Thursday, August 17, 2017

San Francisco day 1: Alcatraz, Chinatown, Piers 1 to 41

Today was really the first day in San Francisco, we had a lot of things planned and left the house at 6:30 AM

We walked towards Fillmore street, then took a left
We passed this nice looking liquor store Liquor Store on Fillmore

After we climbed up we came to this nice view, I believe the call this the Fillmore Steps



We continued down towards the pier where we wll take the ferry, we passed this cute cable car


  Cable Car

After waiting in line for a little we boarded the ferry.  The interesting thing is that these are hybrid ferries,  they have solar panels as well as wind turbines. Here is a pic of what it looks like




Inside the boat, they have a panel that shows how much power is being generated, this is a live panel and is being updated constantly



Here is a short timelapse I took from the ferry

From San Francisco to Alcatraz timelapse

Here is what Alcatraz looks like from the ferry



Once we got on the island we listened to a introduction. If you ever go to Alcatraz, you will notice that there are a lot of flies, they are everywhere, one of them even flew into my sons mouth

After the introduction we started to walk up towards the prison cells, what you see below is the flank defense howitzer



In 1866 Alcatraz's role was to protect San Francisco, the army had placed 1100 cannon along the island's perimeter

Further up was the morgue



After we made it to the prison, we passed the laundry room





Doesn't look to appealing to me

To get the audio tour, we had to wait in line near the showers



Here is what a cell looks like



What you see below is the hole, this is where inmates go when they are in solitary confinment


This is a view of the cells, I can't even imagine being locked up in one of these


The most frustrating part for the inmates was that they could hear the people in San Francisco having fun while they were miserable in their cells

Below is the command center







This gentleman you see in the picture is Jim Albright


Jim Albright was the last guard to leave Alcatraz

Overall, I liked the visit to Alcatraz a lot. The tour was done really well, the presentation was excellent. I even went into one of the cells and into the hole as well. Highly recommended if you are ever visiting San Francisco. Just make sure to make reservations for the first tour at 8:40 AM

After Alcatraz, we took the ferry back and walked to pier 1 to get some food

On the way there we saw this GOcar, looks like it is a GPS guided tour car?

Go Car

We passed this skateboard cart Skateboard

Here is the same cart but just a part of it Details of Skateboard.JPG


After we had some food, we walked back towards pier 39 to look at the sea lions

Sea Lions at Pier 39 resting

Here is also a short video of these loud creatures


While looking at the sea lions, I noticed this huge Maersk line container ship


Maersk Line Container Ship Here is also a short time lapse of the ship

Maersk Line Container Ship timelapse

Next up was Boudin bakery, here are some pictures

Bread shaped into teddy bears

Bread Bears from Boudin Bakery

A look at the bakery

Boudin Bakery

Inside the bakery, this looked interesting

At Boudin Bakery museum


Next up was Lombard street


Lombard Street

From Lombard street, you could see Coit tower
Coit Tower

Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco; at her death in 1929 Coit left one-third of her estate to the city for civic beautification. The tower was proposed in 1931 as an appropriate use of Coit's gift. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008.

Hot lips Hot Lips

We then walked towards Chinatown. First up was Golden Gate fortune cookie. Supposedly fortune cookies were invented here


A person making the fortune cookies

Making fortune cookies
You can actually write your own fortune on paper, they will then put that into a freshly baked cookie. The kids made some for  their grandparents

Here is a short video of the person making the fortune cookies
How Fortune cookies are made


A mural in Chinatown
Chinatown Mural

A shot of transamerica Pyramid
Transamerica Pyramid
The Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street between Clay and Washington Streets in the Financial District of San Francisco, California, is a 48-story postmodern building and the second-tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline. Construction began in 1969 and finished in 1972


After Chinatown, we had dinner and walked back to the house

All in all, we did a lot of walking, I think that is the best way to get a feel of the city. We walked further than if we ran half a marathon



Here is what it looks like on a map



That is it for today...next stop is the Disney museum

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

San Francisco day 0... getting there

We decided to visit San Francisco as part of a family vacation. This is day 0 of that vacation, getting there.

We got up nice and early, ate breakfast and arrived at the airport at around 8:50 AM. Our flight was at 11. I must say that this fast the shortest line I had ever seen at the TSA, it tool us maybe 5 minutes to pass through.

Once we made it past TSA, we went to our gate and waited. After 30 minutes, the announced that the plane was delayed because of fog and clouds in San Francisco

So we walked around and looked at airplanes and took some pictures



They started boarding at 11 and we all got on the plane... of course now we had to decide who was getting the 2 window seats between the 5 of us  :-)



I like how Virgin America did the lights in the airplane, it looked really cool

Here is a short timelapse from the takeoff


A post shared by Denis Gobo (@denisgobo) on

After the takeoff, it would take about 6 hours to fly from Newark to San Francisco.

I read a good number of pages of the book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Looking out of the window, I noticed these strange circles



Here is also a pic of the mountains that my son took



One of the movies available on the plane was Logan, I watched that, it was ok, I thought the little girl was pretty good

After we landed we took a cab to the house. We then headed over to Whole Foods to get some waters and some food. I noticed that there are many more instacart people working in this Whole Foods than in the one in Princeton.



We walked back past Fillmore street



Back at the house we ate, showered  and went to bed

I am writing this at 4 AM...because jetlag  :-(

Today day 1 starts.. that will be its own post


Friday, August 11, 2017

Premier League starts today, here is my fantasy team

Today is the first week of the Premier League season, here is what week one looks like:


Friday 11 August
Arsenal  19:45 Leicester

Saturday 12 August
Watford  12:30 Liverpool
Chelsea  15:00 Burnley
Crystal Palace  15:00 Huddersfield
Everton  15:00 Stoke
Southampton  15:00 Swansea
West Brom  15:00 Bournemouth
Brighton  17:30 Man City

Sunday 13 August
Newcastle  13:30 Spurs
Man Utd  16:00 West Ham

I am again playing in a fantasy league, this year I am also participating in fantasy draft with a co-worker

Here is what my fantasy team looks like for week 1




I think the team is okay, I didn't get Coutinho because he won't be playing this week and might be heading to Barcelona, instead I picked Firmino
I picked Kane as captain, he scored in a couple of warm-up games so it looks like he is fit and in form. I am pretty sure Kompany will be injured within a week or 2 but for now I have added him to my team


Draft team

When picking a draft team, there is no money limit but you and the other players can't pick the same player, it's like an American Football draft

Anyway here is what that team looks like



I still have Kane but I also have ex Juventus/Madrid player Morata and Sergio Aguero up front
My hunch is that this team will do better, however there are no captain points here

I will post back Sunday to show you how (badly) I did, I will also show the standings



Python: function introspection with help and dir


As explained in my Summer of code 2017: Python post I decided to pick up Python

This is officially day 55. Today I decided to look at function introspection in Python

To see what methods are in a object, you can use the dir function

dir([object])
Without arguments, return the list of names in the current local scope. With an argument, attempt to return a list of valid attributes for that object.

If I just open an interactive shell and type dir(), here is what I see

>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', '__name__', '__package__'
 , '__spec__', 'test_kwargs']

To see what is available in a class or function, for example sys, I first need to import sys and then pass sys into the dir function, here is the output

>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__interactivehook__',
'__loader__', '__name__', '__package__', '__spec__', '__stderr__', 
'__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_clear_type_cache', '_current_frames', 
'_debugmallocstats', '_enablelegacywindowsfsencoding', '_getframe', 
'_home', '_mercurial', '_xoptions', 'api_version', 'argv', 'base_exec_prefix',
'base_prefix', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'call_tracing',
'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'dllhandle', 'dont_write_bytecode', 
'exc_info', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'flags',
'float_info', 'float_repr_style', 'get_asyncgen_hooks', 'get_coroutine_wrapper',
'getallocatedblocks', 'getcheckinterval', 'getdefaultencoding',
'getfilesystemencodeerrors', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getprofile',
'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'getsizeof', 'getswitchinterval',
'gettrace', 'getwindowsversion', 'hash_info', 'hexversion', 'implementation',
'int_info', 'intern', 'is_finalizing', 'maxsize', 'maxunicode', 'meta_path',
'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache', 'platform', 'prefix',
'ps1', 'ps2', 'set_asyncgen_hooks', 'set_coroutine_wrapper', 'setcheckinterval',
'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit', 'setswitchinterval', 'settrace', 'stderr',
'stdin', 'stdout', 'thread_info', 'version', 'version_info', 'warnoptions', 
'winver']
>>> 


To get some details about any of the methods returned above, we can use the help function

help([object])
Invoke the built-in help system. (This function is intended for interactive use.) If no argument is given, the interactive help system starts on the interpreter console. If the argument is a string, then the string is looked up as the name of a module, function, class, method, keyword, or documentation topic, and a help page is printed on the console. If the argument is any other kind of object, a help page on the object is generated.


To get some details about settrace, we can execute the following:  help(sys.settrace)

help(sys.settrace)
Help on built-in function settrace in module sys:
 
settrace(...)
    settrace(function)
    
    Set the global debug tracing function.  It will be called on each
    function call.  See the debugger chapter in the library manual.
 
>>> 


Here is another example

help(sys.builtin_module_names)
Help on tuple object:
 
class tuple(object)
 |  tuple() -> empty tuple
 |  tuple(iterable) -> tuple initialized from iterable's items
 |  
 |  If the argument is a tuple, the return value is the same object.
 |  
 |  Methods defined here:
 |  
 |  __add__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self+value.
 |  
 |  __contains__(self, key, /)
 |      Return key in self.
 |  
 |  __eq__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self==value.
 |  
 |  __ge__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self>=value.
 |  
 |  __getattribute__(self, name, /)
 |      Return getattr(self, name).
 |  
 |  __getitem__(self, key, /)
 |      Return self[key].
 |  
 |  __getnewargs__(...)
 |  
 |  __gt__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self>value.
 |  
 |  __hash__(self, /)
 |      Return hash(self).
 |  
 |  __iter__(self, /)
 |      Implement iter(self).
 |  
 |  __le__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self<=value.
 |  
 |  __len__(self, /)
 |      Return len(self).
 |  
 |  __lt__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self<value.
 |  
 |  __mul__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self*value.n
 |  
 |  __ne__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self!=value.
 |  
 |  __new__(*args, **kwargs) from builtins.type
 |      Create and return a new object.  See help(type) for accurate signature.
 |  
 |  __repr__(self, /)
 |      Return repr(self).
 |  
 |  __rmul__(self, value, /)
 |      Return self*value.
 |  
 |  count(...)
 |      T.count(value) -> integer -- return number of occurrences of value
 |  
 |  index(...)
 |      T.index(value, [start, [stop]]) -> integer -- return first index of value.
 |      Raises ValueError if the value is not present.
 
>>> 

You can also use help against a class or function, here is what the lengthy output looks like

help(sys)
Help on built-in module sys:
 
NAME
    sys
 
MODULE REFERENCE
    https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/sys
    
    The following documentation is automatically generated from the Python
    source files.  It may be incomplete, incorrect or include features that
    are considered implementation detail and may vary between Python
    implementations.  When in doubt, consult the module reference at the
    location listed above.
 
DESCRIPTION
    This module provides access to some objects used or maintained by the
    interpreter and to functions that interact strongly with the interpreter.
    
    Dynamic objects:
    
    argv -- command line arguments; argv[0] is the script pathname if known
    path -- module search path; path[0] is the script directory, else ''
    modules -- dictionary of loaded modules
    
    displayhook -- called to show results in an interactive session
    excepthook -- called to handle any uncaught exception other than SystemExit
      To customize printing in an interactive session or to install a custom
      top-level exception handler, assign other functions to replace these.
    
    stdin -- standard input file object; used by input()
    stdout -- standard output file object; used by print()
    stderr -- standard error object; used for error messages
      By assigning other file objects (or objects that behave like files)
      to these, it is possible to redirect all of the interpreter's I/O.
    
    last_type -- type of last uncaught exception
    last_value -- value of last uncaught exception
    last_traceback -- traceback of last uncaught exception
      These three are only available in an interactive session after a
      traceback has been printed.
    
    Static objects:
    
    builtin_module_names -- tuple of module names built into this interpreter
    copyright -- copyright notice pertaining to this interpreter
    exec_prefix -- prefix used to find the machine-specific Python library
    executable -- absolute path of the executable binary of the Python interpreter
    float_info -- a struct sequence with information about the float implementation.
    float_repr_style -- string indicating the style of repr() output for floats
    hash_info -- a struct sequence with information about the hash algorithm.
    hexversion -- version information encoded as a single integer
    implementation -- Python implementation information.
    int_info -- a struct sequence with information about the int implementation.
    maxsize -- the largest supported length of containers.
    maxunicode -- the value of the largest Unicode code point
    platform -- platform identifier
    prefix -- prefix used to find the Python library
    thread_info -- a struct sequence with information about the thread implementation.
    version -- the version of this interpreter as a string
    version_info -- version information as a named tuple
    dllhandle -- [Windows only] integer handle of the Python DLL
    winver -- [Windows only] version number of the Python DLL
    _enablelegacywindowsfsencoding -- [Windows only] 
    __stdin__ -- the original stdin; don't touch!
    __stdout__ -- the original stdout; don't touch!
    __stderr__ -- the original stderr; don't touch!
    __displayhook__ -- the original displayhook; don't touch!
    __excepthook__ -- the original excepthook; don't touch!
    
    Functions:
    
    displayhook() -- print an object to the screen, and save it in builtins._
    excepthook() -- print an exception and its traceback to sys.stderr
    exc_info() -- return thread-safe information about the current exception
    exit() -- exit the interpreter by raising SystemExit
    getdlopenflags() -- returns flags to be used for dlopen() calls
    getprofile() -- get the global profiling function
    getrefcount() -- return the reference count for an object (plus one :-)
    getrecursionlimit() -- return the max recursion depth for the interpreter
    getsizeof() -- return the size of an object in bytes
    gettrace() -- get the global debug tracing function
    setcheckinterval() -- control how often the interpreter checks for events
    setdlopenflags() -- set the flags to be used for dlopen() calls
    setprofile() -- set the global profiling function
    setrecursionlimit() -- set the max recursion depth for the interpreter
    settrace() -- set the global debug tracing function
 
FUNCTIONS
    __displayhook__ = displayhook(...)
        displayhook(object) -> None
        
        Print an object to sys.stdout and also save it in builtins._
    
    __excepthook__ = excepthook(...)
        excepthook(exctype, value, traceback) -> None
        
        Handle an exception by displaying it with a traceback on sys.stderr.
    
    call_tracing(...)
        call_tracing(func, args) -> object
        
        Call func(*args), while tracing is enabled.  The tracing state is
        saved, and restored afterwards.  This is intended to be called from
        a debugger from a checkpoint, to recursively debug some other code.
    
    callstats(...)
        callstats() -> tuple of integers
        
        Return a tuple of function call statistics, if CALL_PROFILE was defined
        when Python was built.  Otherwise, return None.
        
        When enabled, this function returns detailed, implementation-specific
        details about the number of function calls executed. The return value is
        a 11-tuple where the entries in the tuple are counts of:
        0. all function calls
        1. calls to PyFunction_Type objects
        2. PyFunction calls that do not create an argument tuple
        3. PyFunction calls that do not create an argument tuple
           and bypass PyEval_EvalCodeEx()
        4. PyMethod calls
        5. PyMethod calls on bound methods
        6. PyType calls
        7. PyCFunction calls
        8. generator calls
        9. All other calls
        10. Number of stack pops performed by call_function()
    
    exc_info(...)
        exc_info() -> (type, value, traceback)
        
        Return information about the most recent exception caught by an except
        clause in the current stack frame or in an older stack frame.
    
    excepthook(...)
        excepthook(exctype, value, traceback) -> None
        
        Handle an exception by displaying it with a traceback on sys.stderr.
    
    exit(...)
        exit([status])
        
        Exit the interpreter by raising SystemExit(status).
        If the status is omitted or None, it defaults to zero (i.e., success).
        If the status is an integer, it will be used as the system exit status.
        If it is another kind of object, it will be printed and the system
        exit status will be one (i.e., failure).
    
    get_asyncgen_hooks(...)
        get_asyncgen_hooks()
        
        Return a namedtuple of installed asynchronous generators hooks (firstiter, finalizer).
    
    get_coroutine_wrapper(...)
        get_coroutine_wrapper()
        
        Return the wrapper for coroutine objects set by sys.set_coroutine_wrapper.
    
    getallocatedblocks(...)
        getallocatedblocks() -> integer
        
        Return the number of memory blocks currently allocated, regardless of their
        size.
    
    getcheckinterval(...)
        getcheckinterval() -> current check interval; see setcheckinterval().
    
    getdefaultencoding(...)
        getdefaultencoding() -> string
        
        Return the current default string encoding used by the Unicode 
        implementation.
    
    getfilesystemencodeerrors(...)
        getfilesystemencodeerrors() -> string
        
        Return the error mode used to convert Unicode filenames in
        operating system filenames.
    
    getfilesystemencoding(...)
        getfilesystemencoding() -> string
        
        Return the encoding used to convert Unicode filenames in
        operating system filenames.
    
    getprofile(...)
        getprofile()
        
        Return the profiling function set with sys.setprofile.
        See the profiler chapter in the library manual.
    
    getrecursionlimit(...)
        getrecursionlimit()
        
        Return the current value of the recursion limit, the maximum depth
        of the Python interpreter stack.  This limit prevents infinite
        recursion from causing an overflow of the C stack and crashing Python.
    
    getrefcount(...)
        getrefcount(object) -> integer
        
        Return the reference count of object.  The count returned is generally
        one higher than you might expect, because it includes the (temporary)
        reference as an argument to getrefcount().
    
    getsizeof(...)
        getsizeof(object, default) -> int
        
        Return the size of object in bytes.
    
    getswitchinterval(...)
        getswitchinterval() -> current thread switch interval; see setswitchinterval().
    
    gettrace(...)
        gettrace()
        
        Return the global debug tracing function set with sys.settrace.
        See the debugger chapter in the library manual.
    
    getwindowsversion(...)
        getwindowsversion()
        
        Return information about the running version of Windows as a named tuple.
        The members are named: major, minor, build, platform, service_pack,
        service_pack_major, service_pack_minor, suite_mask, and product_type. For
        backward compatibility, only the first 5 items are available by indexing.
        All elements are numbers, except service_pack and platform_type which are
        strings, and platform_version which is a 3-tuple. Platform is always 2.
        Product_type may be 1 for a workstation, 2 for a domain controller, 3 for a
        server. Platform_version is a 3-tuple containing a version number that is
        intended for identifying the OS rather than feature detection.
    
    intern(...)
        intern(string) -> string
        
        ``Intern'' the given string.  This enters the string in the (global)
        table of interned strings whose purpose is to speed up dictionary lookups.
        Return the string itself or the previously interned string object with the
        same value.
    
    is_finalizing(...)
        is_finalizing()
        Return True if Python is exiting.
    
    set_asyncgen_hooks(...)
        set_asyncgen_hooks(*, firstiter=None, finalizer=None)
        
        Set a finalizer for async generators objects.
    
    set_coroutine_wrapper(...)
        set_coroutine_wrapper(wrapper)
        
        Set a wrapper for coroutine objects.
    
    setcheckinterval(...)
        setcheckinterval(n)
        
        Tell the Python interpreter to check for asynchronous events every
        n instructions.  This also affects how often thread switches occur.
    
    setprofile(...)
        setprofile(function)
        
        Set the profiling function.  It will be called on each function call
        and return.  See the profiler chapter in the library manual.
    
    setrecursionlimit(...)
        setrecursionlimit(n)
        
        Set the maximum depth of the Python interpreter stack to n.  This
        limit prevents infinite recursion from causing an overflow of the C
        stack and crashing Python.  The highest possible limit is platform-
        dependent.
    
    setswitchinterval(...)
        setswitchinterval(n)
        
        Set the ideal thread switching delay inside the Python interpreter
        The actual frequency of switching threads can be lower if the
        interpreter executes long sequences of uninterruptible code
        (this is implementation-specific and workload-dependent).
        
        The parameter must represent the desired switching delay in seconds
        A typical value is 0.005 (5 milliseconds).
    
    settrace(...)
        settrace(function)
        
        Set the global debug tracing function.  It will be called on each
        function call.  See the debugger chapter in the library manual.
 
DATA
    __stderr__ = None
    __stdin__ = None
    __stdout__ = None
    api_version = 1013
    argv = ['']
    base_exec_prefix = r'C:\Program Files\Python36'
    base_prefix = r'C:\Program Files\Python36'
    builtin_module_names = ('_ast', '_bisect', '_blake2', '_codecs', '_cod...
    byteorder = 'little'
    copyright = 'Copyright (c) 2001-2016 Python Software Foundati...ematis...
    dllhandle = 490799104
    dont_write_bytecode = False
    exec_prefix = r'C:\Program Files\Python36'
    executable = r'C:\Program Files\Python36\pythonw.exe'
    flags = sys.flags(debug=0, inspect=0, interactive=0, opt...ing=0, quie...
    float_info = sys.float_info(max=1.7976931348623157e+308, max_...epsilo...
    float_repr_style = 'short'
    hash_info = sys.hash_info(width=64, modulus=2305843009213693...iphash2...
    hexversion = 50725104
    implementation = namespace(cache_tag='cpython-36', hexversion=507...in...
    int_info = sys.int_info(bits_per_digit=30, sizeof_digit=4)
    last_value = NameError("name 'elp' is not defined",)
    maxsize = 9223372036854775807
    maxunicode = 1114111
    meta_path = [<class '_frozen_importlib.BuiltinImporter'>, <class '_fro...
    modules = {'__main__': <module '__main__' (built-in)>, '_ast': <module...
    path = ['', r'C:\Program Files\Python36\Lib\idlelib', r'C:\Program Fil...
    path_hooks = [<class 'zipimport.zipimporter'>, <function FileFinder.pa...
    path_importer_cache = {r'C:\Program Files\Python36': FileFinder('C:\\P...
    platform = 'win32'
    prefix = r'C:\Program Files\Python36'
    stderr = <idlelib.run.PseudoOutputFile object>
    stdin = <idlelib.run.PseudoInputFile object>
    stdout = <idlelib.run.PseudoOutputFile object>
    thread_info = sys.thread_info(name='nt', lock=None, version=None)
    version = '3.6.0 (v3.6.0:41df79263a11, Dec 23 2016, 08:06:12) [MSC v.1...
    version_info = sys.version_info(major=3, minor=6, micro=0, releaseleve...
    warnoptions = []
    winver = '3.6'
 
FILE
    (built-in)


Finally, you can also use the __doc__ (dunder doc) attribute to get a documentation string back

Here is an excerpt

sys.__doc__
This module provides access to some objects used or maintained by the\n
interpreter and to functions that interact strongly with the interpreter.\n
\nDynamic objects:\n\nargv -- command line arguments; argv[0] is the script 
pathname if known\npath -- module search path; path[0] is the script directory,
else ''\nmodules -- dictionary of loaded modules\n\ndisplayhook 
-- called to show results in an interactive session\nexcepthook 
-- called to handle any uncaught exception other than SystemExit\n  
To customize printing in an interactive session or to install a custom\n
top-level exception handler, assign other functions to replace these.\n\nstdin
-- standard input file object; used by input()\nstdout -- 
standard output file object; used by print()\nstderr -- standard error object;
used for error messages\n  By assigning other file objects 

As you can see dir and help are helpful if you need some info about a class, function or method in Python