Recent Entries

Entry tags:

politics

political misc

I think it is frightening that saying Obama's plans will "spread the wealth" is considered negative campaigning. I thought the appeal of living in a prosperous country was that we could all share in the prosperity -- but apparently that makes me a socialist, and therefore Un-American. (WTF.)
There is this ridiculous anti-Obama ad running on TV out here. Basically it is about Obama not having executive experience, but the end is just totally stupid. They're talking about the economic crisis, and how the next president will have to deal with it. They show a picture of the President's chair in the oval office, and the voiceover says, "This would be Obama's FIRST CRISIS . . . . . . . . . in this chair." I laughed when I heard that little qualifier at the end. It would be McCain's first crisis in that chair too, morons.
A dead bear cub was found on a university campus draped with Obama signs. W. T. F.
I found out at my Spanish class last night that there is now an Obama campaign office here in Carmel, IN. I stopped by after class hoping to get a yard sign. Apparently the whole state is out of yard signs, but one of the volunteers had a couple makeshift signs that her husband had made -- two Obama posters stapled back-to-back and attached to a couple of wooden stakes. I took one. I also signed up to canvass on Saturday, it will be interesting to see how it goes.
I mentioned that I had come looking for a yard sign more intently now because I had seen so many new McCain yard signs crop up lately. The guy in the Obama office told me that apparently McCain's campaigning in Indiana is mostly that he has a whole shitload of yard signs, and that some of the McCain campaign staff have just been going around sticking them in random people's lawns. Also apparently some people have had Obama yard signs stolen from their yards.
Have you guys seen these gigantic yard signs? I don't think I've seen any for McCain or Obama but they are becoming popular for local politicians (esp. our incumbent governor). They're a yard sign, but they're about four feet tall and six feet wide or so. Crazy.

Current Mood: amused

funny typo of the day

From comments on the latest PhD comics which was about academic salaries and points out some discrepancies between men's and women's salaries . . . Someone started talking about the "sex ration."

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Pandora: Karelia - Restless

Entry tags:

funny,
music

In the chorus of "Shine On" by Needtobreathe, they are I guess saying "Shine on, shine on," but the song came up on Pandora while I was looking at another window and not paying attention, and I found myself thinking, "What the heck is this song? Are they saying shalom, shalom??"

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

funny,
politics

presidential startrek

Courtesy of

quigonejinn.

Current Mood: annoyed

Entry tags:

rant,
wpf

curse you, wpf

Why do you not respect minimum and maximum sizes? WHY??? I am left doing all sorts of crap because I want my control to size to its content, but if it hits its maximum size, I want the content to size to IT. Plus, its maximum size is dependent on the current sizes of OTHER things. Argh.

Because WPF fails to work as I expect, I have spent the past two days trying to implement a feature that would have been super-easy with SplitPanel in WinForms.

Entry tags:

etiquette

etiquette question

Who are you supposed to send cards to on holidays? Do you send cards to people you are going to be seeing on the holiday for a family celebration? Do you send cards to everyone in your family? If it's a Jewish holiday, do you send cards to family members who married non-Jews?

You know you're in the midwest when...

...you go to buy Rosh Hashanah cards, and there are more "Ministry Appreciation Day" cards in the store, and THREE times as many "Boss's Day" cards. Oh, and "Sweetest Day" cards. WTF? They seriously had like three Rosh Hashanah cards. I guess I need to go shopping in a more Jewish neighborhood.

Current Mood: accomplished

plumbing success

This morning I fixed our bathroom sink that has been totally clogged for the past, like, three months. I feel very accomplished! It smelled totally nasty though and all the pipes were full of nast.

I also felt extra proud of myself because a year ago the thought that I could be able to unscrew those pipes and then put them back together (leak-free) with my bare hands, or even with a tool, was totally laughable.

The only bad part: my hands feel like dried up clay now. I already slathered them with lotion but they are still icky.

Entry tags:

not that any of you care....

...but I just found some excellent theme music for one of the characters in the Doctrine of Labyrinths series: "The Rejection" by Dangerous Muse. You can hear it on their myspace page.

( lyrics behind the cut )

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

followup to WPF post

For anyone who was wondering, here is how I solved the problem. First, any time the window is resized I set the base grid's width and height equal to the client width and height, which I get by using interop to do my Win32 call to GetClientRect. Then I set the window's minimum width and height equal to the sum of the minimum widths/heights of my grid contents plus the difference between the values I get from GetWindowRect and GetClientRect.

When I drag a gridsplitter, I handle the DragDelta event. When I get a DragDelta, I set the MaximumSize of the pixel-sized grid piece (ColumnDefinition or RowDefinition) I'm dragging equal to the total grid size minus the min sizes of the other pixel-sized rows/cols minus the actual size of the star-sized rows/cols. I also set those maximum sizes when the whole window/grid is resized.

Additionally, when the window is resized I compare each DefinitionBase's actual size to its maximum size, and if it's bigger I set it equal to the maximum size with pixel sizing.

There are also min sizes set on all my DefinitionBases. If anyone is interested let me know and I can explain better or send you a code snippet.

Current Mood: aggravated

Entry tags:

WPF resizing and gridsplitter issues

Maybe some of the WPF users who read my LJ can help. If not, at least I get to rant.

Here are the problems:

GridSplitter only really works right if everything is using star sizing.
GridSplitter likes to ignore the minimum sizes you have set on columns.
If you are using a GridSplitter between a pixel-sized column and a star-sized column, when you drag, rather than the GridSplitter stopping when it hits the star-sized column's MinWidth, it will keep going and resize the grid so it's bigger than your window such that you can push all of the star-sized column off the window entirely.
The obvious solution would be to bind your Grid's width and height to the Window's width and height (since of course having its HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment set to Stretch doesn't fix this problem). But wait! What about the window frame? Okay, you say, I will bind the Grid's width and height to the Window's client width and height. Sounds easy enough. EXCEPT THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO GET THE WINDOW'S CLIENT AREA. This was incredibly simple to do in WinForms, but nearly impossible in WPF. In fact, the solution I have seen proposed is to actually do a pinvoke of the Win32 function for GetClientRect.
Windows do not respect the minimum sizes of their content. For example, if I have a Window and in it I have a Grid, and my Grid has MinWidth and MinHeight set, I can still resize my Window down to nothing. Note that attempting to bind the Window's MinWidth and MinHeight to the Grid's encounters issues because of the window frame too.

Gaaaaaah. Apparently the "correct" solution to at least the GridSplitter problems is to create a custom GridSplitter that will magically work right. Too bad nobody posted their code online, and I am left flailing trying to figure out what I need to do in my GridSplitter to make it work!

lolz

I posted some pics of Carter to http://www.ihasahotdog.com so you should all go make Carter lolz and post them in the comments or on your own LJ! They are here: http://mine.icanhascheezburger.com/pictures-by-paperclippy/pics

help me find this feature

I seem to remember at some point that there was some feature where I could search for other LJ users who had similar interests to me. Can anyone help me find it?

Current Mood: hungry

Entry tags:

food

baking/cooking advice

We find ourselves overloaded with beets from our CSA. As of right now, we have two quarts of pickled beets in the fridge and at least three bunches of beets that haven't been cooked yet, plus we're getting more this weekend. We've already had borscht up to our eyeballs.

My question is this: can I substitute shredded beets for shredded carrot or zucchini in breads, cakes, and muffins? What other tasty (and healthy) things can I make with beets?

I'm going to try using the big zucchini we got to make stuffed zucchini tonight (stuffed with couscous). All of a sudden I have a giant fear that I actually used up all the couscous and we don't have any left in the pantry . . .

Entry tags:

meme

meme

Ten things I like that start with the letter . . . F
(Comment and I'll assign you a letter!)

Fixing things. At heart I really do like to work with my hands.
Folks, particularly friends and family (two more F's).
Freedom
Finishing things, doesn't matter what it was.
Fur, on living animals, especially my dog. He is so soft!
Fudge. Why do beach towns always have fudge shops? I don't know what they have to do with the beach, but fudge is good stuff. I like mint and peanut butter flavors the best, after plain chocolate.
Floating on calm waters . . . in a boat on a lake, or on an inflatable chair in a pool, or on a raft in a calm river . . .
Fitness. I am happy because my knees cooperated and I got good workouts three times this week.
Fancy clothes, especially of the ball gown variety. I have too few occasions to wear such clothing -- in fact I think I've had exactly two: prom and my wedding.
Fresh fruit, just plucked off the tree and still warm from the sun. Now I am drooling thinking about how I used to sit on the roof and pick tangerines off our trees back home, and try to get the dog's attention by spitting seeds down at him.

Entry tags:

RLP

http://www.lolcatbible.com

Also, LOLCODE.

(no subject)

Wow. I just got trouted.

Entry tags:

meme

foods meme

Via

avani and

coraa.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/ linking to your results.

( The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred )

Current Mood: angry

Entry tags:

work,
wpf

.NET 3.5 SP 1, where are you?

I can't believe that I have to wait for SP1 to be released in order for multiselection and drag/drop in a list box to work right. That is so incredibly stupid. Who tested this stuff? What made them think that if I select a bunch of items and want to drag the whole group, I have to hold down the control key while selecting the last item and instead of clicking on it start the drag then?

The worst part is that all the fixes to this that I've found online result in breaking another part of my app. Arrrrrrrrrrrgh. Apparently it will be fixed in SP1, which is out in beta right now, but I need to wait for an official version.

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

funny

comic of the day

I couldn't resist reposting today's PhD comic.