WPMu comments bug

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Reverend

I stumbled upon a bizarre WPMu comments bug today (it may also effect single WP installs, but I’m not sure). Here’s the skinny, if you include to: with two trailing spaces, you will not be able to post a comment on UMW Blogs or bavatuesdays. I’m not sure this is true for all WPMu sites, and I guess others would have to test it for certainty, but it is definitely the case on the two WPMu installs I have tested it on. As soon as you try and post the comment containing the to: with two trailing spaces it will throw a 404 error. Think I’m kidding? Try and comment here with a to: and two spaces, I dare you, hippie. Heck, I’ll even give you 100 bucks if it gets through.

Thanks go to Patrick for knowing about this bug and helping me trouble shoot it, I would have been flummoxed without him.

Update: Even more bizarre is that I tried posting this post with the to: and two trailing spaces and it wouldn’t let me publish the post either, it just threw a 404 error. Wow, what a strange, strange bug.

Posted in Uncategorized, wordpress multi-user, wpmu | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Hank Williams in Sunset Park, PA

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Reverend

Dave the Spazz of WFMU’s Beware of the Blog just posted on Hank Williams, I can’t pretend to know too much about Williams, but what I’ve heard of him is pretty phenomenal.  So the recording of a live performance by Williams in Sunset Park, PA on July 13th, 1952 was pretty educational. From his music I always imagined him as this dark and brooding figure (which I’m sure he was to some degree), but what’s great about this recording is how funny he is.  He tells a joke/anecdote about a guy who was in the doghouse with his wife, so he sent her a letter enclosing a check payable for a 1,000 hugs and kisses. Only to receive a letter back from his wife letting him know the iceman cashed that check this morning 🙂 Also, the music is pretty awesome as well. And perhaps a hymn is in order, “I Saw the Light” is wonderful. There is also a bit where he’s pushing his song books towards the end of the performance, offering autographs. Seemed like quite a different, personable venue for an icon of 20th century popular music.

Anyway, here it is, Hank Williams performing in Sunset Park, PA on July 13th, 1952

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Technologies of control

Posted on September 18, 2008 by Reverend

POWER!
Creative Commons License photo credit: fatbwoy

Lest we forget technology is as much about control as it is innovation, check out this article on TorrentFreak about the state sponsored trojans used to tap Skype calls. The other side of the Gothic and horrific when it comes to the web has as much more to do with centralized control and power then the omnipresent tales of the lone wolf, psychopath predator. What makes it scarier is that we provide the framework and funds through which they control us!

The article below is republished in its entirety from TorrentFreak.

The spokesperson of the German Pirate Party saw his house raided after the party published a leaked document which showed that the government uses a homemade “trojan” to wiretap Skype conversations. In addition, a server from another party member was seized.

pirate party germanyThe Pirate Party is known for it’s battle against the ever increasing government surveillance on the public. So, when an anonymous whistleblower sent them a internal document which showed that the government went as far as installing trojans on computers, they didn’t hesitate to publish it.

German authorities weren’t too happy about the leak, which might be illegal according to a criminal law specialist, and went after the source. Earlier this week police searched the home of the Pirate Party spokesperson where they hoped to find more information. In addition to the home search, a server from another party member was seized. The server, however, was fully encrypted, so chances are low that it will uncover the whistleblower.

In a response, Andreas Popp, Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party said: “A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized.”

Pirate Parties around the world will continue to speak out against these, and other privacy threats. The trojan in question (German) was able to tap into Skype calls and intercept traffic to encrypted websites.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The EdTech Survivalist

Posted on September 17, 2008 by Reverend


Because the future is now…

Find out more about surviving the coming apocalypse here.

Camera work by the great Serena Epstein.

Posted in edtech survivalist | Tagged , , , , | 19 Comments

How many hippies does it take to save a tree?

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Reverend


Hippies Wail for Dead Trees
When I call you a hippie, this is exactly the kind behavior I am referring to 🙂

Via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.

Posted in fun | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

The Political Cartoons of Herblock

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Reverend

I couldn’t resist highlighting this feature UMW Blogs post on the bava as well, particularly given that by reading Robert Lynn’s article I learned who termed the phrase McCarthyism. Gotta love both UMW Blogs and them there Redbaiters!

Look! — Nice Tapes, Okay, Boy?—Okay?–

Robert “Roblog” Lynn has an excellent post about the art and career of political cartoonist Herbert Block. As is often the case, I am always learning fascinating stuff from the magic that is UMW Blogs, and the Roblog is consistently an excellent source of both information and inspiration. He’ll be spending this year thinking about “the structure of newspaper comics” and he starts off with a look at the National Portrait Gallery’s retrospective of Block’s work. Here’s an excerpt from his post:

Going by the trade name of Herblock, he coined the term “McCarthyism,” now a required vocabulary word for every 11th grade American history student, and gave us some of the most memorable images of Richard Nixon ever drawn. The exhibition includes his minimal set of drawing supplies and the beautifully goofy bronze National Cartoonist Society’s Rueben Award (named after Rube Goldberg. It looks sorta like this). Most interesting of all is the opportunity to see how the artist worked–the still visible non-photo-blue pencil drawings, his large, fluid sketchy inkings, and the frequently whited out and taped over faces he corrected again and again and again.

Read the rest of the post here.

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The DeZurik Sisters

Posted on September 14, 2008 by Reverend

Image of the DeZurik SistersThursday night I had the good fortune of spending an evening with Kent Ippolito, who is one of Fredericksburg’s foremost treasures. He is an amazing musician, cartoonist, and person. As is often the case, when we get together with Kent I badger him about music. I think this impulse stems from the fact that this is one of the many realms where I am truly ignorant, but one of the few that I really don’t want to be. We talked about a whole bunch of great stuff, and then I asked him about my recent discovery of Jimmie Rodgers and yodeling. He brought up Merle Haggard immediately (thanks Brian Lamb for making me seem knowledgeable) who he said was indelibly influenced by Rodgers and has the single greatest voice in Country music. But then he busted out The DeZurik Sisters, and all I could say is “Oh wow!”

Check out their wikipedia article, it’s impressive, and here are a few tidbits about the oft-tagged “Cackle Sisters”:

  • The DeZurik Sisters were the first women to become stars on both the National Barn Dance and the Grand Ole Opry, largely a result of their original yodeling style.
  • Inspired by….the sounds of the animals and birds around them, they developed an astonishing repertoire of high, haunting yodels and yips that soon had them winning talent contests all over central Minnesota.
  • In 1936, they signed a contract to appear regularly on Chicago radio station WLS‘s National Barn Dance, and were hired in 1937 to perform on Purina Mills’ Checkerboard Time radio show, where they sang as The Cackle Sisters.
  • In 1938, the sisters recorded six songs for Vocalion Records: “I Left Her Standing There” (Vocalion 4616-A), “Arizona Yodeler” (Vocalion 4616-B), “Sweet Hawaiian Chimes” (Vocalion 4704-A), “Guitar Blues” (Vocalion 4704-B), “Go To Sleep My Darling Baby” (Vocalion 4781-A) and “Birmingham Jail” (Vocalion 4781-B). Those six songs were the only tracks the duo would ever commit to vinyl, although some recordings exist of their appearances on Checkerboard Time.

Here are two of those Vocalion recordings, my favorite so far is “I Left Her Standing There,” but the “Arizona Yodeler” is no slouch either. Do yourself a favor and give them a listen, you may be blown away by the marvels of the human voice.

“I Left Her Standing There”

The Arizona Yodeler

Now, as is true with just about everything of real cultural worth, the WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a rich compilation of the DeZurik Sisters radio recordings from the Checkerboard Time Radio Show recordings out of Chicago they posted back in August of 2007.

Here are a couple of gems from those posted:

Download The Yodel Lady

Download I Ain’t Getting No Place

Download Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia

Download Dude Cowboy

Posted in music | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

YouTube experimenting with copyright?

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Reverend

After uploading the final speech from First Blood to YouTube, I was immediately delivered a copyright notice from Google and Lionsgate. Here is what it looks like:

YouTube Copyright notice
Click for larger version you can view in its entirety.

To quote:

Lionsgate has claimed some or all audio and visual content in your video First Blood (1982). This claim was made as part of the YouTube Content Identification program.

Your video is still live because Lionsgate has authorized the use of this content on YouTube.
Your video “First Blood (1982)” is still available because Lionsgate does not object to this content appearing on YouTube at this time.

As long as Lionsgate has a claim on your video, they will receive public statistics about your video, such as number of views. Viewers may also see advertising on your video’s page.

Lionsgate claimed this content as a part of the YouTube Content Identification program. YouTube allows partners to review YouTube videos for content to which they own the rights. Partners may use our automated video / audio matching system to identify their content, or they may manually review videos.

So, looks like Lion’s gate doesn’t mind folks uploading pieces of their movies to YouTube as long as they can track the stats.

In truth, the biggest thing that bugs me about this policy is that it doesn’t apply to pieces of all films and that they don’t allow others to embed in their sites. Videos on YouTube, particularly feature films, are about contextualizing a discussion, not about watching a film. It is a form of quoting and I want to give credit and rights, but I also want to be able to discuss the culture within which I have lived and continue to live with a certain amount of freedom.

Particualrly, I don’t want to have to worry about being sued or targeted as a criminal because I enjoy discussing movies with others. This policy seems to me an interesting experiment towards acknowledging and negotiating how people are using YouTube to frame such conversations (another reason why embedding is key). The stats remain, and more importantly an online community is discussing and thinking about their film, which means they will probably find some way to see it in its highest resolution, particularly if they are movie fans. And as with most movie fans, it most likely means buying or renting the DVD. How easy are they making this process?

So, am I being naive here? Has this been going on for a while with official notices letting you know they know, but also that it is kosher under certain conditions?

Posted in Uncategorized, YouTube | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

First Blood “Nothing is over!”

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Reverend

Just watched First Blood (1982) for the first time in many years in preparation for an upcoming conference presentation. I have to admit I’m not sure if Stallone’s final speech is the greatest acting I’ve ever seen, or the worst. You be the judge.

And for a wonderful take on this monologue, check out the Macintalk Fred voice reciting this speech as set to a running series of Caravaggio’s paintings —makes it seem like a Shakespearean classic. Brilliant! The clip below is why I love the internet to no end.

Posted in movies, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Let me make this clear…

Posted on September 11, 2008 by Reverend
Buckle your Seatbelts, here comes the future

"Buckle your seat belts, here comes the future" used courtesy of Darkmatter

…I love Tony Hirst! And let there be no confusion, the stuff he is doing at OpenLearn makes me giddy with excitement. Case in point, take a look at the latest developments in the OU Course Spamming saga he and his people have whipped up. I really am lucky to be working when I am, and along side the folks that I am. These are exciting times!

In fact, I saw this bit on Slashdot about the Commonwealth of Virginia’s interest in Open Source textbooks for Physics, and the first thing I thought about was Tony’s imaginings for syndicating resource via subjects and mixing and matching along the way. This is the “flexbook” that article is referring to, and the distribution and the platform for mashability should be just as important as the licensing. Moreover, you can invest far more in the content than the distribution because it ain’t that expensive.

Come on people, let’s break this whole thing wide open, the time is upon us now!

Posted in experimenting | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment