30 December 2007, 10:54 pm
So, three years, 2160 entries and far too many broken layout experiments later, the Lavonardo HQ finally moves to a proper blogging system.
The why’s pretty much established, maintaining a miscoded perl-based engine is not really as fun as proper authorship. The system failed to qualify as a bona fide therapy-project ages ago, and is thus abandoned (the other, more or less dormant blogs will follow suit sooner or later).
I wanted to try out something new, and WordPress seemed to be the king of the hill right now. Didn’t play with the alternatives, just picked the top dog. So things are by no means guaranteed to stay like this, but ought to stay stable for a while.
Technically the changes are not great, and not really visible to the viewers.
The blog is still hosted at louhi, albeit with a trivial extra cost of an additional MySQL database.
A complete archive of the old-format entries are available via the sidebar. And they may be converted into the new engine if its RSS-import is indeed as powerful and flexible as is claimed. Or a mesenate appears with promises of money and resources to do the work if it’s not.
Backups will need to be figured out sooner or later. At version 2.3.x, I’m pretty sure the engine can hold its own against the cruel world.
The layout will change. The theme was one of the least harmful offered, and will get tuned as defects or irregularities are discovered. The first eyesore: the text-widgets are not properly aligned in the left sidebar.
29 December 2007, 12:56 am
Let there be lights.
We are go.
Houston, we have liftoff.
#include <cliché.h>
Or something.
This thing seems to actually work. Even though louhi’s web-administration tool doesn’t exactly agree with the installation instructions.
27 December 2007, 12:32 pm
From perusing the visitor statistics of the christmas season, noted that “fingerpori widget” appeared often.
No such beast exists right now, and to scratch someone’s itch, I put together a simple web-scraper for just that purpose yesterday evening. The javascript-exercise is simply called “fingerpori” and able to show the current strip from Helsingin Sanomat.
While primitive, it does what is needed, and did not keel over during the night. But I’m seriously doubtful about the application logic (conveniently nicked from another widget), and will take a somewhat serious look at the basics before release 1.0 becomes reality. Also, have to figure out whether xcode packs a version control system, or does Lynch need to pick up subversion or something like that.
(A Yahoo! widget and a facebook application to follow. Don’t hold your breaths…)
26 December 2007, 7:26 pm
This week’s fiver concerns itself with ending.
1. Have you noticed that you keep running out of a particular product at home? What is it, and why do you reckon it’s just that single product?
Beer and toothpaste. No specific reason.
2. Have you been impressed by the ending of some book, movie or play?
Certainly… Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch, the final episodes of the fifth seasons of Buffy and Angel. Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island.
3. List all songs where “ending” is part of the name
Meh… Doors’ The End, Anthrax’s Be All, End All, Bullet for my Valentine’s The End. Sentenced has multiple “End”-derivatives, but cannot recall any exactly. Sabbat has End of the Beginning.
That’s a pretty lame catch.
4. What do you think ought to end as soon as possible?
The ongoing waiting for any snow in Helsinki.
Or the whole winter, if the previous wish cannot be accommodated.
5. Are you going to finish anything in the forthcoming days? Does this mean the beginning of something new?
Nope, nothing such planned.
26 December 2007, 7:16 pm
Three days of glorious vacationing done, all traditional, all too brief.
Black. Or greenish gray to be fully exact.
Plentiful. Ate a lot.
Literary. Read a lot.
Peaceful. Slept a lot. And pet cats many times.
While planning world domination on the side, of course.
24 December 2007, 11:15 am
Restful and jolly holiday season for all.
23 December 2007, 4:46 pm
Someone at Apple seems to have had a very bad december thus far:
Exhibit A: first thinksecret shuts down following a settlement.
Exhibit B: then Fake Steve Jobs is hit with a second suit, the company hoping to silence another voice with money. And in a truly Kafka-esque moment, the plaintiff is threatened with loss of assets unless three bad entries in the blog are retracted, each one of them being more or less obvious (the “just a single button in the iPhone” hovering even near a real issue).
I’m betting on zealous lawyers, not company policy.
Lawyers whose bumbling actions will probably end up in the doghouse on account of massive amounts of bad publicity.
23 December 2007, 4:36 pm
Meh.
Traditional chrismas movie with high school buddies vs. Barça-Real live on television.
It’ll be Golden Compass, with the game recorded, to be watched on a later date.
23 December 2007, 4:29 pm
Executive summary for Dreamworks / Aardman collaborative effort: quite good indeed, but not Ratatouille-caliber.
Pro: decisively anti-french, singing slugs, nicely realized sewer-world, not overly saccharine or morals-equipped, brimming with intertextuality.
Con: not much, though the some of the jokes do feel painted on. The lack of extras on the dvd is no fault of the movie, but is a wasted opportunity nonetheless.
22 December 2007, 11:10 pm
Today was officially the shortest day in Helsinki.
Snowless, it’s been pretty dark lately. But the weather’s been mostly on the collaborative side, and it’s been less miserable than it could have been.
First snow, and actual albedo. Then longer days. Sounds like an easy enough plan to follow.
22 December 2007, 11:00 pm
Encountered my very first truly broken dvd today.
The disc containing the last two episodes of the final season of Deadwood refused to co-operate at all in the Sony’s aging player and exhibited a scary majority of dropped frames when played on the Mac.
Mr. Swearengen and his cohorts have quite a few expressions that are appropriate in situations like this.
HBO’s customer support answered within the hour and acknowledged that a replacement disc will indeed be supplied free of charge. Which was nice. But not really useful right now, as the current disc is pretty much constrained to slideshow mode (with clippy audio and captions the only way to follow the story).
22 December 2007, 10:50 pm
The year is drawing to a close, and the “… of 2007″-lists are ubiquitous in the media.
The grandfather of any such lists is a meta-list collcted by Rex Sorgatz.
Some of the worthwhilest lists seen thus far are:
22 December 2007, 10:21 pm
Finished Dennis Lehane‘s short story collection Coronado yesterday and was rather disappointed in it.
Instead of sticking to the familiar Bostonian environment, the author has branched out to the deep south. Definitely an odd choice, considering well-crafted the environs have been in preceding output.
But it’s not the shift in location that’s problematic. Quite the opposite – occasionally Lehane manages to instill enough southern pathos (especially in the Running out of Dog that kickstarts the collection) into the proceedings to be comfortable.
No. It’s the quality of the included stories that is to matter. While some of the plots are almost digestable as-is, the twin inclusion of the titular tale (as a two-act play and plain prose) consumes a significant chunk of the book, and adds next to nothing.
This has severe shades of James Ellroy’s rapid descent – though no murdered parents are around this time. But I’m not that sure that pretensions of being a playwright are that a decent trade.
Having been very impressed by the Gennaro/McKenzie-saga and the subsequent independent novels, this was a grave disappointment.
Hopefully working on multiple movies has a positive effect on forthcoming novels. Worrisomely enough it would appear that the author is aiming for a “multi-part” historical novel, again drawing comparisons to Ellroy (to whose defense it must be said that the LA Quartet is top-notch).
Ben Affleck’s directorial debuttackles Gone, Baby Gone, but a far more interesting adaptation is Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, once again with Leonardo diCaprio in the lead role.
22 December 2007, 12:55 am
More targets for the insatiably curious amongst the readers:
22 December 2007, 12:39 am
My old alma mater capped their season with a bowl victory.
Admittedly the Poinsettia Bowl is not exactly a top flight bowl, and the game ended with a questionable call, but a victory is a victory no matter what.
The Utes had a shaky season to say the least, ranging from downing a top-25 team to getting beat by lesser schools. And this season the famed Utah – BYU rivalry was generous to the Cougars from Provo.
20 December 2007, 12:33 am
Following Juha’s lead, here’s my take on the meme.
1. What was your most popular subject in 2007? Did you concentrate on anything in particular or just snapped everything interesting?
No single subject stands out. Which means that I was pretty much snap-happy, and did not pursue something specific.
2. Did you participate in photo thursday or other photographic challenges?
Yes. Photo thursday (grand total of forty-one times) and photo friday (eight) times.
3. What is your favorite photograph of 2007?
The one shown to the right, Brooklyn Bridge on a rainy morning.
4. What did you learn about photography during 2007?
That the worst pictures are those you never take.
5. Did you buy any new equipment? Are you happy with your purchase if you did?
Didn’t buy anything, but got a new phone from work.
The n95 is a decent enough camera, if not pushed very hard. Which is to say that indoor pictures in non-optimal light are just not very good.
6. Any photographic plans for 2008?
Take way more photographs altogether.
Consider buying a digital SLR.
Experiment more with the likes of macro photography, HDR-post processing and such.
20 December 2007, 12:03 am
Managed to see just six out of Empire’s top 25 (not online, it would appear), which is the lowest score in years.
Pretty sad.
At least four more belong to the “should definitely have seen, but didn’t”-category. Which means that have to be more active movies-wise next year. The traditional “one movie in theatre each month” new year’s resolution takes only so far, especially when a good chunk of those are summer bubblegum.
19 December 2007, 11:57 pm
Woo, beginning right after new year, entry to museums owned by the city of Helsinki will be free of charge.
Nice. Should lower the barrier of entry somewhat. And probably bring huge crowds to the forthcoming Pixar exhibit in Tennispalatsi.
18 December 2007, 11:00 pm
Peter Jackson will direct Hobbit, after all.
And not only the Hobbit.
The Lord of the Rings predecessor will be followed by an as-of-yet unnamed sequel.
The two movies will be released LoTR-style, back to back, in 2010 and 2011.
No word yet whether Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf. Ian Holm as Bilbo would be pushing it, after all, this story is supposed to happen to a youthful hobbit.
I’ll keep my eyes on the newly minted official blog. And so should you.
EDIT 19.12: OK, so Peter Jackson will be the executive producer, not the director…
18 December 2007, 10:36 pm
As has been established multiple times already, I’m a big fan of Pertti Jarla’s Fingerpori, featured daily in Hesari (and with the Mutts and Viivi& Wagner, pretty much the only worthwhile strip therein).
Weird though the comic may be, articistically it pales in comparison with Nicholas Gurewitch’s Perry Bible Fellowship. The odd selection of events are depicted in very variable art, the style takes odd twists inbetween individual strips.
Even though the website is a treasure trove of absurdist comedy, the first collected edition is a must-buy book. Haven’t seen it locally yet, but that’s trivially corrected on the next visit to Amazon.
18 December 2007, 10:30 pm
Back in the late nineties I missed a Santana gig in Copenhagen, a concert I had a ticket and almost everything else apart from a plane ticket when a mandatory event came up and abolished any thought of a trip to Denmark.
Briefy entertained the idea of going to go see Neil Young on his Continental Tour in the very same city next spring. Until I forgot to line up for tickets, and subsequently noticed that said shows were sold out in fifteen minutes.
So unless a convenient miracle happens (or an unlikely trip to a location with both a concert and tickets occurs), the only way to grab an earful of Mr. Young in february/march timeframe is off a record.
18 December 2007, 12:51 am
This week’s fiver continues the web-theme begun last week.
1. Would Google News be of any real use in Finland? What’s your insight into why it isn’t here yet?
Not really. There aren’t that many news sources that such an aggregator would make that much sense.
Small audience is my number one guess for the lack of the service locally.
2. Is the web missing some essential service (or should something that already exists be translated into finnish)?
Well, at least I’m not aware of a game or movie ownership service like librarything.
No idea of a site in need of translation.
3. If you had the power and possibility, which web service would you change? How?
Google, in a way that the first hit would contain all the needed data about the search term.
Seriously, though, no real opinion on something gravely broken right now.
4. Has blogging become so commonplace that interest in begins to wane? Both among writers and readers?
Not yet. But a backlash certainly looms.
5. What’s the next big thing in the web?
Aggregator of a decent subset of the biggest social networks (hopefully with a decent API that it can be extended to the less popular sites as well).
18 December 2007, 12:45 am
Got the long-awaited Delta Green: Eyes Only book the other day.
The book had a print run of 1000 copies, and the store seems to have run out very recently.
Eyes Only collects the three Delta Green chapbooks published late last millennium, and expands the content with two new scenarios. Which bodes well for the more conspiracy-ridden sessions of the Wednesday Emperors.
There’s been no indication whether this book ends up on the web as a free pdf (like the recent ransom-method publications by the main culprit, Dennis Detwiller) or starts turning up on eBay priced sky high like the original trio of booklets.
