Alexander Mikhailian

I recently participated in the local-level Belgian elections as a commission member.

Brussels uses an electronic voting system where all votes are done one a computer and recorded on a floppy disk.

The thing is, given that the "software already counted votes", none counts paper ballots or announces results in-place. Instead, the floppy disks are taken to the city hall where the total result is (apparently) calculated and announced.

Now the question: How do you do a parallel recount with this system? You can't just send the observers to the voting posts to hear the results and communicate them in parallel as none knows the results before they get to the officials in the city hall.

Out of two next snippets, the first one will throw a UNIQUE KEY constraint error and the second will pass.

SET NAMES utf8;
CREATE table test(name varchar(60)) DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
ALTER TABLE test ADD UNIQUE KEY name (name);
INSERT INTO test VALUES("Лелик");
INSERT INTO test VALUES("Лёлик");

SET NAMES utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin;
CREATE table test(name varchar(60)) DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
ALTER TABLE test ADD UNIQUE KEY name (name);
INSERT INTO test VALUES("Лелик");
INSERT INTO test VALUES("Лёлик");

All this because some wise folks decided that the default collation for utf-8 be utf8_general_ci, the one that does not make a difference between upper- and lowercase, and also considers that CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IE, CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IO, CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IE, CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IO to be equal.

When I am typing in cyrillic, I can not access any of the vim key bindings, unless I switch the keyboard layout to a latin-based one.

There existed a solution for 1-byte locales, the famous langmap command. Putting the following in the ~/.vimrc solved the problem for those who worked in e.g. a koi8-r or cp1251-based locale.

set langmap=ж;;
set langmap=ё`,йq,цw,уe,кr,еt,нy,гu,шi,щo,зp,х[,ъ],фa,ыs,\
  вd,аf,пg,рh,оj,лk,дl,э',яz,чx,сc,мv,иb,тn,ьm,б\,,ю.,Ё~,\
  ЙQ,ЦW,УE,КR,ЕT,HY,ГU,ШI,ЩO,ЗP,Х{,Ъ},ФA,ЫS,ВD,АF,ПG,РH,\
  ОJ,ЛK,ДL,Ж:,Э\",ЯZ,ЧX,СC,МV,ИB,ТN,ЬM,Б

Unfortunately, this did not work in a multibyte locale. Instead, one has to map every key independently with the map command:

   map ё `
   map й q
   map ц w
   map у e
   map к r
   map е t
   map н y
   map г u
   map ш i
   map щ o
   map з p
   map х [
   map ъ ]

   map ф a
   map ы s
   map в d
   map а f
   map п g
   map р h
   map о j
   map л k
   map д l
   map ж ;
   map э '

   map я z
   map ч x
   map с c
   map м v
   map и b
   map т n
   map ь m
   map б ,
   map ю .

   map Ё ~
   map Й Q
   map Ц W
   map У E
   map К R
   map Е T
   map Н Y
   map Г U
   map Ш I
   map Щ O
   map З P
   map Х {
   map Ъ }

   map Ф A
   map Ы S
   map В D
   map А F
   map П G
   map Р H
   map О J
   map Л K
   map Д L
   map Ж :
   map Э "

   map Я Z
   map Ч X
   map С C
   map М V
   map И B
   map Т N
   map Ь M
   map Б 


see also at http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=1348

Java enums are translated by the compiler into a class that contains the enum elements as public static final fields.

If we put specific code into the enum elements, these fields become inner classes. (So that they can store code for each element)

One non-obvious consequence of this approach is that

Myenum.MyElement.getClass().getName() may return either Myenum or Myenum$n where n is an ordinal number of the element, depending on whether the element has associated code or not.

Just another story I presented on a few occasions already.

Belgium has a very developed temporary job market. One particular feature of temporary contracts, also called interim contracts is that they are made for the period of 1 week and then renewed as needed. The 1-week length is perceived as a tradtion not a requirement, as the only legal limit to interim contracts is 6 months. Only few people know that this tradition comes from the limitation of the interim mangement software called ISI wich is still used by ~90% of all interim offices in Belgium. The original ISI software allowed to make contracts and invoices for 1 week at most, this forcing all the interim market to live by 1-week cycles.