Schinckel.net

I wrote iTunesRater because I wasn’t happy with only having six possible ratings for each song - I have 5665 songs in my iTunes Library, and this isn’t a fine enough grained distribution. I’ll be honest, at times 0-100 isn’t enough! I also wrote it because I wanted a window always open that can be used to rate tracks easily as I listen to them. My Party Shuffle grabs tracks from an Unrated playlist, which is every song with a 0 rating. (I use this as the base, and songs I hate get a 1-10ish rating. Because of my setup, where a server contains all of the songs, and multiple people can add tracks to this location, and every now and then you need to import the folder containing music, removing a track just means it would be added again later). Today, just out of interest, I looked at how many songs are in the Unrated playlist. 4472. That means I have only rated about 22% of my music. I could short-cut it a bit, and rate according to album, but I don’t usually like every song on an album. And lots of times, I don’t know the names of songs, I have to wait until I hear them. If I had an iPod, I might rate more, but then it would only be a 0/20/40/60/80/100 rating again. And I’d have to sit on the train with my iPod in my hand, and I like to read on the train.

I read every word in the first issue of The Monthly. I must say, having read it, and looking back, there aren’t many advertisements in that magazine, it is mostly articles. And some of the articles were great! I hardly ever watch Enough Rope with Andrew Denton, but after reading the article on him and his interviewing techniques I may start to. If I can ever get my ABC reception better then the crap it is now. Speaking of the ABC, there was an article on how the culture of this great instution has changed over time, and how it may change in the future. And then in the Australian yesterday, I read how funding has reduced the number of hours of local drama created to an all time low of 21. Twenty-one hours of local drama created in one year, by the corporation that once created greats like Brides of Christ, and Love is a Four Letter Word. I’m also looking for a CD, I am a bird now, by Antony and the Johnsons, based on a review in the Monthly. Maybe it’s just me wanting desperately to be an intellectual (or, as the dopey tart in Big Brother [now that is quality drama. NOT] said: “an intellect”), but I may just start regularly reading this magazine.

Yesterday afternnon, as I was on the way to the physio, I bumped into some old students of mine from a previous school. I chatted to them for a few minutes (Hi Bree and Steph), and was about to head off to catch my bus, when some random derelict man came up to us and said something. Now, I didn’t understand a word he said, so I just responded with a “Look, I’m sorry, but I really have to go now”, and turned towards the girls to make my goodbyes. And the guy punched me. Hard. Luckily, it was only in the arm, but I didn’t see it coming, and I’m glad he didn’t hit me in the face.

I moved blogs from one server to another some time ago, and luckily I was using ecto to post, so had an archive of the posts on my computer. I wrote an AppleScript to move a post from one server/account (ecto calls them personalities) to another, and popped it into the ~/Library/Application Support/ecto/scripts directory, set up a shortcut key, and then it was just a matter of opening a post, pressing the key, and it posted the old post to the new server. Some posts caused ecto to crash, but I could live with that. Anyway, here is the script: tell application “ecto”     set _draft to document 1     tell _draft         set _date to entry date         set current personality to “Blogsome”         set entry date to _date         do post     end tell end **tell **

We wanted Jason & Sharon to call the boy Helmut, but they chose Max. So I’m posting this image…

I discovered PostSecret some time ago. I love it! Basically, it takes postcards (real, live ones) that are sent in anonymously, with a secret on them, and posts them online. This one today made me laugh:

Cellphone Dieting : Gizmodo:

The process is pretty low tech: take a picture of the food you eat, send it to a dietician, and then they send back a video message telling you… …These kind of personalized/techno services should be making things interesting in the next few years. I could see a personal trainer doing this, as well…

There’s an ad doing the rounds on Australian TV at the moment that reminds me of this article, but I can’t remember what it was advertising. It had a guy who sent a picture to a personal coach, or something.

I’m currently altering Connections (Blogsome) to be an orange motif, for the CSTA site. View what it looks like so far at CSTA.

If you have turned on User Registration, or have created any users; and promoted them beyond level 0, then you won’t be able to delete them. That’s right, to delete a user in WordPress (1.5µ anyway), that user must be level 0.

Hmm. Original name for a monthly magazine. Even cooler if it comes out with a frequency other than it’s name. I probably would have never come across it, but a copy of the first issue, May 2005 was sitting on the counter I went to in Hudson’s this afternoon. (And I would not have kept it, had they put a decent amount of froth into my flat white. Flat White. Flat. Not one-third froth! Get with it guys! I know I should tell them, but I prefer venting later.) So I started reading it. And, I must say, I quite enjoyed some of the articles. I haven’t finished it yet, but I liked Don Watson’s piece on rural values, and the article on the smoke ceremony that followed the death of the aboriginal chap on Palm Island. And (although I’m only part way through it) John Birmingham’s take on Ipswich and John Howard. But, I’m not convinced that Suicided is a word, Chloe Hooper. According to Google: Did you mean: Suicide And to Dictionary.com: No entry found for Suicided.