Bohdan Zhuravel

You should all watch this video, cause after I saw it, I was so inspired
I wasted half an hour converting and cropping it just to show it to you.

Download printable or generate your own.

<?php
$today = date( "Y-m-d" );
$christmas = date( "Y-m-d", strtotime( "december 25" ) );
echo ( $today == $christmas ) ? "Merry Christmas!" : "";
?>

I have been posting (I’m talking about meaningful posts, not about all these pictures and quotes and stuff that I wanted to share with someone but haven’t anyone to share with) infrequently at best lately. Everything in my life has been moving in slow motion. I have spent the last couple of weeks rethinking everything in my life, from my family, to my job, to my education, to how to realign my priorities, to what really matters to me. And I think I’ve come out on the other side with a really different perspective on how I want to divide my time and energies.

If I was faced with a crisis that might limit my time, how would I rethink my life? Or would I? Am I truly taking advantage of every minute? Am I spending every minute doing what really makes me happy? Am I doing what I believe in, or am I settling for what I am doing? Which is worse, failing or never trying? What things have I not done that I really want to do, and what is holding me back? Do I feel everyday like I have lived this day a hundred times before? What would I do differently if I knew nobody would judge me? These are the questions I’ve contemplated the last couple of weeks.

Life is too short to not do what you love. Life is too short to not do what you love. Life is too short to not do what you love. This line kept repeating in my head like a mantra. And then at some point I finally felt I could not take it anymore. What I am doing with my life is just not right. And it is time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what I know is right. It is time to move forward. And the best way for me to move forward, is to dive back into the things that excite me. I want to be an engineer. Work with great minds. Solve complex technical problems. Create business value. Add revenue. Reduce costs.

In September I go to National Aviation University to study system programming and operating systems (this is by far the hardest direction I could think of). Needless to say, not the least role in this played Linus Torvalds’ book “Just for Fun.” One might say, education is overrated, but I believe that you can’t educate yourself system programming simply by reading the web and some book, no matter how good it is written (one really good job interview I happened to have and fuck up proved this to me). So, I’ve called them and they said they can accept me and my education will take two years (because I already have some background, I’m on my fourth year in college studying Accounting). And if all goes well I will graduate from two universities by the time I’m 22. This is my first move to fulfill my dreams.

“Let me tell you something. And this is important because some day one of your friends is gonna get divorced. It’s gonna happen. And they’re gonna tell you, don’t go “Oh I’m sorry!” that’s a stupid thing to say. It really is. First of all, you’re making them feel bad for being really happy, which isn’t fair. And second, let me explain something to you. Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. It’s really that simple. That’s never happened – THAT would be sad. If two people were married and they were really happy and they just had a great thing, and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times. Literally zero. […] So if your friend got divorced, it means things were bad and now they’re – I mean, they’re better. They’re not good. Life is shit wall to wall. But they’re better, so you should be happy.”

— Louis C.K.

I feel bad for Dave, Trevor, David and Bobby.
Let us all have a moment of silence for their wasted efforts and crushed hopes.

“I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room — I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed. I’ve felt awful — awful beyond all — but I never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me… or that any number of people could enter that room. In other words, loneliness is something I’ve never been bothered with because I’ve always had this terrible itch for solitude. It’s being at a party, or at a stadium full of people cheering for something, that I might feel loneliness. I’ll quote Ibsen, “The strongest men are the most alone.” I’ve never thought, “Well, some beautiful blonde will come in here and give me a fuck-job, rub my balls, and I’ll feel good.” No, that won’t help. You know the typical crowd, “Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?” Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. I hid in bars, because I didn’t want to hide in factories. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.”

— Charles Bukowski

http://kaplaninternational.com/english-test/

Not bad at all given the fact that my English is limited by the number of words Friends cast used, words I’ve seen in 9gag comments, and words I’ve seen in programming books
(I’m sure I pronounce most of them wrong because I’ve only ever seen them in those books).

Last night I went to the concert of Cantabile Orchestra. And it. Was. Fantastic. They really outdid themselves. I didn’t make any videos because I thought it would be inappropriate and also, quite frankly, I wanted to enjoy and savor the music, not to have video later but miss the actual moment they plays. Nonetheless, there are few videos from their other concerts:

And that’s why I prefer the word “developer”

90% of programming jobs are in creating Line of Business software: Economics 101: the price for anything (including you) is a function of the supply of it and demand for it. Let’s talk about the demand side first. Most software is not sold in boxes, available on the Internet, or downloaded from the App Store. Most software is boring one-off applications in corporations, under-girding every imaginable facet of the global economy. It tracks expenses, it optimizes shipping costs, it assists the accounting department in preparing projections, it helps design new widgets, it prices insurance policies, it flags orders for manual review by the fraud department, etc etc. Software solves business problems. Software often solves business problems despite being soul-crushingly boring and of minimal technical complexity. […]

Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things: […] The person who has decided to bring on one more engineer is not doing it because they love having a geek around the room, they are doing it because adding the geek allows them to complete a project (or projects) which will add revenue or decrease costs. Producing beautiful software is not a goal. Solving complex technical problems is not a goal. Writing bug-free code is not a goal. Using sexy programming languages is not a goal. Add revenue. Reduce costs. Those are your only goals. […]

Don’t call yourself a programmer: “Programmer” sounds like “anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo.” If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired. […] Instead, describe yourself by what you have accomplished for previously employers vis-a-vis increasing revenues or reducing costs. If you have not had the opportunity to do this yet, describe things which suggest you have the ability to increase revenue or reduce costs, or ideas to do so. […]

Source: kalzumeus.com

C#: PictureBox with transparent overlay picture

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    pictureBox2.BackColor = Color.Transparent;
    pictureBox2.Parent = pictureBox1;
    pictureBox2.Location = new Point(0, 0);
}

C#: Allow only letters, numbers, hyphen, or backspace in TextBox

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    this.textBox1.KeyPress += new System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventHandler(this.textBox1_KeyPress);
}

private void textBox1_KeyPress(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
    e.Handled = !(Char.IsLetter(e.KeyChar) || Char.IsNumber(e.KeyChar) || e.KeyChar == 45 || e.KeyChar == 8);
}