I thought about watching last night’s game. Really, I did. For all of about half a second. Instead, I turned my attention to the Bluejays (they won, by the way). As opposed to our hockey team. It was over in the first period. Indeed, it could probably be argued it was over in about the first 20 seconds. Looking for an up side here. Hmm. Let’s see. Well, Dion Phaneuf scored. Once. And that’s it. Yeah, I got nothin’. God I hope the Canadians don’t make the playoffs. Really, I do. I’d hope the same for Ottawa, but well, it didn’t do me any good before. Okay, back to following baseball.
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Rangers 5, Maple Leafs 1.
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From the spam box: they don’t come much more random.
I just had the pleasure of being treated to a very unusually unique spam comment. This one was caught just a few minutes ago, posted to an entry I put up here a couple weeks ago. Usually, they’re a little more vague than this. And sometimes, they’re even slightly related to the entry in question. This one? I do believe someone just wanted the attention. Here you go.
lol, 50 Cent is so crazy! I love him.
Now, can someone tell me please what this entry has to do with 50 Cent? Really? Stick to general complements on my blog’s design/theme, guys. They were even making me feel good. Well, okay, so not really.
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On RSS geekery, and LiveJournal. Yes, I still use that–sort of.
One down side to my having moved away from LiveJournal and back to hosting my own blog is I have even less reason to go back and check various LJ pages. Lately, it’s included the friends page. Sort of sucks, since there are still several LJ users I want to keep up with, in spite of the fact I’m drifting away from using it myself.
A couple months back, in my quest for an RSS reader I could use from anywhere, I came across this software, which runs on a self-hosted environment. So far, it’s working out a lot better than I’d figured it would–so well, in fact, that I’ve actually set it up for Jessica to use. Now, if we can just get her using it. I’ve recently started adding the RSS feeds of various LJ people I follow, just so I don’t have to remember to pull up the friends page–I go into my RSS reader on a daily basis anyway, so they’ll be right there with everything else I read. So far, I have it set up to access all the public entries. But, thing about being on the friends list of some of these folks is that I actually like to read, you know, actual content. No such luck so far.
I tried to implement a form of basic access authentication, passing the username and password I need to give the LJ server as part of the RSS feed’s URL (example: https://me:password@you.livejournal.com). either LJ or the feed reader, though, doesn’t like that–I still only get the public entries. Trying to massage LJ’s version of digest-based authentication, which I don’t think the RSS reader likes either, gets me no farther.
LJ does some funky things with its digest-based authentication, which doesn’t lend itself to much in the way of strict URL manipulation. So I can’t, for example, do something relatively simplistic like, say, https://me:password@you.livejournal.com/rss?auth=digest and expect it to work. I mean, it should, but it doesn’t.
So, for the moment, I have some partially working LJ RSS feeds, and plenty of time to exercise my google skillz. In the meantime, so far what I’m using seems to be working fairly well. If I can just crack this digest auth issue, or find some other way to do it that doesn’t seem to be horribly broken, this thing’ll run like a dream. fortunately I have all kinds of time to do it. And I’ve been looking for an excuse to mess around with http stuff anyway. Probably just be a quick and dirty hack, but quick and dirty’s good, if it works. And this had better bloody well work.
Update. Well. It works. Kind of. Except not really, and not quite the way I was hoping. Messing around with trying to get my RSS reader to play nice with digest auth just wasn’t happening. Probably a good thing–I have too many people to be trying that on, and it’d get really freaking tedius after a while. Say, after about 5 minutes. So I did the second best thing. I cheated.
It’s quick, it’s dirty, and it may not amount to being a whole lot more than a temporary hack, but it gets the job done. Well, when it wants to. It involved snagging a copy of LJProxy, which is supposed to be able to make use of their login implementations, thus cutting my headache in half right there. It takes the LJ username/password I’m more than willing to provide it, makes use of LJ’s own client/server API–the same API any LJ client uses to do things like post entries, and grabs a list of friend groups and the friends you’ve listed in the said groups. Then, it makes easy use of their broken implementation of digest auth to nab the RSS feeds belonging to those friends. Finally, it compiles them into a single RSS feed, stored locally, that I can then plug into my feed reader–making about ten times less work for one lazy geek. Then I just slam that one feed into my reader, and away she goes.
Now, if it starts working on a regular basis, I’ll have what you might call my ideal package. There’s only one small problem. It doesn’t quite work that way yet. The instalation process was easy enough, and it does run–just not all the way through. It gets stopped before it can complete its pulling in of content and build the agrigated feed, possibly due to resource issues but even more likely due to problems staying connected to the LJ service. Currently, I’ve got 30 people in the group I’m testing it–the documentation says for best performance, keep it under 50. It’s only gotten all the way through the 30 maybe… twice. The highest I’ve personally seen it go, and stop, is 20. right now, it’s stopped at 8. How do I know it’s not a resource issue? During its second to last run so far, I pulled this from the server.
04:49:04 up 6 days, 20:36, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00
So, during the running of the collection routine, the system’s barely being touched. That rules out being killed on grounds of causing issues with something else. So I’m leaning towards timeout issues with LJ. When I get motivated, I’ll poke around and see what I can do about maybe correcting that. But, it’s entirely possible I’m going to have to wait for the connection to improve on its own. Or, failing that, go back to the drawing board. Fortunately, on this, I’m flexible. And, in the meantime, my dream rss solution is near. And hey, it’s an excuse to break something. I can deal with that.
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Flyers 2, Maple Leafs 0.
Three periods of semi-okay play, plus three periods of decent goaltending, plus this being Toronto’s hockey team equals a toronto loss. It’s how things have gone all season, and it’s how things went last night. And it’s probably going to go the same way next year. In well over 40 years of rebuilding for another stanley cup run, it’s never been quite this painful. And by never, I mean in my admittedly not very long, comparatively, memory. Pretty sad, though, when I don’t even believe my mother was born the last time they actually made it to the cup. Yeah, we need a new team. Is Phoenix still up for sale?
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Startrek: the sequel?
Rumors continue to float into my RSS reader–thanks, Google alerts–of a possible Star Trek sequel, to be shot in early 2011 or so. Part of me–the part that’s sort of clinging to the old Trek–is kind of hoping they’re just rumors. I mean, I downloaded the first of the new movies. And, yes, for what it is, it’s good. But things like Vulcan being wiped off the map? I can’t wrap my head around that. Nevermind the other 50 billion twists away from the established Trek timeline the movie goes through. It was nice to see the older Spock back in action for maybe one last time, though. Now, to go figure out which one of them screwed with the timeline more–Enterprise, or the movie that came out after it. Anyone feel like offering an opinion? I need to find mine.
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The Ontario government tries, very hard, to explain its budget changes. And fails horribly.
At the end of March, we got a good look at Dalton McGuinty’s definition of equality. Which, really, isn’t much of a definition at all. They’ve since come out with a feel-good statement explaining how the cancelation of ODSP’s special diet allowance, which will be replaced by a thinggy to be named later, and the tiny 1 percent increase to ODSP payments is good for us.
Basicly, the statement as it stands now says two things. “People might be misusing it, so we’ll just trash the whole damn thing.”, and, “You don’t need to know what we’re replacing it with. We’ll tell you when we think you’re old enough to hear it.”. All the while, it trumpets the glorious occasion that is the oh so generous increase of 1 percent to monthly payments–the same increase I’ve already scolded them for, not that any of the ruling parties have taken the time to respond to that letter yet. Combine that with the advent of the HST, and what we have here is a failure to live up to your mandate.
On the up side, it does confirm ODSP increases won’t even be in effect until November, also known as 6 months after the HST kicks us in the face. Meanwhile, a much more significant increase to minimum wage is already in effect. Not that that’ll do much to offset the HST either, but it’ll do more than we have to work with. All things considered, I’d much rather be employed. But, since that’s not in my immediate future, I’ll entertain myself by calling out the government on a semi-weekly basis. If not on the blog, then certainly in email. And, very likely, both. And that’s the bright side. Who wants to play beat the premier?
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Bruins 2, Maple Leafs 1.
We actually played halfway decently. Outshot them, spent more time in their end than our own, and at the end of the game, we pretty much owned them like nobody’s business. Except, um, well, we didn’t. That’s the way the season crumbles. I won’t even do a last time comparison here–there is none. I mean, we beat them, but that’s about it. We didn’t play quite the same way we did on Saturday. Or maybe that’s the secret… hmm. Something to ponder during the off season, perhaps.
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My musical inclination’s temporary vacation.
Growing up, I always had a sort of obsession, if you will, with various types of music–mostly listening, but later on, playing. It started with the piano, and as I got out of highschool and finished college, it started graduating more towards the guitar–I blame my uncle, who could probably at least bullshit his way through a song on the thing if you let him. I’d planned to keep at both, but then life sort of happened. I ended up working, and fairly long hours at that–not that I’m complaining or anything; the paychecks were awesome. The down side? It left not a whole lot of time for keeping up with either instrument. So, that kind of gradually fell by the wayside. Then I moved back here, became borderline broke, and subsequently unable to pick it back up again. Oh, I still halfway dabble at the piano every so often, but nothing quite like I used to–took too long to decide to get back to dabbling, I guess.
I’ve always had a good ear for music, even when I wasn’t actively participating in lessons–I did all my learning by ear, for example. Because of that, I’ve sort of developed an ability, much to the dismay of the few people I know who can actually sing well, to virtually deconstruct a song and pick up on things that, well, may or may not benefit from some improvement. I still have that ability, even though it’s been a few years since I’ve actively put it to some semblence of use. So, I haven’t completely lost my inclination towards music, even if it hasn’t exactly been at the forefront for quite some time. It’s sort of been on temporary, but indefinite, vacation. That vacation will probably be as indefinite as my inability to aford to pick it back up again. Or until I can find some variation of the free equivalent. Whichever. It’s nice, though, to still be able to pick up on details of a song I’m listening to even if I couldn’t immediately run over to the piano, or the guitar, and play the whole damn thing back–not yet, anyway. There’s still hope for my return yet if that’s the case. Now, if I could just figure out where this singing ability people tell me I have has run off to.
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Those crazy Apple fans.
We knew back in January we’d be getting bombarded with any and all things iPad. I knew back in January I didn’t want it. At all. What I didn’t know, and probably should have–it’s Apple, after all, is that people would go absolutely crazy over getting one. As in, camping out overnight just to be the first to get one. Well, at least they’re getting free coffee. But still, all this attention for what amounts to a glorified iPod. What’s next? Folks willing–or brave–enough to stand in line for a glorified cell phone? Oh, wait. Never mind. Hey, at least the line to buy yourself a netbook’s nice and short. Anyone wanna join me?
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In which mom becomes this year’s April fools casualty.
I’m the family geek. Which, really, has its positives as well as its rather irritating negatives. And sometimes, it’s neither positive nor negative–just six or seven different kinds of hillarious. Take Friday morning, for example. We’re sitting down for breakfast, and mom brought up an announcement by Google that said they were officially changing their name to Topeka. The announcement, apparently, made headlines.
I didn’t quite have the heart, even after I’d managed to stop laughing, to tell her she’d just been had a day late. But, eventually, I did. She still thought, at least for a few minutes anyway, that it was actually going to be their official name as of–conveniently–April first, the poor girl. In thirty seconds, I summarized the background for Google’s latest of April fool’s jokes. Then got treated to a rare event–I do believe she actually looked like she’d just been handed a 3-dollar bill for a minute.
I’ve been trying for 26 years to pull one over on my mother. Google did it in 24 hours. And all it had to do was make the news. Now, if I’d just waited a day or two longer before breaking the bad news to her… nah, that would be *too* mean. Maybe next year.