Diomidis Spinellis

@coolsweng.bsky.social

Professor of software engineering at AUEB and software analytics at TU Delft, programmer, technology author. https://www.spinellis.gr/ (Tech tweets here. Follow @DSpinellis for Greek/Greece tweets.)

Suggestion to use AI summarization on a document containing an abstract.

The discovered Fourth Edition tape (photo credit Rob Ricci)

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetzeßentrwurfsbedatirklibdißkussionßstandsberichterstattungßgeldantragßformular

$Checking uu_sed v0.0.1 (/xfs/dds/sed/src/uu/sed) error: manual implementation of `.is_multiple_of()` --> src/uu/sed/src/fast_io.rs:869:8 | 869 | if (out_off + head_align) % block_size != 0 { | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ help: replace with: `!(out_off + head_align).is_multiple_of(block_size)` | = help: for further information visit https://rust-lang.github.io/rust-clippy/master/index.html#manual_is_multiple_of = note: `-D clippy::manual-is-multiple-of` implied by `-D warnings` = help: to override `-D warnings` add `#[allow(clippy::manual_is_multiple_of)]`$

Logos of Crossref, DataCire, ORCID, ROR, PubMed, USPTO

That message means your script `fetch-uspto.sh` is expecting an environment variable named **`MYODP_KEY`**, which hasn’t been set in your shell.

This usually happens when a script needs an API key to authenticate against the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP).

To fix it, you need to:

1. **Obtain the API key**

* Go to the [USPTO Open Data Portal](https://developer.uspto.gov/data/bulk-search) and sign in (or register).
* Generate an API key.

2. **Set the environment variable** before running the script:

```bash
export MYODP_KEY="your_api_key_here"
./fetch-uspto.sh
```

Or prepend it inline:

```bash
MYODP_KEY="your_api_key_here" ./fetch-uspto.sh
```

3. If you want it to persist across sessions, add the line to your shell config (e.g., `~/.bashrc`, `~/.zshrc`):

```bash
export MYODP_KEY="your_api_key_here"
```

---

Do you want me to show you how to modify `fetch-uspto.sh` so that it gives clearer instructions (like printing how to set the variable), instead of just failing?

$— In UML create a comment note. — In UML diagrams, a **comment** (or “note”) is shown as a rectangle with a dog-eared corner. Graphviz can mimic this by using `shape=note`. Example in DOT: ```dot digraph UML_Comment { rankdir=LR; node [fontname="Arial", fontsize=12]; // Regular UML component A [label="«component»\nOrder Service", shape=component]; // UML comment Cmt [label="Processes orders\nand handles payments", shape=note, style=filled, fillcolor="#ffffcc"]; // Dashed association from comment to element Cmt -> A [style=dashed, arrowhead=none]; } ``` **Key points:** * `shape=note` → dog-eared corner rectangle. * `fillcolor` → makes the note background match UML style (light yellow is common). * `style=dashed, arrowhead=none` → matches UML’s “annotates” relationship from a comment to a model element. --- If you want, I can insert UML comment nodes into your **O1/O2 Graphviz diagram** to annotate entire clusters or specific tasks, so they look like sticky notes connected to the relevant part. Would you like me to do that?$

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https://www.ft.com/content/b46311ba-a5a1-4754-8d40-eaae475f01eb

I’m an industrial designer and I used to work in the design department at a major car manufacturer. I’m a petrol head, and have been my whole life. By now, I’ve probably driven over a hundred different vehicles across various generations of interface technology.

Here’s the thing: the user experience designers in my team — the ones tasked with designing the digital interfaces now frequently deployed and rightly deplored in this article — had little-to-no interest in cars. In many cases, they were only working for a car maker because they couldn’t get the jobs they really wanted in tech companies. But the kicker was that many of them didn’t have drivers’ licenses, let alone any interest in how cars really work. All they saw was a screen, abstracted from the broader reality of operating a 2-tonne projectile in a world of sometimes moving, sometimes fleshy, and sometimes immovable targets.

A Sony compact cassette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_(format)#/media/File:Sony_C60_Low_Noise_Compact_Cassettte.jpg by Mikus

$- // Check four hex digits (must be 0-9 or A-F) - char h3 = input[i+3], h4 = input[i+4], h5 = input[i+5], h6 = input[i+6]; - if (((h3 >= '0' && h3 <= '9') || (h3 >= 'A' && h3 <= 'F')) && - ((h4 >= '0' && h4 <= '9') || (h4 >= 'A' && h4 <= 'F')) && - ((h5 >= '0' && h5 <= '9') || (h5 >= 'A' && h5 <= 'F')) && - ((h6 >= '0' && h6 <= '9') || (h6 >= 'A' && h6 <= 'F'))) { + if (isxdigit(input[i + 3]) + && isxdigit(input[i + 4]) + && isxdigit(input[i + 5]) + && isxdigit(input[i + 6])) { + static char hexstr[5]; + memcpy(hexstr, input + i + 3, 4); // Parse the 4-digit hex code point - unsigned int codepoint = 0; - const char *hex_digits = "0123456789ABCDEF"; - for (int j = 3; j < 7; ++j) { - codepoint <<= 4; - char c = input[i+j]; - if (c >= '0' && c <= '9') { - codepoint |= (unsigned int)(c - '0'); - } else { - codepoint |= (unsigned int)((c - 'A') + 10); - } - } + unsigned int codepoint = (unsigned int)strtoul(hexstr, NULL, 16);$

ChatGPT recommends material from my own web site.

$Files .lines(Paths.get(args[0])) .flatMap(line -> Stream.of(line.split("\\W+"))) .sorted() .distinct() .filter((x) -> x.length() > 0) .forEach(System.out::println);$