Whispering
I love this. You’ve heard of “yelling at” someone? I love this because I don’t even believe in “talking at” someone.
Why do we Yell in Anger?
A sage asked his followers, ‘Why people yell at each other when they are upset?’
The disciples thought for a while, ‘Because we lose our calmness,’ said one. ‘we yell for that.’
‘But, why to yell when the other person is just next to you?’ asked the sage. ‘
Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you yell at a person when you’re angry?’
The disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the sage. Finally he explained, ‘When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must yell, to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to yell to hear each other through that great distance.’
Then the sage asked, ‘ What happens when two people fall in love? They do not yell at each other but talk softly, why? Their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small.’
The sage continued, ‘When they love each other even more, what happens?
They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’
Then the sage said, ‘When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.
No Comments
CodeIgniter’s Built In Lameness
Don’t get me wrong. I love CodeIgniter – the documentation and community are great. The libraries are excellent. I’m outsourcing development of a couple private projects, and I couldn’t trust anyone to code properly without the CodeIgniter framework/paradigm.
CodeIgniter recently dropped support for PHP4. So we can expect quite a few improvements, but CodeIgniter will always be very limited.
The reason is that the whole framework is organized around the concept of a Singleton – $this.
Singletons have a very few uses, but otherwise are very, very, very bad. Codeigniter is an example of this.
The reason is, Singletons assumes that you’re only ever going to need one – and when they’re wrong, it makes things very hard to expand. CodeIgniter assumes you’re only going to need one controller. And they’re wrong, of course. Because of Singletons, Codeigniter can’t have a decent HMVC (hierarchical model-view-controller) implementation.
There are a couple libraries that claim to offer multiple controllers – Wick and Modular Extensions. But BOTH break when you try to use any libraries that use PHP5 autoloading of models. Ion_Auth dies if loaded in HMVC. DataMapper DMZ dies if loaded in HMVC.
Posting on the CodeIgniter forums about wanting to load a controller within a view will get a visit from the MVC police. “I don’t understand why you would want to…” is the most common response.
They’re idiots.
Look at any decent application or website of even moderate complexity, and you’ll see why multiple controllers are needed.
- Facebook has ads and widgets all over the page. Some are loaded via ajax too.
- Xero has a great interface, but I pity the fool that wants to put all that in one controller.
- Piwik is a great analytics application that allows multiple dashboards, and you can rearrange the way they show.
Kohana was based on the CodeIgniter concept, but is based on the factory method, not singletons. So apparently it can handle HMVC easily. The two things that stop me from using it:
- Smaller user community (which means fewer people to outsource to)
- Lack of documentation.
- Lack of concern for backwards compatibility.
HMVC is the only real drawback in CodeIgniter as compared to Kohana. Sure, the Kohana code is based PHP5 OO features while CodeIgniter is primarly PHP4 OO based. But you can still get things done – except for HMVC.
No Comments
Stopping Thunderbird 3 autoconfig
I recently set up Thunderbird 3 autoconfig, and it automatically started setting up my email accounts. Seems great – it automatically figured out what servers to use, and tried some logins. It was wrong, but gave me a quick start.
Problem was when I wanted to set up an IMAP account instead of POP3. The autoconfig would set up POP3 and wouldn’t allow me to choose IMAP. Apparently there’s NOTHING out there to help with this.
The way to fix it is to disable or disconnect your network. It makes the setup wizard choke and ask you for ALL settings. The resulting screen looks like this:
Thunderbird 3.0 Manual Setup Screen
No Comments
Multi-Language WordPress and WPMU
Simple.
- Go to http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_in_Your_Language and find the version in the language of your choice.
- You’ll be taken to a page in that language – but it’s similar enough to the main wordpress download page that you’ll be able to tell where to click for a download. So download it.
- Polish Multi-Language Support for WPMU/Wordpress
- Open the zip file and extract the contents of wp-content/language. Then upload this directory to your WordPress/WPMU installation. (wp-content/language doesn’t exist in the default English WordPress install.)
- To set the language go to Settings -> General and look near the bottom of the page. You’ll now have an option that wasn’t there before.
WPMU/Wordpress Localization Selection (2.6.5)
Note that the language files are the same for WPMU and WordPress – the WPMU-specific “Site Admin” menu translations are included in the language files. Nice!
Our Tax System explained in Beer
This is a sample image to see how lightbox 2 works. Hope it's great.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers,’ he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. ‘Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still
wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers?
How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings) .
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings) .
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings) .
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. ‘I only got a dollar out of the $20,’ declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10! ”Yeah, that’s right,’ exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too.. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I! ”That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?
The wealthy get all the breaks! ”Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison. ‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!
‘The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists, and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics University of Georgia
1 Comment
Playing Poker
When I was 16 I read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a poker club in Oakbrook. This was before the riverboats and all the gambling – at the time, the only place to play poker was in Vegas. For some reason, I wanted to check it out. So I drove out to the next meeting.
And promptly got busted out. I think it took me only 4-5 hands. Bummer!
They played pot limit poker, which is only a little bit “safer” than no-limit. Just like no-limit, you can lose all your chips on one hand. You just can’t go all-in as soon as the cards are dealt. On the way out, I talked to the president of the club, Andy Stebnicki. Andy told me if I came back the next month, he’d lend me a poker book.
It turned out to be Doyle Brunson’s Super System – awesome book. One of the thickest books I had ever read. And yes, I did get busted out again. The other players were intimidating, 2/3rds were about 60 or older. They all had poker faces, and the next youngest guy was 22! Andy told me that some of the players went to Vegas and paid for their trips out of their winnings. Sounds good to me.
After reading the book, I came back for the third month. And I won 22 and 1/2 times my buy-in. I was hooked, but there wasn’t really anyplace for me to play. I didn’t have the money to hit Vegas.
Fast forward a few years, and you have Internet poker. I used to play on Party Poker and other sites, usually in one-table tournaments, called Sit-n-Gos. You’d put up 30, 30, 50 or $100 buy in, usually with a 10% entry fee. The winner would get 5x their buy-in back, 2nd would get 3x, and 3rd would double their money.
I accidentally stumbled on a winning very aggressive approach. Most people are too loose near the beginning of the tournament, and play too tight towards the end. I played limit, because if I made a mistake, I still wouldn’t go broke in just one hand. It’s too easy to get trapped in no-limit.
I didn’t play all the time, but I had months where I cashed out thousands of dollars after starting with just $50. I’d normally play for a month or two, then bust out (I had cashed out many times my buy-in in the meantime. I just wouldn’t bother putting in more cash for awhile.
I could have made a living at it, but I just like it as a hobby. It’s a meaningless way to make a living.
Then poker was made illegal. I can still play online, but the limit tournaments are very small. No more than $20-$30 when before I’d play in $30 – $100 tournaments. It’s barely worth it. I’ll have to learn no-limit instead. Have been winning, just not as consistently.
By the way, I looked up Andy, the poker club organizer. Great guy. Turns out he has macular degeneration, which gives him central blindness. It’s too bad – now that he’s retired and can play all the time, he has trouble doing it.
No Comments
Intermediate Salsa
Once you’ve got all the basics, I recommend getting NY Salsa intermediate video with Juan Calderon. More than half the stuff I do can be found on that video. You can also go to YouTube – I recommend videos by Addicted2Salsa (Anthony Persaud), also available on his website. The guy puts together SHORT videos, great for watching before you head out.
I almost always watch a few clips from DVDs or YouTube before going out. This way I add to my repertoire of moves little by little.
No Comments
Dancing With Boys
I used to be in a small performing group, and did a solo with a girl. She drove me nuts because her face kept looking EXACTLY I was stepping on her toes. Whenever she wasn’t sure of what to do next, “oooh”. It was so frigging distracting!
Then I tried something and the next time we danced, her toes were fine. No weird facial expressions. Sweet, smooth dance.
What did I do to fix things?
I danced with boys. (Shut up. No, I’m not gay, and I’m not homophobic either.)
What happened was I was in a class with 3 guys, one girl, and the instructor. I’m not waiting around for any woman, so I told one guy, “K, I’m the girl. Lead me.”
We swapped off and got in touch with our feminine sides. (Mine is a sexy bitch, whoo-hoo!) The result was pretty cool. Before, whenever we made mistakes, we had NO clue what happened. If you don’t know how you blew it, or even WHO blew it, how can you POSSIBLY get better?
After, we knew exactly what went wrong, and exactly how to fix it. I learned more tango in that one class than two months of regular classes. ‘Course, I wanted to see if it worked with Salsa too.
It did. There’s FAR more variation in how men lead then how women follow. Experiencing everything from wimpy leads to being muscled through the moves was an eye-opener. It let me decide what kind of lead I wanted to be, and showed me how it felt when the lead was sloppy or not clear. (For awhile I made it cool to dance with guys at that studio.)
If you want to get really good at being a man, you’ve gotta dance with men. It’s too bad guys are so damn homophobic. We’d be MUCH better dancers otherwise.
And if you’re a guy, feel free to ask me to dance. Don’t worry, you won’t turn into a “homo”, and the girls love it. One told me, “Real men aren’t afraid of other men.”
No Comments
