muffinlabs.com

Disney Princess Grapes

colin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:09:56 +0000

Disney Princess Grapes

This is the first time I've ever seen Disney marketing on produce. Definitely looking forward to their lettuce line.

Seriously WTF? I'm glad it's not on a bag of cookies, but who came up with this idea?

Electric Avenue

colin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:12:44 +0000

Doctor Who

colin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:24:02 +0000

Here is a table of every time travel jump made by Doctor Who over the history of the show.

Most Common Town/City Names in the US

colin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:32:15 +0000

Here's the most common town names, again from the US Board on Geographic Names:

Its sort of amazing that the most common name is Midway, and Five Points isn't far behind. And a bunch of the rest are about hope or second chances.

+-----------------+-------+
| name            | tally |
+-----------------+-------+
| Midway          |   218 |
| Fairview        |   213 |
| Oak Grove       |   169 |
| Five Points     |   150 |
| Riverside       |   130 |
| Pleasant Hill   |   124 |
| Mount Pleasant  |   119 |
| Bethel          |   111 |
| Centerville     |   109 |
| New Hope        |   108 |
| Liberty         |    98 |
| Oakland         |    98 |
| Union           |    97 |
| Pleasant Valley |    97 |
| Shady Grove     |    94 |
| Pine Grove      |    92 |
| Salem           |    92 |
| Greenwood       |    91 |
| Pleasant Grove  |    89 |
| Forest Hills    |    89 |
| Oak Hill        |    88 |
| Georgetown      |    86 |
| Lakeview        |    85 |
| Shiloh          |    84 |
| Glendale        |    81 |
| Lakewood        |    80 |
| Concord         |    79 |
| Cedar Grove     |    78 |
| Highland Park   |    77 |
+-----------------+-------+

Types of Places in the US

colin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:03:12 +0000

via the US Board on Geographic Names, which has a database I've been playing with a bit lately. It lists every location on every map in the US. Here it is, broken down by what sort of point it is:

+-----------------+--------+
| class           | tally  |
+-----------------+--------+
| Stream          | 232852 |
| Church          | 223033 |
| School          | 209914 |
| Populated Place | 197934 |
| Locale          | 150528 |
| Cemetery        | 137411 |
| Building        |  95797 |
| Reservoir       |  75406 |
| Summit          |  71016 |
| Valley          |  70371 |
| Lake            |  68343 |
| Park            |  66939 |
| Civil           |  58126 |
| Post Office     |  57404 |
| Dam             |  56942 |
| Well            |  38773 |
| Spring          |  38515 |
| Mine            |  35057 |
| Canal           |  21190 |
| Island          |  20476 |
| Airport         |  19495 |
| Census          |  16799 |
| Tower           |  16770 |
| Cape            |  16465 |
| Ridge           |  15149 |
| Hospital        |  13714 |
| Bay             |  13065 |
| Crossing        |  12902 |
| Trail           |  11005 |
| Flat            |  10553 |
| Gap             |   8425 |
| Swamp           |   7462 |
| Bridge          |   6709 |
| Bar             |   5897 |
| Oilfield        |   4862 |
| Gut             |   4547 |
| Cliff           |   4487 |
| Basin           |   4309 |
| Channel         |   4131 |
| Bend            |   2821 |
| Military        |   2774 |
| Area            |   2505 |
| Falls           |   2494 |
| Range           |   2438 |
| Beach           |   2401 |
| Pillar          |   2071 |
| Forest          |   1299 |
| Rapids          |   1109 |
| Reserve         |   1058 |
| Glacier         |   1055 |
| Bench           |    724 |
| Tunnel          |    721 |
| Harbor          |    707 |
| Woods           |    671 |
| Arch            |    573 |
| Levee           |    546 |
| Arroyo          |    464 |
| Slope           |    372 |
| Plain           |    286 |
| Crater          |    251 |
| Lava            |    191 |
| Unknown         |    190 |
| Isthmus         |     27 |
| Sea             |     14 |
+-----------------+--------+

areyouawesome.com

colin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:22:05 +0000

Here's another random project I started a long time ago, but recently updated: http://areyouawesome.com/ -- it answers the fundamental question. Am I, visitor to this website, awesome?

It's not much of anything right now although I'm hoping to use it as a playground for processing.js someday.

Twitter Bots, now with OAuth Goodness

colin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:01:41 +0000

The one devoted reader of this blog (Googlebot, I'm looking at you) probably remembers that I have a couple of bots running on Twitter. Originally I was using a library called Twibot, which was nice, but never quite worked the way I wanted it to. So eventually, I ended up with my own very simple code.

I just finally updated my bots to authenticate via OAuth, a couple days before the deadline. While I was at it, I refactored most of the code into its own class, which the bots extend to add actual functionality. Here's the base class, which I call 'Skeleton'

require 'rubygems'

require 'twitter_oauth'

require 'yaml'

#

# extend Hash class to turn keys into symbols

#

class Hash

  def symbolize_keys!

    replace(inject({}) do |hash,(key,value)|

      hash[key.to_sym] = value.is_a?(Hash) ? value.symbolize_keys! : value

      hash

    end)

  end

end

#

# base class to handle being a twitter bot

#

class Skeleton

  attr_accessor :config

  attr_accessor :client

  def debug(s)

    puts "***** #{s}"

  end

  def run

    load_config

    login

    search

    replies

    update_config

  end

  def default_opts

    {

      :since_id => @config.has_key?(:since_id) ? @config[:since_id] : 0

    }

  end

  # implement search in the extended class

  def search

  end

  # implement replies in the extended class

  def replies

  end

  # simple wrapper for sending a message

  def tweet(txt, params = {})

    debug txt

    @client.update txt, params

  end

  # track the most recent msg we've handled

  def update_since_id(s)

    if @config[:since_id].nil? or s["id"] > @config[:since_id]

      @config[:since_id] = s["id"]

    end

  end

protected

  #

  # handle oauth for this request.  if the client isn't authorized, print

  # out the auth URL and get a pin code back from the user

  #

  def login

    @client = TwitterOAuth::Client.new(

                                      :consumer_key => @config[:consumer_key],

                                      :consumer_secret => @config[:consumer_secret],

                                      :token => @config[:token].nil? ? nil : @config[:token],

                                      :secret => @config[:secret].nil? ? nil : @config[:secret]

                                      )

    if @config[:token].nil?

      request_token = @client.request_token

      puts "#{request_token.authorize_url}\n"

      puts "Paste your PIN and hit enter when you have completed authorization."

      pin = STDIN.readline.chomp

      access_token = @client.authorize(

                                      request_token.token,

                                      request_token.secret,

                                      :oauth_verifier => pin

                                      )

      if @client.authorized?

        @config[:token] = access_token.token

        @config[:secret] = access_token.secret

        update_config

      else

        debug "OOPS"

        exit

      end

    end

  end

  #

  # figure out what config file to load

  #

  def config_file

    filename = "#{File.basename($0,".rb")}.yml"

    debug "load config: #{filename}"

    File.expand_path(filename)

  end

  def load_config

    tmp = {}

    begin

      File.open( config_file ) { |yf| 

        tmp = YAML::load( yf ) 

      }

      tmp.symbolize_keys! if tmp

    rescue Exception => err

      debug err.message

      tmp = {

        :since_id => 0

      }

    end

    # defaults for now, obviously a big hack.  this is for botly, at <a href="http://dev.twitter.com/apps/207151">http://dev.twitter.com/apps/207151</a>

    if ! tmp.has_key?(:consumer_key)

      tmp[:consumer_key] = "hjaOOEeeMpJSqZR7dvhxjg"

      tmp[:consumer_secret] = "wA5iqjfCf9aeGMMItqd6ylEEZAbcm7m6R7vVpaQV0s"

    end

    @config = tmp

  end

  # write out our config file

  def update_config(tmp=@config)

    # update datastore

    File.open(config_file, 'w') { |f| YAML.dump(tmp, f) }

  end

end

And here's the actual code for my newest bot @dr_rumack:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'skeleton'

class Surely < Skeleton

  def search

    debug "check for tweets since #{@config[:since_id]}"

    #

    # search twitter

    #

    search = @client.search('surely you must be joking', default_opts)

    if search != nil

      if @config[:since_id].nil? or search["max_id"].to_i > @config[:since_id]

        @config[:since_id] = search["max_id"].to_i

      end

      search["results"].each { |s|

        begin

          debug s["text"]

          txt = "@#{s['from_user']} I am serious, and don't call me Shirley!"

          tweet txt, :in_reply_to_status_id => s["id"]

        rescue Exception => e

        end

      }

    end

  end

end

@sk = Surely.new

@sk.run

Feel free to adapt this code in any way. I'd love to hear of any uses of it. I've thought about making it work more like twibot at some point, if there's any interest.

Bombs

colin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:42:59 +0000

Bookmark Hoarding

colin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 02:28:14 +0000

I have 3395 bookmarks on my delicious account, which judging from top user data, puts me somewhere in the busier users.

WHICH IS FUCKED UP, because I never use any of these bookmarks!

Recently I switched from using Firefox to Chrome as my default browser. In Firefox, I used a plugin to sync up with delicious, and had maybe 30 or so bookmarks in my main toolbar, with some handy links I use daily. The rest of the bookmarks just sat there. I barely used them, never really thought about it. Chrome doesn't have a decent extension for delicious right now. So, I loaded my bookmarks into Google bookmarks, which was a bit of a pain, and required some coding, but eventually it was done. When you use Google Bookmarks, they show up in searches. That seems handy, but in reality it wasn't working for me at all. And all of a sudden I had 3400 bookmarks to manage, and I didn't care about any of them.

So, I deleted almost all of them. It seemed like a crazy idea at first - after all, I had added all these bookmarks for a reason. But while I was struggling with what to do about them, I realized that I was just hoarding these bookmarks, with little intention of every using them. And having deleted them, I haven't looked back. I have maybe a dozen really important bookmarks now - my bank, a couple random sites I use a lot. I have one folder for random project ideas that I like to track, but I have every intention of cleaning it out often.

All those bookmarks were like some sort of list of accomplishments a la Progress Quest -- as I would surf around, every page of even vague interest was bookmarked for me, and I could cross it off the list of cool sites I had visited. It was like some sort of bizarre mark of pride. And I never referred back to them for anything I never could've found in Google anyway.

So, they're gone, and although I thought I would miss them at first, I haven't missed them at all.

Desert Island Supply co

colin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:52:46 +0000

ROCK

Thai Basil Chicken

colin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:33:13 +0000

via gimme some oven, I made this recipe for Thai Basil Chicken last night and it was damn tasty.

Holga D - open source holga implementation?

colin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:07:33 +0000

This concept totally rocks:

In the old days of analog photography one had to wait, wait for finishing an entire roll of film, wait for development and so on.
But now, in the age of digital photography many photographers agree that the anticipation and delayed gratification of analog photography made the overall experience of photography even sweeter!

From the front it may look like just another digital camera, may be a bit minimal, but the backside is surprising, as it does not have a display!

Even though Holga D is a digital camera, in order to achieve its simplicity, it reduces the feature set to absolute minimum.
Even the display is not there! So your photographs remain mysterious until you download the images. This makes the experience quite similar to the good old film based cameras.

Third and Seneca

colin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:00:32 +0000

From the new album, pretty great.

The Squirrel Twins' Ride

colin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 02:09:44 +0000

Welcome to the first in a series of book reviews which I call "Books That are not Worth Reviewing".

Squirrel Twins

The Squirrel Twins' Ride is the tale of two young squirrels - Chipper and Chatter - as they attempt to make their way through a cold and unforgiving world. They have been left alone while their parents travel to visit relatives. One day they receive a letter inviting them to rejoin their parents, and they eventually find themselves on a train, attempting to reach the house of their Aunt Maria. Unfortunately, they don't know where she lives, they have no tickets and presumably no money to buy them with anyway. It is unclear how they have been able to meet the basic requirements of survival, or who has been keeping their beanie hats spinning this whole time.

On the train, the gruff Conductor and the thrifty Mrs. Mouse are their only source of hope, as they travel from town to town, hoping for a furtive glance of a place to call home. At each stop, the Conductor asks if anyone is looking for two squirrels. It's clear that the Conductor cares only for himself and the duties of his position. He is desperate to unload the twins on the first owl, frog or turtle that will have them.

The conclusion of the book and its bittersweet family reunion is short and to the point.

Published in 1968 by Rand McNally as part of the 'Tiny Elf Library', it's evident that no one expected this book to survive until 2010. The binding is cheap and the pages are yellowed. We happened to find it at a library book sale a few years ago, and it's been a popular item ever since - mostly because the story is so bizarre.

The book is written by Duncan Jury and illustrated by Eleanor Corwin. Corwin will appear again in future book review. This might be the only book published by Duncan Jury, and it's not hard to see why. It doesn't make any sense at all!

The book is short so I have scanned it in and you can view it here. I don't have a lot of interest in violating any copyright, so if someone wants me to take it down, just let me know and I will.

Lemony Broccoli and Chickpea Pasta

colin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:15:10 +0000

Tonight's dinner was a DAMNED TASTY Lemony Broccoli and Chickpea Pasta

Ingredients

One 19-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 pounds broccoli, cut into florets
1 pound rigatoni
5 large garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

In a medium bowl, toss the chickpeas with the lemon juice and 1/2 cup of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the broccoli until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the broccoli to a colander and rinse under cold water until cool. Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook until al dente.
Meanwhile, in a large, deep skillet, heat the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook over moderate heat until the garlic is golden, about 3 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the chickpea mixture and cook until warmed through, about 1 minute.
Drain the rigatoni, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the broccoli and chickpeas along with the reserved cooking water and season with salt and pepper. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the rigatoni is coated with sauce. Remove from the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Transfer the pasta to a bowl, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and serve.

Braised Chicken With Black Beans And Sweet Potato

colin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:30:59 +0000

We've been making this recipe from Cookthink at least monthly since we found it:

Braised Chicken With Black Beans And Sweet Potato

This healthy, satisfying one-pot dish is made with chicken thighs and flavored with jalapeño, cumin, coriander, lime juice and zest and cilantro. Serve on its own or with a side of brown rice. We'd recommend washing this dish down with an ice cold beer.

Muslims in SPACE

colin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:34:46 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Wish You Weren't Here

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Pitch - now with more open source

colin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:15:50 +0000

I wrote pitch about a million years ago it seems like. It was fairly popular for such a niche game. Anyway, I've gotten the occasional request to release the code, so I've done so on github. Perhaps someone will use it to make a version of the game for another platform.

Enjoy!

YouTube - Flash Sticking Around

colin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 07:07:25 +0000

YouTube API Blog: Flash and the HTML5 <video> tag

There's been a lot of discussion lately about whether or not the HTML5 <video> tag is going to replace Flash Player for video distribution on the web. We’ve been excited about the HTML5 effort and <video> tag for quite a while now, and most YouTube videos can now be played via our HTML5 player. This work has shown us that, while the <video> tag is a big step forward for open standards, the Adobe Flash Platform will continue to play a critical role in video distribution.

It's frustrating to see the web move so slowly(*) sometimes. If google can't make the video tag work, it can't be done.

* It's sort of wack that I even wrote that.

Whale Pail -- Twitter Delivered to your RSS Feed

colin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:28:52 +0000

WhalePail is a simple web app to generate RSS feeds for a variety of Twitter data. I wrote it to help me keep track of the collection of bots I have running on Twitter. I used to just have a couple panels in TweetDeck to watch them, but TweetDeck sucks, and so does having to watch it all the time. Now, I can get a daily summary of their activity in my RSS feed, which is much easier to deal with, and I can scrap TweetDeck in favor of a much better client.

To use the site, you'll need to authenticate yourself via Twitter. Then you can setup checks for tweets, mentions, or just search for a phrase. You get the results back as an RSS feed. You can specify daily checks, or a couple times a day. This is handy if you're checking for something that might have enough volume that Twitter's API might flush it out more than daily. I might add some other options like JSON output later.

The code runs on Sinatra, and is available as twitter-rss-digest on github. I used the sinitter project as a starting point.

Decent DD-WRT howto

colin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:38:27 +0000

I've used DD-WRT on maybe 5 routers, for a variety of tasks. While there is a lot of info and tutorials out there for it, many of them are stale, or brief, or just overly technical. This one on lifehacker looks like a good walkthrough on building a wireless repeater with DD-WRT.

great review of starship troopers

colin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:23:41 +0000

It really is a terrific mainstream subversive film.

fuck shit stack

colin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:30:12 +0000

LOOSEWORLD x Waverly Films: Reggie Watts in F_CK SH_T STACK on Vimeo

Crossfire

colin — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:10:42 +0000

Here is Crossfire, my latest game project.

The original Crossfire is an 8-bit game published in the early 80s. It's one of the first memories I have of plucking away at our old Apple ][. This game is my attempt to recreate it, making a couple things easier but also hopefully a few things more interesting as well.

I used Flixel to build the game. It's a great library.

Although the game plays well enough, I'm not entirely happy with it. The balance could use some work, and it would be interesting to have some other modes.

Anyway, here's the game.

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

_why

colin — Mon, 17 May 2010 07:43:44 +0000

Why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius - Smashing Magazine

The disappearance has left a horde of orphans of _Why’s code and activity. And while no one knows for sure why he did what he did, there are solid theories, the strongest one being that his real identity had been discovered, however weird that sounds. This article tells the tale of this post-modern artist whom people came to know as Why the Lucky Stiff.