?

Does it Offend You, Yeah?

2008-07-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

Epic Last Song

Two videos that made me smile last week

2008-07-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

Where the Hell is Matt?

Usher - Love In This Club (Performed by Showbiz Pizza Band)

regex replace part of a match in PHP

2008-06-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

So, I'm working in PHP on the new company site, and we're pulling all sorts of feeds from our blogs and showing them on the site. I'm using Magpie RSS to do this, and for the most part works really well, except for funny characters. You know, the ones you get in Word that look just a little different. They're pretty awesome. Well, Magpie RSS handles them awesome too. It replaces all of these funny characters with one type of character - the question mark. Now I usually enjoy that little guy, its all squiggly and informs you to intonate correctly at the end of a sentence, but here the big Q is a pain in the ascot. And I can never remember how to replace only part of a match in regular expressions, so I am writing the PHP syntax down.

For example, I have the improperly formatted text "Charlie?s Angels"

I can use preg_replace and group the different sets matching characters with parens:

/(\?)([a-zA-Z])/

So this matches the ?s and groups the '?' and the 's' seperately which can be used as back references in my replace string with the characters $1 and $2 respectively. $0 refers to the whole match and back references work with numbers 1 through 9.

The full expression would be

$str = "Charlie?s Angels";
$s = preg_replace("/(\?)([a-zA-Z])/", "'$2", $str);

Now if only I can keep this in my noggin for a while...

bananaphone

2008-06-05T08:19:00.001-07:00

Work Quotes

2008-03-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Someone's going to have to come sit in the big comfy"

"I saw someone ice fishing this morning" me (it's march 24)
"They're out there in like fucking July" my boss

Happy St. Patty's Day

2008-03-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

At the bar last night, our friends ordered some green beer. It was kinda of pale - a light green color. On their second round, the bartender hands them much greener beers. The original beer holder says, "Hey! How come theirs are darker than mine?"

The bartender replies "How green it is depends on how much food coloring I put in."

Priceless.

Common: Drivin' me Wild(feat. Lily Allen)

2008-03-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

The Brand New Heavies - Sometimes

2008-03-16T17:32:00.001-07:00

Coffee and TV

2008-03-12T08:48:00.001-07:00

Quotes of note

2008-03-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
-Japanese Proverb

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up.
It knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.
It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle
when the sun comes up you'd better be running.

Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste death but once.
--Julius Ceaser

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
-- Confucius

All it takes is all you got.
--Marc Davis

You have a choice. You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off of your face.

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars
- Les Brown

Mos Def Kick

2008-03-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

Mos Def an Talib Kwali

Miss Fat Booty

I can't stop listening to Timbaland presents Shock Value right now...

Theodore Roosevelt

2008-02-29T13:37:00.000-08:00

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. - Theodore Roosevelt

Quotes

2008-02-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

"When the going gets tough, the tough gets going" - Mom

"Make sure you're getting out and running, or skiing" - Mom

Flux Video

2008-02-19T09:18:00.001-08:00

Bloc Party is awesome.

Tiny Turtle

2008-02-04T07:33:00.001-08:00

Courage

2008-01-29T07:36:00.000-08:00

This is great. find it here

Wired's Top 10 new organisms

2007-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

All of these are really interesting, I had already heard of the glow in the dark cats, but tadpoles that glow colors? Or cats that stay kitten sized their whole lives? crazy

check it out.

Hancock

2007-12-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

There are a ton of superhero movies coming out next summer. Will Smith's even got one: Hancock

I wish it was christmas today.

2007-12-14T07:38:00.001-08:00

This is sooo good.

via videosift.com

Glow in the dark kittens

2007-12-12T22:49:00.000-08:00

Who wouldn't want a cat that glows in the dark?

Subaru STI record breaking jump

2007-12-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo: Zetix Blast-Proof Fabric Resists Multiple Car Bombs, Makes Our Heads Explode

2007-12-06T08:44:00.000-08:00

This is really interesting:

Zetix Blast-Proof Fabric

All fluff no stuff

2007-11-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

There's a company in our office named Intense Engineering today we were wondering what they did, so we went to their website.

http://www.intense-engineering.com/

Can you tell me what they do? I can't but they're marketing staff has some awesome buzzword use skills.

This is the office that had the large spartan decal on their door the day that Halo 3 came out, and all you can see when the door is open is a big screen TV and a plush leather chair.

hmmm...

Really cool pictures of children 'flying'

2007-11-15T06:47:00.001-08:00

http://www.janvonholleben.com/dreams_of_flying.php?n=1

Mos Def Reads Malcom X

2007-11-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

Radar love

2007-11-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

If only lived in a ski town, and was single, and was a ski bum.
...

Powder Magazine's Guide to Navigating the Ski Town Ladies

Another person getting knocked over by a soccer ball

2007-11-05T11:11:00.001-08:00

Yet more.

Kid getting hit in head by soccer ball

2007-11-02T13:01:00.001-07:00

I am contemplating starting a blog that consists solely of people getting knocked over.

http://view.break.com/372076 - Watch more free videos

How much advertisement in NYC costs

2007-11-02T11:13:00.001-07:00

Crazy Frog

2007-10-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

No, not the bad song

What would NPH do?

2007-10-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

Boogie Pimps - Parachuting Babies.

2007-10-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

Wow. Babies parachuting, into a scantily clad woman. Who makes this? The Boogie Pimps apparently.

10 Funniest deaths in movies

2007-10-23T06:53:00.001-07:00

Someone compiled this:

As I've noted before, my Uncle was in Troll 2.

From a friend

2007-10-15T08:22:00.001-07:00

Trogdor the Burninator

2007-10-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

A Homestarrunner classic. And by classic I mean it in the geekiest way. If you haven't seen this before, make sure you make it all the way through to the end, that's where the meat of the video is.

Be Kind Rewind

2007-10-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

I love Mos Def

Bender's Big Score

2007-10-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

Soccer ball to face

2007-10-03T20:53:00.001-07:00

Bloc Party - The Pioneers

2007-09-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of on a Bloc Party kick...

This video is crazy, crazy good.

And the dynamite goes boom.

Product design when given to everyman

2007-09-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

My boss likes to describe software design when done by everyone as the 'Homer Car' Here's where the reference comes from:

Bloc Party: I Still Remember

2007-09-18T22:20:00.001-07:00

Flying Cats

2007-09-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

Sweet Flickr set of cats in the air.

New Type of ski wax application

2007-09-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

This site is claiming that they're developing a constant ski wax application system. Pretty interesting idea.

Things I am currently not impressed with

2007-09-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Delta Airlines
TSA employees
The Wisconsin Alumni Association

Iron Man Movie

2007-09-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know much about Iron Man, but this does look great:

And it's directed by Jon Favreau - you know from Made, and Swingers.

Snow Patrol Signal Fire Music Video

2007-09-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

I know that Spiderman 3 came out months ago, but I still really like this video by Snow Patrol

Jose

2007-08-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

So last night, my new roommate asked me to go get a drink with him, so we went to Azalino's, the new bar where smut and eggs used to be. It was karaoke night.

So, we're sitting at the bar drinking some PBRs, and this drunk man from Honduras sits next to us. Aaron sees him looking into the mirror and checking his hair in the mirror behind the bar and my roommate gives him the thumbs up. This guy sees the thumbs up as an invitation to talk to us.

This is where the story begins.

He starts asking us what we do. He tells us he's an engineer. And that engineers do everything! He said this with great gusto while lifting his Corona in the air. He then listed off all the things that engineers did. Farming, civil engineering, agronomy, economy, the list went on and on. Engineers can do anything! Littered throughout these facts about all the things engineers do - my roommate makes the statement "I am a police officer", and later "I've got to be to work in 20 minutes."

This guy goes on for about twenty minutes talking about how he loves engineers, and how he is an engineer. (We're pretty sure he's not an engineer) Finally we ask him his name and sign him up to sing Karaoke. We sign him up to sing the go-go's. When it's his turn, it takes some prodding, but Jose goes up to sing. He holds the mic out to the crowd for about half the song, and then they stop the song. For some reason, they restart the song, and he starts repeating "holy shit. you fucking puntas" throughout the entirety of song. Words cannot express the hilarity of this drunk guy, in a polo shirt with the sleeves cut off just repeating this profanity into the Karaoke mic.

Later, he came back to sit next to us, and taught us the "cheers game" in which, he would hold up his corona offering a cheers, and then pull it away before actually allowing the cheers to connect.

Anyway, I know that this was very long winded, and not much of a story, but it was awesome.

Military Time

2007-08-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

Q: How is midnight (00:00) referenced in military time?
A: "Midnight"

Q: How is 12:15 am referenced?
A: "midnight fifteen"

Lorem Ipsum

2007-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Ever seen this text? Most likely you haven't unless you are a designer, or maybe a web developer or some other job where you look at page layouts. What is it? Filler text.

Where does it come from?
It's derived from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum or On the Ends of Goods and Evils.

What does it mean?
From Wikipedia:
H. Rackham's 1914 translation: "Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?"

Why is it used?
It's used to draw attention away from the content, and let the viewer focus on the page layout. It's meant to have no meaning, and along with its typical distribution of English letters, it helps direct the user towards the layout of the page design, instead of the content.

giant slip n slide

2007-08-28T12:45:00.001-07:00

I want one:

http://www.gopotato.tv/player.php?video=GPJ1188000251GP46cf71fb39387&etype=3

Man killed and eaten by own 'pets'

2007-08-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

In conversation, I referenced hearing this story a couple times over the weekend. The gist of it is some guy in Germany kept a lot of weird pets in ways that maybe he shouldn't. He was killed by a black widow spider, named Bettina and was not found for a week or two, and was munched on by some of the other animals - various spiders, lizards, snakes...

Gross.

Czabe's Top 5 Sports Falls

2007-08-08T07:17:00.000-07:00

Well here's the inspiration for yesterday's post:

Steve Czaban's epic sports falls

2007-08-07T06:44:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by the top 5 crashes segment on the Bob and Brian show this morning. So I looked up some sports falls this morning.

Some guy put this together:

Lance Armstrong - 2003 Tour de France

Elise Ray - 2000 Olympics

Jake Brown - 2007 X-Games

Hermann Maier - 1998 Nagano Olympics

A good slap

2007-07-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Funny Graffiti

2007-07-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

Graffiti

How to go about interviewing to be a roommate.

2007-07-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

This may not apply to a lot of people, but I've been through it, and in the past week, my roommates and I have been interviewing people who are interviewing in hopes of living in our sweet house. We've posted on Craigslist and had quite a few applicants. Luckily, I am not doing much of the email screening, but I do get the emails of the applicants who make it through the filters, and I also get to hear about the 'darwin award winners' who really didn't make the cut. Here are a few of the things that I think are important while applying to live in a place with people:

Include your first and last name. Yes, you will get googled, myspaced, facebooked, and investigated in any other way possible. If you don't want people to know the information that you have voluntarily posted about yourself why have you posted it? If you're going to be living with these people they're going to want to know as much about you as possible to see if you will be a good fit for the living situation.
Ask your potential roommates personal questions. If you act like you don't care about them, you're probably not going to portray that you're looking to be a member of the household society.
Don't ask too personal of questions. There are some things that are taboo, you should already know what these are. Anything that could be considered discrimination or offensive = off limits.
Have a job and state that you have one. Alternatively, have really wealthy parents that will pay for everything, and state this. If you don't seem like you can make the rent and utility payments, you probably won't make the cut. If you reference being able to pay through last year's Christmas money your potential roommates will wonder.
Unlike job interviews, it's ok to bring a friend. They'll be there to ask any questions that you may have forgotten, and they might be able to notice something that you've overlooked. It also shows that you've got friends, and your friends are a reflection of you. However, poorly chosen, rude friends can also be a pox on your interview.
Don't bring your entourage - too many friends would just be weird.
Monkeys, ferrets and other strong smelling animals are deterrents.
Most importantly: be yourself.

Also, if the roommate posting is for an unfinished room in the basement with twenty-somethings it is not a good idea to ask if you can bring your children.

While hungover, watching tennis

2007-07-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

"Andre Agassi is sooo good." - Nick

I wish I was.

2007-07-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

"So I got pretty liquored up at the party yesterday and as we were leaving I decided to form tackle a inflatable buoy marking the entrance to the party. On a side note, for those of you who don't know, Mackinac Island does not allow motor vehicles. So the only way to get around is either by bike or by horse back. Something like over 600 horses on the island. Anyway, my shenanigans spooked a nearby horse and it took off running down the side of the road and this chick yelled at me. I fired right back with 'I know, I was there!'. "- Nick

I'm going with a 4.0

2007-07-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

"How hard are you going to see this movie? Like Richter-scale hard?" - Joystiq

Spinny Spinny Spin

2007-07-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

I am stealing this from signal vs. noise, but: BIG OL' RIMS

Tell Me You Love Me - TV Show Embracing HBO's Inner Slut

2007-07-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

"But Hype 101 says that HBO should be embracing its inner slut, not running away from it." - L.A. Times

Animals!

2007-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

Animal Photography

Great Couple of Days in the Urban Dictionary

2007-07-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't checked the Urban Dictionary for a while, and while perusing the interwebs today I noticed this impressive string of Words of the Day:

Canadaphile July 10

A non-Canadian person who is extremely fond of Canadians, Canadian culture, and/or Canada in general.

She is such a Canadaphile, she just had a maple leaf tattooed on her shoulder!

yippie ki-yay July 9

Bruce Willis' signature phrase from Die Hard.

Yippie Ki-Yay motherfucker!

waffle crapper July 8

A chick so hot that you wouldn't care if she walked up and crapped on your waffle. In fact, you'd probably welcome it. Coined by Adam Carolla.

She's no waffle-crapper but I'd hit it.

7 July 7

The fiercest digit known to man.

7 is the fiercest digit because 7 8 9. Ha

Transformers Art Director

2007-07-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

I thought this article was really cool. It's about Alex Jaeger, the art director for the Transformers movie.

Boba Fett Sketch

2007-07-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

Dude from Penny Arcade sketches Boba Fett

Great Advertisement

2007-07-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Wait for it...

The Ultimate Showdown

2007-06-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

The Ultimate Showdown

Snaaaake!

2007-06-28T10:52:00.001-07:00

Badger Badger Badger

Appending text in Ruby

2007-06-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

My coworker was just appending some text in Ruby and found something out:

While using the syntax '+=' the process of appending text took 1.8 seconds for this particular case. However, adding the text to an array and then converting the array to text took ~.9 seconds - almost a second difference. On further investigation the syntax '<<' also took ~.9 seconds.

In summary, use '<<' and not '+='

assloads of capacity.

2007-06-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

With hard work, strict storyboarding, and a computing capacity that is measured not in megs or gigs, but in assloads. - Wired

SuperBad

2007-06-25T09:02:00.001-07:00

The bird is done.

2007-06-22T12:03:00.001-07:00

We were referencing this on the way back from lunch. I love the way that the bird just poofs into a cloud of feathers.

Hyrule Jewelery

2007-06-21T20:18:00.001-07:00

Self proclaimed nerd makes Zelda style jewelery

Worst movies ever

2007-06-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Someone put together a list of really bad acting in really bad movies.

My Uncle was in Troll 2 - possibly the worst movie. Ever. You should definitely watch it for the sake of awful-ness.

Parkour

2007-06-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

This is awesome. Incredibly inspiring to think that people - who on average seem to be getting less athletic can accomplish such feats of strength and agility.
If you've seen the newest bond movie(Casino Royale) - the opening chase scene gets its kicks from parkour.

Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move.
—David Belle, BBC News

Shoelaces?

2007-06-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, this guy loves his shoelaces... I do however, find it interesting, and my self proclaimed 'fly kicks' will most likely get a lace treatment soon.

Using Multiple Buttons in a Form

2007-06-11T12:07:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, one button to rule them all just isn't good enough, and you need more than one button in a form. With Rails, it's surprisingly easy to set up multiple buttons on a form.

In the View, we'll have the form with three buttons: Button 1, Button 2 and Button 3

In the Controller, we'll use a case statement to decipher which button was pressed and redirect to the corresponding action.

def filter_reports
case params[:submit]
when "Button 1"
redirect_to :action => :button_1_action, :id => params[:id]
when "Button 2"
redirect_to :action => :button_2_action, :id => params[:id]
when "Button 3"
redirect_to :action => :button_3_action, :id => params[:id]
end
end

Awesome, now you can add as many buttons as you want/need to a form.

Wicked Problem

2007-06-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we started working on a Wicked Problem. Pretty interesting new term, I think.