Friday, February 10, 2017

GNU/Linux shell: A bit of random

From a number of different tasks of equal priority listed in a file (for the sake of argument listed in the lines 123 through 321) I wanted to choose the next one to perform in a random manner using ordinary shell tools. I came up with this solution:
    seq 123 312 | sort -R | head -1
This generates a sequence from 123 through 321, sorts it in a random manner and prints the first number of the randomized list.

This solution neither generates cryptographic random numbers nor saves memory or CPU time but it is straightforward and does the job at hand without any fancy tools or tricks. Perhaps you like it.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

My Polar Sea Ice Page may soon be dysfunctional thanks to Trump

If Donald Trump goes on with his War on Truth, he will likely drain the source I tap with my page. I use data provided by the US National Snow & Ice Data Center and it is very likely that Trump will do anything he can to stop them from providing current data about the sea ice coverage. For the very simple reason that the plain data alone already clearly shows that the world's climate is going haywire. This is because the Arctic and Antarctic region is hit hardest by climate change in terms.