing reluctant (pessimal) algorithms

    13th April 2008

    If you had some programming experience – read it here. Otherwise ignore, it’s targeted for a narrow group.

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    Posted in Humour, Links, Programming | No Comments »

    How to use ffmpeg if libmp3lame support is not present

    12th April 2008

    I’m providing regularly updated compiled linux and freebsd ffmpeg binaries, and also described how to use ffmpeg on shared hostings if not all the required libraries (like libmp3lame) are present. However, the solution recommended might not “fit all”, so here is another one – simpler and even more portable/universal than setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
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    Posted in Software | 4 Comments »

    NicEdit

    11th April 2008

    NicEdit – lightweight inline configurable rich-text editor for the web. Can fit where both FCKEditor and TinyMCE are too clunky and monstrous.

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    Posted in Links, Notepad, Software, Web | No Comments »

    Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is a life saver plugin

    9th April 2008

    As an update to WordPress anti-spam plugins, I highly recommend Spam Karma 2. For a time, it seems to be the ultimate protection. I turned off all the other anti-spam plugins (including Aksimet), and everything’s just perfect! SK2 gathers up to a thousand spam comments/trackbacks during a single week on this blog, and I never had a complaint from blog visitors on their inability to add a comment (though some did have to fill in captcha to post a comment with links).

    And SK2 still works under WP 2.5! (SK 2.3 was released to support WP 2.1)

    Kudos to Dave!

    It would be a pity if this excellent plugin is abandoned and stops functioning in one of the upcoming WP releases.

    Update: SpamKarma is now GPL (at google code).

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    Posted in CMS, Software, Web, WP PlugIns | No Comments »

    Drupal is more than just a CMS

    6th April 2008

    This post provides several links which would be useful for the beginning Drupal developers, or developers deciding which CMS to use as the base for their next project. Also, strengths of Drupal are highlighted.

    Intensively working with Drupal during the past two weeks, I find it to be an excellent tool, and also much more than a YACMS.

    Now I think that Drupal is also a framework – providing invisible to developer caching, session handling, access control, theming, localization, and more. The minimal effort required to extend already huge Drupal functionality is to write your own module – and, if done right, your module will immediately benefit from all the bonuses Drupal provides.

    But Drupal also really shines as a CMS! You can start with a free design theme, and without any PHP knowledge have your custom portal built within a week – with your own hands, if you desire! (Note: “within a week” is true, but only if you already know what exactly you should be doing; learning time is short, but it’s not within that same week.)

    What makes Drupal so powerful? I’d say that beautiful core and numerous modules.

    What Drupal has to offer?
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    Posted in CMS, Drupal, Software, Web | No Comments »

    Jeeves and Wooster TV series

    5th April 2008

    4 seasons (23 episodes) of highly enjoyable British comedy. Excellent playing by Stephen Fry (Jeeves) and Hugh Laurie (Bertie Wooster). Good stories by P.G. Wodehouse. Highly recommended!

    P.S. “Jeeves and Wooster” differs strongly from the IT Crowd I had written about before. IT crowd is an every-day-situational-comedy, while J&W is genius-serving-the-idiot, with most laughs at Wooster’s plans and deeds.

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    Posted in Movies | 1 Comment »

    The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part 1

    5th April 2008

    If taken out of [Ani]Matrix context, and filtered through internal “over-exaggeration removal”, then this exact 9-minute animation (episode 2 of 9) is quite coherent with soon-possible problem to face humans.

    Yes, I do believe the creation of sentient machines is within perceivable future. And yes, I do think that the problems of “robot personality” will be acute.

    In support of my view – cloning is an unresolved ethical problem, which also grows into legal and social problems in the case of human cloning. When even the possibility of having two genetically identical humans arises, this leads to debates and disagreements (to clone or not to clone?). What could be said about a machine claiming it’s right for life?

    Claiming other human rights?

    Racism and xenophobia are characteristic for some countries even nowadays, and it can be even said that there is no country where the number of xenophobic or racist citizens is equal to zero. And that’s human-human relations problem.

    In other words, I did enjoy The Second Renaissance, Part I (except for the clearly contradictional last two minutes of it).

    Overall The Animatrix is good.

    And the message I was trying to express is that mankind better be prepared to live side-by-side with machines – develop some realistic co-existence model. SciFi writes will help here ;) . Just let’s avoid the fake, insincere model tried in The Animatrix: Matriculated (episode 9, the last one).

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    Posted in Movies | No Comments »