java.text.SimpleDateFormat and java.text.DecimalFormat are not thread-safe.

Thank you and Happy Holidays!

Well, my employer got acquired. After the first of the year I'll be working for the largest stock exchange in the world.

I haven't been writing here much because I've been working like crazy. I still read Teh Journals on my Palm during my morning commute.

Still fencing. Even with about 5 weeks training I managed to earn national points in Richmond.

Thoughts? Comments?

1. What is your occupation?

Senior Financial Technology Consultant

2. What color are your socks right now?

White

3. What are you listening to right now?

OpenPandora playing:

Timberwolves at New Jersey - Taking Back Sunday

"This is me with the words on the tip of my tongue / And my eye through the scope / Down the barrel of a gun"

4. What was the last thing that you ate?

Salmon with grilled vegetables and then some Pepperidge Farm cookies

5. Can you drive a stick shift?

No

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

Green.

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone?

MrsVR calling me to tell me she was on her way home.

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you?

No one sent it to me.

9. How old are you today?

30

10. Favorite drinks?

Not really.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch?

Saber Fencing. Watching Epee feels like work and Foil is ghey ever since the took away the flick.

12. Have you ever dyed your hair?

Yes.

13. Pets?

DoggyVR

14. Favorite food?

Pizza with Anchovies

15. What was the last movie you watched?

Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversary DVD Special Edition

And it rocked.

16. Favorite holiday?

Christmas

17. What do you do to vent anger?

Yell and throw things.

18. What was(were) your favorite toy(s) as a kid?

(tie) Star Wars X-Wing Fighter by Kenner and "Shockwave" Transformer

19. What is your favorite: fall or spring?

Fall.

20. Hugs or kisses?

Hugs.

21. Cherry or blueberry?

Cherry.

22. Do you want your friends to send this back?

Not applicable, but if this were email no because technically this kind of stuff is spam.

23. Who is the most likely to respond?

SamTheButcher

24. Who is least likely to respond?

gmhowell

25. Living arrangements?

2BR + 2BTH Condo

26. When was the last time you cried?

The second time I viewed Avatar: The Last Airbender Episode 35 "Tales of Ba Sing Se" right towards the end of the segment titled "The Tale of Iroh." War is a horrible tragedy.

27. What is on the floor of your closet?

Shoes and assorted other stuff.

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you're sending this to?

Not applicable.

29. What did you do last night?

Took a fencing lesson.

WELL THAT WAS KINDA FUN

The otherday I got my sample ballot in the mail. Let's see which parties I have to choose from this Tuesday:

• The Republican Party
• The Democratic Party
• The Pro Life Conservative Party (see Republican Party, The)
• The Libertarian Party (aka, Republicans who smoke pot)
• The Legalize Marijuana Party (aka, Libertarians who aren't Republicans)
• The Socialist Workers Party Party
• The Socialist Party USA Party (I see a recount coming)
• The God We Trust Party
• The The American Party Party
• The Politicians Are Crooks Party
• The Solidarity, Defend Life Party
• The Poor People's Campaign Party

Who says it's a two-party system?

When many people describe Java, they often focus on its object-oriented nature. In the last year of coding, I've seen that the Java mindset is much more than object-oriented design and patterns.

What is the Java mindset about?

1) Internationalization

When you are writing code for text parsing and sorting code, you should stop and think "what charset?" When you are printing a date or monetary value to a user, you should think "what locale?" When you are designing a web site, you should plan for it to be in multiple languages. Java provides answers to these problems.

2) Rich Libraries

This one comes straight out of Effective Java - whenever you find yourself writing elementary code (searching, sorting, data structures, etc.) you stop yourself and check if it already exists in the Java SDK. The Java SDK provides a rich set of libraries - and if you don't see what you need, just Google it or check the Jakarta Commons.

3) Team Development

Java is a language designed for Team programming. Java's strong typing ensures that changes that break a build are immediately apparent. Appropriately (verbosely) named classes and methods ensure that code is readable and self-documenting, even if coders do not use Java's built-in documentation system, JavaDoc.

4) Engineered Applications

By design, Java is a language requires discussion, thought and planning. Its strongly-typed and interface-driven nature require that developers plan application, package and class design in advance. In other languages, Lone Wolf coders often seek to save themselves a few keystrokes by hacking up classes "on the fly." Java's built-in compile time checks prevents extra hours of debugging that can result from one coder's misguided shortcut.

Finally, the truth behind the 9/11 conspiracy cover up REVEALED!!!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The topic on CSPAN's Washington Journal right now is "What if the Democrats Win?"

I believe that if the Democrats win, we will soon after have a Constitutional Crisis. Bush will issue executive orders that directly contradict any social laws or policy passed by the Democratic Congress. Attorney General Gonzales will issue memorandums declaring Unconstitutional any and all laws passed having to do with Terrorism or Civil Liberties, asserting that the President's powers are Absolute.

Now a caller is saying that if the Democrats win, then "we're going to have another Nine-Eleven." That's a page right out of Dick Cheney's playbook. In a worst-case scenario, we suffer another terrorist attack, and Bush/Cheney uses it as a justification to overtly overturn / ignore laws passed by the Democratic Congress. They may even decide to disolve the Legislative "until the time of crisis has passed."

Actually, they may do that even if the Democratic Party doesn't take control.

Actually, they will probably do that even if there's no attack. Right before November 2004 when Bush's numbers sucked, DHS was issuing all sorts of ominous statements about "postponing" the Election "indefinitely" "just in-case." Hey, when your "job" is to "defend" America, "sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do." All you citizens just go about your business!

If the Democrats win, there is one thing I can tell you won't happen: Impeachment. This is just more Republican FUD. The Democratic Party is about plans and solutions, not power-grabs and finger-pointing.

Get this - two people in the last hour have called up and accused Democrats calling up on the Republican line and "pretending" to be "Bush-hating" Republicans. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, nutjobs *cough*33percentapproval*cough*

TO THE BARRICADES!!!!1one

I propose to you, gentle readers:

Is not Iraq the slim, male, teenaged Congressional Page of the Middle East?

I think so!

MyJavaBean.java

public class MyJavaBean {
 
    private int height;
    private int weight;
    private String meatSpaceName;
    private String slashdotNick;
    private int age;
    private double karma;
 
    public int getHeight() {
        return height;
    }
 
    public void setHeight(int height) {
        this.height = height;
    }
 
    public int getWeight() {
        return weight;
    }
 
    public void setWeight(int weight) {
        this.weight = weight;
    }
 
    public String getMeatSpaceName() {
        return meatSpaceName;
    }
 
    public void setMeatSpaceName(String meatSpaceName) {
        this.meatSpaceName = meatSpaceName;
    }
 
    public String getSlashdotNick() {
        return slashdotNick;
    }
 
    public void setSlashdotNick(String slashdotNick) {
        this.slashdotNick = slashdotNick;
    }
 
    public int getAge() {
        return age;
    }
 
    public void setAge(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }
 
    public double getKarma() {
        return karma;
    }
 
    public void setKarma(double karma) {
        this.karma = karma;
    }
}

JavaBeansExample.java

import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
import java.beans.Introspector;
import java.beans.IntrospectionException;
 
public class JavaBeansExample {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            PropertyDescriptor[] fields = Introspector.getBeanInfo(MyJavaBean.class)
.getPropertyDescriptors();
            System.out.println("Inspecting JavaBean fields for " + MyJavaBean.class.getName() + "...");
            for (int i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
                PropertyDescriptor field = fields[i];
                String name = field.getName();
                System.out.println("- " + name + " aka " + field.getReadMethod());
            }
        } catch (IntrospectionException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
 
    }
}

If you want to know what this is good for, check out Spring Framework's use of PropertyEditors in its DataBinding api.

Yesterday was a tough day.

At about 9:04 AM, my PATH train emerged from its tunnel and rolled around the perimeter of Ground Zero into the station, and I could see the victims' families making their solemn progression around the Tower Footprints, laying flowers and wreaths. Along with civilians, there were firefighters and police officers in full uniform.

My walk from the station to the office was one of the hardest I've ever had to do. I mean literally - the sidewalk directly in front of the Site was so packed with people I had to shoulder my way through. People had already been putting up flowers, pictures, notes. I was getting pretty choked up.

I caught a glimpse of a young man in his early 20s walking away from me, wearing a black t-shirt that said in bold, white letters INVESTIGATE 9/11. Right before I crossed the street, I noticed a crowd of young men wearing the same shirt standing in a circle.

I made my way up to the office and immediately went over to our windows that overlook Ground Zero. I meant to check out the ceremonies with our telescope but it was broken. Then someone pointed out the NYPD Sniper out on a rooftop/ledge a few stories below us.

Pretty sweet.

At lunch, a co-worker and I ventured out to see what was going on with the September 11th conspiracy wackos. We weren't disappointed: the small circle of teens in black shirts were now surrounded by a crowd about five deep.

Oh boy, time for a free and open exchange of ideas!!11

In the middle of the crowd were two people arguing: a late-30s man and what looked like a 6-foot tall 15-year-old boy wearing the black t-shirt. It was a heated debate and they were yelling, but it was difficult to hear exactly what they were saying. I caught something about "heat causing steel beams to buckle." Onlookers were snapping pictures with their digital cameras and cell phones, so maybe there are pics on Flickr by now (this was on the corner of Church & Cortlandt, btw, the epicenter of Ground Zero traffic).

It occured to me that we were watching the equivalent of an web forum debate in real time: an arrogant teenager and a loudmouthed adult bickering with each other while dozens of others look on (e.g. the Slashdot Front Page). In fact, its almost certain that the debate wouldn't have occured if not for the online conspiracy theory communities that brought these kids together.

Go Intarweb

As we walked away from the crowd, we saw more kids wearing shirts.
In fact, it seemed like the black t-shirts were EVERYWHERE. Some were handing out small flyers. Blah - if you're really interested do a Google-search for "September 11th nutjob" - oops I meant to type "September 11th conspiracy theories." It turns out they were handing out the shirts for free too (and, apparently, dvds of that one movie that was on Google Video).

We stopped one of the Black Shirts to ask where he got his. We learned he was a teenager who came from Cleveland specifically to attend some September 11th conspiracy theory forums / symposia that had taken place over the weekend. I noticed he was wearing a button: a red-slash through a swastika. Being against Nazis...that's a pretty bold position to take!

While we were talking to him, somebody in a passing car (seeing his shirt) yelled "FUCKEN GO BACK TO SEATTLE YA FUCKEN FREAK - I'LL KNOCK YA FUCKEN TEETH IN".

Seattle?

Also, we noticed a camera crew filming. Their press badges read "Loose Change production staff." Umm, ok.

When I left work later that night, the crowds were even worse than before. It didn't help that some "street performers" (e.g. a dirty old hippy playing a guitar" had now camped out in front Ground Zero, collecting tips from large crowds of what could only be tourists.

People had also placed candles on the sidewalk - and that's what got me.

Thats what got me.

In front of the PATH train station, a large crowd of people had again assembled - this time, however, they were engaged in actual discussion. I heard a portly 40-something man remarking about Cheney (probably nothing positive) to a 20-something year old asian girl. It was a full cross-section of NYC, all rationally discussing all the implications of that Horrible Event. It occured to me that the concept of a town square where Citizens assemble to Discuss is something our modern society lacks. Well, I guess the EntireWeb has come to replace that. Huzzah.

I looked up for one last time at the Towers of Light. Then I turned and decended the station stairs to my waiting train.

When I finally returned home, I went straight to our bedroom, picked up our daughter from her crib, and held her close for a long, long time.

President wants Senate to hurry with new anti-terrorism laws

July 30, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess.on

"We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue," Clinton said during a White House news conference.

But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.
lott

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, doubted that the Senate would rush to action before they recess this weekend. The Senate needs to study all the options, he said, and trying to get it done in the next three days would be tough.

One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives "a phony issue."

Taggants value disputed

Clinton said he knew there was Republican opposition to his proposal on explosive taggants, but it should not be allowed to block the provisions on which both parties agree.

"What I urge them to do is to be explicit about their disagreement, but don't let it overcome the areas of agreement," he said.

The president emphasized coming to terms on specific areas of disagreement would help move the legislation along. The president stressed it's important to get the legislation out before the weekend's recess, especially following the bombing of Centennial Olympic Park and the crash of TWA Flight 800.

"The most important thing right now is that they get the best, strongest bill they can out -- that they give us as much help as they can," he said.

Hatch blasts 'phony' issues

Republican leaders earlier met with White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for about an hour in response to the president's call for "the very best ideas" for fighting terrorism.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, emerged from the meeting and said, "These are very controversial provisions that the White House wants. Some they're not going to get."

Hatch called Clinton's proposed study of taggants -- chemical markers in explosives that could help track terrorists -- "a phony issue."

"If they want to, they can study the thing" already, Hatch asserted. He also said he had some problems with the president's proposals to expand wiretapping.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said it is a mistake if Congress leaves town without addressing anti-terrorism legislation. Daschle is expected to hold a special meeting on the matter Wednesday with Congressional leaders.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Original

On watching Attack of the Clones after August 2006

Enough is enough - I am sick and tired of these mutha-fuckin' droids on this mutha-fuckin' plain!!!!11#^$&%

On the "Culture of Life"

Some Real Clear Politics (*snarf*, great name) douchebag thinks those Fox News Journalists should have been tortured and murdered rather than do a (false) conversion to escape captivity.

Who is it that wants to take us back to the Middle Ages again?

Guess (once again) we see that the vaunted "Culture of Life" is DAO. My "friends" on the right would like to see Americans martyr themselves in their Holy War against all of Islam.

Hey fuckwads - ever heard of crossing your fingers? (idiots).

On Pandora Internet Radio

Apparently I am a big fan of "hard rock roots, punk influence, subtle use of vocal harmony, melodic phrasing and major key tonality."

Result: every other song is by Fall Out Boy.

On "Appeasers"

LOL I wonder if Winston Churchill ever had his picture taken shaking hands with Hitler LOL

(asshole)

Seriously though, do you think this idiots realize what asses they are making of themselves. Keith Olbermann smacks them down - if you haven't seen it already, watch it.

LOL at Eclipse not having the Safe Delete refactoring

I downloaded 3.2 just to see how its come along. Not much has changed...and now I really see how deficient it is after a year of coding with IntelliJ. How are people productive with this thing? I just got finished refactoring a 100+ class legacy project into patterns, and I can't imagine having done it without Safe Delete. Just...wow.

IntelliJ 6 Beta is already available (Sam, you should download it) - the final release is going to rock. Eclipse is good for hobbyists that don't want to pay for an IDE, I guess, but if you are a professional programmer, paying for an IDE is worth it for the return on productivity (remember, it's a tax deductible business expense).

Eclipse has plugins blah blah blah - is your time money or not? All that time you spend installing "free" Eclipse plugins and getting them to work (fucking with "Perspsective" settings and all that crap) could be spent actually writing code.

On Hypocrisy

My "friends on the Right" have been unwilling to hold street protests condemning the unbroken string of Religious terrorist bombings against women's healthcare providers that have been ongoing since the mid-80's.

Why is that?

Because instead of being "pro-Life" they are actually pro-Murder. They secretly cheer when someone with an opposing view point is ruthlessly slaughtered. "Well, what did they expect to happen?" is the kackling refrain. And now, with the emergence of Federal funding for "Faith-Based Initiatives" we have the United States' own state-sponsored terrorism.

When I see a protest in the street by a Conservative group against these bloodthirsty murderers and terrorists, then I'll be satisfied.

On Mod-bombing

I unleashed my rightous fury on certain deserving fools earlier this week and it felt goooood. Best part is: meta-mod results still at 90% noobs.

EAT IT

I can't believe it's been over four years since I first wrote about JDOM. Since then, it's gone one-point-oh. Good thing, because I actually have a practical (read: work-related) use for it.

Anyway, here's some sample code:

JDOMFun.java

public class JDOMFun {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder();
 
        File connectXml = new File(args[0]);
        Document document = null;
        try {
            document = builder.build(connectXml);
        } catch (JDOMException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            System.exit(1);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            System.exit(1);
        }
 
        System.out.println(document.getRootElement().getName() + ":");
        List elements = document.getRootElement().getChildren();
 
        for (Iterator iterator = elements.iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {
            Element element = (Element) iterator.next();
          recurseChildren(element, 1);
        }
    }
 
    private static void recurseChildren(Element element, int depth) {
        char[] dots = new char[depth];
        Arrays.fill(dots, '.');
        System.out.print(new String(dots));
        System.out.println(element.getName());
        List children = element.getChildren();
        if(children.size() == 0) return;
        for (Iterator iterator = children.iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {
            recurseChildren((Element)(iterator.next()), depth + 1);
        }
    }
}

Whitepaper: About Microsoft's "Delegates" - an analysis of why Sun decided not to include function references in Java.

Napkin Look-and-Feel - this was mentioned in a footnote of Prefactoring. Pretty neat.

Five Habits of Hightly Profitable Software Developers (well, OOP developers). I can't stress Habit #1 enough. I'm just finishing up a project where the developers did everything possible in the constructor of the "main" class - hundreds of lines, concrete dependencies...ugh.

import java.util.*;
 
class ArrayPhun {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        List list = new ArrayList();
 
        list.add(new Long(1));
        list.add(new Long(2));
        list.add(new Long(3));
 
        Long[] longArr = new Long[3];
 
        Object otherArr = list.toArray(longArr);
 
        System.out.println(otherArr.equals(longArr));
        System.out.println(Arrays.asList(longArr));
        System.out.println(list.toArray());
        System.out.println(longArr.getClass());
 
    }
}