More tumblr imports

content/posts/tumblr-musings/bad-rounded-profile-pics/index.md

@@ -16,12 +16,12 @@ tags:
 
 Are you pissed off with the rounded profile pics that Facebook has decided to use? If so, just install this glimmer blocker filter and they'll be gone the next time you force-refresh your pages - forever!
 
-## The catches:
+## The catches
 
 * **You need a [Mac](http://apple.com/getamac/ads/).** I might build a firefox greasemonkey script sometime soon tho.
 * **You need [GlimmerBlocker](http://glimmerblocker.org/).** I'd highly recommend it, its essentially a proxy that removes all the irritating ads on websites for you automatically :) It'll work with every application you use, and you can even make your own rules as to what gets blocked (like this...)
 
-## How to install:
+## How to install
 
 All you need to do is go into the GlimmerBlocker Preference pane, go into filters, hit the little cog next to + and - under _filters_ and subscribe to my filter using the following address: [http://dropbox.kedakai.co.uk/GlimmerBlocker/Facebook.xml](http://dropbox.kedakai.co.uk/GlimmerBlocker/Facebook.xml)[^1]
 

content/posts/tumblr-musings/facebook-api.md

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+---
+title: Facebook API Niggle
+date: 2009-07-29T00:49:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 🗣️
+images:
+tags:
+  - facebook
+  - xfbml
+  - code
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+I like Facebook (despite its recent frustrating changes that make walls confusing) but I have a niggle as a developer using their APIs. If you choose to use Facebook's XFBML to put a commenting system on your blog (like I do here) then anyone posting that page inside facebook has a separate comments list. Try posting this page on facebook[^1], if you comment on that post in your feed the comments won't appear on this page and things you write here won't appear there.  Granted, sometimes this behaviour is preferable (popular sites might have thousands of comments on one page, and 99% will probably not be your friends or anyone you care about) but it would be good if when you initially 'share' a link on facebook, while the javascript is grabbing the pictures and headlines from the page, it would also look for XFBML and tie the commenting systems together if the site publisher had the relevant option toggled in their [developer settings](http://www.facebook.com/developers/). You could even have non-friends' posts hidden by default (or listed merely as '34 other posts').  I realise its hardly a pressing problem, but I really love Facebook's interconnectivity and I use off-site Facebook commenting in a couple of places[^2], it'd be nice to see it happen!
+
+[^1]: Import note: This won't work any more, as this site no longer uses Facebook's XFBML comments. (I'm not even sure if that feature still exists!)
+[^2]: Import note: There were three links to other blogs/websites of mine, all of which now exist within this one.

content/posts/tumblr-musings/geo-tumblr.md

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+---
+title: Geo Tumblr
+date: 2009-08-31T15:45:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 🗺️
+images:
+tags:
+  - code
+  - geo
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+Well, I'm back from Japan and while I was there I kept an online journal (Tumblr, you rock) to let everyone at home know what was going on. To make things even cooler I vowed to keep the posts tagged with where I was while I was writing them, of course tumblr has no functionality for this so I hacked up a geotagging solution using javascript.
+
+After making a [formal request for geotagging features](https://getsatisfaction.com/tumblr/topics/geotagging_of_individual_posts)[^1] on their GetSatisfaction pages, someone asked me how I got it done, so I created a (very sloppy) [tutorial as a github gist](https://gist.github.com/jphastings/178487). If you feel like getting some rather hacky geotagging features in your tumblog, this is one way to do it with google maps and plenty of time!
+
+The Cons:
+
+- You have to find your lat and long in decimal format in order to tag your post with a `geo:51;-1`. This was very annoying when my iPhone doesn't really have this ability. (I used tweetie when it was offline, which posts the google map link of your position when you ask it to)
+- Many of the posts I wrote in more than one place (long posts, written in the evening about a place I'd left, or about more than one place) which meant there was no obvious single location for the post.
+- There's a painful javascript yank on any system visiting the site, due to the amount of computing that needs to be done to work around the tumblr system, which was never designed to do this. (Its not that bad really, but just irks me as it shouldn't be necessary!)
+
+And yes, Japan was amazing.
+
+[^1]: Import note: GetSatisfaction has [gone offline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Satisfaction), so this forml request has succumbed to link rot.

content/posts/tumblr-musings/get-iplayer.md

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+title: get_iplayer - it rocks
+date: 2009-07-10T18:16:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 📺
+images:
+tags:
+  - bbc
+  - itunes
+  - tv
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+If you're a mac user, and like your BBC television (**and** have a tv license) then you may like [my options](https://gist.github.com/jphastings/144622) file from the awesome [get_iplayer](https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer). You'll need to be vaguely happy on the terminal, but with this options file you can grab BBC video and have it automatically thrown into iTunes. With the PVR facility of get_iplayer you can even have them added to your iTunes as they're aired!  There's some commenting on the options file so you'll hopefully be able to tailor it as you need and, with luck, I'll have subtitles working soon too!

content/posts/tumblr-musings/helix.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+---
+title: Helix [Cy Densham]
+date: 2009-05-31T00:35:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 🧬
+images:
+tags:
+  - poetry
+  - cy densham
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+[Helix](https://helix.byjp.me/)
+
+My literary counterpart, Cy Densham, posted an interesting new poem/artwork today. Let me know what you think!

content/posts/tumblr-musings/its-been-a-while.md

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+title: It's been a while…
+date: 2009-11-15T23:21:00+00:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 📆
+images:
+tags:
+  - irotoku
+  - code
+  - ruby
+  - github
+  - poetry
+  - iTunes
+  - DAAP
+  - Songbird
+  - gem
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+Well, its been a few months since I posted last - the genuine joy of interesting/difficult work in my final year as a Physics undergrad - but there's a fair amount I should probably put up here for posterity:
+
+- I've become very interested in [Playdar](https://playdar.org) - an old friend of mine, [James Wheare](http://james.wheare.org/), is a ket developer - and the possibilities music resolution has to offer. As a consequence I released quite a few libraries and a program that helps some of playdar's features become a little more tangible.
+
+  Voici [DAAPlaydar](https://github.com/jphastings/DAAPlaydar): a script that will resolve playlists of yours (using playdar) and make them available to you via DAAP share. A very cool concept (even if I say so myself!) but it falls short because iTunes is very picky about the DAAP servers it talks to, Songbird works well though :) I hope to be ablet o work a bit more on this in the near future - if you have any expertise with DAAP, you know who to get in touch with!
+
+- In order to get DAAPlaydar working I had to build a few libraries, one to decode Apple's DMAP object encoding method (now a ruby gem on gemcutter called (drumroll please) [dmap](https://github.com/jphastings/dmap) - woop! There's also [PlaydARR](https://github.com/jphastings/PlaydARR), a ruby library for interacting with the Playdar server (also now a gem on gemcutter). So named because [pirates help combat global warming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming). True story.
+- My dashing alter ego [Cy Densham](https://twitter.com/CyDensham)[^1] has released some more poetry, your opinions are more than welcome.
+- At some point some of the many photos I took while traveling Japan will arrive on Flickr (I'm fighting with FlickrUpload for Aperture at the moment) some of[^2] [the photos are already up](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jphastings/albums/72157622516311575), and of course they're geotagged ~so you can just [browse to Japan in Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jphastings/map?&fLat=35.5322&fLon=136.2963&zl=12&order_by=recent) to see them~[^3].
+- I've also realized that one of the projects I enjoyed working on the most isn't mentioned on here! Shock horror. [irotoku](https://github.com/jphastings/irotoku) is a (very basic) way of hiding information in images - ie. Stenography - the implementation of the decoder I wrote in C here is quick enough that if you hide MP3 data in a (big!) image you can pipe directly from the image through irotoku to an MP3 player and listen to your heart's content. Good fun.
+- So that's pretty much all for now, Cy has some interesting ideas so there may some more stuff up here soon, but he might be pushed down by this newly inspired Physicist and such tedious things as job applications. Yay.
+
+[^1]: Import note: Given the state of twitter here in 2023 this link to 'Cy Densham's Twitter account may not last long. Certainly the password to the account is long lost, and I've likely lost access to the email address behind it. Soon I'll get microblogging working on this blog, import those tweets to it, and swap the link over.
+[^2]: All of
+[^3]: Apparently this no longer works?

content/posts/tumblr-musings/kids-with-sticks.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+---
+date: 2009-07-17T15:20:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 📺
+images:
+tags:
+  - plug
+  - music video
+  - Chris
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+{{< vimeo 5639386 >}}
+
+Shameless plug for my brother's music video production (music by [Kids With Sticks](https://www.facebook.com/people/Kids-With-Sticks/100067452183216/)).

content/posts/tumblr-musings/podcasting-and-copyright.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+title: Podcasting your favourite tracks without copyright worries
+date: 2009-11-16T16:31:00+00:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 🎙️
+images:
+tags:
+  - idea
+  - playdar
+  - xspf
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+> I had an idea last night, I'm going to sketch it out here it may turn into more than an idea at some point!
+
+If you're a hobby podcaster or webradio DJ then you may find yourself limited to the songs you can use without having to hunt down a licence or permission. Despite the fact that its [easier all the time](http://www.ukpa.info/2008/08/22/the-new-mcps-prs-podcast-license/) it could be time consuming enough to make it not worth while.
+
+Having become quite interested in [Playdar](https://playdar.org) I came up with an idea for making podcasting even the most protected of tracks (say the [Happy Birthday song](http://www.unhappybirthday.com/)[^1]) totally legal.
+
+In brief I propose an extension of the [XSPF](https://www.xspf.org/) playlist format to include instructions for playing tracks at the same time. This will allow Joe Podcaster to record a voice track (chopped up into segments), upload them and include them in a playlist that includes these voice segments as well as defining resolvable names for the songs in the podcast, each with a description of when each track (speech or music) should be played relative to each other.
+
+You podcast listener will retrieve the extended XSPF, download the unresolvable elements (the podcaster's voice) and resolve the copyrighted tracks from whatever sources are available, ready to play - because the songs are resolved locally there is no copyright infringement!
+
+A program on the listener's computer can compile an audio file ready for use in any music player, or programs could be extended to support this format.
+
+Below is an example extended XSPF[^2] I've sketched out based on version 0 of the XSPF file format (which is [available online](https://www.xspf.org/xspf-v0.html)).
+
+I hope this makes vague sense, I've run out of time to write more! I'm bound to make massive changes to this idea as it progresses - what are your thoughts?
+
+[^1]: Import note: Happy Birthday is now [in the public domain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#:~:text=%22Happy%20Birthday%20to%20You%22%20was%20in%20the%20public%20domain)!
+[^2]: Except there isn't… this has been lost somewhere in Tumblr.

content/posts/tumblr-musings/time-flies.md

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+---
+date: 2009-05-29T17:06:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 📛
+images:
+tags:
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+> I just realized; this is my last exam and I still don't know what to put in the 'year' box.
+>
+> [Chris Bacon](http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=199714379)

content/posts/tumblr-musings/unexpectedly-popular-photo/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+---
+title: Unexpectedly popular photo
+date: 2009-09-02T00:52:00+01:00
+draft: false
+emoji: 🖼️
+images:
+tags:
+  - code
+  - geo
+  - from-tumblr
+---
+
+{{< figure src="./unda-da-sea.jpg" alt="A photo looking down on two young men with masks on swimming under cristal clear seawater, facing upwards" caption="'Unda Da Sea' via [Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jphastings/2502815493/)" >}}
+
+I find it very amusing that despite 3 years with an SLR and progressively increasing skill in using it (or so I feel :P) that the number one 'interesting' photo in my flickr collection is one I took on a mobile phone...