Miter Box Slider is my submission. It’s a jQuery ’slider’ plugin (i.e. when there’s a slideshow display of images at websites). What’s awesome about it is that it provides the ability to create truly unique animation transitions. With other sliders you’ll see a set of predefined transition effects, but with Miter Box, you create the transitions. It’s actually very powerful. One of the largest issues I had developing it was that I would often end up just playing with it. It’s a fun tool for experimenting.

Regardless of whether other people decide to use it, I really am pretty proud of it. Remember that those who run the site review the code and set the price? Right now, mine is the highest priced (one of only two at that price) item in the javascript section of code. I don’t know everything that goes into that price point, but I will say that I think it’s an indication of the power my plugin offers.

If you’ve got a site, or create sites, and are looking for some way to spice up the way you display your images, check out the Miter Box demo.

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Miter Box Slider

And while I’m here, Lifehacker recently pointed me to RainyMood.com. On a whim I pushed play and then, after about an hour of interneting, realized it was still on. Super job of drowning out ambient noise.

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Puter Piano and Outside Rain

My first car had a sticker of the two of them flying in a box.

.

My only tattoo is a small one of Calvin dancing.

My oldest daughter started reading through some of my Calvin and Hobbes books, and seems to truly love it as well.

So here now is the Kickstarter (fund raising site) page for Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary about the strip.

Dear Mr. Watterson is a film that will look to the readers and fans of Calvin & Hobbes to tell the story of the strip and its creator. As we explore the art and impact of Bill Watterson through this unique perspective, the undying appreciation and love of Calvin & Hobbes and the man behind it will be evident in the anecdotes, stories, and memories shared by readers of the strip and friends and colleagues of Mr. Watterson.

While the crew has been donating their time to make this project happen, we’ll be taking several trips to conduct interviews and collect footage, so the costs of air tickets, rental cars, meals, and motel stays will add up. The benefit of raising our goal of $12,000 all at once through Kickstarter is that we’ll be able to move forward on this film without the hurdle of funding, and the more we raise on top of that, the more we can do with the film.

I would love to see this happen and am working on my contribution as these words type to my screen. Consider doing the same!

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Calvin and Hobbes Documentary (make it happen!)

If you’re not familiar with it, the gist is: Story of a royal family in a modern, fictional world. And the ruler, the king, is not a figure-head. He’s the real deal with power to spare. And so there are the expected power struggles internally and externally. Military action and political action.

It’s all very well done and fun to watch. A sometime small twist to it all is the idea of the king being truly “chosen” by God. There is a strong undercurrent of signs and symbols the leads look for and notice.

I hope people are watching. I hope the show lasts (and continues to be entertaining and interesting). I hope I’m not the only one watching.

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Watch Kings Rule

A couple months back, I came across Dewey (via Waxy, Feb 2, 2009). It offers a new, web-two-ohee method of navigating the music available at Archive.org. I wanted something to listen to at work and so started looking for some familiar names. I eventually stumbled on some Guster shows.

All my knowledge of Guster consists of two songs: Amsterdam and I’ve Got To Be Clean. Amsterdam got decent airplay however long ago that was, but the only reason I noticed that was because of I’ve Got To Be Clean. This was, by far, my favorite song on the first For the Kids CD that came out in 2002. I listened to it a lot. My daughter and I have listened to it a lot. When you listen to that CD, it’s just impossible not to gravitate to that song as the funnest, catchiest tune on there. And so I always had “Guster” stuck in my head as a band I needed to check out. Amsterdam hit my radar later, but it didn’t catch my interest and so Guster slipped away.

Back at my Dewey browsing, I somewhat randomly decided to download a 2007 Boston show. And It Is Awesome. I have listened to it on my crappy laptop speakers at work many, many times. It’s just been addictive.

So of course now I have to get some of their albums. I think once a month (gotta budget!) I’m going to download one. Last week I downloaded Ganging Up On The Sun from Amazon. And It Is Awesome.

Next month will be Keep It Together, mainly because it has both Diane and Come Downstairs And Say Hello, two of my favorites from the show I downloaded. (Here’s a Seeqpod link to Diane, give it a listen. It Is Awesome.).

All that to say, I really can’t believe it’s only now that I’m enjoying their music.

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I Missed the Guster Boat

Speaking of which:


The love between E.T. and Johnny Five created Wall-E.

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Wall-E: Origins

I make this recommendation with a bit of hesitance though, as the total running time is a bit over 90 minutes. I actually skipped the last third or so of the first video (slicing the PSD). But there is something strangely mesmerizing about watching someone else progress through their work like this. It’s also interesting for me to see someone else’s work flow and tools use.

The presenter/author, Jeffrey Way, states that the tutorial is for beginners, but I’d say that it edges closer to the intermediate level. The CSS section, though long, progresses pretty quickly. You have to already be pretty familiar with the selectors syntax. And he moves right past terms like “inline” and “block”.

If you’ve got the time and the inclination, it’s an excellent howto for that area of web work.

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A Thorough Video Tutorial for Slicing and CSSing

The questions, as you might expect, pretty much stay focused on his work in TV (i.e. there’s no childhood memories or ‘how I met my wife’ stories). I had never heard an interview with him, so this was fun for me. He comes across as a light-hearted, nice man.

One of the more interesting tidbits was the fact that IT Crowd seemed to take form in his head after the title was suggested by his wife. He then goes on to mention that the show really was built around the character of Moss. Everything began to fall in place once Richard Ayoade was cast in that part.

The show, in a way, was built around him. I cast him before anyone else. In conjunction with the title, he was another thing that made me think “Oh, this is coming together”.

(~26:20 in the interview)

(For some odd reason, the clip they play immediately following that statement is one that features Roy, not Moss.)

I guess the producers (who include Linehan) of the American version of the show also feel he’s pivotal to its success. Instead of finding some LA doppelganger to fill the spot, he was transported across the ocean for their version. (What’s the deal with that anyway? When does “mid-season” start?)

You can listen here or listen elsewhere.

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Graham Linehan Interviewed at TSOYA

It’s incredibly easy to use. The URL entry method allows you to paste in multiple image paths at once. After you click “Smush”, you are (quickly) presented with a table linking to each of the new images along with some stats regarding the amount of reduction. Also very cool is that all of the processed images can be downloaded as a single, automatically generated zip file.

What’s more is that the total savings and zip file stay updated even during multiple “smushes”. Even when the images are added via different methods. For instance, I did a single URL first. Then I removed that URL from the entry area and did a bunch at once. At some point I also just uploaded a single file. After all that, the stats updated to reflect the total reductions and the zip file link contained all the new images.

Obvious Usage Tip ™

I’ve been using FireFTP for awhile now. It’s a great FTP client that plugs directly into Firefox. When viewing files on your server, you can select one and hit <CTRL>+U to copy the URL (as opposed to the server’s file path). To be able to do this though, you first have to edit that connection’s “Advanced” settings so that FireFTP will know how to construct the url.

For example, here’s my settings:

And for bonus points, you can select multiple files, hit <CTRL>+U and it will paste all the URL’s as a list. So if you’ve got a single directory with a bunch of image files in it, just <Ctrl>+A select them all, copy the URL’s and then with one quick paste into SmushIt’s URL loader, it’s all done. You’ve got a zip you can download and use to overwrite all the old, fat images with their new, slimmed versions.

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Yahoo’s “Smush It” Image Size Reduction Service

The epic Sea Lion was intended to be a world music album, but reverb and psychedelic pop crept in to create a unique mixture of exotic sounds, accomplished with an impressive array of instruments—from steel-string ukulele to djembe drums to pots and pans, all set upon a cozy cushion of synths and cassette samples.

I can’t wait to listen to some of these songs with my daughter during the morning ride to school. Did you listen to “Tane Mahuta”?! How’s that for starting your day!

I just remembered how I found this, so for posterity:

Waxy Links for September 25, 2008 —> Shrub —> Shrub Example

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The Ruby Suns

The humor is mostly adult. Basically you gotta like dirty jokes. Also notice that there’s a Random button available, which is what I’ve been hitting the past few minutes. I’ll display a few of my favorites (so far) on the underside.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Okay. That’s enough for now. That Random junk is just an endless supply of unexpected treats.

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Cyanide and Happiness: Stick Figures and Dirty Jokes

I love The Wire (two season four episodes still to go). One of its most interesting characters is Omar Little, the scourge of Baltimore city drug dealers.

I also really enjoyed Cormac Mccarthy’s book The Road. The complete scrubbing of all quotation marks took getting used to at first. But once you get into the rhythm of the writing, their removal adds a strange sense of intimacy with the characters.

    He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said.

    Yes. It is.

    You have some, Papa.

    I want you to drink it.

    You have some.

    He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here.

The Road has been transformed into a movie, and Omar (Michael K. Williams) is in it as (ironically enough) “The Thief”.

thanks BigScreenLittleScreen

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Omar Moves From The Wire to The Road

It’s the type of thing where the barrier to entry (Firefox, Google account, SQL knowledge) is just small enough for me that I’ll jump in a give it a try. It’s also the type of thing that I tend to overly obsess over.

It’s not for everyone. You need a love plain data and a basic understanding of SQL. Depending on your perspective, it’s either an extremely stripped down MMO or a beautifully souped-up query browser. It’s tough to describe, so here’s an action shot:

As niche an audience as you’d expect for this, it has become pretty popular. Built using Google’s AppEngine, they ran out of their allocated bandwidth on Saturday night and as of Monday night, they’ve started five additional “shards”.

[found via Waxy, August 23]

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MySQL Game

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of the single funniest shows I’ve ever seen. It features a set of characters with very little, if any, morally redeeming values. The show is at its funniest when they more or less function as a team (e.g. The Gang Goes Jihad). But some of the funniest scenes are also the inevitable infighting and predictable backstabbing (e.g. The Gang Gets Held Hostage).

Also, Charlie is one of my new favorite characters. Add him to such luminaries as Woody and Dougle

The first three seasons are available to buy, but you can also just register at Hulu and watch them all for free.

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

When it comes to software, the same rule applies. If you aren’t building, you aren’t learning. Rather than agonizing over whether you’re building the right thing, just build it. And if that one doesn’t work, keep building until you get one that does.

This is advice that I sincerely need to start following. I tend to have the debilitating problem of starting to work on an idea but never completing it because of constant tweaks and muddles and experiments and refinements ad nauseam. With an approach like that, your results are always incomplete. And when you feel like you can never complete something, you tend to move on to something else (i.e. quit).

When I used to create and record music, it was the same thing. The difference, however, was that there was always something to show for the effort, even if I wasn’t totally satisfied. No matter my perceived flaws, there was still a piece of recorded music I could share with others. But when the code isn’t finished, or the design still “in-flux”, it’s pretty difficult to call it a day and let the beast loose on the world.

I hereby resolve to…oh who am I kidding.

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Do More to Do Better

You are the only thing in any room you’re ever in

Guy Garvey is a fantastic lyricist. The above is from Elbow’s most recent release, The Seldom Seen Kid. The song is Starlings, and its the first on the CD.

If I had to pick one for you to listen to, though, it would be One Day Like This. Listen to it and tell me it doesn’t force your senses to perk up.

‘Cause holy cow I love your eyes. And only now I see the light. Lying with you half awake. Stumbling over what to say. Well anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day. So throw those curtains wide. One day like this a year would see me right.

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Recent Elbow

one at at SubPop (content)

and one at Stereogum (content)

Update: I’ve since purchased the CD, and it’s awesome. Highly recommend. Twice now its served as the “house music” playing in the background of an early summer evening dinner chez moi and the family.

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White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes

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TMBG 123s

It wasn’t too long before I owned a couple of their CDs (A Night at the Opera and Innuendo). I really don’t remember how long that love lasted, but eventually (as all things new and musical) the listenings dwindled to “few and far between”. However, through a confluence of recent events, they are back on my playlist. I’ve really got to find my other two Queen CDs,

There is an unbelievably fun song by Mika named Grace Kelly (#2). For the first couple months of the current school year, while driving my oldest daughter to first grade, we would listen to it at least once (often twice), singing along with extreme enthusiasm. There is a line in the song referencing Freddie Mercury:

I try to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
I’ve gone identity mad!

(from lyricsdir.com)

Following the word “Freddie” he gives a little “MmmMmm”. He also belts out a very Freddie-esque “Hey!”. Well, I tried explaining to my daughter about this reference but, you know, that kind of thing isn’t really seven year-old type of information. More recently though, she heard We Will Rock You (not sure where) and loved it. So one night I looked up some Queen songs on Seeqpod (which, by the way, is how I’m embedding the song references below) and we listened to a bunch and had a great time. I reminded her of the Mika song and its Freddie reference and I think maybe she got it. My wife witnessed much of the partying to the music and so, on Christmas morning, guess what she gave me? Queen Greatest Hits I & II (a double CD of I and II).

It’s the first CD to make it to my car’s player in a long while, replacing (however temporarily) the now standard NPR programs and local sports talk. I am now remembering how cool their music was, and am realizing just how many great, well-known songs they had. Disc II has a few songs that wouldn’t personally make my top list, but there are just so many great others that it’s still worth getting, even if you have to hit skip a few times.

Now I really need to find my other two Queen CDs, especially A Night at the Opera. Have you ever heard ‘39(#3) or Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon(#4)? You should. Listen below.

Songs:
1. Bohemian Rhapsody(back up)

  

2. Grace Kelly(back up)

  

3. ‘39(back up)

  

4. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon(back up)

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Queen Comeback

Seriously, this thing is great. Just give the seat a nudge and away it goes.

I can see you’re skeptical. How about a demo?

It really is a cheap luxury that’s worth the extra fiver.

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