Vancouver Library Wifi

For some reason my laptop wasn’t able to connect to the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) wifi. I can connect to the network but when it comes time to login to the network the login page won’t load. DNS error, looks like.

I found a bunch of people with questions and answers on StackOverflow for when the redirection to the login page URL doesn’t work. For me the issue was different. The redirection works but then the page won’t load.

I did find that other people using Linux had the same problem in [https://www.reddit.com/r/askvan/comments/1crcrcm/anyone_having_trouble_connecting_to_vpl_wifi/](this Reddit thread). Character-Ticket9971 suggested maybe the network login page (the captive portal page) rejects connections to Linux OSes.

I ended up buying a GL.iNet travel router and successfully connected.

It still took a little bit of doing:

Use my Android phone to login to the router’s Wifi.
Setup a connection to the VPL Wifi and use Camouflage to make it look like my phone is the one making the connection.
Open the network login page on my phone and login.
Connect my laptop to the router’s Wifi and I’m good to go.

We’ll see how long this works. I may have to return to working from coffee shops, rethink the home office, or go back to Windows or Mac.

Not So Quadratic After All
#

So my equation for determining the direction that each line segment points now looks like this:

…well, the code looks like this:

  next_dir = (
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'root_segment_dir_quadratic') * pow(index, 2) + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'root_segment_dir_linear') * index + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'root_segment_dir_const') + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_quadratic') * pow(seg.generation, 2) + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_linear') * seg.generation + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_a') * pow(index, 2) * pow(seg.generation, 2) + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_b') * pow(index, 2) * seg.generation + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_c') * index * pow(seg.generation, 2) + \
      param_to_vector2(parameters, 'segment_dir_d') * index * seg.generation
    ).normalize()

…and the equation looks like this:

f(x, y) = a * index^2 * gen^2 + b * index^2 * gen + c * index * gen^2 + d * index * gen + i * index^2 + j * index + k * gen^2 + l * gen

I made a mistake in my naming again. This is not a quadratic equation. It’s a quartic equation. There are terms—well, one term, a * index^2 * gen^2—that is fourth-degree. So it’s a quartic equation.

2 - quadratic 3 - cubic 4 - quartic 5 - quintic

Or a fourth-degree polynomial with two variables.

Not So Quadratic After All #

Not So Quadratic After All
#