Text to Regex Generator

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So on my blogroll, Jason Kottke posted this link: http://txt2re.com/. What is it? For those of you that don’t know, it’s a text to regular expression generator. What the heck is a regular expression? It’s basically a way to match a certain string (or sub-string) or text. It could be anything from looking for punctuations, certain patterns, words, and so forth. I have to admit, regular expressions (or regex) can be fairly tricky sometimes, but it’s definitely a great tool, especially in the computational field. So what is this generator suppose to do? You type in a string of text, then you proceed to select the text you want to search for with your expression by clicking on the links below those letters or words. At the very end, the generator spits out a piece of code that you can use to help find that string. Continue reading →

Racial Comments

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This week seemed to be one of those weeks where I managed to see random racial comments get thrown out, either on the internet or in person. Not exactly sure why, but I felt this calling to talk about it briefly. You probably heard Alexandra Wallace’s comments with regards to Asians at UCLA. Not sure what really prompted it (though I’ve heard random rumors here and there), but it seems rather idiotic to do so in such a public forum like YouTube and while at a university where nearly 40% of the student population is Asian. Though, I’m not going to completely deny that everything she said was false, but regardless, I’m pretty sure wasn’t smart. I can understand if she’s was trying to be humorous or be comedic (though awkward to do it), but it doesn’t seem like it was the intent of her rant. I will admit though that death threats by others weren’t really warranted either. To inform and educate would have been far better than to try to run her out and let her maintain that stereotype. Continue reading →

Buses

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I take the bus over to UW from Bellevue whenever I need to go to campus. It saves me money, gas, and car maintenance in the long run.

Whenever I’m on a bus, there’s feels like this unwritten and unspoken code for where to sit. If at all possible, unless they’re a friend of yours, create as much space between you and everyone on the bus. For example, you’re sitting alone on the bus and someone else comes on. That person can sit anywhere they want… Except for the spots adjacent to you. If a spot opens up on a crowded bus that creates space between you and the person next to you, take it immediately. Basically create space between you and the rest of the riders on the bus.

However, every so often, you get that one person that chooses to sit next to you, even though there’s a ton of other seats that would give the both of you a lot if space. As a result, you’re squeezed up against to the window, subtly holding your nose to not breathe in the the weird smell coming from their jacket. A spot opens up to create some space between you and them, yet they still choose to sit right next to you. You wait… And wait… And wait… Still not moving. Still taking in that smell from them. They finally get off on some stop and you can breathe a sigh of relief.

Today was one of those days… Not awkward at all.

How One Church Handled Westboro’s Protests Against Them

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Westboro Baptist Church goes around, protesting, putting up signs like “God hates homosexuals”, “God hates this”, “God hates that”. It’s pretty dumb. Well, this time, they go protesting three churches because of the churches’ belief that God loves everyone, which He does. So how does one church respond? You can read it here. (Thanks again to Josiah)

(Note: While, I might be a Christian, I’m not in support of the message Westboro brings to the world. I could go on a rant about their hateful message, but judging them is pretty much as hypocritical as them judging people for their sexual orientation, beliefs, etc.)

Playing Against an Old Team

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So I’ve played in the city soccer recreational leagues for about four years now. And in those four years, I’ve played against two of my old teams. It’s been pretty mixed in terms of experiences.

When I first started playing in the leagues, I had joined up with one team as a keeper with a few friends. However, we eventually left to start our own team since we’d be interested in doing so for quite a while. That summer we jumped up divisions after dominating in our first season and I played that old team. I made a number of friends on that team, so despite the competitiveness and ferocity during the games, it was relatively friendly (minus the drama in one game after I kicked off a player from the team and them joining that old team). It was overall fun during that rivalry. Heck, even some of them are on the current team today. Continue reading →

Hating on “FML”

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FML. “Fuck my life.” It’s been the latest craze in terms of acronyms since Super Bad (I think) for the past year or so. I see it all the time, whether it be on a news feed in Facebook, someone just having a bad day and something small or minuscule gets added on to that, or just something totally random that’s supposedly “horrible”. But every time that I see those three letters together, it just makes me want to punch them for saying it. It’s probably become one of my biggest pet peeves as of late. It’s probably one of the most inconsiderate and unthankful things you could really say. Think about it. Things get somewhat difficult or rough, and all you can think of is, “Fuck my life?” I left my keys in the house… “FML?” I failed one exam. “FML?” Girl doesn’t call me back. “FML?” Something doesn’t go your way and you’re complaining to the point that you say “fuck my life”.

I’m just going to leave myself open to criticism by saying that people that say that are pretty selfish and unthankful. If your life was as terrible as it is, you might want to think again. Think about the people out there that have no voice or are constantly censored by higher authorities. Or the kid that’s having to run around selling lottery tickets to strangers in order to help provide food on the table for their family. Or the homeless guy that lost everything because of something that was completely out of his control. And yet, there’s that one person that thinks their life is more awful that they’ll say it. By the grace of God, you should be thankful for where you are right now. Because if it wasn’t for His grace in your life, things could be far, far worse…

Maybe I’m taking it a little further than people actually mean with those three little letters, but then again, you probably are implying something by saying “FML”. That something went wrong and because of it, you’re feeling crappy. But if that’s the case, so be it. I mean, if you’re reading this post right now, I’m pretty sure you’re a lot better off than 99% of the world population. But when you write or say something like that, think again about what you’re really saying.