y.st./source/pages/en/weblog/2016/11-November/20.xhtml

<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Eight days',
	'body' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2016/11/20.jpg" alt="A mariachi band playing outside someone&apos;s door" class="weblog-header-image" width="811" height="480" />
<p>
	<strong>Current countdown:</strong> 8 days to find a place to live
</p>
<h2 id="general">General news</h2>
<p>
	On my way to work, I saw and heard a mariachi band playing in front of someone&apos;s house! At first, I thought hat someone was playing a recording of them loudly, but as I neared the house, I actually got to see them playing.
	A couple of the band members even waved at me between songs! I&apos;m not sure why they were singing outside someone&apos;s house, but it was really cool to see it.
</p>
<p>
	The man-hour-to-profit ratio at work has been bad this week, so today, the shift leaders were trying to send employees home as soon as possible to improve that ratio.
	My hours started during the morning shift and ended during the evening shift.
	I was given a choice by the morning shift leaders: I could either go home very early, or they would call off one of the other employees scheduled to work during the night shift.
	I chose to stay.
	Apparently, that was the wrong decision.
	One of the night shift leaders got ticked off that one of their favorite and hardest-working employees had gotten called off.
	They later apologized to me, admitting that they don&apos;t know me or my work ethic.
	They also gave the morning shift leaders a list of people that they&apos;d rather see called off in the future if such a situation arises again.
	They cited reasons such as these people weren&apos;t able to handle simple tasks on their own or didn&apos;t work very hard.
	Ouch.
	I&apos;d hate to be on one of those sorts of lists.
	I ended up working a bit harder and faster than I normally do to try to prove to the night shift leader that having me around isn&apos;t so bad.
</p>
<p>
	Today, I picked up my first paycheck.
	It&apos;s not as high as I would have hoped, but I did come in partway through the pay period.
	Anything helps, and I hope to see several more paychecks before I leave this company again.
</p>
<p>
	My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
</p>
<h2 id="include.d">include.d</h2>
<p>
	I shouldn&apos;t have, but I did a little work on <a href="https://git.volatile.ch./y.st./include.d/releases">include.d</a>.
	I added the <code>__set_state()</code> method to the exception classes.
	I plan to add this method to most of include.d&apos;s classes.
	The notable exception to this will be that wrapper classes won&apos;t have this method, as there&apos;s no clean way to implement the serialization of resource handles, especially without warning.
	If <code>\\var_export()</code> would simply serialize objects using something similar to the <code>\\serialize()</code> function, then wrap the serialized data in a call to <code>\\unserialize()</code> instead of <code>self::__set_state()</code>, it might be more feasible to attempt to allow serialization.
	Exporting the object as an array without giving the class any way to clean up the data before doing so wasn&apos;t the best design decision on the part of the $a[PHP] developers.
	That said, the wrapper classes aren&apos;t really meant to be serialized in <strong>*any*</strong> way.
	They simply make calling functions on resource handles easier by grouping the resource handle and it&apos;s related functions into a single variable: an object.
	In reality, object such as these should have been used instead of resource handles, but I don&apos;t think that classes had been programmed into $a[PHP] yet at the time that the resource-handle-using functions were added.
</p>
<p>
	While i was writing some code, I came to a realization: the <code>__set_state()</code> method basically allows you to cast an array into an object of a given class, if the method is set up correctly! Is this useful? I argue that it isn&apos;t, but it&apos;s interesting to think about.
	Normally, when you cast any non-objects as objects, they become objects of the <code>\\stdClass</code>.
</p>
<h2 id="university">University life</h2>
<p>
	I don&apos;t remember where I found the link to the course textbook that I downloaded for <span title="Principles of Business Management">BUS 1101</span>, but I can&apos;t find it any more.
	Furthermore, I found two new links that I hadn&apos;t seen before.
	One offers the textbook in <strong>*basic $a[HTML]*</strong>, witch, if you don&apos;t take into account that good webpages are written in $a[XHTML], not $a[HTML], is the format that all online textbooks should be offered in.
	This version seems to be the right version for the course even, and has the required reading sections that weren&apos;t present in the other textbook that they offered me.
	Additionally, there&apos;s a $a[PDF] textbook that I&apos;m going to assume is the correct one as well, but in another file format.
	This will be easier to work with on my mobile when reading at work, most likely.
</p>
<p>
	I also just found information that our initial discussion posts are due on Sunday.
	This information was <strong>*not*</strong> available in the syllabus.
	In any case, my initial discussion post last week was late.
</p>
<p>
	I graded the essays from last week that I was assigned this week, and the results were very disappointing.
	Nobody seems to have even read the assignment directions.
	We were supposed to review the definitions of leadership, entrepreneurship, and strategy.
	It wasn&apos;t stated clearly whether this review was supposed to be just us rereading the definitions or if we were supposed to write about them.
	Then, we were to find an example of each on the Internet, then compare and contrast our examples.
	The first two essays that I read didn&apos;t provide examples at all.
	The first of these then compared and contrasted the concepts themselves, though it didn&apos;t really compare strategy to anything.
	The second of these essays then went on to compare the definitions of these three concepts from the textbook to definitions of the same concepts found online.
	I can&apos;t even imagine what they must have been thinking.
	Not only that though, but their essay didn&apos;t meet the length requirements.
	Lastly, the final essay actually provided the three examples asked for! Sort of.
	Instead of finding examples online, the author instead gave generic examples: schoolteacher, inventor, and study plan.
	Still, that was better than the first two authors had done.
	That&apos;s where the good qualities of their essay ran out though, from a requirement-meeting perspective.
	Instead of comparing and contrasting the examples to one another, the author decided come up with three new examples, and compare and contrast to those instead.
	A leader was compared to a leader, an entrepreneur was compared to an entrepreneur, and a strategy was compared to a strategy.
	As much as I wanted to, I couldn&apos;t give anyone a decent grade on that assignment.
</p>
<p>
	Once I got home from work, I found that the textbook had been switched out on us.
	The reason that I found the new textbook today was because the textbook had been swapped on us! There had indeed been an error, but they found and corrected it.
</p>
<h2 id="apartment">Apartment hunting</h2>
<p>
	I still have an account at Bank of the Cascades, and I&apos;m required to disclose all my financial account balances on my apartment application.
	I tried to log into the bank&apos;s website, only to find that I don&apos;t have login credentials in my KeePassX database.
	I never set up my online account! I tried to set up my account, but the stupid website is demanding that I verify the telephone number that they already have on file for me! I&apos;m not sure what number they have on file for me, but I was very clear with them when I set up the account that I didn&apos;t have telephone service.
	The number that they have on file ends in &quot;1212&quot;, which for some reason, makes me think that it&apos;s the number for one of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org./wiki/Directory_assistance#North_America">directory assistance</a> numbers; most likely, it&apos;s <a href="tel:+18005551212">+1 800 555 1212</a>.
	I have no way to clear this up but to go see them in person.
	I guess that that&apos;s how I&apos;m going to be spending my day tomorrow.
</p>
END
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