import os
from datetime import datetime
from datetime import timedelta

MAX_AGE = timedelta(minutes=5)
def is_old_file(filename):
    current_time = datetime.now()
    file_time = datetime.fromtimestamp(os.stat(filename).st_atime)
    return current_time < file_time or (current_time - file_time) > MAX_AGE

Frankly, seeing this at the ideal home show was a surreal experience. And, begs the question, where does he store it?

Another vowel.

Can I have a vowel please.

I think I’ll have another vowel.

Hmm, vowel please.

….

(you get the idea)

What’s the point? Well, it’s easy to break. Not that you should be trying, mind, but you should be aware of some gotchas in the polymorphism.

class AContainer {
    string value;
}

class A1Container : AContainer {
    string value1;
}

class A2Container : AContainer {
    string value2;
}

void add_something(List<AContainer> list) {
    list.add(new A1Container());
}

void main() {
    add_something(new List<AContainer>());  // Good
    add_something(new List<A1Container>()); // Good
    add_something(new List<A2Container>()); // Bad!
}

I have typed this from memory, so please forgive the odd mistake, but it gets the idea across. It is perfectly possible to, within the rules of the language, put the wrong type of object into the container.

If some other peice of code that depends on a List<A1Container> having exactly the expected types, with the expected visible fields, is executed, we can very easily corrupt memory and/or crash the program.

Like I say, this is just something to look out for. After all, we’re real programmers aren’t we!

• Click the Bluetooth icon on your task bar and select “Set up new device”. Put your headset into discovery mode, in my case by pressing and holding the on button for a while.
• Select the device from the list and continue.
• Click the Bluetooth icon on your task bar, and look for your device name under the menu. It should appear as a sub menu, with Connect/Disconnect/Open Sound Preferences. Select the latter.
• In the sound preferences dialog click Hardware, and select the device. At the bottom of this window should be a drop down box called “Profile:”. Here you can select “High Fidelity Playback (A2DP)”.
• Click the Output tab, and make sure your device is checked.

Well, in theory that’s job done!

One technique is to restrict access to excessively verbose parts of your site. Anything that is basically generated, and where the number of pages can be huge, might look to a search engine like an attempt to spam their indexes. Well, actually, her site had a robots.txt file to prevent access to those pages. Guess which major search engine ignores that!..   Oh well.

Next attempt is to add “rel=’nofollow’” to every href into those generated pages. One quick bit of research later, I discover that our favourite major search engine will follow those links anyway. It may or may not index, but will follow.

Moving on to the <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”/> header tag for every generated page. This should do the trick, however search engine no. 1 has one last irritating trick up its sleeve. It has a long memory. If it has previously indexed a page, all these measures will not make it forget the page. So….

Last trick, rename all the generated pages, so that the old links generate 404 and major search engines forget them!.

I’ll report back later. Wish me luck.

It turns out that this is a common complaint amongst runners, especially inexperienced ones. Shin splints are tiny fractures (so I hear) in the bone, and frankly, I don’t like the sound of that.