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2002.11.01 >> WHAT THIS SOAP BOX IS ALL ABOUT
- This is a random
collection of some of my
thoughts and opinions on a variety of topics.
- The ideas and opinions
are mine alone and I make
absolutely no claim that others have not had these ideas or opinions
earlier than me.
- - - After all, as the
saying goes, "There
Is Nothing New Under The Sun" :)
- The principal
motivation for generating this is
to place any items or ideas contained here in the PUBLIC DOMAIN
whenever possible.
- Of course, the idea of
placing things in the PUBLIC DOMAIN
did not originate with me at
all.
- As many people
already know, one notable
example of this in the world of computer programming is called
"Open Source".
- Each of the sections
below contains descriptions
that have been made public by posting the information on the World Wide
Web.
- As part of each
section, I have noted the date
when I first posted the information.
- Therefore, anyone is
welcome to use these ideas
in any (legal) way they wish.
- Who knows, maybe some
good will come from it
:)
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2002.11.16 >> FORMAT FOR MY GENEALOGICAL DATA
- The ideas and opinions
expressed in this section
were first published on the WEB on 16/Nov/2002.
-
- Here is a short
explanation of the way the
family tree information is organized :-)
-
- GENERAL
- The basic
form of the relationship data
consists of separate pages of information with space for Parents, Grand
Parents (both sets), and Children. So, on a single screen, you can view
the names of both parents, all the children born to these parents, and
the four grandparents.
- Whenever
certain areas are blank, this means
that either there were NO people in that catagory [in the case of
children or of a mate for instance] OR the information is missing
[everyone has a mother and father :-)]
- The names of
the parent(s) are linked to the
appropriate position in the central information file [when there IS
more information on the parent]. The central information file is where
I keep everything else known about the person.
- The names of
the grandparents and of the
children are linked to other pages where these persons appear in the
parent positions.
- I have
included enough information on these
pages that if you wish to work from a paper copy of the data, it is
possible to do so. - The links between the various items are shown as a
pair of numbers wherever needed.
- The links all
have the following appearance:
- NNN/PPP,,
Person's Name
- Where:
- NNN:
is a unique number I have assigned to this
person and is the "note number" used for any additional
information I have about that individual..
- / is a
separator and is "/" if I have
not specified the person's gender or is either a "y" if the
person is male, or is "x" if the person is female,
.
- PPP:
is a page number where this person appears
in one of the "Parent" spaces.
- Each page has
its own number although many
different people can sometimes be found on the same page (parents,
grandparents, children).
- EXAMPLE:
- If an
entry 088/126,, Yvette MONTREUIL appears
as either a child or as a grand'parent on a page, selecting it will
cause page 126 to be displayed. (She occupies
the "wife" position on page 126).
- If, on
the other hand, the same entry appears
as in the parent position (wife) on the page, selecting it will send
you to that part of the central information file dealing with person
number 088 [Note #88]. This is exactly where
I've stored all additional information I have about Yvette MONTREUIL.
- Each time a
person's name appears, these
numbers are also displayed.
- Why I did it this way:
- This
scheme allows you to use the information
from a printed form.
- The pages
are numbered and can be filed in
order.
- The names
in the other large files are listed
in one case alphabetically by family name and in the other case in
numerical sequence.
- My source
reference information also has
sufficient numerical clues to allow the information to be found when
printed on paper.
- I
have created this page/data format
independantly of anyone else.
[Although I'll admit I may not be the first to think of it]
- Therefore,
if this
format is not reserved in any legal sense,
I hereby place it in the PUBLIC
DOMAIN.
- Please
feel
free to use it for your own
genealogical documentation.
- [If
you
DO use the format, it would be
nice if you gave credit to BINARIUS Inc. somewhere on your data pages
:-) ]
- It may be a
bit tedious, but you CAN navigate
manually through the information. [ A LOT easier to use a browser
though :-) ]
-
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2007.11.01 >> LIGHTS
- The ideas and opinions
expressed in this section
were first published on the WEB on 01/Nov/2007.
-
- There seems to be
a growing concern about
conserving our natural resources, including reducing as much as
possible the use of electrical power.
- One of the
recognized methods of reducing the
need for electricity is to switch the "normal" (incandescent)
light bulbs for "compact flourescents".
- But isn't there
another method of turning
electrical power into light ?
- I am referring to
a technology called
"Light Emitting Diodes" (LED's).
- I have a couple of
flash lights using this
technology.
- Batteries in these
last a VERY VERY long time
:)
- So, why can
someone not develop LED's to replace
even the "compact flourescents" ?
- LED's use very
little electricity and can
produce bright light, either white or coloured.
- Also, a "safety"
light bulb form could
be developped that would contain a small rechargable battery in its
base.
- Then, should power
be interrupted, the light
bulb could continue producing light until the power resumed :)
- Also, the outer
shell of an "LED"
light bulb could be made of plastic instead of thin glass.
- Such plastic light
bulbs would not shatter into
many pieces of sharp glass if dropped.
- This would reduce
the danger of being cut while
picking up the broken light bulb pieces.
- Also, what about
making ceiling tiles with
embedded LED's ?
- Seems to me such a
ceiling could illuminate a
room without the glare typical of currently available light bulbs
:)
- Any of these ideas
that are not reserved in any
legal sense
are hereby placed in the PUBLIC
DOMAIN.
- Please feel free
to use these ideas to improve
our world.
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2007.12.10 >> WHY IS WINDOWS SO SLOW TO START
- The ideas and opinions
expressed in this section
were first published on the WEB on 10/Dec/2007.
-
- I believe that one
of the reasons WINDOWS takes
so long to start up is that the applications it supports assume that a
large number of functions (subroutines) are resident in memory at all
times for use by any application needing them.
- Therefore, the
calls to execute these
application functions are but a single
"Branch-And-Save-The-Return-Address" type of
instruction.
- What if we
replaced this
"Branch-And-Save-The-Return-Address" with a call to a utility
function whose sole purpose is to first ensure that the required
application function was available in current memory (loading it in
from disk if necessary) and then produce the location of the (maybe
newly loaded) function.
- If the application
function was already in
memory and ready for immediate use, it would of course NOT be
re-loaded, but would simply be used.
- If all
applications used this technique to call
all sub-functions, (or if the WINDOWS system INSISTED on it) then
surely, the time to load the very limited basic software needed to
start WINDOWS would be MUCH FASTER :)
- It would be nice
if my PC started up almost as
quickly as my PALM PILOT :)
- Furthermore, THE
ONLY SOFTWARE LOADED INTO
MEMORY FROM DISK WOULD BE THAT ACTUALLY NEEDED BY THE USER
:)
- Then, just maybe,
the system would only need
enough memory to run the functions actually in use rather than reserve
enough memory to store every possible function JUST IN CASE they MIGHT
be needed.
- Personally, I
NEVER use WORD for text processing
- I use WORDPERFECT.
- Also, I do not use
SPREADSHEETS very
often.
- I DO use a browser
(FIREFOX) but NEVER listen to
music, so do not really need the software to interpret music
files.
- And anyway, if my
habits change, why then I
would need to wait for the appropriate software to load in THE FIRST
TIME I NEEDED IT, AND NOT BEFORE.
- Any of these ideas
that are not reserved in any
legal sense
are hereby placed in the PUBLIC
DOMAIN.
- Please feel free
to use these ideas to improve
our world.
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