bash activity

 OK, it's 19:50 and I'm spending the evening messing around with bash. Fairly standard for Linux users, I admit.

But I'm reading the GNU manual for bash - and enjoying it! Just as well because I've got some weird bash syntax that was kindly given to me on accu-general and I have to explain it in an article about a bash script. Here it is:

 stub="${filename%.*}" 

It is clever. There is some code to ensure that the filename is valid - that it ends in .HTML or .html. But, trying to trip it up, it still works perfectly. Like this:-
input  = stuff.html/hello.html
return value = 0
result = stuff.html/hello.md

Why? I will read on and find out...

I spent a couple of hours this morning merging four pages of where I've found inspiration for running TTRPGs ( Traveller ) to be more specific. I watched a couple of episodes of Star Trek : Enterprise hoping to soak up some inspiration.

Traveller

Despite being completely under the weather  I ran a game of Traveller yesterday. For once we had 4 players - 1 player per character and that proved to be really good.

 Today I tested positive for Covid. It felt like a case of hayfever. Sadly, it was not. 

C++

Been reading some C++ stuff, experimenting with examples from "The C++ Initialization (sic) Story". Getting to grips with it...

Busy bee!

 I'm still reading technical books to review. It is currently an exercise in spinning plates. Also, I am preparing to run a Traveller game, a science fiction game set in the far future, in the not too distant future.

Extremes

 I watched the DVD of "The Lives of Others", a film set in 1984 East Berlin.

It struck me that both the far left and the far right don't know how to handle artists and writers.

Another one!

 I have just found out about another programmer with schizophrenia - Terry A. Davis

In other news, my cold is slowly going away and I've had to resort to Paracetamol for a headache.

Progress, I hope

Well, the SSH Mastery Book seems to be unsuitable for my needs. Currently reading Wikipedia articles on public-key cryptography and, later on, its article on SSH.

In other news, I worked out how to get Ubuntu to launch a calculator when an otherwise unused key is pressed!