As the title of this article says, I want you, oh humble reader to stop. Stop right now.

Because if you are an average American, then the odds are nearly 1 in 4 that you're currently watching television.

That's right. Somehow, some way, Americans manage to spend a quarter of their day watching TV. ON AVERAGE. So please just stop.

Listen, I'm not the most educated, insightful, creative guy out there. I'm not toiling away at inventions and ideas that benefit the whole of mankind. For someone who has a crumb of musical talent (a minor in music, to boot!), I don't spend much time practicing it, or even listening to it. When I read, it's largely articles on web blogs, wikipedia, and online equivalents of print publications.

But I certainly don't spend anywhere near-- checks website-- 353.1 minutes ON AVERAGE watching television. Here are a list of things you could do, Mr. or Ms. Joe Average, if you turned off the television for even a single day:

• Write 4 blog posts


• Learn jQuery


• Burn 300 Calories and subsequently significantly reduce cancer risk


• Save the planet a couple of times


• Advance the visibility of atheism in America


• Learn to play the guitar


• Hug 765 people


• And still have 10.1 minutes remaining to listen to Bit Bop Three 2.62 times

Not to mention all of the time you could spend keeping up with local and national news from your local newspaper or its equivalent website, keeping track of the actions of local politicians, checking in with friends and relatives, telling a story to your child, learning more about a cause that you care about, etc etc.

I'm sorry, but television is simply one of the greatest wastes of time there is. Which, I imagine, is probably the reason why so many Americans spend so much time with it. I have the impression that people largely don't like their jobs and when they get home they'd rather 'veg out' in front of the television because they can't motivate themselves to do anything that would be productive or enriching to their own lives or those of others. Please, please...I want to challenge myself and everyone out there to fight the urge to passively consume useless media like television, and instead take up an activity or two that actively engages your mind, talent, and personality.

We'll all be better people for it!

Funny thing, I'm a programmer but this is my first fully nerdy technical this-is-how-I-did-xyz-task post. Go figure.

Anyways, here is some detail about accessing Java classes from within an XSLT stylesheet, so long as you are processing it with Xalan. (For yummy syntax highlighting, here's the post as a Pastie)

The main gist is that any built-in Java class can be accessed by using the 'xalan://java.package.name.ClassName' syntax. It is easiest if you 'import' the classes you need into your stylesheet using a namespace declaration at the top of the file. For example:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  xmlns:cal="xalan://java.util.GregorianCalendar"
  xmlns:tz="xalan://java.util.TimeZone"
  xmlns:fmt="xalan://java.text.SimpleDateFormat">

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <!-- Stylesheet goodness goes here -->
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Then later on in your stylesheet, you can call functions on the class using the defined namespace. In this context, static members (aka 'class functions', such as Calendar.getInstance()) are called simply using the namespace and a colon. Other member functions (such as Calendar.set(int field, int value), which operate on a specific instance), take the instance variable as the first parameter, and all other parameters are shifted (so the first parameter becomes the second, the second the third, etc).

Here's an example of this which parses a string that contains a GMT time and outputs it as a PST:

  <xsl:template name="FormatDate">
    <xsl:param name="date" />
    
    <!-- incoming format: YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ -->
    <!-- outbound format: MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM AM -->

    <xsl:variable name="tz_pt" select="tz:getTimeZone('America/Los_Angeles')" />
    <xsl:variable name="tz_utc" select="tz:getTimeZone('UTC')" />
    <xsl:variable name="fmt_in" select="fmt:new(&quot;yyyyMMdd'T'HHmmss&quot;)" />
    <xsl:variable name="fmt_out" select="fmt:new('MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss a')" />

    <!--  Set the output time format to PST, and the input time format to GMT.
          These statements don't actually output anything. -->
    <xsl:value-of select="fmt:setTimeZone($fmt_out, $tz_pt)" />
    <xsl:value-of select="fmt:setTimeZone($fmt_in, $tz_utc)" />

    <xsl:if test="$date != ''">
      <xsl:variable name="src_date" select="fmt:parse($fmt_in, $date)" />
      <xsl:value-of select="fmt:format($fmt_out, $src_date)" />
    </xsl:if>
  </xsl:template>

Note the use of 'xsl:value-of' statements in order to call an instance method on our variables. In XSLT, you have to wrap your method call in a 'select=' type statement, either in a 'xsl:value-of' or as the evaluation of an 'xsl:variable' in order for them to be executed.

You could call this somewhere in your style sheet by selecting the date value you wish to convert.

  <xsl:template match="first_president">
    George Washington was born on <xsl:call-template name="FormatDate">
        <xsl:with-param name="date" select="birth_date"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
  </xsl:template match="first_president">

Looking back, I probably thought that if I didn't blog about it, it would go away.

2009 has not, so far, been kind to Travis Briggs (Travis Briggs' blog, this is the blog of Travis Briggs).

My main problem is that on January 12th, I was laid off from my job. With a conciliatory tone, my boss explained that my work was exemplary, that he was thoroughly impressed with my contributions, but that there simply was no longer room for me at the company. Another developer got cut at the same time as me. It turns out that they let me go exactly on my 2 month 'anniversary'. The most crushing immediate impact of being laid off was that they cut off my health benefits immediately (not at the end of the month). I ended up having to pay over 200 dollars for prescription drugs later that week-- and that was only for a half month's supply! I read through my options, and COBRA would cost me like 415 dollars a month, so I should probably get that, seeing that my prescriptions would then only cost 45 dollars and I would be covered for other ailments (at about the same cost as a month of drugs now).

Notice that I introduced the above as being my 'main' problem. Additionally, I have recently turned twenty-four (on the 13th, the day after losing my job). I'll admit there was the passing joy of celebrating the occasion with my family (my mom baked an awesome double-layered peanut butter chocolate cake) and some friends. However it seems the main function of this date was to call into relief the fact that the past 2-3 years have been wasted. I've given up a great job (Brightcove) had multiple failed romantic relationships, failed at saving any money I've earned and barely made a dent in my student loan payments, and failed to accomplish anything significant or worthwhile outside of my professional life, which in itself has not lived up to its full potential. My social circle (friends and acquaintances) has shrunk rather than grown, besides the fact that I am a fat, unemployed computer programmer living in his parents' basement.

Mother. Fucker.

I'm a generally optimistic person, though, and I'm convinced things can get better. Not that they necessarily will-- I know it will take work and dedication and of all things luck on my part-- but that they can. Here's hoping.

He's like the surprise Christmas present that you forgot to open Christmas morning. Tonight, while pondering the awful things going on in Gaza and how completely incompetent and ineffectual our asshole President is, I remembered that the dark knight (ahem) is on his way. It made me really happy, and I'm literally filled with hope that he can do something about this mess and our economic troubles.

Two other things. I'm going to the gym tomorrow (tomorrow!) and I'm signing the fuck up. My fat pants were snug to put on today, and that's just intolerable. I've been fat before, and it makes the second time easier. But getting even fatter than I've ever been, when I've already been pretty fat? No fucking way. NO FUCKING WAY!

I don't even care. I have no life, I can go to the gym every fucking day. All it means is taking a later train home. And I can afford a personal trainer too, to 1) teach me a bunch of fancy-pants exercises and best practices so that I maximize my workout and 2) inspire me to keep a schedule/appointments (harder to blow off the gym when you have an appointment with a trainer).

As for the second thing, I FINALLY bought a book that I've wanted for more than 3 years. It is The Computer Music Tutorial by Curtis Roads. It's basically a textbook for all things computer music. Not just MIDI, Digital Audio Workstation, home-music-production stuff. We're talking synthesis, digital signal processing, etc. Hardcore stuff like you'd learn in Bianchi's classes if he was teaching grad students. I already own The Csound Book, a similarly intimidating tome. However I found The Csound Book to be too application specific, though it was fun to work through some of the tutorials.

Anyways, with the new book, I finally plan on pursuing my dream of programming/creating a virtual analog synthesizer in Audio Unit format. This goal is a bit 'rained on' by my discovery the other day (while doing 6+ hours of research) of Rham which is EXACTLY what I wanted to do. My heart is so broken, I was tempted to use a <blink> tag.

But at least I'm not going to be fat anymore.

Oh and Christmas was nice.