The Rodeo

A while ago I modified a wordpress plugin called WordPre.cio.us that harvested links from a del.icio.us page and added them to your site, (almost) automatically.

The original would produce a post for each day’s links, where I wanted a single post that would contain all the del.icio.us links since the last link post.

I received an email this morning asking how I made the link posts, so I figured I’d post the code here for anyone to use.

To Install

1. unzip this file to your wordpress plugin directory.
2. rename del2wp.config.php.example to del2wp.config.php
3. edit that file and change settings to point to your own del.icio.us feed.
4. that’s about it…

To Use

1. Add links to del.icio.us
2. When you want to generate a new post, goto http://www.yourdomain.com/path-to-script/del2wp.php in your browser (you’ll need to edit that link to point to where yours is located).
3. if there are any new links to put into the post, that will be done and you’ll be shown what the new post contains. If not, the script will say so.
4. again, that’s about it…

RodeoClown: linking.

Nothing to do with the musician, Moby Games is pretty much a catalogue of everything about every computer game ever.

You can find out who worked on a game, what people thought of it and pretty much anything else about it you want to know.

So… why do I bring it up?

Because I have an entry. Hooray!

It’ll be updated soon as another game I did a bit of work on is soon to be released.

RodeoClown: didn’t even have to put his own name in.

Click the image for more.

RodeoClown: </p> Heh!

A good website designer always needs time to laugh at the funny web designs they find on web sites. Some web site designs can be funny and some websites are serious while other web sites are not.

Thanks to Shamus Young I’ve recently been (re)introduced to the concept of ‘mash-ups’.

The idea of a mash-up is to take several songs and smoosh them together into a new and different musical work. It sounds messy (and can well be), but when done well, the final product can be well in advance of the sum of its parts.

Shamus links to the Best of Bootie 2006 (language warning), a downloadable album of mash-ups that show off the capabilities of some of the more celebrated mash-up artists (mashers?).

Tracks 2,3 and 12, Black Sabotage (Beastie Boys vs. Led Zeppelin), Tricky Sandman (Run-DMC vs. Metallica) and Beethoven’s Fifth Gold Digger (Kanye West vs. Beethoven vs. Walter Murphy) are my favourites on that album. Not what I was expecting, but they turned out awesome.

The 2005 album also has a winner with Sgt. Pepper’s Paradise (Beatles vs. Guns N’ Roses). Guitar solos rocking behind a Beatles classic just can’t be beat.

On your way out, check out Norwegian Recycling - How Six Songs Collide:

EDIT: Wordpress is being stupid and not showing the video here - you can watch it on Shamus’ site while I fix this up.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://vid.adbrite.com/video/abplayer.swf” fvars=”vid=1872″ height=”400″ width=”468″ allowScriptAccess=”sameDomain”/]

EDIT  (AGAIN): Looks like the video is down too… sorry folks, you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was awesome.

RodeoClown: Hawkeye.

I hope so…

RodeoClown: fingers crossed

I’ve outlined why I haven’t been posting much, and hopefully they are acceptable reasons. If not, boohoo for you.

I started blogging with the goal of being disciplined and writing something every day for 30 days. I accomplished that task, and kept going for another 21 months. During that time I’ve moved house, changed church service, had another kid, had a sister get married, and the other finish school, move to the US, move back, and start working with a good friend of mine in the city. My mum changed jobs too, dad started guiding tours at Jenolan Caves. And I’ve slowed my posting rate considerably - from once a day to once a week. Or month.

So it kept me disciplined for a while, but life got busy and I got lazy.

What Now?

I’ve got a steadily growing list of things that I want to write about, but I’ve been having trouble getting started on any of them, much less finishing the posts I’ve begun. So here’s the new deal:

Regular rhythms rock - so I’ll aim to get something written once a week - Tuesday sounds like a good day (not least because it gives me seven days to come up with something for the next post). If I don’t have a new post up come next Wednesday morning, feel free to hassle me about it*.

I’ll also try line up several posts, so I can have them appear in a timely manner. And I’ll work at keeping them interesting and not echo stuff that’s already in the ’sphere.

Again, this is for me, everyone else just gets to listen to my thoughts**.

RodeoClown: weekly.

*Or don’t, your call.

**Not literally (unless you’re an internet telepath - in which case, read this: “                              “)!

Etienne Deleflie has created a surround sound format that provides true three-dimensional sound (including height, something that normal surround sound doesn’t provide). As of this Friday, he will no longer sit at the desk opposite me, but will attempt to make a living by giving stuff away.

He has written two posts explaining why someone might want to purchase a CD of these ambisonic recordings, when they can download the contents for free (legally).

There is a growing trend to provide free goods and services and to make money from things secondary to the main business. Craig points to a rant by the retiring Science Fiction Writers Association president, blasting “web scabs” who publish content for free on the web and who are eroding the efforts of old-school writers who continue to sell in the traditional manner - ie, not giving their work away for free.

What must hurt them even more is that the current number one science fiction book on Amazon was made available 5 weeks before hand as a freely downloadable file.

John Piper gives away all his books for free - and still sees big sales of the dead-tree manifestations of the same works.

Often, as in the case of webcomics, the artist makes money from the sale of secondary items, posters, prints, clothing etc, and not from the comic itself.

I think that this trend can only continue to gain ground. Copying digital files loses nothing in the transfer process, and as fast as media companies can lock their content up, it will be unlocked and distributed on the web. When there is so much content around, having to pay before finding out whether I actually want to purchase something makes me far more likely to just look for something else that I can try first.

I’m currently listening to a CD my sister owns, and I’ll more than likely buy it myself - partly to support the artists, and partly because I want a copy of my very own. There’s something satisfying about exchanging money for a real, physical object. I like having CDs around (it also means that once I’ve ripped them to my PC, I have a backup around should I need it).

I would appear that free distribution has the potential to work wonders for media producers, and there is a good chance more people will want to fork out for someone who has given them something for free.

Also - go check out Ambisonia, especially if you have a surround sound system and are interested in good, free, sound.

What do you think about giving stuff away to promote sales?

RodeoClown: Trying, then buying.

I discovered the existence of The Sarah Connor Chronicles today. It’s a fill-in-the-gaps series, set between T2 and T3, due out sometime in the next year or so.

I was a big fan of Terminator 2 after watching it when I was ten or eleven, and I later saw the original (which was OK, but not as good), and T3, which was… not completely terrible.

Why did I like the middle one so much?

Three reasons:

1 - The Mini-Gun vs Police Scene - it wasn’t until a decade later that the HUD casualty count of 0 registered with me. After hearing a big speech about how “you have to promise not to kill anybody”, I’d never really picked up on the fact that the hero makes a point of not killing anyone at all (even when being shot at). Cool.

2 - Morphing Bad-Guy - The T-1000 was a great bad-guy; he could be anyone or anything (including the floor), and he was even more unstoppable than the T-800 (Arnie). Add to this the fact that the computer-graphics morphing was pretty much unknown at the time, and it made it even more awesome.

3 - Picking Up Small Children By Their Clothes - This is the way of the future. Portable children are much easier to manage.

So, why am I excited about TSCC?

Three reasons:

1 - It looks cool - The terminator aesthetic is a style I like, so even if the show is pathetic, it still looks great.

2 - River Tam - Summer Glau is in the show, as a robot chick from the future. This is also awesome.

3 - Another show to watch - 24 is getting pretty boring now, and needs a replacement. This could fill that gap nicely.

RodeoClown: come with me if you want to live.

I’m running a workshop at work on some of the new features in Java 5. Mark, who is organising said workshops called out yesterday “Hey Ian, are you in on Tuesdays?”.

To which I looked at him, looked at myself, looked back at him and turned back to my desk.

For readers from the future: Today is Wednesday.

RodeoClown: sometimes the best response is no response at all.

We played Omaha poker
at lunch today. Win.
I like Omaha poker.

Omaha poker
Played it at lunch today. Win!
I love Omaha

RodeoClown: chaotic

Looking for a great new read?
Something sci-fi, but without the cheese?

Go read Crimson Dark.

It looks great, reads great, and is even made by a passing acquaintance of mine (which I didn’t realise until I had been reading the comic for a while).

The story is really starting to pick up now (it’s up to chapter four), but it makes the most sense if you start from the beginning. It’s got a bit of a Firefly feel to it, which makes it worthy of reading by itself, but add pretty explosions, witty banter, and a willingness to treat the readers as real human beings with real human brains makes it a real treat.

Do yourself (and David) a favour, and go read it.

RodeoClown: I mean it! Go read it! (Anybody want a peanut?)

*

RodeoClown: A-men!

*Picture originally from here.

Go look at the Change Blindness Demonstration at the USD Internet Psychology Labs.

Tell me how long it takes you to spot the difference in each of the images (any comments with what the changes are will be deleted).

RodeoClown: too long.

After waiting a week and a half, my connection speed was finally upgraded.

I just downloaded the latest ep of The Poddy in under 20 seconds.
Haven’t heard it yet, but those guys are well worth listening too.

RodeoClown: tubular.

I told Dave that I’d post a list of add-ons I use with Firefox.

That was about ten months ago, so I figured it was probably time to write the list. If you don’t use Firefox (and you really should), then expect this to mean even less to you than my normal drivel :). If you do use Firefox, consider any add-ons on this list to come stamped with my approval.

The List*

Tiny Menu - shrinks the menubar into one or two top-level menus. I use this and then put all the other buttons on the menubar too.

Restart Firefox - adds a button/menu item allowing you to restart firefox with a single click. I use it a fair bit when firefox gets all bogged down.

Flashblock - blocks all Flash movies until you give the go-ahead to download them. This is handy in preventing ads popping up all over your screen too.

ScribeFire - a blog editor that I am using right now to write this entry up. Lets you save drafts locally as well as posting to different blogs etc. Handy.

Duplicate Tab - duplicates tabs. Duh!

BugMeNot - accesses (non-paid) websites with a shared username/password. Helps prevent loads of advertising and assists in privacy.

English (Australian) Dictionary - gives little squigglies under misspelled words, but not under words like ‘colour’ and ‘favourite’.

SubmitToTab - submit forms to new tabs.

del.icio.us - I use the del.icio.us plugin to quickly mark interesting sites, that I then post to my blog every now and again.

Adblock Plus - blocks ads.

Nuke Anything Enhanced - right click on stuff and remove it from the page. I normally use this to pull ads or pictures out of articles I want to read.

OpenBook - customises the ‘Add Bookmark’ dialog, I use this to add the keyword field to the pop-up, so I can get back to sites really quickly.

Screen grab! - takes a screen shot of a web page, scrolling automatically so you get an image of the entire page. This was made by my buddy Andy, who I used to sit next to at work.

Fasterfox - performance/network tweaks for Firefox. Can’t say I’ve seen much difference, but it could well be helping, so I leave it there.

Popup ALT Attribute - Firefox doesn’t show ALT tags by default (because you should be using TITLE tags instead). But most sites use alt tags still, and lots of my favourite webcomics have extra jokes in there, so this is a must for me.

Download Statusbar - adds a little status bar for managing downloads. Really neat.

FireBug - the most useful web development application I’ve ever used. It has a stylesheet editor/viewer, a javascript debugger and allows you to edit anything on the page on-the-fly. If you do any web development, get this tool.

Colorful Tabs - makes each tab a different pastel colour. Helps me keep track of what tabs I have open and where they are (I often have over 20/30 tabs open at once).

IE Tab - allows you to open tabs as Internet Explorer. Handy for those sites that expect you to use IE when you don’t want to.

TabGroups - adds groups of tabs, so I can have several groups, one for work, one for stuff to read on the train and so on.

BlockSite - (I don’t have a URL for this one, just do a search for it) I use this to block youTube, so I don’t do anything stupid like looking at not-quite-nude girls dancing to pathetic music.

Autohide - options for running firefox in maximised mode (F11). Adds a bit more screen real-estate. Nice for my little-screened laptop.

*This list is probably not complete. I use lots of add-ons, and I add and remove them from time to time.

RodeoClown: foxy.

I just figured out that the name of the movie Gattaca, consists entirely of the letters that describe our DNA.

I just checked out the IMDB page for it, and the very first bit of trivia points that out. Yeah, pretty slow on the uptake (the movie came out in 1997).

I love little details like that.

RodeoClown: not going to Saturn.

As of right now, I am the first result in a search for Ian Tyrrell, huzzah!

Finally I have overtaken Prof. Ian Tyrrell at UNSW, who may or may not be the author of a series of historical books, and who seems to dominate the rest of the result page.

Of course, google is pretty fickle, so I may only rule the results of my ego-search for a few moments, but I will remember this moment for the rest of my life at least a day or so.

RodeoClown: enjoying it while it lasts [for some value of ‘it’].