Text files with Python

Finally I cleaned up my code enough to post it here. It’s probably still ugly, but not as ugly as when I wrote it down the first time. It’s all about manipulating text files, to be precise tab-delimited files. All the snippets are published under the GNU GPL v2 (not that I think that anyone would use them, but just in case…).

October 20, 2006

Kubuntu Edgy

I’ve upgraded both leon (one of my computers at home) and quant (my work machine) to Kubuntu Edgy Eft (now in Release Candidate status, screenshots here). Leon’s upgrade went perfectly, while quant gave me some headaches. First of all there was a conflict between packages, then the nvidia module for legacy hardware wouldn’t load: $ modprobe nvidia_legacy FATAL: Module nv not found. In the end I manually compiled the nvidia module, and had to insert it via insmod or it would give out a cryptic error message (“error running install for module nvidia”).

October 15, 2006

More S.T.E.A.L. related work

I haven’t had much time to write here as I’ve been busy fixing and arranging things for the web page on S.T.E.A.L. It appears that thanks to Too’s deviation posting and subsequent journal entry, hits have skyrocketed. This makes me happy but it also means more work and need for refinement. As a matter of fact, I wrote a little more yesterday, and today I’ll be aiming to complete chapter 4.

October 11, 2006

My first real Python program

Although I’m still studying the language, finally I managed to create a program that actually does something I need. The need arose from a gene list I was given, made up by Entrez Gene IDs. I need to annotate it, but in a form that wasn’t able to be produced by the usual functional annotation tools I have. Actually it could have been done, but what I needed was to make something that I could automate.

October 9, 2006

S.T.E.A.L. cover!

Just minutes ago I got a MSN message from Too, stating that the cover for the novel had been completed! Of course, I downloaded it eagerly…

October 8, 2006

Novels! Novels! Novels!

I’m adapting this from the infamous Steve Ballmer quote. This is to introduce the novels I bought recently from amazon.com (thanks to NRK for placing the order).

October 4, 2006

Dutch weekend

As the title implies, I’ve been over, along with my twin brother to my brother’s house in Leiden last weekend. It was a fun experience overall. My brother has a very nice apartment in Leiden, big although somewhat empty (but that’s the policy of the organization that gave him the place). Aside being extremely sick on the plane, I arrived more or less in time on Friday night. The following day we had a trip around Amsterdam, which honestly disappointed me somehow: while the streets, the canals, the places look nice, it doesn’t seem that it has a thousand years of history.

October 4, 2006

Valkyrie Profile Silmeria

I recently obtained a copy of Valkyrie Profile Silmeria in a language that I can understand. I’ve been playing it for a while and I can say I like it. 396 The graphics look nice, but I don’t understand why tri-Ace made a fake 2D perspective. In my opinion it makes all that 3D look rather useless, since there’s little you can do depth-wise. The same can be said for the battles: while you can move around in 3D, the perspective shifts in 2D when you attack (in a manner similar to the original Valkyrie Profile).

October 4, 2006

A disappointment: Galaxy Angel II

Recently, Galaxy Angel II has gone on air. I was very interested as I found the original series (and its four seasons, plus specials) to be rather entertaining and funny. So, I watched the first episode eagerly when I had a change to see it. I didn’t expect it to turn into a huge disappointment.

October 2, 2006

Valor Gauntlets!

At least, after six long months of wait, I obtained a new piece of the Paladin relic set.