Everybody Could Use a Little Therapy

<ul> <li>WORK IN PROGRESS *</li> </ul>

2009-06-17T02:54:34Z

17 After the mental breakdown that was know as 2008, I knew I needed to make some changes or else … well I don’t even want to contemplate what would have been in that case. All I wanted for 2009 was to feel normal and be okay with myself and the decisions I was making. I needed to break free from the hole I dug myself into — a really deep hole. But sometimes you can’t do everything yourself. And while it’s really hard to take that step and admit that you need help, once you do, climbing out of the that hole no longer seems like such a daunting task. everybody-could-use-a-little-therapy Everybody Could Use a Little Therapy

2009-06-17T05:20:44Z

7 I remember interval training for my track days. And I remember them being a nightmare, with the worst being the 3200 meter ladder. Just the thought of it could make a grown man cry. The ladder started with a run of 3200 meters run, then you were given a 400 meter “rest” job. After which you continued down the latter, each time halving the distance until you reached 400 meters. At that point you began climbing up the ladder until you finished back with the 3200 meter run. It was brutal, but it worked. Nothing got me in better running shaped. But I also looked like a little twig back then as well, so we have to approach this in a slightly different way as to not cannibalize our muscle gains. We are going to intersperse a short (~10-15 minutes each) <acronym title="High Intensity Interval Training">HIIT</acronym> sets inside our weight workout. The way a HIIT workout session goes is that you do some form of cardio, like a treadmill or jumping rope of the spinning, at 85% of your maximum for a set length of time and then at a low intensity (about 30% of your maximum) for half that length of time. Try to start off with 3 ten-minute HIIT sessions and work your way up to fifteen-minute session in the final week. Since I like to run, my HIIT workout looks like this: Run 1:30, Jog 0:45, then repeat 3 times and finish off with a 1 minute all out sprint. Now since you are going to be adding these in addition to your regular workout, you might need to rearrange what muscles you workout first. Try to preform exercises that are most taxing early one, utilizing the largest muscles first and finish with “easier” exercise. <h1>Week One:</h1> <h2>Monday and Thursday</h2> <table> <tr> <th>Muscle Group </th> <th>Exercise </th> <th>Sets/Reps </th> </tr> <tr> <td> Chest </td> <td> Incline Bench Press + Incline Fly </td> <td> 3/8 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Chest Fly + Bench Press </td> <td> 3/8 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Shoulders </td> <td> Barbell Overhead Press + Bent-Over Lateral Raise </td> <td> 4/4 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Dumbbell Front Raise + Dumbbell Overhead Press </td> <td> 3/5 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Triceps </td> <td> Dips </td> <td> 3/25 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Pressdown + Cable Overhead Extension </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> </table> <h2>Tuesday and Friday</h2> <table> <tr> <th>Muscle Group </th> <th>Exercise </th> <th>Sets/Reps </th> </tr> <tr> <td> Legs </td> <td> Squat + Dumbbell lunge </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Leg Extension + Leg Press </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> Leg Curl + Romanian Deadlift </td> <td> 3/10 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Calves </td> <td> Standing Calf Raise + Seated Calf Raise </td> <td> 3/15 </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> Abs </td> <td> Hanging Leg Raise + V-Ups </td> <td> 2/failure </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> 10-minute HIIT Workout </td> <td> </td> </tr> </table>

2009-05-13T17:50:08Z

16 For the past two months I have been following a pretty rigorous workout plan, which involved high intensity sets with low reps. But with summer just a little more than a month away, I needed to step things up. For the last phase of my workout program, I am going to incorporate cardio into the mix, via interval training. A friend of mine helped me put together this workout program, so I thought I would share with the world. summer-ready-workout-plan Summer Ready Workout Plan

2009-05-13T18:29:21Z

17 Although the version of <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/">Prototype-UI</a> that is currently available is considered a release candidate, I found their carousel to be quite stable. I have yet to try out some of their other components, but the autocomplete does look quite promising. You can start off by <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/download/rc0/carousel.zip">downloading</a> the code (javascript and css files) from their server. Once you have extracted the files, put the carousel.js and prototype-ui.css in your sites public folder. You can also copy their next/back buttons as well, but I went ahead and created my own. I am going to assume that you have some model that contains an array of photos. In this example that model is called <code>album</code>. In your view that you want the image carousel, put in the following rhtml: <pre><code class="multiline_code"><div id="horizontal_carousel"> <div class="previous_button"></div> <div class="container"> <ul></ul> <div id="spinner" style="display: none;">Loading ...<br /></div> </div> <div class="next_button"></div> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ function runTest() { carousel = new UI.Ajax.Carousel("horizontal_carousel", {url: "/albums/<%= album.id %>/elements", elementSize: 140}) .observe("request:started", function() { $('spinner').show().morph("opacity:0.8", {duration:0.5}); }) .observe("request:ended", function() { $('spinner').morph("opacity:0", {duration:0.5, afterFinish: function(obj) { obj.element.hide(); }}); }); } document.whenReady(runTest); // ]]> </script> </div></code></pre>The important thing to notice here is the value of the URL passed to the <code>UI.Ajax.Carousel</code> function call. I have decided to call the method that returns the request images <code>elements</code>. It is found in the <code>album</code> controller and is expecting the id of the album that contains the photos to be displayed. Next we will update our album’s controller. This is the part that gave me the most trouble. I orignally though I just had to supply the HTML that should be inserted inside the UL element, however after some digging I found out that it was actually accepting JSON. Luckly for us, it’s not that hard using some Rails magick. <pre><code class="multiline_code">def elements @album = Album.find(params[:id]) count = @album.photos.size - 1 to = [params[:to].to_i, count].min from = params[:from].to_i more = count != to ? true : false html = @album.photos[from..to].collect { |photo| "<li><img src='#{photo.public_filename(:thumb)}'></li>" } data = { :html => html, :from => from, :to => to, :more => more } # Rails magick to get output in JSON format render :json => data.to_json end</code></pre>The last thing we need to do is update our routes file so that the path /albums/:id/elements is recognized by our Rails application. Add the following line to your routes.rb config file: <pre><code class="multiline_code">map.resources :albums, :member => { :elements => :get }</code></pre> After a quick restart of your server (since we updated the routes file) and you should be ready to go!

2009-02-20T10:04:49Z

15 I happened to be looking for a better way to show a preview of my web albums when I came across <a href="http://prototype-ui.com/">Prototype-UI</a> which is a suite of user-interface components. Their carousel component was just want I need to spruce up my site design. The only problem was that documentation on the site is quite sparse and it took me a while to get things sorted out. creating-an-ajax-image-carousel Creating an AJAX Image Carousel

2010-01-15T13:17:38Z

23 <blockquote> Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth. — Robert Frost </blockquote> The opening stanza of Robert Frost’s 1915 poem “The Road Not Taken” aptly sums up how I feel, faced with paths, all of which represent potential futures that I can see my life to taking on. And while Frost’s poem ends with an assertion of individualism, choosing the “one less traveled by”, that path is not right in every situation. I think it is finally time in my life to choose a career. Although I joked that if I could, I would be a student for the rest of my life, with each passing semester I have become more and more disenchanted with a life solely comprised of academic pursuits. A lifelong goal of mine, ever since I was a child, was to get my Ph.D. But it would be ridiculous to waste all that time chasing a childhood fantasy if I do not want the end result. But for some reason, I can’t convince myself that it is only a childhood fantasy; nevertheless, the sparkle that future held in my eyes is fast fading. I think this would have been a much easier decision if it were not for the economic turmoil, the (pending?) recession. Company layoffs and bank failures litter the already bleak headlines of todays newspapers as if their reports on war, crime, and celebrity weren’t depressing enough. It makes another four or five years of study look like a vacation. But I am ready for a change. I have started the year by accepting who I am and would like to continue with this positive momentum and plunge head first into unfamiliar territory – the real world. I’m tired of being a poor student and I don’t think I have the drive anymore to make a career out of being a research professor. Whilst I don’t know exactly what I want to do (but then again, does anyone really know?), I want to find that out. I think a few wrong choices and rejections are well worst the risk. So… anyone looking to hire?

2009-01-21T21:22:56Z

14 New year, new me. I can’t help but be excited about change. But in order for change to happen I have to push myself out of this self imposed slump of monotony. It’s scary having to make a decision about ones future because of the fear of failure – something that I have let rule too many of my decisions in the past. crossroads Crossroads

2009-06-17T05:14:23Z

29 I first started noticing the comment spam about two weeks ago. Unfortunatly, I was too busy to create a perment solution and decided to flush the database. However, after doing this about five times, I realized that they weren’t going to quit. Apparently, the spammers had a lot of “gold” to unload. The comments were pretty funny actually. They claimed my site “was as good as gold” and linked to somesite (never actually clicked the link) to where you could presumable (get conned into) buying gold. The change, although in retrospect should have been trivial to implement, gave me quite the headache. It had to do with the fact that I was not doing any error checking with regards to the AJAX comment posts. Since I was allowing for anonymous posts, I just populated in any missing information with a set of defaults. I wasn’t even checking for an empty comment!? So in essence, the comment posting was a quick hack job and in dire need of some TLC. So once I added the simple_captcha and validates_presence_of magick into the <code>comment</code> model everything was pretty much golden. To get started, first add the following to your comment model: <pre><code class="multiline_code">validates_presence_of :comment apply_simple_captcha</code></pre>And then <code>comment</code> controller, change your validation check to the CAPTCHA <code>valid_with_captcha?</code> method: <pre><code class="multiline_code">@comment.valid_with_captcha?</code></pre>Now everything seemed to be in place, but there was one little problem. If I tried to post most than one comment, it would only work for the first one. After stracthing my head for way to long I realized that I wasn’t updating the CAPTCHA image. Since the page is updated via AJAX and not refreshed, the CAPTCHA image was stale. A few minutes later and some more AJAX magick and the comment system with CAPTCHA verifcation is in working order. The entire comment method looks like that (I am using the <code>acts_as_commentable</code> plugin): <pre><code class="multiline_code">def new @commentable = @commentable_class.find(params[:id]) @comment = Comment.new(params[:comment]) @comment.user = current_user if logged_in? @comment.title = 'Untitled' if @comment.title.blank? @comment.name = 'Anonymous' if @comment.name.blank? && !logged_in? @comment.ip_address = request.remote_ip respond_to do |format| if logged_in? || @comment.valid_with_captcha? @commentable.comments << @comment format.js do render :update do |page| page.insert_html :bottom, 'comments', :partial => 'comments/comment', :locals => { :index => @commentable.comments.size, :comment => @comment } page.visual_effect :highlight, 'comments', :duration => 3 page.replace_html "commentbox", :partial => 'posts/comment_box', :locals => { :commentable => @commentable } end end else format.js do render :update do |page| page.replace_html "commentbox", :partial => 'posts/comment_box', :locals => { :commentable => @commentable } end end end end end</code></pre>The comment_box partial just decides whether or not to load the anonymous form. All the magic happens in the anonymous form partial: <pre><code class="multiline_code"><% remote_form_for :comment, :url=>{:controller=>'comments', :action=>'new', :id=> commentable.id, :commentable_type => commentable.class } do |f| %> <dl> <dt><label for="title_entry">Message title (optional):</label></dt> <dd><%= f.text_field 'title' %></dd> <dt><label for="title_entry">Name(optional):</label></dt> <dd><%= f.text_field 'name' %></dd> <dt><label for="title_entry">Email(optional):</label></dt> <dd><%= f.text_field 'email' %></dd> <dt><label for="comment_entry">Your comment</label> (<a href="http://textism.com/tools/textile/" title="Textile">Textile</a> permitted; HTML renders as source code):</dt> <dd><%= f.text_area 'comment', :rows=>8, :cols=>60 %><dd> <%= show_simple_captcha(:object=>"comment") %> </dl> <%= submit_tag 'Add Comment'%> <% end %></code></pre>Let me know what you think and comment away!

2008-10-09T04:23:56Z

13 The SPAM bots have finally found my site. I figured it was only a matter of time before the fact that I allowed for anonymous comments would be exploited. So I decided to implement the <a href="http://expressica.com/simple_captcha/">CAPTCHA</a> system them I used for my registration page. Hopefully, this small little adjustment will be enough to divert the bots attention to other sites. comment-spam Comment Spam

2008-12-01T02:14:36Z