Autarchy of the Private Cave

“… consider a universal predictor based on pattern matching: Given a sequence X_i,… ,X_n drawn from a stationary mixing source, it predicts the next symbol X_n+i based on selecting a context of X_n+i. The predictor, called the Sampled Pattern Matching (SPM), is a modification of the Ehrenfeucht-Mycielski pseudo random generator algorithm. It predicts the value of the most frequent symbol appearing at the so called sampled positions. These positions follow the occurrences of a fraction of the longest suffix of the original sequence that has another copy inside X_iX₂ … X_n. In other words, in SPM the context selection consists of taking certain fraction of the longest match. The study of the longest match for lossless data compression was initiated by [Aaron D.] Wyner and Ziv in their 1989 seminal paper.”
Read the rest of this entry »

HD-DVD AACS Processing Key number: 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0.

Personally, I have no idea how to use this number. However, below are some links which will give you more clues…

And, also, it should be easy to follow the events with the collection of links below.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is quite a well-known thing among frequent and professional photographers, but still an interesting thing to know.
I was also told that digital photo cameras can “see” in ultraviolet as well, but didn’t check if that’s true.
As for infra-red light, this can be easily checked using any common “direct visibility” remote control. Most if not all use infra-red diodes to transmit signal. So I just pointed a remote at the camera, and made a shot. (Actually, camera real-time display also shows captured infra-red light, as it starts blinking in the remote.) Here is the proof of digital cameras ability to capture infra-red light. The bluish dot in the centre of the red-front-plastic-screen of the remote is infra-red light.

There was an excellent mod_rewrite cheat sheet at ILoveJackDaniels, but it is now gone.

I have been using it for over a year now, as from time to time there’s a need to try to remember how to use mod_rewrite (e.g. in the case of no-www Class B web-site).

To help preserve this useful bit of information, and for the cases of the original article being unavailable (which did happen a few years later), below is a link to the cheat sheet stored on my server.
Read the rest of this entry »

When using PHP, the simplest way to find the absolute path of your files/folders on the server is by creating a simple path.php file with the following contents (click on the “Plain text” box header for copy-pasting):

Put the new file anywhere in the web-accessible folder on your server,
then just access that file from your favourite web-browser – and you’ll have the absolute path shown to you.

Alternatively, you may use the following code:

This also should display the absolute path on your server.

PrivatBank is one of the largest Ukrainian banks, and is very active in the field of e-commerce.

Today I came across their new blog, which is a WordPress-powered one.
From the first glance I’d say that it’s here where PrivatBank now publishes the news – before the blog launch, news were published on the privatbank’s website. The main and only difference appears to be in comments – now visitors can comment on those news, and even get response.

I wonder how many “comment-responders” PrivatBank had to hire to launch this blog :). Or is that tech-support which was given one more duty?

Yes, it should.
Read the rest of this entry »