Scripting News

House on a hilltop

29.11.2008 00:03:50 - Scripting News

Happy ImageMagick user here

Everything is such a futz, but it's nice when these things have happy endings. I have my thumbnail creating app up, and while it's not linked into the RSS its going to be used in, that's the easy predictable stuff, the stuff that requires no futzing, at least not for me.

Here's a folder of thumbs that ImageMagick is adding to every five minutes.

I'm doing it by launching the ImageMagick convert app, once for each picture. The fixed width is 100 pixels, I compute the height to be proportional. My script makes sure not to start another conversion until the previous file exists, because the process is unfortunately asynchronous. However it is easily synchronized. I have a 15 second timeout. Then I wait 5 seconds between conversions to let the CPU catch up processing other tasks. Image processing, esp for very large images, is a very CPU-intensive thing, apparently.

I hooted out loud (HOL) when I got it working. This one has been on my to-do list for a very long time!

28.11.2008 18:52:48 - Scripting News

Netbooks are about the users too, dummy!

CNet: "If you've ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size -- it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out."

To which I say -- well hmm. I think the first part is right. And you will use your netbook every day, for about an hour or so, sounds just right. Inbetween things. Kind of the way you use an iPhone, but for people who like more of a computer.

For real work, I use a full setup with lots of hard drive space, and two big screens and comfortable seating.

A netbook is for the coffee shop or airplane or subway ride. For watching a movie, checking email, updating Twitter, fast, mobile stuff.

But it's good that Intel is checking in with the users. And eventually I think netbooks will evolve into market-expanding machines. We're still in the first year of netbooks. Give it a chance.

28.11.2008 18:27:59 - Scripting News

It's about the users, dummy!

Michael Fraase tries to explain what I've tried real hard to explain for the last N years (where N might be as many as 15 believe it or not) that news, like any other business, is about the users.

I do this with programmers, with about as little success as with people in the news industry. People who write software invariably think the users' job is to give them "feedback" which they are free to do with as they please. Of course they are free to ignore the users, but eventually that results in the users (er ahem, drum roll please) ignoring them. If you want to keep their interest, you need to be interested in them.

I once went to a lunch at the University of California School of Journalism, where I mouthed off on this subject, more or less, and was greeted with a stunning idea -- it was largely considered unethical for a reporter or editor to know which sections of the paper were most read by users of the paper. If the reporter knew, the story goes, he or she might be influenced by peoples' interests in deciding what to write about.

To which I said (and say) loudly -- OY!

Or another way --> THERE'S THE BUG.

Fraase says I think like a programmer. I suppose. I didn't always. When I was younger I wasn't going to be a programmer. I became one out of necessity. I had ideas that expressed themselves in software, and I couldn't interest any "real" programmers in making the ideas real, so...

But all along I've been a glutton not just for feedback, but to know how the ideas I had would be used. I never create any software that I myself don't want or need, because I wouldn't know how to do it. My method of development depends on me being a user. So do I listen to the users? Yes. If I listen to myself, which I try to (it's harder than it might appear at first).

Listening is hard. But all people who create products for users must listen if they want to do well at making products. That includes doctors, bus drivers, mailmen, entrepreneurs, programmers, and yes, reporters and editors too. Because if you don't listen you might miss a corner-turn and end up going off a cliff, just like the news industry is doing. They see the cliff, they know they're headed for it, but they don't ask how to turn the car. They don't really want to know. I think sometimes what they want is to be missed when they lie dead in a crumpled car at the bottom of the cliff. But we don't want that to happen. Not because we love them, but because life without them is pretty hard to imagine. They should turn the corner, no matter how painful it is. But in order to do it, they're going to have to look out the front window and the mirrors and listen to the person in the passenger seat.

That's why it's not enough for the NY Times to have a Public Editor, they have to have the Public itself on the op-ed page. That should start on Monday. There's no reason to wait for that. The Times should have more branded blogs, given to people whose opinions they value. Want a list of 5000 such people? Make a list of the people the Times has quoted in the last year. I bet it's more like 50,000. At this point, the Times is still reputable enough and alive enough that they would want to be under the Times umbrella. Immediately you have a reason to survive for between 5000 or 50,000 people.

We can save one newspaper that way. One newspaper is infinitely better than zero. We can probably save a few magazines too. The key thing is to incentivize people to make them survive. Open the doors as wide as you can imagine, and let the world flood in. It should have happened slowly and carefully over a decade, I told you so back then but you didn't listen. Now you have to achieve what would have been accomplished in that period in the space of a few months. It isn't going to be easy or anything like pain free. But it can work. I'm sure of it.

Seth Godin: "The only reason to answer the phone when a customer calls is to make the customer happy."

27.11.2008 18:52:40 - Scripting News

Thanksgiving stuffing

Either Thanksgiving is a mad dash to get 18 different dishes ready, all at the same time (never works, something's always cold, something burned) or, you sit around wasting time until it's time to go to a dinner where you eat someone else's labor of love. This year, for me, it's the latter.

NakedJen has a wonderful tradition for Christmas Day, to spend the day at the movies, watching the new releases. Christmas is always a big day for new movies. In Santa Cruz, where we did it last year, a surprising number of people did it too. We saw Sweeney Todd, the stupid Tom Hanks movie about the politician who supposedly saved Afghanistan, and The Savages, which was, imho, by far, the best of the three. Sweeney starred two of my favorite actors, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp (with a small part for Sacha Baron Cohen!) and directed by Tim Burton -- it should have been great, but I could hardly stay awake during the movie. This year I'm going to Salt Lake City to join NakedJen in my second NakedJen Film Festival.



BTW, when NJ writes about \"Dave" -- it's not me. I want to be clear about that. It's some other guy named Dave, who wasn't very nice to her.

See this is why NakedJen and I get on so well. She says everyone she knows hated Burn After Reading but she liked it. Well I have news for you -- I really liked it too. Yes it was stupid, but sometimes stupid is just the thing. The Coen Brothers rarely fail to entertain. I had a strong feeling about this movie, that it was the counterbalance to No Country For Old Men, which was very very very serious (and unprecedented for the Coens). The CIA Director and his report seemed to speak for us and for the Coens, asking WTF just happened? No one knows. (And you wouldn't believe it if I told you, and you wouldn't even care.) But as long as everyone who was involved is now dead, why should we care? Seems to me a perfect explanation for NCFOM.

27.11.2008 16:57:41 - Scripting News

IRC for Mumbai terrorism

In case there's an interest in IRC for news around the Mumbai terrorism:

irc://irc.freenode.net/#mumbaiTerrorism

I'm already there.

27.11.2008 15:46:58 - Scripting News

Is Twitter journalism?

What you see on Twitter, when:

1. People witness events that others are interested in; and

2. They're posting about it on Twitter; and

3. The interested people are reading their posts...

It certainly is news. Whether it's journalism or not isn't a very interesting discussion, to me.

To the user, both extremes, Twitter and the most vetted pro news, require skepticism. The reader triangulates.

See also: Mike Arrington, Mathew Ingram.

27.11.2008 15:28:05 - Scripting News

Repent ye sinners!

The cause of the crumbling economy is the city of NY where all the banks are located, the ones that are crumbling. I know this may sound silly, but I believe that when a city destroys a baseball stadium, nothing but bad things happen. Look at Seattle's Kingdome for an example. I don't need to say any more. The meaning is obvious.

Well this year NY is destroying two stadiums. Two! And they are two very historic stadia. Okay one not quite as historic as the other. There were a few interesting games played at Yankee Stadium over the years, but that's nothing compared to the history of Shea Stadium, where the hapless Mets of the 60s played and the Miracle Mets of 1969 won it all. Mookie Wilson and the 1986 Mets beat Bill Buckner and his Red Sox.

Oh the humanity!

Now if you want the proof, the absolute incontrovertible proof, check out what the name of the new stadium is.

That's right. Citi Field. Appalling.

God speaks to us in mysterious but clear ways.

Repent ye sinners!!

26.11.2008 21:38:13 - Scripting News

Terrorism in Mumbai

A terrorist attack in Mumbai is on the other side of the world, but it's all surprisingly connected. India and Pakistan are constant bitter enemies. Both are nuclear powers. Pakistan may be on the verge of becoming a failed state. Their new PM is the widower of a recently assassinated leader and the Taliban, which is encamped in tribal areas near the Afghan border, are wielding more power in Pakistan. There's fear they might get control of one or more of Pakistan's nukes.

Also camped out in the tribal areas are Al Qaeda, and if he's still alive, almost for sure Osama bin Laden.

Meanwhile, the Taliban are patiently fighting the US and its allies to regain control of Afhanistan, and they're winning. Our puppet, Karzai wants to negotiate with them. I wonder why? (Perhaps he'd like to live to old age?)

On Afghanistan's western border is Iran. An oil giant, and for sure a country you need no introduction to.

So it's not that many steps, chaotic ones, from an attack in Mumbai, which probably is somehow connected to Pakistan and the Taliban, to nukes in Pakistan, and oil in the Middle East.

Update: Incredible flow from Mumbai on Twitter this evening.

26.11.2008 19:45:12 - Scripting News

Eee PC with built-in EVDO?

Another thing I have a vague recollection of was an announcement in August or September that Asus was going to offer an Eee PC with a built-in EVDO modem and a service plan. This started the thread about $99 netbooks. The product was supposed to ship in October but I can't find any evidence of it. Do you know what happened? Did they ship? If not, is it still planned?

26.11.2008 11:37:38 - Scripting News