How frequently do I make a new blog entry? Like, once a month? And then, what do I blog about? Web development related shizzle… (Except for the occasional meme, that is; I honestly can’t help being tagged all the time. Bastards!) Who gives a damn about when such an article is written if it’s not related to any date-tied events? The only thing that really matters, the true essence of a post, is its title. So much for the yyyy/mm/ part.

That other bit, /archive, doesn’t add much value to the whole IRI either. Though, it brings home to the more savvy users that the requested page is a blog entry, and not a static page (e.g. a colophon). Somehow I feel like /articles would be a much better choice in this case.
Ideally though, every post would have its own IRI base, depending on the categories it belongs to. How much better is /javascript/number-format compared to something like /archive/2006/01/js-number-format?

That’s what I’ve been thinking. However, I don’t know of an easy way of creating such an IRI scheme in WordPress easily. I could of course change all posts into pages with their own IRIs, but that would affect the home page, the syndication feeds, et cetera.

It comes down to this: I just can’t be bothered at the moment.

• Krijn is a wonderful person to work with.
• QMS rocks.

Nuff said. This site needs an update. Not only the design, but also the IRI scheme doesn’t make any sense anymore.

Four jobs I’ve had in my life

Slave

Waiter

Singer–songwriter

Model

Four movies I can watch over and over really like

Ali G Indahouse

Vanilla Sky

Saw

Austin Powers in Goldmember

Four places I have lived

Eksaarde

Grembergen

Middelkerke (during the holidays)

Burkina Faso

Four television shows I love to watch

Lost

Trigger Happy

The Simpsons

Fawlty Towers — oh well…

Four places I have been on vacation

De Haan

Westende

Middelkerke — see, this is my life

One of the rare times we spend our holidays abroad, we went to a sleepy little French town called Colombières Sur Orb. I managed to spend three weeks there with both my wrists plaster-casted. Fun!

Four of my favourite dishes

French fries

French fries

French fries

Everything with french fries, really

Four websites I visit daily

Gmail

The Tibia site, especially the pages with player statistics

Flickr

This one, of course

Four places I would rather be right now

In bed

In someone elses proverbial shoes

One year from now

Bobbejaanland — not!

Four bloggers I am tagging

No way. There’s quite enough hate in this world already.

That’s where this script comes in handy. It has the same syntax as the PHP function it’s spoofing, but adds two more parameters.

function number_format(a, b, c, d) {
 // number_format(number, decimals, comma, formatSeparator)
 var k = '';
 if(a.indexOf('-') == 0) {
  k = '-';
  a = a * -1;
 }
 a = Math.round(a * Math.pow(10, b)) / Math.pow(10, b);
 var e = a + '';
 var f = e.split('.');
 if(!f[0]) f[0] = '0';
 if(!f[1]) f[1] = '';
 if(f[1].length < b){
  var g = f[1];
  for(var i = f[1].length + 1; i <= b; i++) {
   g += '0';
  }
  f[1] = g;
 }
 if(d != '' && f[0].length > 3) {
  var h = f[0];
  f[0] = '';
  for(var j = 3; j < h.length; j += 3) {
   i = h.slice(h.length - j, h.length - j + 3);
   f[0] = d + i +  f[0] + '';
  }
  j = h.substr(0, (h.length % 3 == 0) ? 3 : (h.length % 3));
  f[0] = j + f[0];
 }
 c = (b <= 0) ? '': c;
 return k + f[0] + c + f[1];
}

These two examples should illustrate how it works. And if they don’t — here’s a nice test suite annex demo page of the script in action.

• number_format(1234567890, 0, '.', ',') would return 1,234,567,890.
• number_format(1234567890.119, 2, ',', '.') would return 1.234.567.890,12.

Update: Thanks to Alessandro Lia for pointing out a bug regarding negative numbers. This is fixed now.

It was on a cold winter evening that a group of friends, as they did every week, gathered in the local pub to discuss matters such as science, religion, and the meaning of life. That night, after they all had agreed on some scientific facts — like the fact that it would probably take about 48 pints of beer to knock an average man of 75 kilos out — one of them, Nicolaes, brought up a different subject. It is a common superstition that one could read the future out of the palm of a hand or the organs of an animal, but after a very long and hard study I have discovered that someone’s future can be read from his muscles, particularly the ones in his forearm. Immediately, a heated discussion started between Nicolaes and one of his friends, Gerard, who didn’t believe him. Well then, Nicolaes, he yelled, if you think you can predict the future, go ahead — read my arm. I will, I will, let me just get a knife to cut away your skin so we can have a closer look. Won’t that hurt a lot? Everything for science, Gerard. You weigh about 75 kilos, right? If you drink 47 pints of beer, that would stun you enough not to feel the pain while not losing consciousness. So Gerard began to drink, and after 47 pints of beer he indeed was quite stunned. Alright, said Nicolaes, lay him on the table and I will commence the experiment. With great concentration, Nicolaes began to cut away the skin from Gerard’s forearm and poked a bit in the muscles. I see, I see water, lots of water, I… Damned Gerard, couldn’t you have been to the bathroom before we started? Gerard only burped in response. Anyhow, let’s continue. Oh, this doesn’t look good, it says that you won’t get much older than 38 years. That’s odd, wasn’t it your 38^th birthday last week? Gerard? Gerard?