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How to set up pywikibot

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As part of managing a wiki , sometimes you need bulk action tools. The mediawiki tool for this is called pywikibot . This is how I set it up: python -m venv .pyb # activate the venv python -m pip install pywikibot This makes the command pwb available to use. We now have to teach it where the wiki is and what account to use. For this, we create a bot account on the wiki using the UI. Then, we come back and run this: pwb generate_family_file pwb generate_user_files As part of the user files command, give it the name of the bot created. Do not give any password. The password must be entered as part of the next command: pwb login At this point, there should be a scripts directory in the current working directory. However, the inbuilt scripts refuse to run because it can't find its i18n configuration. There are a couple of ways to grab it. One is to git clone it inside the scripts directory, as recommended here . However, before you can do so, you have to temporarily stash ...
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Running Mediawiki in a Docker container, and restoring from backup

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 Background A wiki for a game I play and that I contributed to went down a few weeks ago due to suspected DNS issues. The person who had registered the DNS wasn't able to (or was unwilling to) respond, so we felt as if a lot of our work was lost. However, a few people still had access to the hosting environment of the wiki, and I was able to take a backup of the entire home directory, which included some fairly recent database backups. Aside: Renewing a domain immediately  after  it has expired is quite expensive. Registrars charge an arm and a leg for missing your auto-renew, so it is good practice to not let your domains expire. The problem statement I decided to step in and get the wiki up and running again. It had to be on a different domain, since the original domain was -- for all practical purposes -- gone. I decided on the following objectives: Register a reasonable domain for not too much money Run Mediawiki in a docke...
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Windows Task Manager is lying to you, and I don't know how to make it stop

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If you use Windows, you might be intimately familiar with Windows Task Manager, which has a performance tab that shows the utilization percentage of various hardware in your system. Today, we're looking at CPU utilization. It looks a bit like this: The problem is that the meaning of the word utilization is very tricky. There can be multiple meanings: At the current time, with the current settings, what fraction of time is it executing instructions vs lying idle? At any time, with the most optimum settings, this CPU could practically complete a number a instructions at a certain rate. What percentage of that rate is it currently working at? I think the Windows Task Manager is currently using definition #1 above. This is useful for a person to look at the graph and understand "is there a runaway process on my system that is pegging my CPU"? However, consider the alternate use-cases: I am trying to run a long-running program, am I getting my money's worth out of this CPU...
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Setting coordinates in Phaser where the body and the sprite are offset from each other

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If you're using Phaser with matter physics , sometimes you might need to set a body of a different size from your sprite. That's pretty easy, simply by setting the width and height of the body. But if your physics body is offset from where the sprite is, then one has to use the setOrigin method to fix this. This can be tricky. This diagram might help explain how origin is used, where 'visual' is the sprite, and 'body' is the physics hitbox: And finally, if you do some algebra to find the origin, you can use the following code: // SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 const visualX = 150; const visualY = 150; const visualWidth = 120; const visualHeight = 120; const bodyX = 200; const bodyY = 200; const bodyWidth = 180; const bodyHeight = 180; const originX = (bodyX - visualX) / visualWidth + 0.5; const originY = (bodyY - visualY) / visualHeight + 0.5; const sprite = this.matter.add.sprite(bodyX, bodyY, '...
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Laptop Surprises: Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i

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I recently bought a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i (Model 14ITL05). I really like it. I am trying to write down everything that surprised me about the laptop in here. These are mostly things that did not understand about the machine from the product page on Lenovo when ordering. I'll start off with the pleasant surprises: There is some sort of radar sensor on the top on the screen, in the webcam area. When I come and sit on my chair in front of the laptop, it wakes the screen and then Windows Hello logs me in with face ID. This is great! There is a feature called Battery Conservation Mode . What it does is: it pauses charging the battery when it reaches somewhere between 55 and 60%. So you can get the full performance out the CPU without adding a lot of wear on the battery. It allows the CPU to go to full performance with all the wattage coming from the AC adapter without worrying about battery wear. However, I would like to know more about this, and exactly why the battery percent...
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How not to make customers happy

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I recently moved to Bangalore and subscribed to Vodafone. About a week and a half into the subscription, I get this SMS at 5:45 am, clearly designed to be as missable as possible. I hadn't subscribed to any such service. This seems flat out illegal. Anyway, I followed the message and immediately sent a STOP to the number. What followed is a hilariously intentionally vague UX: What do you have to respond? I was almost tempted to respond with "1, 2, 3" but instead did the 'logical' thing and punched in 1. I got a confirmation that it has been disabled. I have no idea what the silk service is, or whether I will be charged for it in my next bill. Let's see. EDIT: They did charge me for it, but I was able to call customer service and reverse the charge. It turns out that the imgur app for Android was injecting bad ads in the background that signed up the device for these things. My suggestion: do not use the imgur app on vodafone mobile data.
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Trouble installing KB2881553

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EDIT: The error is back :( These instructions did not help. EDIT 2: The error is mysteriously gone :) I think Microsoft did some magic on their end. I am back on automatic updates! For a long time, I was having trouble installing KB2881553: Update for the English Input Personalization Dictionary on Windows 8.1. These are rough notes on how I resolved it . The problem: KB2881553 is supposed to be only offered on machines that have a touch keyboard with lots of usage. I think it was offered on my desktop accidentally, because I also use a tablet PC with touch on the same Microsoft Account. If you hide the update, it doesn't go away, because a new version of the file is offered on Windows Update within a few days, on the same KB number. The error code was 6B2. The solution: I was mostly guided by this very helpful post . The gist of the problem is that the previous update .msi cannot be found, so you have to convince Microsoft that either (i) your package is up to...
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