Jason Bock's Weblog

I Fought the Weeds, and the...Weeds Won

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:29:37 GMT

I give up.

Last year, we stopped using a lawn service to treat our lawn. Ever since then, despite my best efforts, our lawn has gone to shit. Weeds everywhere. This morning, I tried to pull them, and after an hour's worth of work, I realized I barely made a dent in the weeds.

I'm calling that service again this morning.

I'm In a Morbid Saint Video!!

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:07:19 GMT

Now this is quite bizarre (i.e. don't ask how I thought of this), but there was a band from Sheboygan in the late 80s called Morbid Saint. They were the death-speed metal "satan" band (for lack of a better term) and Sardonyx (the band I was in) was the Christian alternative. Not that we were any better or worse, and frankly it wasn't that big of a deal. We ended up talking to them a couple of times and while I didn't get into their singing some of the songs were decent. On a whim, I decided to YouTube 'em, and I found this video:

It's just a bunch of pictures, but I started looking at the pics, and I thought, hey, that's the battle of the bands we both did! I wonder if I got in on a picture...and I did (comes in around 1:18)!

Too funny :).

By the way, the guys next to me are the members of Sardonyx. The guy to my left is Mike Gooding (drummer), the guy to my right is Bryon Zimmermann (bassist/singer) and to Bryon's right is Tim Heinen (guitarist).

The Power of Firehoses

Wed, 14 May 2008 17:42:58 GMT

My brother-in-law is a volunteer fireman - I think he'd get a kick out of this:

The Boys

Wed, 14 May 2008 14:13:46 GMT

I haven't posted a picture of my boys in a while - he's a great one we got recently:

Fortunate

Wed, 14 May 2008 13:41:47 GMT

I'm sitting here this morning, coding away, listening to some great songs, and all I can think of is this word: fortunate.

How fortunate I am to have the job that I do.

How fortunate I am to have met such a wonderful person in Liz.

How fortunate I am to have such amazing boys: Hayden and Ryan.

How fortunate I am to have a house to live in.

How fortunate I am to have great parents.

How fortunate I am to have all the stuff that I do :).

How fortunate I am to have the education I do.

How fortunate I am to not have gone down other paths in my life.

There are probably lots of other things I could think of, but that's the word of the day: fortunate. Yes, we all are responsible for our lives due to the choices we make, but sometimes things happen that we really didn't control, and sometimes those things can be amazing, wonderful things.

Just think of what you're fortunate of. Blog it, if you wish.

More Proof Bill O'Reilly Is a Top-Of-The-Line Asshat

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:06:41 GMT

Just in case you needed more proof:

Wow, he was on "Inside Edition"?

(Hat tip: Cynical-C)

Implicit Conversion

Mon, 12 May 2008 18:13:20 GMT

Recently I ran into a problem where I had to dive into the C# bag of tricks. It's not a complicated trick and it's been around for quite some time (which is why I had to dive into the bag, rathen than skim the LINQ surface). But I've never used it until now, so here's a quick review of implicit conversions.

I needed to create a percentage value. Basically, I wanted to restrict a decimal between the values of 0 to 100 inclusive [1]. So rather than spread that rule around in code, I created a tiny struct:

using System;

namespace ImplicitConversion
{
    public struct Percentage
    {
        private decimal value;

        public Percentage(decimal value)
        {
            if(value < 0m || value > 100m)
            {
                throw new ArgumentException("The value must be between 0 and 100 inclusive.", "value");
            }

            this.value = value;
        }

        public decimal Value
        {
            get
            {
                return this.value;
            }
        }
    }
}

OK, that works [2], but then I created a function like this:

static void Report(Percentage one, Percentage two)
{
    Console.Out.WriteLine(one);
    Console.Out.WriteLine(two);
}

and I accidentally used it like this:

Program.Report(10m, 20m);

Of course, to fix it, I could've done this:

Program.Report(new Percentage(10m), 
   new Percentage(20m));

but that felt...unnatural. Why couldn't I just convert it? That would be so cool if I could...hey, wait a minute! C# has implicit conversion:

using System;

namespace ImplicitConversion
{
    public struct Percentage
    {
        private decimal value;

        public Percentage(decimal value)
        {
            if(value < 0m || value > 100m)
            {
                throw new ArgumentException("The value must be between 0 and 100 inclusive.", "value");
            }

            this.value = value;
        }

        public static implicit operator decimal(Percentage value)
        {
            return value.value;
        }

        public static implicit operator Percentage(decimal value)
        {
            return new Percentage(value);
        }

        public decimal Value
        {
            get
            {
                return this.value;
            }
        }
    }
}

And all was well again.

Again, I've never used implict (or explicit) conversion since C# came out. But in this case it seems like a natural fit.

[1] Yes, I realize a percentage can be negative and go beyond the upper range I gave. Just ignore that for now.

[2] I would've like to make it generic, but then I would've wanted to constrain the type to unsigned numerics, and that's not doable in the where clauses. Plus, I just needed to get this done with the decimal type, so I declared YAGNI :).

No Relation Between Vaccines and Autism

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:42:02 GMT

This post sums it up very nicely. He says it with the data to back it up, and he also notes that he has a child that he would never wish such a disorder upon. But vaccines are not to blame, and he shows just how much worse things would be if kids wouldn't be vaccinated.

Are my kids getting vaccinations? HELL YES.