Archive for June, 2005
A Recording
Sunday, June 5th, 2005
Got out my MIDI keyboard this afternoon and made this. It’s synthesized, but it’s a nice sample set, and it’s all me on the keyboard. I think it sounds pretty cool.
Sunday Afternoon [ogg vorbis]
If you can’t play this, here’s how. If you still can’t, here’s an mp3.
I’ve been listening to “Army Corps of Architects“ by Death Cab lately, so it may have had some influence.
zenphoto 0.1 preview
Saturday, June 4th, 2005
I’m not making the source available just yet, but here’s a preview.
Right now, it’s a fully navigable gallery, with full on-the-fly image processing, a simple design using new template functions, display of image and album metadata, and more. Yet to be implemented are the admin interface (which you can’t see anyway ;-)), storing image metadata, comments, cruft-free URLs, and lots of other stuff…
This week, I fully implemented templates, which was big. It’s a simple template system. For example, this is how you print album thumbnails in the gallery index:
< ?php while (next_album()): ?>
< ?php endwhile; ?>Minimal code for the loop, yet still powerful. The functions run in “contexts” which give internal template functions more info on where they’re called. next_album(), next_image(), next_comment() etc. control the context switching behind the scenes. It’s mostly for error control to make sure you don’t call a function out of context, but I still think it’s cool.
This release is a fully functional photo album (as you can see). From this base, I can start on the features that will make zenphoto really cool. I’m still looking for ideas on how to make it even better, so keep the comments coming.
[ Update: I just cleared the image cache so you can see my slow server process the images on the fly. The album to test is iStock; it has some 5-megapixel images, and you can really feel it churning away. But-- most importantly, the page loads fast regardless of how fast the image loads, which makes it feel responsive, and all further views of that image are instant. ]
[ Update Again: Okay okay okay, I just got this great idea: Predictive image processing. Based on some algorithm, start preloading normal-sized images based on the thumbnails that are currently being loaded. And do it through hidden IMG tags in the HTML, which return 1px blank images (gasp) so that there's still no lag from it. I'll see. And it'd be optional of course. ]
Fallacy of Potential
Saturday, June 4th, 2005
It seems that there are rhetorical fallacies in every corner of public life in the United States — politics, television, corporations, families — everywhere, everyone is misinterpreting everything. That there was a fallacy of generalization. People do it all the time. Half the people in the US have below-average regard for the way they use generalizations when speaking. Isn’t that incredible? It also happens to be a 100% true statement, and on a subject I have no clue about. A statistical fallacy. It’s all in the way you word it. You can make anything sound any way you want it. How often do you think the media or the government (on all sides of the political spectrum) does this? I see it all the time.
I’ve been very disturbed with a new fallacy I’ve seen used all over the place recently. I call it the Fallacy of Potential. Simply put, it is the misinterpretation of a potential for something to exist as the loss of that thing. I’m sure it’s been well documented before, but I just want to point out a few blatant examples of its continuing rise in public media, politics and beliefs, and the effect it’s having on the country. Read the rest of this entry »