Geek Stuff

Mastodon

Geek Stuff, Personal / /

I’m one of the latest influx of people to head over to Mastodon as more and more is happening with Twitter that I don’t like. Honestly, Elon buying it was enough, but there’s been plenty since then.

I joined twit.social as @tim52 (because I like the number 52) without a whole lot of research or understanding about why you’d want to pick one instance over another. Glenn Fleishman (who I know from High School and follow on Twitter) was on that server so that’s where I went. It seems a fine place to be and I haven’t noticed any racism, homophobia, misogyny, anti-semitism, or other hateful crap, but I also have not been around for very long.

I’m just starting to get a feel for what “Fediverse” culture is like and how the ‘verse combine with your instance and people you follow to determine how conversations go. I’ve waded in a little bit but still feel pretty uncertain. There certainly seem to be a lot of people ready to help but I’m very cautiously optimistic because it so far seems very white and very tech.

We’ll see.

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Young me and my dog walking on the beach back in the '80s

Trying out Gutenberg

Geek Stuff / /

WordPress is updating the editor we’ve all come to know and love (I know, right?) with the Gutenberg editor. This new editor promises a lot as far as how authors create content in posts and pages.

It makes things like adding content in columns much simpler for those for whom toggling their editor into “code” view was a daunting task.

And that’s cool. It’s really cool. As someone who builds templates for people to use on their sites, it means that authors can create better layouts without risking breaking everything.

It makes it much easier to add and embed different kinds of things.

Like perhaps embed a Spotify song? A really good song by The Cardigans.

Now, I know what you’re saying:

“The Cardigans? Aren’t they that ‘Love me, Love Me’ band?”

Yes, they are that “Love Me, Love Me” band but listen to them again. They grew up, developed addictions to bad people and bad substances, and wrote great pop songs about both.

The addition of the Gutenberg editor has not been without controversy. The lead of the WordPress Accessibility team resigned due to frustration with their team’s concerns being routinely ignored. For those of us who care about accessibility, this is definitely cause for concern.

This post was written using the new editor. So far, it seems pretty good. It will definitely save money often spent solving the problems that it solves. But when it comes to accessibility, it seems worth keeping some side-eye pointed in their direction.

I wonder what  "verse" element is.

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Buffy Season 6 Review by MikeJer

Geek Stuff, Neat!, Pop Culture / /

I really like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.? I’ve now watched the entire series three or four times (the last time with the kids).? I’ve been known to expound on what I feel Buffy has to say about our world – probably even more than some (perhaps unfortunate) drinking partners would prefer.? But this guy MikeJer…now he really knows how to go on about Buffy.? ? Case in point: nearly 14,000 words analyzing the often derided Season 6.? Just, wow.

Buffy Season 6 Review by MikeJer – SuperJer.com.

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Share iTunes Now!

Geek Stuff, Music / /

I’ve recently started using Simplify Media to share my home iTunes library so I can listen to it at work. It’s working great so far and I’m now letting all my friends know that they should install it and share with me. The application installs an IM-like client in your system tray where you add up to 30 friends. Then, in iTunes, you see all of your new friend’s libraries for you to play to your hearts content. Install it and let me know.

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The Girl’s Got Dirt

Geek Stuff, Music, Personal / /

Here it is! My first good mash-up. I’ve been playing around with Acid Pro for a while now and put together a few different kinda-almost mashups. This one is the first that’s really come out well. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about mashups that turns me on. I guess part of it is that I’m a musician, temporarily without other musicians to play with. But then there’s the appeal of mashups themselves. More on that later. For now, enjoy Jay-z vs. AC/DC – The Girl’s Got Dirt.”

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Campaign for America’s Priorities

Geek Stuff, Politics, Work / /

Today, I’m splitting my time between attending sessions at the N-TEN Regional Conference (here in DC) and checkng progress on this wicked-cool application we just finished building for a client. I’m really proud of it…especially since we turned it around in less than a week (and that included multiple content and graphical changes by the client at all points in the development process).

We used the Google Maps API to build the Campaign for America’s Priorities (actnow.org), allowing people to add a personalized protest sign to a map and send links out to friends. Pretty cool, really.

Here’s my map.

I’m not sure if it’s the first virtual march. Let me know about others you’ve seen.

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