Hoping & Knowing

Posted on: Sunday, 18 December 2011 by Fab

Risking, trying, achieving, … making.
Waiting is to knowing as making is to hoping.
Often I hope and instead of making I wait.
Hoping and waiting, doubting and regretting.
How many more times will this lesson be taught?
Over and over until the cycle is broken.
I hope I can do it as I sit here and wait.

 

 

Free Speech?

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 April 2011 by Fab

I read today that the photograph of a crucifix bathed in urine called ‘Piss Christ’ was vandalised in France,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13124769
This is after an ex-soldier was sentenced to 70 days in prison for burning a copy of the Koran in the centre of Carlisle,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-13119241

“When you start by burning books, you’ll end by burning people.”
Quote by Jewish Writer Heinrich Heine about the burning of the Koran during the Spanish Inquisition.

The arts are so limitless, they are an expression of our imagination. There is so much beauty in our world. I wonder how much of this is for art and how much of this is to create controversy to get noticed. I certainly can’t see it as “challenging people’s thoughts”.

Why would someone choose to clearly upset a large group of people in a piece of art or a public display like burning a religious book which is sacred to so many?
It is ok to burn a piece of cloth, but if that was a country’s flag, then that would offend a lot of people and create a lot of hate as to some people their flags are “sacred”.

But then what should and what shouldn’t be allowed?

Is it ok to burn and destroy things that have no positive value to society? By that I mean things that would lead people to become worse than they are, to cause more harm to themselves, other people and the environment. How do we decide what is ok and what is not ok. Someone’s decision will be influenced by their background, the amount of love they have in their lives and the amount of suffering they have gone through.

Is it ok to label a piece as “art” when it is actually about generating hate instead of inspiring awe?

I’m not a religious person and although the church has caused a lot of suffering it has also helped a lot of people, I’m still against the photograph ‘Piss Christ’. I can only imagine the author has had a lot of suffering in his life to want to cause so much anger.

There must be a sense of responsibility about all our actions, if an engineer builds a building that collapsed and caused injury to a lot people, then surely that engineering would be held accountable. Why isn’t an artist accountable for the harm that his creation causes in the same way? Because it is very clear to see the damage caused by a falling building. This is a very thin troublesome line, because we then get into the area of tv, films and video games and their effects on people that have gone on to cause harm.

Maybe I have double standards, but to me it is completely acceptable to have video games (even violent ones, to a limit) however I’m still completely against the art referred to above. Why?

I guess it boils down to this question to me:
Does someone’s own suffering or causing controversy/attracting fame justify the creation of hate material?

Setting Relative JTable Column Widths

Posted on: Thursday, 11 November 2010 by Fab

Java always sizes table columns to the same width, if you set the preferred width of the columns they become ‘fixed’ to this width and resizing the window doesn’t affect them at all.
I want to set ratios to my columns so that as the window is resized my columns retain their width ratios and completely fill the available space.
Here’s how.

Read More »

Missed Opportunities (the winning lottery ticket)

Posted on: Monday, 13 September 2010 by Fab

If you had a winning lottery ticket in your hands you wouldn’t rip it to pieces because you thought you could win again.

So look at all opportunities as a winning lottery ticket that’s in your hands.

(Came across this idea on a website about personal development, I’ve reworded the original as I can’t remember where I found it…)

Donald Trump’s quotes from The Apprentice Season 1

Posted on: Monday, 13 September 2010 by Fab

Location, Location, Location
Any product sales depends on the location, it has to reach the right target demographic.

Do Not Deal With Underlings
Making deals can be tough and you have to work with the boss wherever possible.

The Art of Negotiation
Buying the right thing at your price, fitting it into the budget.

A Deal is a Deal
Once the handshake has been made, it has to be honoured.

Stand up for Yourself
No one else is going to fight for you.

Know What You’re Up Against
In order to compete you must be aware of your competition.

God Is In The Details
For example, an unwashed car can sell for $200 less where as it would only cost around $10 to get it washed.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
Never beg in front of a customer, you have to sell a product to an interested customer, begging a customer to buy something will not get you a good deal.

You’ve Gotta Believe
You have to have passion for what you are selling, you’ll never be successful trying to sell something you don’t believe in.

Think Outside The Box
Do not stick with the tried and tested and make room for creativity and innovation.

Rumo ao Hexa Brasil!

Posted on: Friday, 11 June 2010 by Fab

Brazil has won the World Cup 5 times:
1958 in Sweden
1962 in Chile
1970 in Mexico
1994 in the United States of America
2002 in Korea Republic and Japan

‘Rumo ao hexa’ means on the way, on route to the sixth championship title.

To show my support, I’ve created a banner that I’m using on facebook with my profile picture. It can be used on any other social site or web site.
I’ve used photoshop to create it, you can choose which one you’d like to use:
http://www.fabsanchez.co.uk/downloads/rumo_ao_hexa.png (Transparent PNG)
http://www.fabsanchez.co.uk/downloads/rumo_ao_hexa.psd (Photoshop)

This is what my picture looks like with it.


You will need photoshop to combine your photo with either of the files above.

Good luck Brazil!

Try sleeping with a broken heart by Alicia Keys

Posted on: Friday, 7 May 2010 by Fab

What refreshing song! Reminds me of the ballads of the 80s.

Adding an image to a JavaFx Button

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 April 2010 by Fab

This is not immediately visible by looking at the API for the Button class on JavaFx, but it’s extremely easy to accomplish.
JavaFx Button Image
All we have to do is specify an ImageView instance to the graphic variable of Button.

var button = Button {
    graphic: ImageView {
        image: Image { url:"{__DIR__}image.gif" }
    }
    action: function():Void {
        println("Button clicked.");
    }
};

Just ensure the image file (image.gif in this case) is in the same (source) directory as the class that is instantiating Button.

C style printf formatting in Java & JavaFx

Posted on: Friday, 19 March 2010 by Fab

The printf command in C makes it very easy to format numbers and dates into strings. It is very convenient and flexible.
For example (C code):

printf ("%4.2f %+.0e %E", 3.1416, 3.1416, 3.1416);
// Outputs: 3.14 +3e+000 3.141600E+000

Equivalent in Java:

String s = String.format("%4.2f %+.0e %E", 3.1416, 3.1416, 3.1416);
System.out.println(s);
// Outputs: 3.14 +3e+00 3.141600E+00

Equivalent in JavaFx:

// Well, you can just use the Java classes
println( String.format("%4.2f %+.0e %E", 3.1416, 3.1416, 3.1416) );
// Outputs: 3.14 +3e+00 3.141600E+00

// or
println("{%4.2f 3.1416} {%+.0e 3.1416} {%E 3.1416}");
// Outputs: 3.14 +3e+00 3.141600E+00

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CSS & Images to Make Round Corners

Posted on: Monday, 1 March 2010 by Fab

I wanted to create a round corner border to go in a page with a background colour and to have an inner background colour of a different colour (See image below).

There are various tutorials all over the internet on creating round borders by combining images,  CSS and some that even use jQuery plugins and other javascript code.
I’ll be examining the corner jQuery plugin, the site roundedcornr.com, and Webcredible blog … These are the best ones I’ve found so far and I have used the last 2 to create all rounded corners for this site.

Rounded Corner

Rounded Corner with CSS and Images

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