dashing.com

Finally the truth about Oprah and Stedman

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:21:59 GMT

I think I'm going to switch to Microsoft Windows Vista

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:07:32 GMT

As most of you know I've been a long time Macintosh user. I gave up using Microsoft products years ago, and have been much happier ever since. However this video from Microsoft on the new Windows Vista SP1 has me thinking. I mean, there's no way Apple could ever do something like this.

Pikachu-pan! -- whatever that means.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:21:48 GMT

If you couldn't understand that, maybe this will help.

I Suck At Photoshop

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:15:21 GMT

The following video made me laugh out loud so I had to post it. There are four of these movies, all of them are hilarious, but this one is my favorite. I think the main reason for that is that the guy in the video and I both share a deep love for our wives cats.

If you liked that one, here are the other three:

Number 1
Number 3
Number 4

If you're ever in a car accident, Tom Cruise can help you.

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:55:35 GMT

I'm not sure how long this is going to be available, apparently the Church of Scientology is doing everything they can to get this video off of the Internet. So, while it lasts be sure to watch this indoctrination video staring everyone's favorite Scientologist, Tom Cruise. If this video stops working, there's always this.

Merry Christmas

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:29:40 GMT

Happy Holidays to all of you from John, Martha and Melody! Here's to a great 2008!

It's all 中越典子 all the time around here lately.

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:46:08 GMT

Ok, so a while back I told you all about a new movie starring the dashing.com girl, Noriko Nakagoshi called Apartment 1303. Well it's out now on DVD (in the USA, subtitled in English) and I had a chance to see it. It's very good and not at all like the typical Japanese horror films that I've come to hate (I'm talking about you Audition). Anyhow, Nori is excellent in it and you should check it out. Oh and speaking of Nori movies, there's another film she stars in called "Strawberry Shortcakes" which was a little less wonderful, and a little harder to come by, but it's worth a look too.

Anyhow, here's a subtitled trailer to refresh your memories.

And here's one for Strawberry Shortcakes.

With all of these movies coming out she's become quite a star in Japan. But that didn't stop her from doing the following commercial where she's turned into a piece of broccoli. Enjoy.

Apparently she's done a lot of commercials.

Noriko Nakagoshi has lovely skin

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:01:17 GMT

Incredible determination

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 23:43:06 GMT

Recently we bought Melody a nifty new toy called the Rainforest Jumperoo. It's one of those "jumpers" that you put the baby in and they can bounce up and down by pushing off the floor with their tip-toes. To say that she loves it would be an understatement. The following little video illustrates this better than I could ever describe. Let's just say that she's very determined to keep bouncing, no matter how tired she gets. :-)

The good, the bad and the baby

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:22:11 GMT

So the last few months have sure been something. Melody is doing great! She's laughing, smiling, rolling over and keeping us really busy! A lot of you have asked me to post more pictures, and I actually did a while back, in the gallery, but I don't think anyone noticed. If I'm wrong let me know and I'll post some new ones. We only have about 5 billion photos of her. She's the worlds most documented baby I think.

So did anyone else get an iPhone? Like a total dork I stood in line and everything. But man it's so much fun, I love it. Kirby has one too and we text each other like super nerds all day. The best part is that since the web browser on it is so good I can not update dashing.com no matter where I am. :-)

One problem though is the iPhone doesn't support Adobe Flash. That's not really a big deal except I can't visit my favorite website on it.

Update: Lots of new photos added.

There's bad, and then there's this.

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:01:51 GMT

What do you get when you mix email with a really bad version of Second Life and spam eating sharks? Why, 3D Mailbox of course.

From their website:

3D Mailbox delivers a fantastic, smarter e-mail experience. Immerse yourself in 3-D as you read and write your mail. Relax to the sounds of the ocean, seagulls, and cool tunes. Hang with your mail poolside, or feed your spam to the sharks! Deleting spam is so much fun, you may wish you had more!

Say Hello To Melody Rae, Again

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:06:55 GMT

I bought a better camera.

More like that one.

Don't Try This At Home

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:59:46 GMT

On the Mac there's a nifty little utility called Growl. It's a system-wide notification service that other applications use to display attractive popup status messages. There are all kinds of programs that utilize it, namely instant messaging apps and other small utilities. Sometimes they're really useful, other times they're fun and occasionally they're a little bit stupid.

I wrote a really stupid one. I mean a really, really stupid one. I added Growl notifications to dashing.com.

So now every time someone visits this site a little window pops up on my desktop announcing it. Is that the stupidest thing ever or what? :-)

Now I confess that it is kind of cool. But the idea of the website sending notifications to my desktop Mac whenever people visit is really a terrible idea. But it was such a neat little hack I had to do it. :-)

So for you Rails programmers who are bored, here's how I did it.

First download Growl and install it if you don't already have it.

Next you'll need Ruby Growl. You can install that via RubyGems.

sudo gem install ruby-growl

Once that's installed add an after_filter to the top of your application.rb controller file.

after_filter :growl

Then add the following code to the bottom of application.rb.

Note: I'm using the Acts As Authenticated style user model code and helpers, so you may need to change this for your app, or remove the username display entirely.

 1   private

 2   require 'ruby-growl'

 3   def growl

 4     if logged_in?

 5       user = current_user.login

 6     else

 7       user = request.env['REMOTE_ADDR']

 8     end

 9     g = Growl.new 'home.server.address', 'Website Visitors',['visit'], ['visit'], 'PASSWORD'

10     g.notify 'visit', 'yoursite.com',"#{user} visited #{request.env['REQUEST_URI']}", 0, false

11   rescue

12     # Something didn't work

13   end

You'll want to replace "home.server.address" with the IP address or hostname of your Mac. Replace "PASSWORD" with your Growl network password and "yoursite.com" with the name of your website.

You'll need to enable incoming connections in the Network section of the Growl control panel, and be sure to set a password. Also check the "Allow remote application registration" button, at least until you've received your first message. Finally, if you have a firewall you'll also need to allow port 9887 access to your Mac over UDP.

That's all there is to it. It's really pretty fun to see all of the popups...at first anyway. Though I can't imagine this would work well with even a moderately popular website. In fact even dashing.com is too busy for this and I'll likely turn it off shortly. But it was a fun hack just the same.

Maybe this will inspire someone to come up with a useful reason to incorporate Growl into a Rails app? If you do, be sure to let me know.

It would be funny if it wasn't true

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:47:04 GMT

This might be the most prescient article I've ever read. It was clearly meant as satire, coming from The Onion, a brilliant satirical website. But what's amazing is that this was written in January 2001 and has turned out to be eerily accurate. Here's an excerpt:

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

It goes on, you really should read it. It would be really, really funny if it hadn't turned out to be true.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Say Hello To Melody Rae

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:12:33 GMT

Born 02/13/07

9 pounds, 3 ounces, 21 inches

Lots of personality. :-)

Update: A couple more photos have been posted.

I Love Christian Rock

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:15:18 GMT

I saw this incredibly inspirational video today and wanted to share it with all of my non-gay God fearing Christian friends here at dashing.com. This guy really understands Jesus' message and articulates in a way the kids can really understand, man.

This world is doomed I tell you, doomed. :-(

No John, There Is No Santa Claus

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 02:13:17 GMT

Like most four year olds, I believed whole heartedly in Santa Claus. I mean, why wouldn't I? Each Christmas there were gifts under the tree from him. I saw him on TV, and in pictures and drawings. I even met him once at the mall, but I was terrified and refused to sit with him. I eventually did, but was none too happy about it. I think the beard creeped me out. But despite all that, I had faith that he was real. No, faith is the wrong word, it implies that perhaps I knew it was improbable but believed anyway. I didn't believe in Santa, Santa was a fact.

Then I went to my grandmothers house for the weekend, and that all changed.

Grandma: Hi John, you must be excited about Christmas, it's only a week away!

Me: Oh yes! I can't wait, Santa is bringing me an Evel Knievel stunt cycle!

Grandma: No he isn't, there's no Santa Claus. Your mom and dad buy all the gifts and just say they're from Santa Claus

Me: Huh? No, last year he brought me the Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock action figures with the Enterprise transporter, and this year it's the Evel Knievel stunt cycle.

Now, at this point you'd think she would have just given up. Clearly I was too young to be told the truth. But you don't know my grandmother.

Grandma: Are you stupid? There's no Santa Claus. Your mother bought you those action figures, I was with her at the store. All of that Santa Claus stuff is just a load of crap. You're too old to believe in that.

Me: So you're telling me it's all a lie?

Grandma: It's not really a lie, it's more like a story or a fairy tale. There's no Easter Bunny either.

Oh shit, no Santa? No Easter Bunny? What the hell was going on. My four year old heart was growing heavy.

Me: But what about the basket full of candy?

Grandma: That was from me.

FYI, Grandma likes to take credit for things, I'm sure my mom really bought the Easter basket.

Me: From you? What else isn't real?

Grandma: None of it is real. There's no tooth fairy, no Easter Bunny and no Santa Claus. Do you really believe in a walking and talking bunny rabbit who gives little children eggs and candy each year? Or even worse that a fairy sneaks into your room and give you 50 cents in exchange for one of your baby teeth? It's time for you to grow up John.

Me: But, but.....

I was starting to believe her. I think the only thing that I trusted more than the existence of Santa Claus was my grandmother. Could it be? Was it all just a trick to make me behave? Were my four older brothers in on the joke too?

It was at this time that a terrible fear came over me. A fear that ran as deep as any I have felt before or since. I suddenly didn't care about the Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy, not even Santa Claus.

If they weren't real, did that mean....

Me: Grandma! What about Evel Knievel? Is he real?

Grandma: Even Knievel? Of course he's real. He's just a horses ass.

I slept well that night with the knowledge that Evel Knievel was indeed real. I also was fairly certain that "Santa" (my Mom) would be bringing me the stunt cycle I so desired come Christmas. All was right again in the world.

To this day my mother is still upset at my grandma for telling me all of this at such a young age. I vividly remember my relief when I was told that Evel was real. This isn't a joke, it really happened. For years to come I would argue with my school friends trying to explain that Santa wasn't real. Thankfully they didn't believe me.

Oh and in case you're wondering, yes I did get the Evel Knievel stunt cycle that Christmas. It was the first gift I opened and I don't know if I even cared about the rest. Man that thing was fun, but he always crashed.

Merry Christmas everyone (or happy whatever else you celebrate). Have a great new year and I'll see you in 2007!

Noriko Nakagoshi Drama On YouTube

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 02:10:14 GMT

For all five of you who care, the other day I came across "Stars Echo" on You Tube. It's a two part drama staring Noriko Nakagoshi (the dashing.com girl) and it's subtitled in English!

I haven't watched it yet, but Nori can do no wrong so I'm sure it's great. :-)

Have a look if you're interested. It's in *gasp* 12 parts, so I'm linking to the search.

Stars Echo.

Enjoy!

Super Easy Collect For ActiveRecord Arrays

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:18:39 GMT

Disclaimer: Yes I'm fully aware the 99.9% of the people who read this site will not only have no idea what I'm talking about, but wouldn't care even if they did. But for the .1% who do, this is really, really cool! :-)

Recently at work I've been writing a Ruby On Rails application for our Network group to monitor and track our environment. The fellow I've been working with has written a bunch of really amazing Perl scripts that scour the network and collect lots of information about all of the devices. I'm writing the Rails front end to work with that data, and in the process teaching him Ruby (and Rails), so once we're done he can take it over and maintain the app. It was while showing him some things in IRB that I discovered an area for improvement that would really make working with a collection of ActiveRecord objects easier and the code far more beautiful.

Here's how it worked:

>> locations = Location.find(:all)

>> just_the_names_and_ids = locations.collect{|loc| [loc.id, loc.name]}

=> [[1, "New York Zone"], [2, "Los Angeles Zone"], [4, "Boston Zone"], 

[5, "San Francisco Zone"], [6, "Development Center"]]

That's really groovy, and something that every Rubyist does in his/her sleep. The syntax for collect, being a block can be a bit confusing for a new programmer though. Then I remembered the ActiveRecord finder syntax.

Location.find_by_city_and_function("Los Angeles", "Production")

Why can't we do the same sort of thing with collect? Now you can!

>> locations = Location.find(:all)

>> just_the_names_and_ids = locations.collect_id_and_name

=> [[1, "New York Zone"], [2, "Los Angeles Zone"], [4, "Boston Zone"], 

[5, "San Francisco Zone"], [6, "Development Center"]]

>> just_the_names = locations.collect_name

=> [["New York Zone"], ["Los Angeles Zone"], ["Boston Zone"], 

["San Francisco Zone"], ["Development Center"]]

>> names_and_cities = locations.collect_name_and_city

=> [["New York Zone", "New York"], ["Los Angeles Zone", "Los Angeles"], 

["Boston Zone", "Boston"], ["San Francisco Zone", "San Francisco"], 

["Development Center", "Chicago"]]

I love it! It's so much more readable and "Rails like" that I'm really surprised that it wasn't something built in. But since it's so easy to extend Ruby (and Rails) it takes just a tiny bit of code to add that functionality in. Just paste the code below into your environment.rb and you're good to go.

class Array

  def method_missing(method_id, *arguments)

    if match = /collect_([_a-zA-Z]\w*)/.match(method_id.to_s)

      attributes = match.captures.last.split('_and_')

      self.collect{|array| attributes.collect{|attr| array[attr.to_sym]}}

    else

      super

    end

  end

end

This could easily be made into a plugin, or stuck into a .rb file in the lib directory and required. It's up to you. Hopefully someone out there will find this handy. I know I have.

Caveats: This won't work with included associations. Example:

Device.find(:all, :include => :location).collect_name_and_city

That will return a collection with the device names, but city will be nil because it was an included association. It would be easy to extend the functionality to support that, but I couldn't think of a clean syntax to allow it. So I figure it's best to keep it as it is.

Finally, this will work on Array's of hashes too, and not just ActiveRecord objects.

>> pets = [{:name => "Browser", :kind => "Dog"}, 

{:name => "Fluffy", :kind => "Cat"}, 

{:name => "Noriko", :kind => "Japanese Actress"}]

>> pets.collect_name_and_kind

=> [["Browser", "Dog"], ["Fluffy", "Cat"], ["Noriko", "Japanese Actress"]]

I Wish I Had A Talking Toilet Too

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:58:33 GMT

Ok, this is the funniest thing ever. Make sure you stick with it until then end, it only gets better (worse?) as it goes on. Thanks to Amanda Jane and her post in the forums for the link.