Alisina Bahadori has devised a scheme to convert digital files to QR codes which can then be printed. If you need to retrieve the original document, the printed copy can be scanned and then a special program can extract the original data. Cumbersome, but I imagine it would work.
But I am not sure this is a good idea. It is a good idea to make backup copies of important digital files on a regular basis, but usually this is done by coping the files from one electronic gizmo to another. We used to print all kinds of things on paper, but with the way our modern world operates we could print so many things that we would soon be literally buried under the avalanche of paper.
Sorting through old papers and getting rid of useless items is a chore it behooves you to undertake on a regular basis. I am not sure electronic files are an improvement. I have filled up my entire allotment of free storage on Google Drive so I should probably start performing the same housecleaning operations over there. Oh, I could just 'buy' more storage space, it's only $2 a month, but is what I have over there of any value? There are a few files that I use on a regular basis, and my phone automagically uploads my photos to there, but 15 gigabytes? I need to clean out the deadwood. I suspect the bulk of it is old photos, and they don't really need to be there.
I suppose there could be special cases where you would want a backup copy that did not use an electronic gizmo, some kind of high security operation for instance, or maybe you are in some remote location where you don't have internet access and only have one hard disk, but you have all the machinery you would need for this process, i.e. a printer, a scanner and large supply of paper and toner. Still sounds kind of nuts. But whatever turns your crank. On your manual printing press.
Via Detroit Steve
Dennis made this puzzle. It got taken apart a while back and I never mustered the drive to put it back together, but now I want to send it to my niece, so I really should put it together so she knows it can be solved. I don't know how long solving it by hand would take, but it should be a simple matter to write a computer program to solve it, and it was. Took me a few hours over the last couple of days.
In a single plane:
A piece can be in any of the 4 planes.
The cube can be sliced into four planes and this can be done 3 ways:
Multiply those together (4 x 2 x 4 x 3) and we have 96 possibilities.
In a single plane, using a single orientation, just sliding the piece around in the 4 x 4 space:
In sum:
Combining all these we have (3*96)^5 x (4*96)^5 or 1.6543163e+25.
I think. I may have it all backwards.
If that is the correct value, it is doubtful whether a brute force program will be able to solve the puzzle. I'm guesstimating it will take a billion years. On the other hand, many possibilities will fail almost immediately. At this point I was wondering whether it is worth going ahead with writing the program.
The lure of solving an unsolvable problem was too great and I went ahead with the program. It only took a few hours over a couple of days to write and after 7 or 8 minutes of execution time, it came up with a solution that actually worked.
The unfettered barrage of airport PA announcements may be coming to an end:
Copenhagen, we turn our weary ears to you. Not long ago I was working a flight into CPH when one of our passengers left behind a laptop. A flight attendant passed the computer to a gate agent and asked if he could page the person it belonged to. No, sir. Copenhagen is a “quiet airport,” the agent explained. No public address announcements are permitted unless it’s something urgent. That Scandinavian sensibility once again. Peace and quiet. What a concept.
I’m told that San Francisco International is instituting a similar set of rules. I’ll believe it when I (don’t) hear it. - Patrick Smith on Ask The Pilot
Here I thought I was the only one who thought all those PA announcements were annoying and stupid.
Via FlightAware
Politics, the machinations of which politicians got which powers, and not economics, the material well-being of the citizenry, were once again the order of the day. - Dylan Stevenson
That statement right there pretty much sums up the guiding principles and basic conflict of how the world operates.
The quote is from a post Dylan Stevenson wrote about 19th Century France which is kind of interesting because I basically wasn't aware of anything going on in France during the 19th Century. There was Napoleon about 1800, and then a hundred years later we had WW1. In between was just a big blank.
Meanwhile back on the ranch, people in Shasta County, California are rebelling against the COVID-19 lockdown. Good for them! Once again political bullshit versus food on the table.
