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 Chris Putnam

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 42

:42:

The end of all things awesome?

Hi there. I don't know if any of you have noticed, but we've reached the end of some of the awesomest television series. How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, Vampire Diaries, and The Big Bang Theory have all come to an abrupt (and "temporary") end. I, personally cannot wait for them to resume. But what are we to do with our lives in the gaps between awesomeness?
I suppose I could rewatch a Star Wars marathon. Hmm...

Anyway, on the topic of Star Wars...
My sister seems to think that the last three Star Wars movies/episodes (IV, V, VI) should be remade, utilizing all of the technology available to us so that the experience can be as real and amazing as possible. She feels that the old movies were too... old fashioned and the visual effects were (unavoidably) poor. That a remake would guarantee a lot of viewers with similar views.
In my opinion, and many others I'm sure, If star wars is remade, it will be a disgrace to the star wars franchise.
Anyone agree?

Oh sorry, This post was supposed to have been published months ago. I saved it, don't know why I never published it. Anyway, it seems that many of these series will soon be returning. I can't wait. Yippee!

Hmmm

I wonder how long it takes Google to index something.

Oh, here's a really cool pic by nightgrowler I found on the internet:

"Noobs"

Arguably the most annoying internet related crime - Being a noob. Noobs are annoying, self-centered, pretentious, supremacist users (originally internet only, but the term now extends to users in other fields)  that think they are pros at something when it is clear to everyone else that they are not.
Now you might argue that my definition of a "noob" varies quite a bit from the traditional/popular definition. There's a very good reason for this. Simply put, there is some confusion on the topic.
A noob, is someone who, in their use of the internet (or other field), is inherently pathetic or incapable, but refuses to accept the well meaning assistance of more experienced users, because they think they are good enough to do it themselves. They will continue to perform tasks in their own dysfunctional way, insisting that their way works, and blindly refusing to attempt to perform the task in a more conventional or successful way. The cause: their own stubbornness and/or stupidity.

Traditionally, a noob was believed to be someone who is new at something. Sadly this is (in some ways) a bit far from the truth. We were all, at some point, new to everything, this does not mean that we were all noobs.
So this is the bottom line;

• A Newb (or Newbie) is an amateur/beginner.
• A Noob (or Idiot) is someone who refuses to listen to good advice.

So please don't be mean to newbs. Everyone was a newb at some point. Accept that newbs aren't expected to be experts. 

Also, please don't be a noob, because noobs suck.

And also, you can refer to this thread Newb vs Noob.

Conformity

Overwhelmed.

It seems life got the better of me, keeping me at bay all this time. An unfair amount of work (tests, projects, and homework), coupled with an excessive dose of laziness, has put my blogging on hiatus thus far.
But I say, No more! No longer will I let my creativity fall prey to procrastination...

So here I am... I was just thinking about the Motivational (Or demotivational, depending on how you want to look at it) poster in Barney Stinson's office (How I Met Your Mother):



"Conformity, It's the one who is different that gets left out in the cold."



It's difficult to deny the truth in this statement. We live in a world that craves uniformity, but in a society that embraces uniqueness.
So on which face does the coin land? How do we live our lives? Do we try to fit in with our fellows by being the same as them, conforming to social norms. Do we dare to be different, shun the predefined cages and walk on the unbeaten path. Or, do we try to balance the coin on its side, and search for that line between robot and alien.
What it all boils down to is, "What do you want?"
Do you want to be noticed, be free, be yourself and all that jargon? Or do you want to play it safe and ensure that you have acquaintances, if not friends, at the cost of some of yourself, some of what makes you, you?

The fundamental difference between the two is that the life of a non-conformist, is a life of continuous risk, where the possibility of being alone and friendless is always on the horizon. But those who bear the risk, are either shunned by society or exalted. Whereas, the conformist is one who caves in to one's fear of being an outcast and masks one's self behind the characteristics of someone else or a group, sacrificing one's identity in order to almost guarantee acceptance.

The choice is your's. I, personally, admire those brave few, willing to take the risk and live their own lives, avoiding the shadows of others.
Ask me whether I'm an alien or a robot. I suppose I'm an Alien Cyborg... probably sent from the future too.

Best way to refresh a JFrame (or other such container) in Java

Call the following two methods (in this order):
invalidate();
validate();


if your class is a subclass of the container (i.e. if YourClass extends JFrame, etc)
you could perhaps create a method redraw consisting of those two methods and call it whenever you want to refresh the screen.

else, you can just call the methods from the instance of the JContainer object.
eg.
frameName.invalidate();
frameName.validate();