Turns out, this is not a large Matchbox car, but a small electric car straight from a factory in Japan (the informational flying under the windsheid is all in Japanese). A five year old would barely fit in this thing, much less an adult. There doesn't appear to be any storage space of any significant size, and sans doors, I'm not sure this is even road legal. And the the staff there don't even know if it's for sale. Weird.

This is problematic, because I do need to check for keyboard events and this threw me for a loop?why are none of the keys working? Well, that's because my virtual Linux server on the Mac sets the NumLock key, which causes the X server to then set the Mod2Mask for all keyboard events and I wasn't expecting that.

Sigh.

So I have this program I wrote some time ago that uses Xlib and for reasons, I needed to store a 64-bit value that's related to a window. This is easy enough with setting a window property. The code for that is easy enough:

void svalue(Display *display,Window window,unsigned long long int value)
{
  assert(display != NULL);
  assert(window  != None);

  XChangeProperty(
    display,
    window,
    CALC_VALUE,
    XA_INTEGER,
    32,	/* format */
    PropModeReplace,
    (unsigned char *)&value,
    sizeof(value) / 4 /* number of 'format' units */
  );
}

CALC_VALUE is the ?variable? (for lack of a better term) and XA_INTEGER is (again, for lack of a better term) the base type. Yes, this is just wrapping a single function call in a function, but it's an abstraction to make things simpler as it's called from multiple locations in the codebase.

To query the value:

unsigned long long int qvalue(Display *display,Window window)
{
  assert(display != NULL);
  assert(window  != None);
  
  unsigned long long int  value;
  Atom                    atom_got;
  unsigned char          *plong;
  int                     rc = XGetWindowProperty(
                                  display,
                                  window,
                                  CALC_VALUE,
                                  0,
                                  sizeof(unsigned long long int) / 4,
                                  False,
                                  XA_INTEGER,
                                  &atom_got,
                                  &(int){0}, /* this is don't care */
                                  &(unsigned long int){0}, /* another don't care */
                                  &(unsigned long int){0}, /* another don't care */
                                  &plong
                                );
                     
  if ((rc == Success) && (atom_got == XA_INTEGER))
  {
    memcpy(&value,plong,sizeof(unsigned long long int));
    XFree(plong);
  }
  else
    value = 0;
    
  return value;
}

Again, nothing too horrible or tricky.

The code was originally written on a 32-bit system (just after I left The Enterprise), and it worked. I then wanted to get the program working on a 64-bit system (beacuse I want to both release it and talk about it). It worked, but only for values of 31-bits or less. As soon as the value hit 32-bits, the upper 32-bits were all 1s.

I added code to dump the value just before the call to XChangeProperty() and code to dump the value just after the call to XGetWindowProperty() and somewhere, once the value was 0x00000000FFFFFFFF going into XChangeProperty(), it was 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF coming out of XGetWindowProperty().

32-bit version? No issues. 64-bit version? Issues.

I tried a different compiler, on the off chance that I might be hitting some weird compiler bug, and no go, GCC or Clang, both on the 64-bit system had the same issue. I tried using a different X server and the same results?32 bit client, fine; 64-bit client, not fine. So I think it's due to the client side on the 64-bit system where the issue lies. Also, if I change the call to XChangeProperty() to:

void svalue(Display *display,Window window,unsigned long long int value)
{
  assert(display != NULL);
  assert(window  != None);

  XChangeProperty(
    display,
    window,
    CALC_VALUE,
    XA_INTEGER,
    8, /* format, this time 8! */
    PropModeReplace,
    (unsigned char *)&value,
    sizeof(value) /* still number of 'format' units */
  );
}

That is, a format of 8 fixed the issue. Even a format of 16 worked. It's just that when I try to use a format of 32, on the 64-bit system, does it fail.

And using a format of 8 on the 32-bit system works as well, so at least I have a workaround for it. Still, it's annoying.

Why does the phone echo?

The echo of the phone may be due to the installation problem. Can you see if there are any loose parts, because the battery will not affect the quality of the phone's call unless there is no power and cause the phone shut down.

?The echo of the phone??

Feedback? Hearing my own voice echoed back to me? Maybe?

Anyway, carrying on ?

Why did I receive a swollen battery?

Because this kind of battery is encrypted ?

I have no clue here. It states that swelling may occur if the temperature exceeds 158°F (70°C), and enter sleep mode if the temperature is too low, although it doesn't state what ?too low? means. Fortunately, the battery I received isn't swollen, so I guess it's not encrypted?

4. Please carefully check whether there is any debris or screws falling into the battery area. If there is, please clean it up before proceeding to the next step, otherwise the sundries may pierce the battery and cause a short circuit and cause spontaneous combustion.

?Sundries.? Love it!

Seriously? Four layers of packaging? Sigh.

Sigh. Eu tu, LinkedIn?

I'm still tempted to answer, but no. I can't just bear to answer this how I would want to answer it. Besides, if you know where to look, you might find my answers anyway.

But Christian mentioned Sefaria as using my method, and true enough, it does! <https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.6:9-9:17> does indeed go to the Noah's Ark story. I think that's neat! I don't know if they were inspired by my site (unlikely, but not completely out of the relms of possibility) or just came up with it on their own, but it's nice to see someone else is using an easy to hack URL form for Bible references.

There are differences though?my site only brings up the requested material, whereas Sefaria implements a bidirectional ?Scroll Of Doom? where additional material appears when you go up or down. I can't say I'm a fan of that, but it apparently works for them.