Author Archives: Matthew

Reasons to Travel Fast

These ran­dom thoughts came to me as I weav­ing my bike through pedes­trian traf­fic. Con­sider this my jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of why I move swiftly between des­ti­na­tions. Less wasted time: it’s more than what you’re prob­a­bly think­ing. Accord­ing to Ein­stein, the faster an object trav­els, the slower time passes from that object’s per­spec­tive. I prob­a­bly save a …

January 27, 2012 – 12:11 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Trivia | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Symfony Forms, Entities, and Validation

In a pre­vi­ous post, I dis­cussed some of the design pat­terns behind Sym­fony 2’s Form com­po­nent that make it so fast and sta­ble. As requested by Luis Cor­dova from Craft it Online, I have done fur­ther research into how Sym­fony 2 deals with forms, val­i­da­tion, and enti­ties. Much of the infor­ma­tion in this post can …

January 4, 2012 – 7:27 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Programming | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

September 11: Tenth Anniversary

It’s hard to believe that it has been ten years since the attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. Today we pray for all of the vic­tims, those who sac­ri­ficed them­selves for the safety of oth­ers, our armed forces pro­tect­ing our free­dom, and all of the fam­i­lies of these peo­ple. We also pray for all of the …

September 11, 2011 – 9:29 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Patriotism | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Brave New Country

I sel­dom talk and write about pol­i­tics because I get mad every time that I do. In this case, I’m writ­ing because I am not only enraged at but deeply con­cerned of what I see hap­pen­ing to our coun­try. I just received word that the gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to pass a bill that would man­date …

August 1, 2011 – 9:32 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Patriotism | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Symfony Design Patterns

As rec­om­mended by Dr. Andreas Klap­pe­necker, my CSCE 222 pro­fes­sor last semes­ter, I have been read­ing through the Gang of Four’s Design Pat­terns: Ele­ments of Reusable Object-​​​​Oriented Soft­ware book this sum­mer. In agree­ment with Dr. Klap­pe­necker, this is a must-​​​​read for any­one who works with code. I’ve pre­vi­ously writ­ten about the Sym­fony 2 PHP frame­work, and …

July 24, 2011 – 8:06 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Programming | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)

One Ocean Wallpaper

To com­mem­o­rate the first show­ing of One Ocean at Sea­World San Anto­nio today, I pieced together some wall­pa­per that I just had to share. Enjoy! (Click on a thumb­nail to view a larger image) Cred­its Phở­tos by Jason Col­lier Copy­right Sea­World Parks and Entertainment

June 10, 2011 – 10:15 am | By Matthew | Posted in Pictures, SeaWorld | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Symfony 2 Walkthrough

Sen­sio unveiled the first pre­view releases of the Sym­fony 2 frame­work a while ago (note the cap­i­tal ‘S’). I couldn’t help but think, great, and just after I was get­ting the hang of sym­fony 1.4. At the time I was con­vert­ing from CakePHP to sym­fony in search of more flex­i­ble rout­ing, but even now I …

June 1, 2011 – 11:59 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Programming, Websites | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Summer Time!

My first year of col­lege ended only three weeks ago, and I’ve been busy wrap­ping up projects and defeat­ing Aper­ture Lab­o­ra­to­ries’ blun­ders. Yes, some of my fel­low com­puter sci­en­tists intro­duced me to Por­tal at the end of last semes­ter, and I’ve been play­ing both the old and new ver­sions ever since col­lege ended. How­ever, I …

June 1, 2011 – 12:09 pm | By Matthew | Posted in Vacation | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ash Wednesday

Today, Ash Wednes­day marks the begin­ning of Lent—40 days of prayer, fast­ing, and penance—the Church’s remem­brance of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert before He began His pub­lic min­istry. All mem­bers of the Church (includ­ing non-​​​​Catholics) are encour­aged to receive the ashen cross on their fore­head sym­bol­iz­ing our mor­tal­ity and as a reminder of our iden­tity in …

March 9, 2011 – 9:15 am | By Matthew | Posted in Religious | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

In Memory of Dawn Brancheau — A Year Later

One year ago today, Sea­World Orlando orca trainer Dawn Brancheau was trag­i­cally drowned by Tilikum, one of the orcas there. This came as a huge shock to the whole world—especially to the Sea­World Parks and Enter­tain­ment sys­tem and Sea­World fans like me.

February 24, 2011 – 7:24 am | By Matthew | Posted in SeaWorld | Tagged , , | Comments (0)