Functional Decomposition

Mind mapping and functional decomposition:

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) for folks with a short attention span:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Import_and_export#MindManager

ITOT Freemind comes with a host of conversion routines:

     /data/info/freemind/accessories
          mm2xxx.xsl where xxx is your favorite form

In particular,

     mm2xls_utf8.xsl

does exactly what we want done: a tab delineated .xls file with all the tiers at their proper indentation.

Why should you care?
     Because this is a tool that can help you sort out all the noises in your mind that cause your eyes to open suddenly at 02:00 in the middle of the night.

     If you can get it out of your mind and onto paper (virtual or real) then you can sleep more soundly and comfortably.

Everybody wins.

=====

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/947874/what-is-functional-decomposition

Functional Decomposition is the process of taking a complex process and breaking it down into its smaller, simpler parts.

It's a bit more complicated than that of course:
https://en.wikipea.org/wiki/Functional_decomposition

But the basic idea is to take a certain number of key elements (referred to as Tier 0) and successively examine them to find their subordinate constituent parts going down layer-by-layer (or tier-by-tier, as is used in the lexicon).

This takes some head work, as you must ensure that the sub elements you identify are indeed orthogonal, that is, unique and separate from the other elements at each tier. In statistics we refer to such a quality as IID - Independent and identically distributed random variables.

But basically, they are their own thing at any particular tier level.

After doing this analysis at a particular tier, you then decompose that tier into its constituent parts.

And so on and so forth.

The good news is that this gives you a comprehensive view of all the elements of a problem at all of their respective tiers.

The bad news is that it is extremely tedious in coming up with the appropriate indices and even more so renumbering them all if your orthogonality analysis indicates that an element must be moved or removed, or another inserted.

I created a series of Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) macros in the late 1980s to create an automatically indexed functional decomposition based on the number of columns a particular value was indented:

That served me well for a decade or so of prioritizing and organizing concepts.

But then I moved to Linux in 2002.

Initially there were no such applications, and then in OpenOffice, and subsequently LibreOffice, they manifested themselves in an extremely arcane object model without any of the tools that VBA has to examine properties, methods, and the rest. And the documentation was hideous or non-existent.

So I just left it alone, using my Windows version in a VirtualBox VM (Virtual Machine) when I really needed it.

But the worm turned, things got better, and I got to a point where it was worth the effort to track this down under Linux.

So I did, and I have.

What really broke the ice was finding
http://www.openoffice.org/api/docs/common/ref/com/sun/star/sheet/XSheetOutline.html

which offers a comprehensive (functional decomposition) of all the uno (Universal Network Object) properties, which drive the macros.

The sheet above is now rendered with the click of a button to this:

that you can expand to higher tiers by clicking either the numbers in the upper left hand corner or the + boxes in the left panel.

Clicking 2 gives this Tier 1 expansion:

Clicking 3 gives this Tier 2 expansion:

=====

Now, along comes FreeMind:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

that lets you build mind maps:

It has an export facility that gives a number of options.

The most obvious is a HTML rendition:

But this is rife with a host of nested Unordered List HTML tags (ul, li, etc). that are ignored on import to a text editor or a spreadsheet.

'Way too hard.

OTOH. There are other options under FreeMind:

Save as XHTML does indeed give you a clickable functional decomposition, without the index numbers.

Save as XHTML Java version also gives you a clickable functional decomposition, without the index numbers.

But now, working harder, and finding even better:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Import_and_export#MindManager

ITOT Freemind comes with a host of conversion routines:

     /data/info/freemind/accessories
          mm2xxx.xsl 
         where xxx is your favorite form (xls, html, text, whatever)

In particular,

     mm2xls_utf8.xsl

does exactly what we want done: a tab delineated .xls file with all the tiers at their proper indentation.

Microsoft Excel
To export to Microsoft Excel:
1. Use the menu item File > Export > Using XSLT...
2. Open the XSL file "mm2xls_utf8.xsl" (in /FreeMind/accessories)
3. Name the export file something.xls
4. Open the generated file by double-clicking it


Life is good.

But it takes paying attention and doing your homework. Nothing in life is free and you get what you pay for.

The worm has turned

I have some awesome BASH (but you can do the same with AutoKey) macros that load my machine on reboot in the morning:

They start a bunch of apps and fill Linux Chromium with a zillion tabs while I brush my teeth and set up the coffee: London Times, BBC, Google News, NOAA Weather, The Weather Channel, UK weather, Newport Patch, NewportThisWeek, The Met Office, The Shipping Forecast, Schneier Online, an a host of others.

The only thing I pay for (besides the Internet bandwidth and my time) is the London Times at about a dollar a day, depending on the exchange rate.

The Newport Daily News costs the same. Which would you prefer?

As for City-centric, Patch gives the Police report, NTW gives substance, including current and relevant editorials, events, and announcements. What more do we need?

Yes, we all need to earn a living. But the new cogniscenti have figured it out: Take a look at SEO rating scales: What matters is Substance. Certainly accompanied by advertising, but not the other way around, which is Madison Avenue shoving eye candy and advertising down your throat accompanied by pablum.

Who needs MSM with their kitty litter container content???

We don't need the MSM to tell us how to think. They need us to listen to whatever substantive content they can come up with and give US a voice.

Or we'll go a zillion other places, including setting up our own fora, such as NewportandBeyond.org and TruthCourage.WordPress.com.

The worm has turned. Thanks be to God. And to the First Amendment to the Constitution, and to the Internet.

So write a script to load each of these and others in separate tabs, start it, go make coffee, prep breakfast, and take your pills, and when you're done with that you have all the world news at your fingertips, without commercials.

And the workspace is ready to go. No clickety clickety of starting stuff manually.

And with the likes of WordPress, set up your own soapbox at Hyde's Corner.

And tell the MSM to pound sand.

What's not to like?

:-)

How to import quizzes into Instructure.com's Canvas

Importing a quiz into Canvas is easy when you know how.

Quizzes come from many sources. Today we shall address those derived from Elsevier's Evolve ExamView Test Generator (www.einstruction.com) — ETG for short.

You must have a subscription, username, and password.

With these in hand:

BUILD THE QUIZ

• Open ETG

• What do you want to do? → Create a new test from scratch.

• Click Select while viewing from the toolbar. A dialog appears listing all the chapters.

• Click Select All and all the chapters move to the lower window. Click Next and a page appears with all the questions.

• Work through the pages, clicking only the box to the left of the question you want. If you click higer echelons you'll load ALL the questions. When done, click Finish. You will see pages with only the questions you have selected.

EXPORT THE QUIZ

File → Export This will show a host of choices. It turns out that the Blackboard 7+ version is best for at least one institution's version of Canvas. YMMV. Make your choice (BB7 recommended), select the target directory, name the file, accept the defaults and give answers to the questions (e.g., "Directory name: Sample" and click OK to export it.

SWITCH TO CANVAS AND IMPORT IT

• Go to the course and open it.

• Settings → Import Content into this Course You may have to scroll right to see the latter as it is in a right sidebar. Click it.

• Import Content → Content Type → Select One Now you see this array of choices. If you have taken my advice above and exported as Blackboard 7+ then select Blackboard 6/7/8/9. Otherwise, knock yourself out experimenting.

• Choose the file to upload.

• Choose among all the other choices. YMMV. Click Import.

• Go to Quizzes in the Navigation panel. You will see the quiz there. Edit as required.

For example:

To change the points:

Quizzes → Sample → Edit → Questions → Question → Edit → pts

(Phew... :-(

But easy if you know how.

Computer FixIts

A friend sent me a document to address for the mission.

OK, I've cleaned it up some more, but the authors are incredibly incompetent when it comes to word processors. It is so easy to do it all automatically if you know how and I'm more than willing to show how.

They have spent a hideous amount of time that I have now removed on tappity-tappity brute force "formatting": centering, date formatting, sequencing, you name it. Tappity, tappity, tappity.

I'll guarantee that if we find ourselves doing a particular thing over and over again, we need to STOP, because someone has already figured out how to automate that. In particular, text formatting is down to a science: centering vertically or horizontally, merging cells, formatting dates into whatever you want (Weekday, month, day, year) are available at the click of a button for a host of formats, including Jewish (Tevet).

So please tell your colleagues: If they find themselves doing something repetitively in a spreadsheet or Word document (or, really, anywhere else) we can assure them that there is an easier way.

Just email me. Although I'll probably post the answer here and email them back with the URL. They don't have to pay for it but it increases my SEO visibility.

People in general, and organizations in particular, need to make the investment to teach people how to use these tools that have been given them.

Hideous amounts of time are unnecessarily being wasted.

I came to a brick wall at the rubric: I've fixed the rest, but they had PASTED THE RUBRIC AS AN IMAGE!!! So there is absolutely no way to edit it.

Ask them for a source for from where they got it. It is probably in an Excel spreadsheet format with which we can do something. But we can't edit an image, at least not with a huge amount of more time.

Otherwise it means rebuilding it from scratch, too late tonight to do that.

=====

I learned this forty decades ago, if you don't know what you're doing, ask (and if necessary pay) an expert. That goes for plumbers, chimney sweeps, gardeners, fixit guys, lawyers,

and computer people.

Do NOT try to do it yourself.

That way everybody wins.

=====

Sigh.

:-(

Water woes

Thank you to the City for good faith response. There have been periodic issues with water bills. A team came and examined my system and found nothing to explain a doubling, but also offered a lot of information:

1. Most cases involve leaks. People complain (as I did) but then never report the result. (So I am doing so).

2. They agree that major leaks don't go away, but valves can get sediment and toilet floats get dirty, that can cause intermittent loss. In my case they did find one toilet stopper weeping slightly.

3. They offer a brochure and dye tablets to do the tests, but you can also use food dye, put some in the tank, wait 5-10 minutes, if the color appears in the bowl then you have a leak.

4. The meters are mechanical and the dials are driven by flow. The readers are electronic but they just read the mechanical value.

5. As Marco points out, they want to know if you have a problem. Call them at 845-5600 if you have an issue.

=====

So the spike is a mystery, but it is what it is.

So the only answer is pay attention. My usage projects normal gain with five days left to the billing cycle.

You can check your own usage and project your bill by using this calculator. You can download it (a spreadsheet) here. Do so and check it out daily. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Qq3HgsQSekQUZLYThEZ0JzbkU/view?usp=sharing

All the necessarily politically correct caveats apply, use at your own risk, I've done the best I could, hey I'm just trying to help. If you don't like it don't use it. And it may be wrong:

1. Enter the data from your last bill in the first set of pale yellow shaded cells
2. Read your meter and enter the date, time, and meter reading in the second set of pale yellow shaded cells
3. Enter Y or N in the pale yellow shaded cell under Residential (Y/N)
4. Enter the expected date of your next bill in the next pale yellow shaded cell under Date
5. The results are printed in blue.
6. Pay attention if the number in the bottom right corner is too big! :-)

mod_rewrite

Wrapup:

I've been having problems with Permalinks in a WordPress site. I found many others having the same problem, but no solutions identified. I'd been working on this for weeks, learning all kinds of wonderful stuff about apache2's mod_rewrite, regular expressions and so forth. All appropriately logged, saved, and posted below.

But then I got caught up in a bunch of events and left it for a week.

When I came back to the problem I noticed that my published site was processing permalinks correctly, while my localhost version was not.

OK! Now I can compare and find the problem.

First I did a side by side comparison of httpd.conf. No difference.

So then I looked at the WordPress permalink settings:
Settings → Permalinks

The disfunctional site had them set to Post name:
/%postname%/

The functional had it set to Custom:
/index.php/%postname%/

So I added the /index.php/ and now it works.

Why?

https://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
PATHINFO permalinks look very much like mod_rewrite permalinks but for one exception: they have /index.php inserted before them.

Otherwise, they are the same as the "pretty" mod_rewrite permalinks, and are similarly flexible. Anything that mod_rewritepermalinks can do, PATHINFO permalinks can do, with the help of that /index.php part.

To activate PATHINFO permalinks, start your permalink structure with index.php/.

So it appears that we must use PATHINFO Permalinks, not mod_rewrite Permalinks

But why?

More to learn. At least now it is working. Hope this helps others.

============= Previous Post =============

Apache 2.4.10... module rewrite is not responding.

I'm sure it's something simple, but weeks of work have been evaded in finding it.

This is a monster. I have checked all of the following thoroughly:

• The firewall is not the problem. Turning it on or off has no effect.

• .htaccess is not the problem as it reflects what everyone says it should and one is generated by WordPress.

• WordPress is not the problem as mod_rewrite does not respond outside of WordPress.

• PHP is not the problem. PHP scripts all run successfully.

I've worked through all the options of the fundamental Apache2 documentation for mod_rewrite:
     http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/rewrite/intro.html

Logging
     I've set
          LogLevel alert rewrite:trace4
               I find no errors in
                    /var/log/error_log
                    dmesg
                    or anywhere else.

RewriteBase Directive

     I've set this correctly in each affected .htaccess file

Require Directive
     This is generated by WordPress and by analysis is correct.

RewriteEngine Directive
     Both .htaccess files contain
             RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule Directive
The RewriteRule directive is the real rewriting workhorse.
Yeh, ok, except it isn't working. But the rules for /nptbeyond/ are written by WP, those for /test/ are as posted, so who am I to question them. Let's look for another cause.

So everything is totally in order, no shortcuts. But it doesn't work.

httpd.conf might be the problem, but it is very simple. Other than include statements and all the outcommented statements the only parts I've changed read:

# forbid access to the entire filesystem by default

    Options None
    AllowOverride None
Require all denied

# New section
#
DocumentRoot /srv/www/htdocs

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Multiviews
AllowOverride All
Require all granted


# use .htaccess files for overriding,
AccessFileName .htaccess
# and never show them ;
# The tilde ~ indicates that the text inside the quotes is a PCRE
# The cap ^ indicates to include all precedent paths
# The backslash \ renders the literal value of the period . otherwise
# it would be looking for any single charater before:

    Require all denied

So all seems right.

=====
But it is not.

TattleTale

Yes, I'm a tattletale. I am not going to be nice.

I'll call 911 in a heartbeat and I'll exercise my Second Amendment rights.

=====

I'll help fill up the NPD database with information about the trouble spots (weird people hitting on me, people trying my back door in broad daylight, people trying my front door after midnight). 

But I'll also be able to handle the eight to ten minutes required to work through the 911 maze and have the police deploy before they actually appear on my doorstep (national average is eight minutes). 

Have you ever actually called 911? It takes at least three minutes just to get to the right person able to listen ("Fire, Police, or Medical? Stay on the line. Beep".)

Don't waste their time, but the next time you see anything even faintly legitimately suspicious call them. They will be appreciative of the information and YOU will get an education as to how long it takes to get a response. 

Not their fault. Just the way it is.

Which they did in both instances in about ten minutes, no complaints. And in both cases they caught the perpetrators. Both well known down-and-outers, druggies, whatever. Sort of like Gray with an eighteen count rap sheet.

     http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/freddiegray.asp

NPD never told me what the final outcome was, I don't really care as long as the perps don't come back.

But if the perps had gotten through the door in that time it would have been too late.

For them.

So, do not depend on others for your safety. BE PREPARED.

Gosh, someone famous said that once upon a time...

Baden-Powell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_Motto

Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.

Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.


Read the whole thing.