Theming a form in Drupal 6
Form theming in drupal 6 is quite flexible. One of the nicest tricks is the ability to theme the form in stages. Calling drupal_render on a part of the form will not only return the rendered version of it, but it will also mark that part as rendered so that when you call the final drupal_render over the whole form, it will not re-render the parts already rendered.
Remember that in order for the form to function correctly there are some hidden fields in every form that must be added to the form. Also drupal needs to generate the form tag. Therefore it is my advise, after doing the custom rendering of the parts you want, add a general render of the form. this will reduce the chance of problems with form submission.
Special thanks to Rolf van de Krol, for this tip.
A few more pictures
The 20/5 I took my camera with me to work to make some pictures of the vila and its surrounding. This gate is the starting point of the path I jog on regularly. The sun was just coming up, it was all really wonderful to watch.
The next picture is for the 21/5. That was a Thursday and Eran arrived for a visit. Made a mas out of Aharale and Mine plans to go climbing in France. Totally worth it though. Its great seeing Eran, which I have not seen for a very long time.
The picture for the 22 is not dramatic. Unfortunately I have had little time to actually take pictures that day, so I stuck the camera outside the living room picture and snapped a few shots.
On Saturday the 23, Paula returned from her hiking vacation in the lake district. While I was waiting for her ship to dock up, I came across this sign. I just had to take a picture of it. Quite brilliant if you ask me.
Today Ellen, Eran Paula and I went hiking in the dunes to the west of Den Haag. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the landscape. It changes from city to forest to dunes to beach, all within a few km walk. I snapped this in one of out breaks, just before we broke out of the forest and into the dunes. I love the way the water and the light play with each other in this picture.
Me
As part of my 365 project, here is the first picture of me. Plan to make one every week.
A photo a day for a year
The sun reflecting on the Hogelandsekerk as seen from Aharale & Geiske's window
Yesterday I was feeling down about loosing two ships in Eve-online Today, I am celebrating this world, and starting on what I believe to be a great experiment in living.
Weekend in London
London has always been one of my favorite cities. Just being there makes me feel slightly happier. The street names, lots of them with a meaning of their own like Abbey road, Oxford street, Regent street, Bond street. The known busses, the famous underground sign, the public telephone booths. London is immediately recognizable. This visit had a wonderful bonus of having my parents visiting it at the same time.
Well that, and that the pound is historically low.
The year 2009 marks two hundred years to the birth of Darwin and a hundred and fifty years since he published his theory of evolution. The Natural History Museum had a special exhibition for this occasion. They did a wonderful job. It follows the path that Darwin took, starting as a young scientist leaving aboard the HMS Beagle on a five year trip all the way to his death. It shows his finding, items he has used to collect and analyze them and most importantly the whole thought pattern that went in his head. the internal struggle with himself once he realized that the holy text version of creation is wrong. It is sometimes hard for us to imagine but up to 150 years ago the bible version was the version.
The museum in itself is wonderful. It covers pretty much all known life from dinosaurs through fish and bird to mammals and humans. Since museums are now free in England a lot of families go there. It gives the museum a living feeling that is wonderful, especially in a museum that is about life. I highly recommend visiting it if you get to London
The other museum that I really enjoyed was the TATE modern. Located in an old power plant building it is a fitting setting for a modern art museum. The exhibitions varied quite a lot so there was something there for everyone. And again, as an open museum there was a wonderful feeling of living art, instead of observatory art.
Not that it was all culture. We spent a whole day shopping. Working our way from Piccadilly circus through Regent street to Oxford circus and then on to Oxford street. At the end of which we went to Soho for some good beer.
London was a pleasure, as it was expected as it always is. We didn't get to do half as much as we wanted to, which means we will be coming back. As far as I am concerned sooner is better then later.
How I ended up disliking religion by being with religious people
Let me start by saying I am not a religious person. I did not have a religious upbringing, even though I was at a religious kinder garden, and I do not believe in the existence of god. Or gods.
These last six months I have been working with, almost exclusively, quite religious people. Since I work at the IT branch this is something that is note worthy. Most IT people I know are not religious. Some of them believe in the existence of a god, others don't, but I would definitely not classify them as religious. However, as I stated, I found my self in a team in which I was pretty much the only non believer. Coming from Israel, religion has always been something that is there. Though I am not a believer, I always thought that there is a lot of good coming from all these people. You could say my disposition towards religious people was positive.
I now have a strong dislike towards anyone that is considering himself religious. and let me tell you why.
In the first few weeks I was completely fascinated by these people. My friends are not religious, neither are my parents. You could say I grew up with little direct influence from any sort of religion. I do realize a lot of the traditions I was raised with come from the Jewish belief, however they were, at least for me, nothing more than that. A tradition.
And here I was surrounded by this group of true believers. We talked about faith, about why they believe, about what they see and how they experience the world. All 4 of them (note: 3 Christians and 1 Muslim) renounce evolution. I got answers like "Are you a dog?" and "I do not come from an ape". And that was about all the proof they had. That was all the proof they needed. Well that and the holy scripts. It bothered me that I could not get through with rational thoughts to these people. Yet at the time I did not know quite why I was so bothered by this. I noticed I slightly shifted from being slightly positive to getting angry with them. Here was a group of people who are capable of thinking, that at some trail of thoughts completely lost touch with logic. That transaction was making me frustrated and angry. why is this happening? Why can they be perfectly logical one minute then completely break with logic the other. They brought up their arguments, I blew them away with pure and simple logic and so we always ended up with two things:
1. God's plan is impossible for us to understand, or Gods way are mysterious, or things that to us seem illogical or impossible are actually logical and possible to a God.
2. I just know it is, or, it says so in the bible.
And that was that. There is nothing to be brought against those arguments because they are just like "because". No logic, no thinking, no reason, just "because". After a few of these talks I started to see what was making me so upset. It was that these, otherwise intelligent people were CHOOSING to see it like that. For the life of me I could not understand why anyone would want to do it. Then again if I could I would probably be a religious person. That was when the last shift was starting to happen in my attitude towards them. I moved from getting angry at them to feeling sorry for them. And then it finally hit me. The difference between how they think and I think.
I look at the world, and then shape my ideas of it
They have their ideas, then shape the world so that it would fit.
And that was that. These people, and this is the worst part, by their own choice are blind to the world. They know for sure how everything is, it is for them just a matter of interpreting everything in a way that matches their idea of how the world is. I now understand how people can do all the terrible things that they do in the name of religion. They do not see it as terrible things. I am actually convinced some of them see it as a good thing. A just thing. My colleges think that being gay is a choice, and that its bad, because it says so in the holy bible. I'm serious.
So now all I do is feel pity for them. They have chosen a path that was a bad idea in the middle ages, let alone in modern time. At the same time I am growing anti-religious by the minute. Look at the conflicts we have in the world now. Look at how many of it is religious based. What's that you say, "Religion is just an excuses given to the masses". Maybe, possibly. However, remove that excuses and it becomes a lot harder to get so many people to do so many horrible things. Religion might be misused, but if it is, than it has been for centuries. Maybe its time we realized that the only way to stop making religion an excuse is to reduce its power so that it can't be used as such. Think I am being to harsh, look at the world map again, think of the conflicts that are going on now in the world.
How many are not religion related?
How many are?
Exactly
I rest my case.
Last note. There is still hope. Every generation there are more of us thinking people, and less of then bling people. One day, relgion will be a marginal group. That will be a good day.
Fair Politics
Politics is not fair. I am aware of that. That said, watching the republican's party campaign is enraging. Trying to win an election is good. Spreading lies, miss information and idea-as-facts is not. Not to mention playing the media. CBS did a check on Palin's speech. It was taken offline after 30 min. Long live google cache.
Also this site, which can be very misleading as to who exactly is behind it.
And finally the truth about thetax.
Update:
It seems there is also an application "Barakbook" now, which "helps you keep up to date with all of Barak's friends". As you can guess, they are all elitist powerful, corrupt anarchists. All of them. How low can you go?
Summer vacation
Summer came, and summer is almost gone now. I have been quite busy and so neglected my blogging commitment. Here to make it right is a post about this wonderful summer.
During this summer I had two major vacations. Two weeks in Berner Oberland, Switzerland, and a week in Israel out of which 3 days were taken by a dive safari in the Red Sea. Before I start telling about these two thought, I'd like to say that the actual travelling start with two visits to Fontainebleau within a month. Bleau is always fun, and every time I come back I find myself wondering why I don not go there more often. I hope this new trend of vising at least once a month on average (more in the summer, not so much in the winter).
Berner Oberland, oh, Berner Oberland. Home of the Jungfrau, the Eiger with its world famous north face and the Aletschhorn glacier to name a few. Paula and me spent a day in Bern, which was nice, but I was feeling restless. I wanted to see the Eiger. So the next day we left for Launterbrunnen, which lies in a dale starting close to Interlaken. It is a place out of a fairy tale. The dale has walls of a few hundred meters high. A few waterfalls flow from the top to form magnificent waterfalls. It is a place that, at least in me, steers a feeling of magic. The next two days we spent mountain biking in the area.
The first day we went up from Launterbrunnen to Muren. That proved to be a somewhat difficult day. In total its 900m of a continuous climb. We were not ready for that much climbing. By the time we reached Muren it really felt like a victory. We were quite tired, and, failing to find an apple shtrudel had to settle for a cup of coffee. The way down was fun. Those 900m went flying by. There were a few places with warning signs instructing us to get of the bikes. We didn't. It was fun. The next day we went for a somewhat flatter route, going only 400m vertical. It was still bloody difficult. Our legs were tired but the scenery was so beautiful they were easy to ignore. The third day we were expecting Bas and Charlotte to arrive at the afternoon. Seeing as we were about to embarke on a 8 day hike we decied to take it easy. The day's activity consisted of getting provinces and getting the bag ready for the coming hike. Bas said they would be there at around 16:00. So we expected them at 19:00 the earliest. We were caught by complete surprise when Bas and Charlotte actually arrived on time.
The hike itself was amazing. I have almost forgotten what a wonderful feeling it is to walk in the alps, sleep in huts, and just generally be out, in nature. Every day I was having more fun. We walked in 7 days from Grosse Scheidek to Oeschinsee. I find my words fail me when I come to describe how it was. The nature was so there, all around you, taking you in. Making me feel small, and at the same time as free as can be. Standing at the foot of the Eiger north face, looking at a wall 1700m high, its exhilarating. we were also very lucky with the weather. We had almost exclusively sunny days. Till 16:00. then it rained, hard. Then at 16:45 it became sunny again. Apparently it has something to do with the area's micro climate. Lots of glaciers and a warm sun will do that.
The second vacation was the diving safari in Sinai. I am a new diver. Its less then a year since I followed a diving course during our trip to Thailand. Less then a year and already I have dives in some of the est places in the world.
Coming from Israel I am no stranger to the Red Sea. This was however the first time I properly dived in it. The safari was a 3 day, live on-board(as in on a boat). Every day there are 4 dives, except the last days which can only have 3 because of time constrains. I don't know if I can conclude from this first experience about all live-onboard safaris, but I believe they are all pretty much like this. And by this I mean totally relaxing. You have zero worries. All you have to do. All you can do is dive, eat sleep and read. Oh and setup discos to dance into the night, but I think that was a bit unique 
. It is an wholly relaxing, and energy filling experience. I highly recommend it as an anti-stress treatment.
Thats it for now, I'm all written out. Ill write some more in the weekend.
Metathinking
When confronted with some thought provoking subjects my mind has an interesting side effect. Unconciounsly, I find myself thinking about the actual thinking. Am I thinking in the correct abstraction level? Are my thought not repetition on some previous idea? Are they permutations of ideas already mentioned? Am I making sense at all in the direction I am going at the moment? and so forth
This type of thinking, which I like to call metathinking is quite good. Thinking is just like most other things in life, practicing it makes you better in it. finding your weak spots and improving them makes you even better. I could say that if I was able to isolate the process of metathinking and do it without the need for an actual subject I would be able to improve my thinking on a fundamental level. This unfortunately escapes me. No matter how hard I try I cant get myself to metathink good without anything that is giving me a direction in which to think.This leads me to believe that I can only metathink well when I can evaluate the progress I made.
The last statement in itself is enough for a long thought, which I might o some other time. For now lets take it at face value. Lets project it to something physical, like jogging. Paying attention to muscle tension, breathing, and body movement while jogging will definitely improve your jogging. So its no wonder metathinking while being busy with something improves my analysis of it. However research has shown the visualizing running correctly, learning to remove muscle tension while relaxing and improving breathing while not jogging also improves your jogging. Of all these exercises the visualization seems the closest to metathinking while not thinking of anything. So why cant I seem to be able to do it?
Hell if I know