Fix WP-Amazon in WordPress 2.5

looky

I upgraded WordPress to 2.5.1 recently. Suddenly my WP-Amazon plugin is broken! That is the thing I use to put Amazon links in my posts, and therefore like 90% of my pictures (mainly because I don’t have to host the pictures… kinda lazy huh). What happens is the little Amazon button doesn’t even show up in my Manage tab.

So I did some newsgroup spelunking and found how to fix it.

Let’s say your WordPress is at $WP-HOME

  1. go to
    http://www.gnifty.net/code/wp-amazon/
  2. copy everything there
  3. copy the wp-amazon.php to replace the one you have in
    $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/
  4. make a directory “js” in that same directory
  5. copy files into that directory :
    • jquery.accordion.pack.js
    • jquery.dimensions.pack.js

    into $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js

  6. make another directory in that one $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js/jquery
  7. copy the “jquery.js” file from $WP-HOME/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js into
    $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js/jquery
  8. ?
  9. profit!

Holcombe Waller @ Cafe du Nord

music

Last night I went to see Holcombe Waller at Cafe du Nord. He was very good; I like his sound much much better than before on “Advertising Space.” I guess that was 10 years ago…

He was mostly solo; he was sitting on a chair alone on stage with his guitar, dressed in flannel with black-framed glasses and a beard, so it was kind of like the Eric Clapton MTV Unplugged.

Waller used his voice as a percussion instrument in this performance. His first song was this thing that I STILL can’t find on the damn albums; the only way I can think to describe it is as sort of a “Walking Song” by Meredith Monk which then transitions into a song that is like a more plaintive “Country Roads” by John Denver. Hopefully I can figure out what song that was, it had the word “Saskatchewan” in it.

UPDATE: it was a Buffy Saint-Marie cover called “Qu’appelle Valley, Saskatchewan.” Remember Buffy? From Sesame Street? Well I do. Anyway, Holcombe Waller’s version is on YouTube, I embedded it below. The version he performed was ever so slightly more mellow than this one.

One of the songs he did that was also really awesome was “Literally the End of the World.” That one is his.

His guitar work was very intricate. I actually bought everything he had there so now I have the complete Holcombe Waller collection. He needs to make more stuff to buy…

Opening for him were two groups also from Portland, OR, including Loch Lomond, who were quite good. Their instrument selection was pretty zany; at one point they used those corrugated tubes you swing over your head. I bought their albums too.

Holcombe Waller performing “Qu’appelle Valley, Saskatchewan”:

Tonight on Yahoo Answers

stardate

Q1: Consider the plain y=1?
a) find a point on the z-axis on this plain
b) find two other points on the plain
c) find a vector perpendicular to the plain
d) find a vector parallel to the plain
i need to show all my work thanks!
11 minutes ago – 3 days left to answer.

A1: You are doomed.

1) do you even know what a plane is?
2) what does y=1 mean? draw all the points at y=1. There’s your plane.
3) You can’t even spell “plane” properly.
4) do you know why you have to show all your work? So they can tell if you’ve been getting your answers from somewhere else!

I recommend you study your book instead of screwing around on the internet.

These questions are so basic that if you can’t answer them yourself, you’re going to look like an idiot in class.

Q2: Is love the greatest power in the universe?

A2: Actually entropy is the greatest power in the universe.

Q3: I am very ugly and nobody loves me, what should I do?
I am afraid to die, but I am so lonley I don’t know what else to do.

A3: 1) graduate high school
2) go to college and get an advanced degree
3) make a jillion dollars
4) buy your own plastic surgery, go on a diet, learn how to dress and use cosmetics, learn about fashion and art
5) return home and enslave the fat aging ex-pretty people

All the most fabulous and beautiful people I know started off ugly and unpopular. We are in our 30s now… everyone who was pretty back then is now fat, poor, and dumb. Learn from this example.

Embroidery Machine Notes

looky

I’ll probably end up attempting an Instructable of this, but in the meantime, here’s the notes I wrote up on the embroidery machine class I took at TechShop.

Supplies

You will need:

  • material to embroider – duh!
  • thread with which to embroider – most people use a shiny thread
  • “stabilizer” – a fabric designed for embroidery that strengthens the “back” of the embroidered area. Available in “tear away” which… tears away… “cut away” which doesn’t, and a kind with self-adhesive on the back. There is also one which dissolves in water, so you can make lace.
  • Jump Drive – the Janome has a USB port that it reads designs from. Bring your own so you don’t have to beg / scrounge for one
  • Machines shared amongst many artists, like the one at TechShop, use up some of the parts.
    • Bobbin – the Janome uses the clear plastic ones made by “White.” Buy some so you can load it up with your own string before your session
    • needles – you may break a needle. Use a 11 or 13.

Machine Notes: The Hoop

There’s this plastic hoop, like an embroidery hoop, that you put your fabric in.

  • There are actually two hoops for this machine, Hoop A (5.0″ x 4.3″) and Hoop B (bigger!)
  • The software can rotate your shape for you, but I would do it elsewhere…
  • The machine does one color at a time
  • try not to stretch nor bunch the fabric in the hoop

Machine Notes: Threading

  • thread just as you would a sewing machine
  • the bobbin thread should be spiralled counter-clockwise

Import Your File

  • You really, really, really need a vector art file to do anything worth doing. The converter that comes with the Janome machine is pathetic. Automated options include VectorEye ($59 exports only a .svg) and VectorMagic (It’s a SAS (Software As Service); $15 for 3 months of unlimited conversions).
  • In Illustrator, convert all your thick lines to filled, borderless shapes. Use “Convert to Outline” or the like
  • In Illustrator, convert all text to outlines as well
  • Export the file as a .emf file
  • Now open Embird!

Generate your JEF file

  • In the editor, check your design
  • use the simulator to determine the order the shapes will be stitched, and where on the shape the thing will start
  • export the .jef file

Run the Machine

  • Position the head with the arrow keys
  • start stitching by pressing the start button. But! Only let it stitch a few stitches, like 5…
  • stop stitching. Now is your chance to cut the loose thread. After doing so, start the machine again
  • The machine will stop after completing a shape, so you can load in the new color. The colors on the editor are for convenience.
  • You can skip a shape by touching the “next page” picture

Busy week

stardate

My schedule is sort of brutal recently – I get up around 7am and work on film editing until about 9, when I go to work. At 6pm I head home, and work on film until about 12. So that’s what I did Monday and Tuesday…

Wednesday I had dinner with my dad at Shan Dong (a tiny restaurant in Oakland). He lives in Auburn so I don’t see him very often. Lately I’ve been recording stories about his childhood on my memo recorder that dumps to .WMA files. I’m trying to figure out how to get them transcribed easily; like feed them into Dragon or something.

THEN, on Thursday, at work we had a big “fire drill” where a large client came in to inspect the company. I had to make a presentation, which I then didn’t get to do because of changing plans. Then, that night, Diane and I had a big party at my house for actor Gary Shail, who had a small part in Shock Treatment, which is the sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show. The cast that plays in San Francisco is Bawdy Caste, and Diane is a player there.

Gary Shail flew in from the UK to make a special appearance, so Thursday was his welcome party. It was a potluck, so everyone brought food and booze; we actually netted alcohol. Then next night was the show (Shock Treatment) at the Clay, which was very good. Well, the movie was ghastly.

But the cast was very good. They had all the costumes and choreography. Gary Shail did a little bit of improv at the beginning.  Incidentally Gary Shail is also in Quadrophenia, which might be a more stomachable movie.

The events manager for the Clay Theater was very impressed with Bawdy Caste’s performance, and apparently Peaches Christ saw the show (sort of in disguise, since he was wearing street clothes and was therefore a he).

Then, yesterday I took a training class at Tech Shop to learn how to use the embroidery machine. Looks like I have to convert some graphics to vector in order to do them justice.

And TODAY… I get to go to work. We’re doing a deployment for a different client we sold something to. I think it’s going to be a lot of me sitting around. I am there from 2pm until potentially after midnight. One of these took until 4am.

Webcomics scraping + piracy

looky

I just read this story about how a Chinese company scraped an entire website (a web comic), bound it into a book, and sold it in the US. Kinda insane.

But it got me thinking again about self-publishing– now there’s Amazon’s BookSurge and the much much prettier Blurb. You can publish entire picture books!

I last investigated this in June 2004, so it’s no surprise the services available are much better now.

Anyway, I have an annoying question: suppose the guy at Immonen is able to stop the sale of the book? Will he be able to stop them all? It seems like the only way to benefit from this and prevent a recurrence is to publish your own content as soon as it is completed. That way consumers will have something to buy that is not pirated and therefore gets money back to the creator.

So, webcomics guys: the only way to fight this is to band together and publish your stuff. If you don’t have enough to bind together into a book, take a page from the indie record industry and go in on it with another webcomic. The added benefit (besides the cost benefit) is that you get the other guy’s audience as well. More readers, more following = more money! Yay!

Japantown Atlas

looky

I just found (through the Nichi Bei Times) this cool project: the Japantown Atlas.

The Japantown Atlas maps nearly two dozen communities in California where Japanese Americans lived and worked prior to World War II. Drawing from historic maps, business directories, and photos, we show a variety of Japantowns as they existed in 1940.

Our project both memorializes the Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) in their first 20-50 years in America – the businesses, churches and schools they established – and documents the hometowns that 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave behind during their incarceration in “Assembly Centers” and “Internment Camps” during World War II (1942-1946).

“Cursed” shoot

flix

This last weekend I shot a short called “Cursed” with writer/director Digant Kasundra. I was “DP,” although given the guerrilla nature of the shoot I was basically just running the camera and setting up some minimal lighting.

All things considered, the shoot went very well. We started at 5pm and ran until 2am, Saturday and Sunday. Despite the late hour, the actors did not lose energy, which was very impressive.

The story is about 3 slackers who think an avenging force (a stalker) is coming to kill them, because of all the rotten things they’ve done in the recent past. It’s a very funny script…

Three roommates review the foul sins of their lives while investigating the root cause of mysterious events on an otherwise peaceful night

The summary doesn’t really do justice to the writing, which is completely hysterical.

Another note was we used a SAG actress on the shoot. She was very good, and the forms weren’t so bad. We were at “Student,” so I still have to see the forms for the next level up, “Ultra-low budget.”

Name that bird

stardate

There’s a bird that sings from around 6:30 through 9am. It’s a very distinctive call… I remember it from my childhood. What the heck kind of bird is it? I got up at 6:30 this morning with a shotgun microphone plugged into a miniDV camera to record him. Since it’s a weekend and early in the morning hopefully I got it without much traffic noise.

My plan is to convert the sound to .WAV or .MP3 and send it to birdwatching sites, so someone can identify it. Yesterday, just for fun I bought more bird calls at the sporting goods store. I love bird calls.

Last night I got in at 2am. I was DP’ing for Digant Kasundra’s Cursed, which is a very funny script. Since we needed it to be dark, we set up at 5pm but could only start shooting around 9pm. Horrible. Tonight we shoot starting at 8pm; I hope we don’t go until 2am again.

Single Issues To Graphic Novel Conversion

stardate

  This may turn out to be a terrible idea, but I’m going to try binding my complete run of DC’s 1988 series of Doc Savage into a book.

The comics aren’t worth anything, and it’s a pain to keep them in the plastic baggies. I’d prefer to have them all in one place.

I have a few series of comics which I enjoyed, but pretty much everyone else hated (for example, “Harley Quinn”), so they will never be collected into a trade paperback.

I also have some comics where I’d like the trades, but can’t justify buying the entire thing again (for example, “Outlanders”).

There are two separate Instructables on this: one with just glue, and one with stitching, like I learned through the San Francisco Center for the Book.