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Welcome

Welcome to Jenius, where you can get opinions from a certified genius who just doesn't put the effort into it.

Here you will find a mixture of the heartfelt and mundane. Serious and silly. Topical and esoteric. Pretty much whatever comes to mind.


Wednesday, June 17th

DOORS DXL probeAttr_ Function

Despite being used in several places within the the standard DOORS functions, the probeAttr_ function is unknown to the help file and indeed the web (aside from being used without explanation). So here is my crack at defining it.

probeAttr_

Declaration

string probeAttr_ (Object o, string attrName)

Operation

This returns a string that is the value of the attribute, attrName, for the object, o. This is the same as using the dot operator to extract the value. So, s=probeAttr_(obj, "Object Text") is the same as s=obj."Object Text".

Why in the world this is even necessary, I have no idea.

phrebh on 06.17.09 @ 02:14 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 1 (+/-)]



Friday, May 1st

Texas Sucks

What's on the box: Nothing yet

I just watched the second half of a Texas steak cook-off on Food Network. What is wrong with Texans? Why do they think their grass-fed leather is good to eat? In the final part of the competition they only had 20 minutes and they bitched about not being able to marinate the beef. Well, gee, if you had good beef to begin with, you wouldn't have to mask it's flavor with a bunch of spices and liquids.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Texas. Your steaks suck and we're tired of hearing how it's the best. Grow some taste buds and shut the hell up.

phrebh on 05.01.09 @ 08:16 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: -3 (+/-)]



Monday, April 27th

Where Nepotism is King

There is a bona fide Hollywood movie being made not too far from here and my cousin managed to get signed on as an unpaid intern. OK, it is a made-for-TV movie for the SciFi channel, but still. He's been doing the usual boring gopher stuff, but he has had some cool things to do, too. One of them was the unplanned power slide of his car by a stuntman. I say unplanned because he thought that the stuntman was just going to be sitting in it. His mom and step dad were completely shocked when they saw it, being extras on the set that day.

One of his earlier duties was helping the art director find some props and things. One of the hardest things to find was a tanker trailer to blow up. One of the easiest things to find was someone to do prop graphics for a military-type command center. He called me.

Yes, nepotism still reigns supreme in Hollywood, and I've finally benefited from it. Although my compensation was low (remember, it's a made-for-TV movie), I do get the geek cred, both techy and movie. I created seven different animated mini-movies that will show on the screens of the command center, and an eighth and ninth animation that actually get closeups.

And, no, I didn't get to meet the stars, or even the director. My cousin is the one working to be an actor, so I leave that to him. But I do get a cool addition to me resume and my name on IMDb. What else could I ask for?

phrebh on 04.27.09 @ 05:36 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: -3 (+/-)]



Thursday, April 23rd

Slight Redirection

As all of my readers (i.e. me) know, I'm done commenting on the letters that come in to US News. Since that was the primary reason I started blogging, some might think that I would close up shop and move on. But I don't see any reason to do that. It's not like I have a readership (see first sentence), and I put a lot of time into getting this set up the way I want.

I don't have a future as a political pundit, and even though my rants may be humorous to some, Jon Stewart's job is safe, too. So the slight redirection to this site is that I will continue to focus on technology. This will mostly consist of code snippets and, loosely, mini-reviews of products and services.

But don't worry! Not everything will change. I still probably won't post very often and I won't gain any readers. Comfort is good. Smile

phrebh on 04.23.09 @ 07:01 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 1 (+/-)]



Friday, March 13th

Free OCR and a Thank You

I already commented on his post, but I wanted to reiterate my thanks to Jon Galloway for his post Free OCR software? You may already have it.... I have been able to whip through 70 pages in less than an hour by using Microsoft Office Document Imaging. And that includes scanning, OCR, sending to Word, and saving as a plain text file (although I did write a macro to convert the results to plain text and quit Word automatically (see the extended text)).

phrebh on 03.13.09 @ 07:22 AM CST [more] [No Comments] [Karma: -1 (+/-)]



Thursday, January 29th

U.S. News, February 2009, Letters Rebuttals

What's on the box: All Creatures Great & Small

Freaking U.S. News! Angry

Now it's down to a monthly magazine, themed no less, because their good content is going online. That does me a fat lot of good. Not only does online news not lend itself to bathroom reading (when I brushing my teeth...among other things), but online news stories tend to be shorter, less informative, and, gods help us, pithier (i.e. quotable). When they are as long as print articles, they're split up into multiple pages and strewn with ads.

Egon Spangler was not right: print wasn't dead in the '80s, but it sure is dying off now. I guess it's back to getting my news by heresy...oops, I mean hearsay. Unless Yahoo happens to have an interesting headline when I check my mail, I don't read online news, and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to do so in the future. In other words, I'm off the grid.

I'm also not going to renew my subscription when it's due, but thanks to the "thoughtful" people at U.S. News, that's now been extended to halfway through next year! Bloody brilliant idea, guys. Crapify (FF doesn't like "crapify"? Shocked) your magazine and then extend the torture. Braaaaah-vo.

Oh, yeah. There weren't any letters, either. Not even comments on their inane pro and con section.

phrebh on 01.29.09 @ 12:55 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: -5 (+/-)]



Saturday, December 27th

U.S. News, Special Year-End Issue 2008, Letters Rebuttals

What a stupid thing to do with the date.

I wasn't really paying attention to the letters this time because I was helping my cousin with his new GPS and also trying to update my mom's new GPS. Now if either of them ever left the state, they'd be in business.

phrebh on 12.27.08 @ 04:24 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: -3 (+/-)]



Thursday, December 11th

U.S. News, 15-22 December 2008, Letters Rebuttals

Both Martin L. Fleming and C. Jerry Hitchingham mention Eugenio Zolli, who was a Rabbi-turned-Catholic because of his appreciation of Pope Pius XII's saving "thousands of Jews" during the Holocaust. While commendable, I think the point of many Jewish leaders is that thousands among millions does not prove that someone in such a position of power was helping.

phrebh on 12.11.08 @ 05:59 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 9 (+/-)]



Friday, November 28th

U.S. News, 1 - 8 December 2008, Letters Rebuttals

William Ashby used supposition instead of fact to decry ethanol. It only takes minutes to find the info he just decided to invent.

phrebh on 11.28.08 @ 05:37 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: -3 (+/-)]



Saturday, November 15th

U.S. News, 17 - 24 November 2008, Letters Rebuttals

What's on the box: Kitchen Nightmares

I'm posting from my phone, so please excuse my brevity.

James R. Doty actually used "venal nincompoops"! :lol: Awesome!

phrebh on 11.15.08 @ 07:22 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 5 (+/-)]



Monday, November 3rd

U.S. News, 3 - 10 November 2008, Letters Rebuttals

This issue saw a collection of well-written and intelligent letters. This is so unusual that I'm speechless.

phrebh on 11.03.08 @ 10:46 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 9 (+/-)]



Thursday, October 23rd

U.S. News, 27 October 2008, Letters Rebuttals

Some positivity, some negativity, some hyperbole. Just the run-of-the-mill letters this time.

phrebh on 10.23.08 @ 05:55 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 4 (+/-)]



Monday, October 13th

U.S. News, 13 - 20 October 2008, Letters Rebuttals

What's on the box: Scrubs

This was pretty much the same rehash of complaints that happens after each "Best of" issue.

phrebh on 10.13.08 @ 06:45 PM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 2 (+/-)]



Monday, October 6th

U.S. News, 29 September - 6 October 2008, Letters Rebuttals

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "meh."

phrebh on 10.06.08 @ 07:38 AM CST [link] [No Comments] [Karma: 6 (+/-)]



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