“Prayer.” In youth ministry, it’s one of the most common responses youth give when they can’t think of anything else. Catholics who were raised in the faith from childhood may have been taught reciting prayers such as the Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and other “standard” prayers. Is “prayer” just saying the same words over and over again? Why do we as Catholics pray? And how do we pray to make the most out of it? In the past two weeks, Fr. Justin Huang, pastor of St. Anthony of Padua parish in Vancouver, preached in his homilies the answers Continue Reading
Dennis
I am currently a software developer at A Thinking Ape Entertainment Ltd. I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science with the Software Engineering Option. I primarily speak Python and C# these days, but in the past I've also done Objective-C, Java and PHP.
Outside of work, I'm a volunteer on the youth ministry team at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, and also on the Canadian Ski Patrol team at Mount Seymour. I'm also an avid transit enthusiast/photographer.
Anyone can drive fast, but merging is a skill
It’s one thing to know how to step on the accelerator pedal, but it’s another to know how to effectively merge into another lane… This driver of the big white truck that zooms by in the right lane leaves themselves no room to merge when they reach the parked car ahead. Merging works best when matching the speed of other traffic, not too fast, not too slow (or worst, when stopped).
Blessing of cars and a pledge for safe driving
This weekend was the closest to the feast day of St. Christopher (July 25), the patron saint of travelers. It is a tradition at St. Anthony of Padua parish to pray the following Pledge for Safe Driving and to bless people’s cars with holy water after Mass. Pledge for Safe Driving Lord Jesus, You teach us to love others as you love. Help me to drive safely and responsibly: avoiding dangerous acts while driving such as texting, making phone calls, speeding excessively and driving impaired. Please give me the grace to be courteous and kind, and to use my car Continue Reading
Reducing Database Load using Redis and Batched Insert/Update SQL Queries
I’ve been running my “T-Comm” Bus Locator website for over seven years now. As a quick recap, on the backend, it’s a procedural PHP/MySQL website, kind of a typical thing one would see of PHP development circa 2000s. The high level overview is that every minute or two, the system polls TransLink’s real time information APIs for the locations of the all the buses in the system. The system then calculates some information based on TransLink’s GTFS data, which has the schedule information for the entire system. Then it saves the data into a MySQL database, and some other outputs Continue Reading
Vancouver Cyclist Running a Red Light
Cyclists are subject to the same rules of the road as defined in the Motor Vehicle Act. That means not crossing an intersection against a red light, as this cyclist did. Luckily I was not going faster, or else I might have collided with them.