The Fiery Furnaces “Quay Cur” (Stuck In My Head version) I love Matthew Friedberger’s endless delight in reinterpreting his songs. It seems like for him it’s mostly a formal game, but I think it’s also kind of a flex in showing off the strength and versatility of his melodies and musical motifs. The new Fiery […]

La Femme “Clover Paradise” “Clover Paradise” would fit in very well on the What Was Schaffel? playlist I made earlier this year, which collected electro-glam music from the early 2000s. I’m a sucker for this aesthetic, particularly the way a severe grayish palette and ultra-precise shuffle beat complements a lusty, perverted vibe. It’s like the […]

Katrina Ford “World On A Wire” I’ve been writing about songs most days of my life for over 20 years and one thing I’ve learned from this is that a lot of the music I love most resists description. And of course it does – music is ultimately an abstract medium, something that exists to […]

うちに(uchini-2)

    Meaning: before ... (something bad happens); while ... still (being OK), while (state still continue) and before the state is finished
    Example: 暗くならないうちに帰ってきなさい。/ Come home before it gets dark.

  [ View this entry online ]

  Examples:  

• 暗くならないうちに帰ってきなさい。
  Come home before it gets dark.
• 雨が降らないうちに帰りましょう。
  Let's go home before it starts to rain. (lit. while it's not yet raining.)
• 電車が動いているうちに降りてはなりません。
  Do not get off the train while it is in motion.
• 雨が降らないうちに、帰ったほうがいいと思うから、これで、失礼します。
  I think it's best I go before it starts raining, so I'll be leaving now.
• 母が元気なうちに、会いにいきたいと思っています。
  I think I'd like to go and see my mother while she is still healthy.
• 彼女は雇われて５ヶ月もしないうちにくびになった。
  She had not been employed five months before she was fired.
• その村に着かないうちに彼女はすっかりへたばってしまった。
  She had been tired out before she got to the village.

Ross needed to write software to integrate with a credit card payment gateway. The one his company chose was relatively small, and only served a handful of countries- but it covered the markets they cared about and the transaction fees were cheap. They used XML for data interchange, and while they had no published schema document, they did have some handy-dandy sample code which let you parse their XML messages.

$response = curl_exec($ch);
$authecode = fetch_data($response, '<authCode>', '</authCode>');
$responsecode = fetch_data($response, '<responsecode>', '</responsecode>');
$retrunamount = fetch_data($response, '<returnamount>', '</returnamount>');
$trxnnumber = fetch_data($response, '<trxnnumber>', '</trxnnumber>');
$trxnstatus = fetch_data($response, '<trxnstatus>', '</trxnstatus>');
$trxnresponsemessage = fetch_data($response, '<trxnresponsemessage>', '</trxnresponsemessage>');

Well, this looks… worrying. At first glance, I wonder if we're going to have to kneel before Z̸̭͖͔͂̀ā̸̡͖͕͊l̴̜͕͋͌̕g̸͉̳͂͊ȯ̷͙͂̐. What exactly does fetch_data actually do?

function fetch_data($string, $start_tag, $end_tag)
{

  $position = stripos($string, $start_tag);
  $str = substr($string, $position);
  $str_second = substr($str, strlen($start_tag));
  $second_positon = stripos($str_second, $end_tag);
  $str_third = substr($str_second, 0, $second_positon);
  $fetch_data = trim($str_third);
  return $fetch_data;
}

Phew, no regular expressions, just… lots of substrings. This parses the XML document with no sense of the document's structure- it literally just searches for specific tags, grabs whatever is between them, and calls it done. Nested tags? Attributes? Self-closing tags? Forget about it. Since it doesn't enforce that your open and closing tags match, it also lets you grab arbitrary (and invalid) document fragments- fetch_data($response, "<fooTag>", "<barTag>"), for example.

And it's not like this needs to be implemented from scratch- PHP has built-in XML parsing classes. We could argue that by limiting ourselves to a subset of XML (which I can only hope this document does) and doing basic string parsing, we've built a much simpler approach, but I suspect that after doing a big pile of linear searches through the document, we're not really going to see any performance benefits from this version- and maintenance is going to be a nightmare, as it's so fragile and won't work for many very valid XML documents.

It's always amazing when TRWTF is neither PHP nor XML but… whatever this is.

Eagle-eye fans in Discord spotted new tshirts and sweaters for the anime feature film coming in December.

Over at Hot Topic you can now order (or buy at the mall) new apparel and merch for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which just had a big kickoff at NYCC weekend of Oct 18-20. We previously reported on new Rohirrim Warhammer sets and other movie tie-in merch.

More LOTR Merch now available

There are even more Rohan inspired options at WB Shop!

Looks like the studio merch machine is ramping up like the days of old, which for many fans is a sign of confidence in the movie which is coming to cinemas in December. You can chat with fans in our dedicated Rohirrim channel on Discord.

Nerdist got the exclusive reveal of the official theatrical poster for the big new anime film coming in December.

All the details are spelled out over on Nerdist as they revealed the official new poster for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim coming to cinemas worldwide December 13, 2024.

Hot dwarves to hot horse lords?

Fans of course are finding their own inspirations!

The Regal North Hollywood is holding a showing of the new feature-length anime The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim from 1.00pm on this Saturday (November 9) open to children aged nine to 14, and their parents. It's not entirely clear whether adult-without-kids can also attend, but I took a few moments to run through their pre-booking survey and it does seem that you get screened out if you state you're attending without kids.

T&Cs also state that no-one under the age of nine will be admitted (presumably because of MPAA ratings).

If this tickles your fancy (and you have kids 9 to 14), you can reserve (free!) your tickets here.

If you're unaware of the story, The War of the Rohirrim is set many years before the events of The Lord of the Rings and follows a historic event described by J.R.R. Tolkien in Appendix A of the book. As the filmmakers describe it, "...a sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg."

The anime debuts worldwide (in most locations) on December 13.

Early free screening details

Saturday, November 9th, 2024
Regal North Hollywood
6150 Laurel Canyon Blvd # 200, North Hollywood, CA 91606

1:00 pm. Open to children 9-14 and their parents
No one under 9 will be admitted.
Check-in will begin 60 minutes before the start of the show.

RESERVE YOUR TICKETS

Very limited edition of OB-4 Off-White... in collaboration with Virgil Abloh.

Special on the design week in Milano...

Amazing KITH flagship store opened in Malibu...

I visited the Bosco outlet website and saw an interesting t-shirt with gestures by Isaia...

Architecture studio DoBuro with their own unique style...

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