As per sources within the Finance Ministry, the Centre is likely to maintain its original budgeted estimate of ₹22.07 lakh crore for direct tax collection when it revises estimates in February. ...

Invoice Management System (IMS) is an optional facility introduced from October 2024 on GST Portal, on which the invoices/records saved/furnished by the supplier in GSTR-1/1A/IFF...

For January, the most recent month for which data is available, the TCI came in at -1.71, a significant improvement over December’s -6.1 and November’s -7.94. That was preceded by October’s -11.25, its lowest level since the April 2020 all-time low, at -28.66. The September TCI reading came in at -2.35.

A long-awaited study of people with ME/CFS revealed differences in their immune and nervous system. The findings may offer clues about long COVID

8002/20943Thanks to Peter Jones (not that one) and others who sent me this clip from a TV quiz.On the one hand kudos to me for getting this self-produced chat show to the point where it is deemed worthy of a general knowledge question, but on the other the complete look of bafflement on the faces of both women does suggest there is some way to go. Even with my first name as a given. And even, as I suspect, if the theme of the round might well have been fish.

Thandii “It Only Takes 2” Thandii are funk minimalists in the tradition of ESG and Liquid Liquid, though I think their grooves come out feeling less tightly wound and neurotic. “It Only Takes 2” in particular strikes me as being like if Swim-era Caribou made an 80s freestyle song. The stark arrangement keeps your ear […]

When processing HTTP requests, you frequently need to check the parameters which were sent along with that request. Those parameters are generally passed as stringly-typed key/value pairs. None of this is news to anyone.

What is news, however, is how Brodey's co-worker indexed the key/value pairs.

For i As Integer = 0 To (Request.Params().Count - 1)
    If (parameters.GetKey(i).ToString() <> "Lang") Then
        If (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("ID")) OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("new")) OrElse _
             (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("open")) OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("FID")) _
         OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("enabled")) OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("my")) OrElse _
         (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("msgType")) OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("Type")) _
         OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("EID")) OrElse (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("Title")) OrElse _
         (parameters.GetKey(i).Equals("ERROR")) Then
            URLParams &= "&" & parameters.GetKey(i).ToString()
            URLParams &= "=" & parameters(i).ToString()
        End If
    End If
Next

The goal of this code is to take a certain set of keys and construct a URLParams string which represents those key/values as an HTTP query string. The first thing to get out of the way: .NET has a QueryString type that handles the construction of the query string for you (including escaping), so that you don't need to do any string concatenation.

But the real WTF is everything surrounding that. We opt to iterate across every key- not just the ones we care about- and use the GetKey(i) function to check each individual key in an extensive chain of OrElse statements.

The obvious and simpler approach would have been to iterate across an array of the keys I care about- ID, new, FID, enabled, my, msgType, Type, EID, Title, ERROR- and simply check if they were in the Request.

I suppose the only silver lining here is that they thought to use the OrElse operator- which is a short-circuiting "or" operation, like you'd expect in just about any other language, instead of Or, which doesn't short circuit (pulling double duty as both a bitwise Or and a logical Or, because Visual Basic wants to contribute some WTFs).

There's the potential for endless installments of "programmers not understanding how UUIDs work." Frankly, I think the fact that we represent them as human readable strings is part of the problem; sure, it's readable, but conceals the fact that it's just a large integer.

Which brings us to this snippet, from Capybara James.

    if (!StringUtils.hasLength(uuid) || uuid.length() != 36) {
        throw new RequestParameterNotFoundException(ErrorCodeCostants.UUID_MANDATORY_OR_FORMAT);
    }

StringUtils.hasLength comes from the Spring library, and it's a simple "is not null or empty" check. So- we're testing to see if a string is null or empty, or isn't exactly 36 characters long. That tells us the input is bad, so we throw a RequestParameterNotFoundException, along with an error code.

So, as already pointed out, a UUID is just a large integer that we render as a 36 character string, and there are better ways to validate a UUID. But this also will accept any 36 character string- as long as you've got 36 characters, we'll call it a UUID. "This is valid, really valid, dumbass" is now a valid UUID.

With that in mind, I also like the bonus of it not distinguishing between whether or not the input was missing or invalid, because that'll make it real easy for users to understand why their input is getting rejected.

After the successful collaboration PUMA has introduced its sneakers into the main product line...

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Before Mesopotamian people invented writing, they used cylinder seals to press patterns into wet clay – and some of the symbols used were carried over into proto-writing

Reaching net-zero emissions is essential for halting climate change - but even after we achieve this goal, parts of the planet will continue to warm. Delaying net zero will worsen these effects

An annual accounting of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and land use change finds no sign emissions will peak this year

Keito Kimura, Makoto Hasegawa, Taiga Tsubaki, more join mixed martial arts story

Matsuena launches Kichijōji Shōnen manga on December 12

Billowing menace, acrid scents  Old growth, saplings charring together  While out of sight, fawns distressed race And the owl’s perch succumbs.  Golden hordes breaching firebreaks  Rapine alight windswept, rapacious, desiccation stoked   Consuming canopies, no quarter given While rooted tributaries blazing course underfoot.  Slight deluges, drawn from placid lakes Lofted by fraught metaled battalions Plunge pityingly […]

The post Wildfires Of No Consequence  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

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Hello, everyone! We have a slightly different Rec League this week. On a bonus episode of the podcast, which we release for SBTB Podcast Patreon members, Sarah asked me to come up with some fall gaming recs. Well, I definitely overdid it and had twenty in a matter of ten minutes. Most of these are cozy games, with a couple of exceptions. If you are a fellow cozy gamer, allow me to plug Wholesome Games. … Continue reading The Rec League: Video Games for Fall →

OverDrive is the company that provides a lot of digital content to libraries. If you’ve borrowed an ebook or an audiobook in Libby,  or read a magazine in Kanopy, that’s OverDrive. It seems there is some AI weirdness with audiobook narration on OverDrive, and the narrator is only part of the story. On Monday, October 14, librarian Robin Bradford posted on Bluesky that she’d purchased an AI audiobook for her library system and she was … Continue reading AI Audiobook Narrators in OverDrive and the Issue of Library AI Circulation Policy →

Hi! This Rec League request is from me (Amanda) and I thought it was a good tie-in for Halloween. I was thinking about how much I enjoyed Slouch Witch when we recently featured it on sale. I loved the flip of having a main character who felt mediocre in their magic or honestly was happy doing the bare minimum. It was a refreshing departure from the “chosen one” stories that I mainly see out there.  … Continue reading The Rec League: Lazy Witches →

The temps are lowering, the holidays are coming, and ’tis the season to treat yourself! (Note: for a solid self-gift this month in the queer romance realm, check out the new edition of Alyssa Cole’s How to Find a Princess, coming in trade paperback for the first time on November 12th!)

I have TWO NEW T SHIRT DESIGNS up for pre-order! Click that graphic below if you agree that A) shit is fucked or B) people should be nice to you or C) all of the above. Thank you.

Could be!

Rajesh is a good dude

THE BATTLE SPATULA

Hi Tai

Questions, questions

Get it???

These two…