morethanSunday

U.S. Army Task Force  Regulators 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment Staff Sgt. Fred Hampton of Lexington, Ky., kneels on a knee to talk with a young Iraqi boy at the future site of Regular 6 Park in the Thawra 1 section of the Sadr City district of Baghdad on June 20, 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Cohen A. Young/Released)

Source: digg

War blinds people to think that statistics are just numbers.  Veils need to be lifted off the eyes of the masses to have finally revealed that behind every single ‘one’ is one person.  A person that is the son or daughter, mother or father of some other ‘one’.  We must quickly destruct the notion that killing people is the answer to the problem and see that war is the only weapon of mass destruction.

Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday greetings.  I know these words may seem to be just that, words, but believe me when I say that each of you took the time to Facebook, text, leave a message, e-mail, or call me (and to those that just forgot) have a played a special part, small and large, in shaping me to be the person that I am now.  I value each of you individually and would like to embrace you with my thanks.  I will try my hardest (that’s what she said) to get back to you all individually.

Paolo
Rebecca
Ji
Justin S.
Pat
Nate
Chehk-a-leng-leng
Mumta
Charmaine
Mike N.
A.C.
Daryl
Amy
Laura
Mark
Michelle
Karin
Azzano
Catherine
Donnel
Shawna
Sundeep
Joyce
Dom
Lindsay
Wayne
Arby
Gagan (Hurrcut)
K. Doy
Geoff
Jonas
Nick
Josh
Jupac
Leila
Pat
Andrew T.
Angela
Bryan
Rob
Eric
Maureen
Ate Sharon
Caitlin
Katrina
Jojo
Seth
Jinky
Jackie
Justin Yoo
Lisa
T. Janette
Chris
Hannah
Seece
Chadleey
Ryan
Ate Lally
Andrew S.
Cheryl
Deeds
Dale
Clay
Jeffrey

I just spent near a half hour trying to make a sorter to sort all these names in alphabetical order.  I need to do these things to keep sharp.  Unfortunately, it’s not working at the moment so they are there in random-ish order.  Here’s my code, try to see if you can debug it.  Don’t ask me why I went from array lists to arrays.  This is to Java 6 of course.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class Sorter {
FileInputStream fis;
InputStreamReader isr;
BufferedReader br;
ArrayList<String> arr;
String[] str;

public void main() {
isr = new InputStreamReader(fis);
br = new BufferedReader(isr);
arr = new ArrayList<String>();

this.toArray(br, arr);
this.sort(arr);

for (int i = 0; i < arr.size(); i++) {
System.out.println(arr.get(i));
}

str = this.sort(arr);

for (int i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
System.out.println(str[i]);
}

}

private void toArray(BufferedReader br, ArrayList<String> arr) {
String temp;
try {
while ((temp = br.readLine()) != null) {
arr.add(temp);
}
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println(”IOException: “);
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

/**
* Code adapted from Code Codex
* http://www.codecodex.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bubble_sort#Java
*
* @param arr
*/
private String[] sort(ArrayList<String> arr) {
String[] strArr = (String[]) arr.toArray();

for (int k = 0; k < arr.size() - 1; k++) {
boolean isSorted = true;

for (int i = 1; i < strArr.length - k; i++) {
if (strArr[i].compareTo(strArr[i - 1]) < 0) {
String temp = strArr[i];
strArr[i] = strArr[i - 1];
strArr[i - 1] = temp;

isSorted = false;
}
}

if (isSorted)
return strArr;
}

return strArr; // bugfix
}

public Sorter() {

}

public Sorter(String filename) {
try {
fis = new FileInputStream(filename);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
System.err.println(”File not found: “);
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

I’m pages away from the end but I think I have enough to make this review–and besides, I feel a need to exercise my brain muscle because it’s in a state of demi-atrophy.

I picked up This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of A Human Obsession because I love music.  Actually, I don’t think it’s the music so much that I love, I love what comes as a result of music.  Music is a means to an end.  Music is important because it’s often that it isn’t so much the end that defines the trip, but the route through which you get there.

Read the rest of this entry »

“It was complete chaos … it’s very scary here right now.”
Source: cnn.com

This really jumped out at me. Shouldn’t it jump out at you? Or are we just so numb that something like this doesn’t fire enough neurons for us just to bat an eye. Last week, we had the second threat from some unknown terrorist (yes, terrorist, he or she or they have done enough to make body of UBC terrified) that he or she was going to finish what didn’t happen the week before. I didn’t go to my first class the following day. A week later what’s happened? Nothing really, but I hope that all of this brings to light the finiteness of it all and how we should always love like there’s no tomorrow.

Your Valentine–
tim

Today is a day where I look at what I have and say that I couldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Valentine’s day.

Love–
tim