Archive for January, 2006

Tweaking!

Published by james on January 29, 2006 in Programming and Site. Closed

I spent the better part of the weekend burning on Candied Pop writing a couple of articles and re-posting some of my reviews from here–bootstrap content–but mainly I’ve been tightening up the technical aspects of the site. It is the first time I’ve worked with ad content so I’ve been operating on a bit of a learning curve trying figure out the best mix and arrangement of individual items.

One of the things I looked into doing was having some of the ads rotate through a pre-determined set, mostly the Amazon ones, so I looked around for plugins that would do the trick. I couldn’t get CG-Amazon nor AdRotator to work, the former threw errors when activated and the other, well, no errors but it just didn’t work as advertised. In the midst of my head scratching I stumbled upon a plugin, Witty, that serves up quotes from a file. It worked right out of the box but it only works with a single file which doesn’t quite what I needed, so a little code tweaking and I have a plugin that works like I need.

Here’s the code in question:

function witty ($before = ”, $after = ”) {
$file_path = “witty.txt”;
$witty_file = (ABSPATH . “wp-content/” . $file_path);

And the tweak I applied:

function witty ($file = ”, $before = ”, $after = ”) {
$file_path = $file;
$witty_file = (ABSPATH . “wp-content/” . $file_path);

Wicked simple tweak which allows us to reuse the plugin anywhere on the page with multiple ad files. The curious thing of it is that this code is pretty similar to AdRotator but for some reason the latter did not read the file. Never no mind as we now have a solution for dynamic ads.

DS Lite, I think I’m in love…

Published by james on January 27, 2006 in Video Games. Closed

Nintendo, lately, has been making me swoon. The revelations about the Revolution, the games being released for the DS, and now a redesigned DS on the horizon have all left me more than breathless and flushed with passion. I look forward to getting my hands on this sexy device.

DS Lite

Joystick also has a tidy little write up about the DS’s new trim look.

Quick Thoughts, Resnick’s Inferno

Published by james on January 26, 2006 in Books. Closed

Resnick's Inferno I’ve been sitting on my thoughts about this book for close to a week; it was such a quick read and I fell into it immediately after Purgatory that I needed a little bit of time to collect my thoughts.

Where Paradise reflected and Purgatory smoldered, Inferno rages. A few pages in one can already see the flames being fanned and it is not long before the narrative arc is a white hot blaze that neither falters or burns out. Even in the closing paragraphs of the novel the reader is left with the feeling that it will be a long time before there is any end to the ceaseless conflict. Again, Resnick uses his words as a mirror casting back at us the realities of the world that we occupy, creating a cautionary tale about the consequences of the best intentions.

Inferno, like the earlier books, is the story of external influences that hasten development. In all three books an advanced culture makes contact with one less so, and either through colonial efforts or humanitarian ones attempts to elevate that culture’s status. In each case the effort is flawed and doomed to failure, either because of subjugation like the first two novels, or by providing too much too fast with little or no oversight, as is the case with Inferno.

The pace of the book and it relevance in light of the past 30 years of human history be it Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Yugoslavia, El Salvador, Sri Lanka. It is an indictment against tribalism and the arrogance of the “developed” world but one that carries the message that more care and thought must go into the inevitable contact between cultures. That the process cannot run unchecked, allowing for wild swings between the wants and needs of one group over another. the process is more than complex and more than delicate and even thinking superficial, cursory thoughts about it is an exercise in frustration and humility.

Resnick has done an incredible job with this series. He has left me thinking and wondering, even after the memory of his exact words fade there is still the spectre of his message and though, he offers no solution, only tales of consequences, the reader is left trying to work through the maddening “only if” to reach a satisfactory solution of their own. The books also pushed me to draw correlations between my world and those that he created, to identify parallels and ask the same questions about this reality which we share.

I am left exhausted, humbled, and more than a little saddened as I have no solutions or answers. To me the mark of a great writer is one who can cause you to peer deep within yourself to ask, “am I what I believe I am?” Resnick has done this for me.

Fiendishly Working

Published by james on January 25, 2006 in Random. Closed

I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy these past couple of weeks prepping for the launch of a new website, Candied Pop. It is a sort of vanity-hobby thing focusing on reviews of albums and singles as well as the occasional interview and likely tirade about the industry from a consumer perspective. The idea to launch came about when I noticed that the most popular content here is the music reviews–they generate the most hits and trackbacks–and I was bemoaning the fact that I write better when I have an editor dropping work off at the last possible minute. Why not put the two together? If anything it will get me to keep my critical writing skills sharp while still having deadlines–labels and AR departments this time–hanging over my head.

The best part of this project has been that the technical matters, for the most part, have taken a back seat to more strategy and business minded thinking; the opportunities for that kind of thinking really have been few and far between since I finished school. At the moment, I’ve got scraps of paper with notes, thoughts, musings, and proto-strategies covering my desk as I try and formulate a plan for the site. Yeah, I’m likely over thinking a simple site but at the very least its giving me something to do other than twiddling my thumbs.

We’ll see where it goes. I’ve got a friend who’s generously jumped in to wrangle new content and tame it in 800 words or less for which I am extremely grateful and excited.  He’ll provide a great Indie foil to my overt Houseness and it’ll be a trip to see what he pull out as essential listening.  I expect to get schooled thoroughly and have fun doing it.

File Under: WTF, Wasteful Spending

Published by james on January 24, 2006 in Editorial. Closed

Engadget ran a post about the implementation of iris scanning for New Jersey grade school to the tune of $369,000.

The platform provides entry-access controls, visitor management and the capability to scan a driver’s license from 50 states and automatically import the information into the database.

The system takes a digital photograph of the iris, the color portion of the eye, each time a parent, teach or administrative and school employee gains access to the school. “The algorithm can map out up to 242 unique points in the iris,” Bolling said. “A good fingerprint patch is anywhere from seven to 22 points.”

So the obvious question here is, WTF? Is this really necessary? It is on par with the prioritized Homeland Security spending where such high risk locales like West Virgina receive six times the funding per capita as New York. Someone please tell me why an elementary school needs biometric security especially in a state that does not have nearly the same levels of violent crime as Tennessee or the nation’s capital?

It boggles the mind but proves that I am in the wrong business.

Quick Thoughts, Resnick’s Purgatory

Published by james on January 23, 2006 in Books. Closed

Resnick's Inferno Purgatory is the second in the Galactic Comedy series and of the three it could be considered the slow burner due to the fact that political and social intrigue is more understated and the over arching conflicts presented are more cursory in their description than the other two novels. Instead it focuses more on the personalities involved in the process of colonization and is presented in a deeply fatalistic manner. The only sure things in Purgatory are hubris and incredulous amounts of shortsightedness. Compassion and understanding is superseded by tendencies towards self-destruction which gives the novel and its events the feeling that no matter what action the protagonists undertake each and every action shares the same end. Purgatory reads like a long, quiet sign of hopelessness.

This novel, like the others, plots the course of colonization from first contact to the inevitable collapse of the colonial system. The narration however, is a third hand account relayed as the events occur over a hundred year span so there is a greater sense of urgency to each event as opposed to the more reflective nature of Paradise. The end, however, is less hopeful and betrays how easily we can squander opportunity for the pettiest of reasons, no matter how noble those reasons might be.

Purgatory is also a loose discussion of the economics of colonization and its impact on independence and in this regard the latter half of the book approximates the challenges faced by Zimbabwe as it seeks to address the issue of re-allocating arable land. Resnick posits that acting on the concept of social justice, however morally and ethically sound it might be, can be disastrous. The question is how can social grievances be addressed to the satisfaction of all parties involved but still maintain the best interests of the nation state. Mugabe’s land distribution policy is an example of how short sighted social policies can lead to the unraveling of a national economy as critics argue that it lead to one of Zimbabwe’s worst famines.

Resnick has written a deeply critical novel, one that takes a sharp knife to both sides of the issue. There are no saints or heroes in Purgatory. Individuals are limited by their self-interest and as a group that self-interest becomes a collective myopia that drives us towards destruction. It is cynical and it stings to consider the notion that individual self-determination is subjugated to the trajectory of the whole. As the last words of the book fell off the page I was left saddened and feeling slightly hopeless because Purgatory is just that.


Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States