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Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Blogger to Markdown for Books, Random Stuff, and More

If you've ever worked on a largish book (anything over 100 pages) before then you'll realise the stress of what software crashes can do (anything beyond ~300 pages and things get infuriating. Aware that you can split things up but you need to 'collate' things at some point in order to produce a book) . You have to redo the work, figure out why the crash occurred (you can't realistically single handedly debug an Office Suite unless you have a lot of free time on your hands. I found out LibreOffice and OpenOffice had issues with larger documents and especially those which contained largish sized pictures), and find a solution around it (file recovery is that easy sometimes. I switched word processor and you actually need to know a bit about underlying file formats to really 'figure things out'). Hence, I've been on the lookout for a better solution. 
I've thought about using my work from LDP project from eons ago but it's not that pretty and there's a lot of pre-processing required to get it to an 'acceptable standard' that can be processed by XML/SGML tools. Either way, it can require a lot of work.

Given my work on automatically generated 'Cover Letters' and 'Resumes' I've been re-examining whether a 'markdown' version is possible?

- I've obviously found/created a prototype/solution. You can download it here:
- description is as follows:
# Wanted a script/s which could collate book chapters (or even a complete
# book) from my blog. This is the result. Basically, use the exported
# XML backup file from blogspot.com to create book chapters from it.
#
# create_blogger_chapters.sh is obviously the core driver file but the
# others can obviously be used on their own.
#
# Example of usage is the following:
# ./create_blogger_chapters.sh blog-03-12-2017.xml
#
# Modify collate_book.sh to change subject/s being looked at.
# Modify compile_book.sh to change document output format/s.
# Modify blogger2book.sh to change the way core XML file is divided.
#
# As this is the very first version of the program it may be VERY buggy. 
# Please test prior to deployment in a production environment.
#
# 1.00 - Works. Used much of my code from make_cover_letter.sh and 
#        make_custom_resume.sh projects to speed things up. Had to 
#        make some customisations from blogger2book.sh script to 
#        make this work properly
# 1.01 - Can't use PDF output without suitable Unicode hack of some sort. 
#        Settling on DOC output as it's more suitable anyhow. Code cleanup
- there's quite a bit of work out there obviously but they require a lot of extra libraries be installed or don't quite do exactly what I want
markdown book script
buildBook
- there's a few features I've been wondering about (such as pictures, justification, page numbers, table of contents, etc...). It feels like markdown can actually do what I want overall?
insert picture markdown
page numbers markdown
markdown justify text

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
- latest in science and technology
cryptoloot offline miner
monero code mining c++ code
- latest in finance and politics
google trends cryptocurrency
https://www.cryptocurrent.co/
e-pocket initial coin offerring
- latest in defense and intelligence
- latest in animal news
- latest in music and entertainment

Random Quotes:
- In his pointed manner, he highlighted the need for Torah study to be a pleasant experience. “All too often, learning is made miserable as a result of unreasonable standards or intimidating tests," he said. "Testing can be done in an engaging manner so that a child who participates in class doesn't feel like a failure.”

Along those lines, Rabbi Heller spoke about homework pressure. "Homework is also an excessive burden; after a full day in school, a child needs plenty of time to unwind and play."

Finally, he reminded the teachers of the importance of their work.

"The greatest thing one can do is to teach others Torah. We engage all sorts of gimmicks to be mekarev people to study Torah and carry out its mitzvos. A melamed who teaches Torah fulltime is clearly the most successful kind of person!"
Rabbi Heller Criticizes Homework
- Using a technique that combines gravitational lensing with the Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, researchers verified the vintage and spiral nature of this galaxy. NIFS is Australia's first Gemini instrument that was designed and built by the late Peter McGregor at the ANU.

"Gravitational lenses are Nature's largest telescopes, created by massive clusters composed of thousands of galaxies and dark matter," the researchers explain.

"The cluster bends and magnifies the light of galaxies behind it in a manner similar to an ordinary lens, but on a much larger scale."

Swinburne astronomer Dr Tiantian Yuan, who led the research team, says this technique allows us to study ancient galaxies in high resolution with unprecedented detail.

"We are able to look 11 billion years back in time and directly witness the formation of the first, primitive spiral arms of a galaxy," Dr Yuan says.

And the study shows some surprising features of A1689B11 - like the fact that it is forming stars 20 times faster than galaxies today– as fast as other young galaxies of similar masses in the early Universe.

"However, unlike other galaxies of the same epoch, A1689B11 has a very cool and thin disc, rotating calmly with surprisingly little turbulence," Dr Yuan says.

"This type of spiral galaxy has never been seen before at this early epoch of the Universe!"

This research is an international collaboration including astrophysicists from the University of Lyon in France, Princeton University in the USA and Hebrew University in Israel.
- It wasn't that Australia lacked independence. It's that we chose dependency. As former diplomat Allan Gyngell puts it in an essay in the new journal Australian Foreign Affairs: "No one has forced us to fight particular wars or pursue particular goals. It was all our own doing.

"It's not independence that Australian foreign policy needs, but substance, subtlety and creativity."
- While Nike's manufacturing costs aren't publicly available, a report from German consumer group Stiftung Warentest, calculated the average price of manufacturing and transporting for some of the top athletic shoe manufacturers was about $36.

From that $80 Nike also pays about $17 in royalty payments — a figure based on company disclosures — to the Dutch company called Nike Global Trading BV.

And Nike passes on its royalty payments to another company in the Netherlands, Nike Innovate CV.

Nike Innovate CV is a very weird tax animal: while it is a Dutch company, it has no home address for tax purposes.

Dutch tax experts say the structure enables what is known as "double non-taxation" — a complicated way of saying the company doesn't pay tax.

That estimated $17 pays for the brand. It's for the use of things like the Swoosh or the Air bubble under your heel.

It's for any number of features that Nike has taken a reported 4,200 patents for worldwide.

It means that for years Nike's operations outside the United States have been sending billions of dollars offshore, first to Bermuda and then more recently to the Netherlands.

Nike now reports figures showing that of the $US12.2 billion in profits it has made from all these royalties, it has paid about 1.4 cents in the dollar in tax.

No wonder Nike likes the Netherlands.

Now let's go back to the $100.

After Nike has sent the $80 to the Netherlands, it spends about $18 to distribute and sell its shoes in Australia.

So there is only a very skinny profit left in Australia: just over $2 for that $100 pair of shoes.

When you add it all up, Nike in Australia generated almost $500 million in revenue but made about $11 million in profit in 2016.

Tax activists ask why it is that Australia makes $2 in profit from that $100 but Nike in America makes about $14 in profit.

"That's a pretty good indication that there's some income shifting going on," says Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

So how much of that $100 ends up with the Australian Tax Office?

In 2016, it was about 89 cents.
- The United States has spent more than $5.6 trillion on foreign conflicts since 2001, more than three times the Pentagon has claimed in official estimates, according to a new study.

The US Defense Department reported earlier this year that it had spent around $1.5 trillion on wars launched after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

But a study by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University puts the total cost of foreign wars at $5.6 trillion, or $23,000 per taxpayer.

The study examines not only the money spent by the US military, but also by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, for resources dedicated to the so-called “war on terrorism.”

Combat operations since 2001 “have been largely paid for by borrowing, part of the reason the US went from budget surplus to deficits after 2001,” study author Neta Crawford said.

As for the costs of specific conflicts, the study notes that the "two largest categories of expenses have been for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
- "Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into jet air intakes"
-- Unknown 

Dodgy Job Contract Clauses, Random Stuff, and More

- in this post we'll be going through dodgy job contract clauses. Ironically, many of which are actually unlawful and unenforceable on c...