TL;DR: Python type cast looks like an assertion: # Python x = expression_returning_Base assert isinstance(x, Derived) This corresponds to Java or C# // Java Derived x = (Derived)expression_returning_Base; In languages […]

I needed an IRC client for Windows, and mIRC came up in searches as #1 recommended. It said something about “registration” during the installation, but I ignored assuming that registration […]

I am using a MacBook for work now. Got a stuck installer, trying to restart the computer. Messages (not exact quotes). The system: cannot restart, please exit installer [Cancel], [Try […]

Found first hiccup: LiveJournal cross-post plugin did not work on the new site. The error was somewhat misleading: something like ‘message from www.livejournal.com: malformed, unable to parse’. In fact it […]

Iran is all over the news these days, however this post is not about politics. On a photograph of a press conference in Tehran, I noticed something curious: the backdrop […]

Instability is bad, but letting me specify a combination of template parameters that cannot possilby work is much worse. In VS 2019 with dotnet core 3.0, I created an ASP.NET […]

Any programming language gives you plenty of opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot, and C# is probably not the worst, but I ran into an interesting example today. C# […]

Google had shut down Recaptcha v1 on March 31st, killing my feedback page in the process. I found out yesterday, fixed today. Pros: new captcha is much easier to use […]

Warning: this post is politically charged. Russia has just enacted a law that forbids dessimination of “untruthful information” over the Internet. The actual legal definition is very lengthy, but it […]

After a trip to Europe I ended up with a mix of US and Euro coins in my wallet. Sorting them out proved surprisingly easy: if you can quickly figure […]