Happy new year 2008

New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion.
-Mark Twain

Tipping pizza delivery guy

It was always confusing how much to tip and whether to tip, when the store already adds delivery charge on online order. I called the pizza hut and they told it as store charge. Some other time I tried to order the pizza on phone order, they told it was 10, which was 6.99 with online coupon. This looks tricky and confusing to me.

Google shows tipthepizzaguy website.
"The common courtesy is 15% for normal service. On small orders, when 15% is less than $2, the proper amount is the $2 minimum standard. It should be a $2 minimum to have someone come to your house. 20% or more if the service is excellent. 10% or less for poor service. Nothing for very bad service. If the order is $50 or more, at least 10%. 1 or 2$ more for long distance and bad weather."

Shell script code

See Advanced bash scripting guide by Mendal Cooper. In reality, it is simple enough document so that beginners can start.

Things that I recollected today is special exit codes, 1 - catchall for general errors, 126 - command invoked can not execute, permission denied or command can not execute, 127 - command not found, 128 + n - signal number recieved, 255 - exit status out of range.

$ let var=1/0
bash: let: var=1/0: division by 0 (error token is "0")
$echo $?
1

$./directoryname
bash: ./directory: is a directory
$ echo $?
126

$ unknowncommand
bash: unknowncommand: command not found
$ echo $?
127

$ vim somefile
ctrl-z
[1]+ Stopped vim
echo $?
148

Cluleless marketing

Discount on ham purchase for Chanukh!
See "Let's all eat trafe for Chanukah" for full details.

It seems to me like giving discount on beer on Gandhi's birthday in India. India observes dry day on october 2nd in honor of him.

Indiana Pi

Once upon a time, one man thought he found a way to squaring the circle(that also means representing the exact value of pi on paper) and had copyrighted it and proposed it as bill in a state assembly. It was almost passed by the assembly. See Indiana Pi history and Indiana state Bill 246 for details.

It starts with the claim that it as "A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth ... to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost ..." and supposed to be used on royalty by the rest of the world.

Do easy to use powerful callbacks exist?

They do.

Good reading about how powerful callbacks can be implemented . It is very good education.

Security Tokens

Authorizing systems are of three types, a. what you have (e.g. Identity card) b. What you know (e.g. password) and c. what you are (e.g. Iris patterns).

- From a book I read in library recently.

Egg cartons

Ever wondered what the numbers on egg carton are.

One number is plant where the eggs are packed. The facility or plan number starts with P followed by three or four digits.  Other number is packing date represented as the day of the year ranging from 0 to 365.

Eggs are also graded based on the interior and exterior quality. Their color or weight does not matter.

Grade AA :  eggs with clean and unbroken and normal shaped shells,  1/8th inch or less air cell, clear and firm white and slightly defined and defect free yolk outline.

Grade A :  eggs with clean and unbroken and normal shaped shells,  3/16th inch or less air cell, clear and reasonably firm white and fairly defined or well defined and defect freee yolk outline.

Grade B :  eggs with stained less than 1/32 of surface if locally or 1/16 of surface if scattered and unbroken and abnormal shaped shells,  3/16th inch or more air cell, white and watery white and plain visible yolk outline with visible germ development.

Dirty: eggs with unbroken shells, prominent stains and adhering dirt or foreign material.
Check: eggs with broken or cracked shells but not leaking and membrane intact.
Leak: eggs with broken or cracked shells with leaking or ready to leak.

Egg cases are labelled based on the eggs packed in it at origin location.
Grade AA:  cases with at least 87% grade AA eggs and at most 13% grade A or grade B and at most 5% checks.
Grade A: cases with at least 87% grade AA or grade A eggs and at most 13% grade B and at most 5% checks.
Grade B: cases with 90% grade B or better eggs and at most 10% checks.

Once they reach a destination, there will be more tolerance limit to accommodate the damage during transpiration.

Grade AA:  cases with at least 72% grade AA eggs and at most 28% grade A or grade B and at most 7% checks.
Grade A: cases with at least 82% grade AA or grade A eggs and at most 18% grade B and at most 7% checks.
Grade B: cases with 90% grade B or better eggs and at most 10% checks.

Sources
usda egg carton labelling page.
usda grades definition

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