Bits

Image via Wikipedia

http://news.opb.org/article/4263-trimet-looks-cutting-routes-reducing-service/

"TriMet has just announced cuts of 5 percent across-the-board. That means fewer routes; buses that come every half-hour instead of every 15 minutes; and fewer trains at off-peak times.

"The cuts are coming now because most of the agency's income is derived from employer payroll taxes. Meaning when people lose their jobs, TriMet loses income."

There's something wrong with this equation. At a time when more people may be turning to TriMet, and starting a public transportation habit, TriMet should be improving its service.

* * *

http://news.opb.org/article/4267-elections-divisions-opens-sizemore-investigation/

"The Oregon Elections Division opened an investigation Thursday into Bill Sizemore's campaign activities during the 2008 elections. Kristian Foden-Vencil reports."

It's about time.

* * *

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/02/5_companies_building_the_internet_o.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

"An internet of things"

Someday I'll get spam from my toaster.

* * *

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090210.wdefence10/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostemail

"The Canadian military is evoking the wisdom of the green, pint-sized Yoda character from Star Wars for a video it's creating to give soldiers returning from Afghanistan tips on coping with the psychological scars of combat zones."

"I don't believe it," Skywalker says.

"That is why you fail," Yoda replies.

They're trying to touch soldiers to lift X-Wing Fighters with their minds?

Marshalling and Unmarshalling Without a @XmlRootElement

Netbeans has a handy feature off on the palette on the right (usually) of the code editor, where you can drag a marshal or unmarshal object into your Java code and it will generate marshal/unmarshal code for the XML or JAXB object of your choice.

It is interesting that sometimes, although it does not complain when generating these code fragments, there will occur an error at runtime stating that an object has no @XmlRootElement.

@XmlRootElement annotations are not always created in JAXB objects. Here is a nice explanation of why that is:

http://weblogs.java.net/blog/kohsuke/archive/2006/03/why_does_jaxb_p.html

The subject of this post is not why this happens, but rather how to deal with these objects when you don't want to use inline complex types.

Here's a sample marshal method more or less as generated by the wizard of Netbeans:

private String jaxbMarshalToString(MyType jaxbObj) throws javax.xml.bind.JAXBException, java.io.IOException 

{
java.io.StringWriter sw = new java.io.StringWriter();
javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext jaxbCtx = javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext.newInstance(jaxbObj.getClass().getPackage().getName());
javax.xml.bind.Marshaller marshaller = jaxbCtx.createMarshaller();
marshaller.setProperty(javax.xml.bind.Marshaller.JAXB_ENCODING, "UTF-8");
//NOI18N
marshaller.setProperty(javax.xml.bind.Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE);
marshaller.marshal(jaxbObj, sw);
sw.close();
return sw.toString();
}
Here is an unmarshal method for the same object:

private MyType jaxbUnmarshalFromString(String str) throws javax.xml.bind.JAXBException 

{
MsgQMessageType ret = null;
javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext jaxbCtx = javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext.newInstance(MyType.class);
javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jaxbCtx.createUnmarshaller();
ret = (MyType) unmarshaller.unmarshal(new java.io.StringReader(str));
//NOI18N
return ret;
}
This object has "Type" appended to its name. That is a sign that this is a container rather than the JAXB representation of the XSD itself. These methods fail at runtime because the object jaxbObj includes no root annotation.

Here are these two methods changed so they work. In the first method, we create a new JAXBElement (so it will have a root element) and marshal that. In the second method, we unmarshal to a JAXBElement, and return that object's getValue(), cast to our desired type. Also in the unmarshal code, the context is created using getPackage().getName() rather than just the class.

private String jaxbMarshalToString(MyType jaxbObj) throws javax.xml.bind.JAXBException, java.io.IOException 

{
java.io.StringWriter sw = new java.io.StringWriter();
javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext jaxbCtx = javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext.newInstance(jaxbObj.getClass().getPackage().getName());
javax.xml.bind.Marshaller marshaller = jaxbCtx.createMarshaller();
marshaller.setProperty(javax.xml.bind.Marshaller.JAXB_ENCODING, "UTF-8");
//NOI18N
marshaller.setProperty(javax.xml.bind.Marshaller.JAXB_FORMATTED_OUTPUT, Boolean.TRUE);
marshaller.marshal(new JAXBElement(
new QName("http://www.namespace.com/schema/My", "My"),
MyType.class, jaxbObj), sw);
sw.close();
return sw.toString();
}

private MyType jaxbUnmarshalFromString(String str) throws javax.xml.bind.JAXBException 

{
JAXBElement ret = null;
javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext jaxbCtx = javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext.newInstance(MyType.class.getPackage().getName());
javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller unmarshaller = jaxbCtx.createUnmarshaller();
ret = (JAXBElement) unmarshaller.unmarshal(new java.io.StringReader(str));
//NOI18N
return (MyType)ret.getValue();
}

Big Mac Latte Numbers

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1111/starbucks-versus-mcdonalds-choices-demographics

"Would you prefer to live in a place with more McDonald's or more Starbucks?" The Golden Arches won the head-to-head contest by 43%-35%"

Some interesting demographic breakdowns...

Fat Cars

http://www.geekologie.com/2009/01/bigger_the_better_artist_makes.php

Har.

Job Losses In Recent Recessions

Fire Drill

Image via Wikipedia

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/05/1136228

"Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator using the Source engine (the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2), and created a virtual model of one of the university's departments. Dr. Shamus Smith said that although 3D modeling software was available, modifying a video game was faster, more cost effective, and had better special effects. 'We were interested in using game technology over a customized application and the Source Engine, from Half-Life, is very versatile,' said Smith.

Plus there might be mutants shooting at you during a fire. You never know.

Shut

http://www.kgw.com/lifestyle/stories/kgw_020209_lifestyle_columbia_gorge_hotel_closing.12b89d3b.html

"An icon of the Columbia River Gorge, referred to as the "Waldorf of the West" in its heyday, has become the latest victim of the economic crisis.

"The historic Columbia Gorge Hotel shut its doors Friday, canceling reservations and laying off dozens of employees."

A shame...

Mediatomb and Playlists

I found a few issues adding playlists (m3u files) to Mediatomb. It works, but there are problems I have not been able to completely pin down. The main thing is that I have to add the individual playlist files to Mediatomb rather than depending on a timed rescan or a directory. When I time-rescan a directory containing a new playlist (only), the load operation appears in the Mediatomb console, but the playlist never appears in the database. If I add the single file however, and the list file has not been previously scanned, it works.

Also, once a directory is processed by a timed rescan, I have trouble adding new playlist files, individually, from that location. A couple of weeks ago, inexplicitly, a playlist I had previously used without trouble disappeared from Mediatomb, and I could not add it back (no errors, it just didn't show up). I removed my other playlists and found I could not add those back either. So I made a brand new file, and that would not add. To fix this I had to be sure that the directory and all playlists were removed from Mediatomb, and there were no timed rescans on that folder. I added back each m3u file individually, and they worked fine.

I think it's best to stay away from timed rescan, on my installation away, for playlists (I've had no trouble with rescans of music, video and photo files). I should note that this feature is supposed to work. And I should note that I have seen Mediatomb pick up m3u files on timed rescans from my music folders in the past. But from my playlist directory, I've had odd behaviors (no, this is not related to file/diectory permissions in my case, that is a common problem though. Check that if it is not working for you).

For creating playlists I have been using fapg. This worked well for me because I had already some long lists of files to work with and fapg can take these simple lists on stdin. Many people that use Mediatomb and similar servers use other media handler just to create playlists. I have been experimenting with juk. Juk seems to be particularly suited to larger collections (a problem I have with many of these tools is that they simply have not been designed for large and well organized media collections, with correct tags and such). There are other choices. I've seen Rhythmbox mentioned quite a bit. Such tools tend to support media playing or streaming on their own, but they also have nice playlist editors and search features that are useful alone.

One of the reasons I have been working to replace the system I had built myself, is that more standard bits and pieces (like m3u files) will allow me to use a variety of off the shelf packages (there are any number of programs available to edit playlists and now I can use any one, or more than one). There are also other servers and clients that support the same protocols. One does not have to be limited to one combination, if one server is better than another for, say, one type of content or another.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,7847/title,Pride-and-Prejudice-and-Zombies/

Here's something new, public domain classic literature, with zombies added in. No really. Seriously. Stop laughing, it's true.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy."
...and so on.

Toying with Bacon

http://foodproof.com/blogs/view/post/bacon-man-435

"A being with no knowledge of what it means to be sightless, having never had eyes. It knows no pain, but also no hope."

Bacon man...
Awesome.