What is PFC?

Simple enough: Coffee on Friday in Phoenix.

Phoenix Friday Coffee is one of the weekly gatherings that is responsible for dragging Sharon & I out into the geeky-tech world of Phoenix. It’s always good to get out of the house/office, and meeting new people isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made out to be, but lately there seems to be some grumbling about location.

Since the point of PFC appears to be getting together after work on Friday, and most of the regulars work in Tempe (and several of them at the same place), having coffee somewhere close by makes a lot of sense.

Another draw is the eventual move from coffee to dinner, art walks, movies, or beers; considering options for the after coffee activities should play a role in deciding where to meet up. This process usually happens in reverse; though, with the answer to “What’s next?” revolving around “What’s close.”

Where is PFC?

Right now, the location seems to be decided by community discussion on twitter. Not really a vote, but not an arbitrary decision by a single person either. There’s a map, that someone made a homepage around (see the link at the top of the page) that shows (usually) the next, last, and other recent locations.

What’s the problem?

I’m not quite sure. People being to busy/lazy/cheap to drive out and have a good time? That’s what the comments are for.

List of crap we’d like to talk about

• Camping / Merb / Rack
• PDF / Image Libs
• Config Mgmt / Cruise Control
• Passenger
• REST
• Attachment Plugins
• Mock / Stubs
• Testing frameworks
• Messaging Queues
• Search Index (Solr/Sphinx)
• Fixtures
• Javascript
• GIT / SVN
• Deployment / Capistrano / Vlad
• Thin Controllers / Fat Models / No Logic in Views
• Work process
• E-Commerce / Activemerchant
• BJ / Background DRB
• Charts & Graphs

If you’ve seen or played Autonomous for the iPhone, you’d probably be quick to dismiss it as a cheap Space Trader knock off of Peter Spronck’s Space Trader, but you’d be wrong. Even at the introdctory price of $1.99, Autonomous is considerably more expensive than it’s Palm-based predecessor.

• Planets aren’t named.
• There are no skill points for the player character.
• You can’t even name your character.
• There is no way to compare the prices from one planet to the next.
• There are no ship upgrades
• There are no quests

Trading

Your primary role in Autonomous is that of merchant. Buy low, sell high; typical trade-based game fare.

There are a whopping 30 items that you can buy and sell in the Autonomous universe. Each planet will buy or sell any of the items. There are no special events that drive prices, and no “technology level” that determines what you can or cannot trade.

The lack of price comparisons increases the learning curve drastically. Even a simple (paid approx $X each) on the sale screen would be an improvement. The lack of price comparison would be more helpful than nothing!

The only advantage you have in trading is how easy figuring out the base prices are. For your viewing pleasure, I give you the best sale price on each item in the game. If you pay more than the given amount for the given item, you’ve gotten ripped off.

Another time saver is the fact that every planet will buy each item for 90% of the price they charge. For instance, if a planet is selling Power Spanners at 1,000 they are only paying 900 for them. This tidbit can keep you from switching between menus constantly.

Also missing from Autonomous is any sort of banking. There is no debt to be paid or interest to be made (hey that rhymed!).

Travel

If trade is the meat of the game, travel is it’s mashed potatoes. As I mentioned before, there are no names for any of the planets, so if you like keeping track of where you are in the galaxy, you’ll have to take a few minutes to flick around the map. Touch the info icon in the top left to be whisked back to your current location.

Traveling is pretty straight forward, a green circle surrounds your ship, and depicts the area you can reach with your current fuel level. Tap a planet to head that way. If the game lags quite a bit when you travel, you’re likely to run into another ship. Sometimes it won’t register a tap on a planet, which simulates the lag, but doesn’t do anything.

Encounters

Zooming around the galaxy, you’re likely to run into other ships. When you do, you’ve had an encounter, and the game pops up a screen to let you know what’s going on. There are only 3 types of ships, pirates, military, and traders. You can attack anyone, but early in the game, most ships will ignore you if you ignore them.

Combat

Every vessel has shields and hull strength, and an energy based weapon. Battles are very random, and can be quite repetitive if you are trying to fight or run away. The ignore option, when present, is the fastest way to end contact.

Growth

There are no ‘experience’ points, and no ship equipment. This could only be missing due to gross negligence or rush to meet launch schedule, you pick.

Bugs?

• Surrendering just pays the military to go away. I had to pay $7350, or 73.5%! You’re better off just fighting or ignoring them.
• surrendering to pirates loses all your cargo
• the attack button becomes the done button, which makes it very easy to skip the results screen after combat
• warning when attacking civilians
• attacking civilians == reward! You recieve an ass-ton of cargo, regardless of the cargo limit on your ship, or how much cargo you are carrying. At one point I had like 250 units!
• no immediate penalty for attacking civilians or military
• after enough attacking you are attacked on sight by military ships, you can no longer ignore, but you can flee.
• When you are destroyed the game automatically restarts with 10000 credits. (Same universe layout)
• Having a gunner increases your chance of being hit! The first 2 times I was destroyed, it was with the level 9 gunner in my crew.
• Having any crew increases your chance of destruction!
• Most of my crashes occur with crew members aboard
• The game lags with crew members on board
• I have yet to get the bonus cargo after destroying a civilian ship when I have crew on board, regardless of how many empty cargo bays I have.
• This game crashes. A lot.

Well, that only took 29 days, but my blog has returned to the living!

At some point this week, this blog is finally making the migration to my web server, as my shared hosting expires early next week. Nothing like procrastination to help things get done early.

If the blog goes down, or stays down, then you know what happened.

I was looking at microformats for use in a current project, and decided that I’d like a way to export contact data as a vCard. A quick google search revealed this, which just happens to be by Derek Neighbors. It uses the VPIM library, which I found here.

Being the “There’s no way I’ll remember any of this later” person that I am, I tossed this into a pastie, and am blogging about it more for my benefit than yours.

Currently, my clientele consists of a very small site that someone paid me for, and a handful of personal projects.

I’m not really making enough money at this point to justify having 2 servers, but suddenly a backup seems quite nice. My web uptime the last 3 weeks has been something like 0.00001%, which has totally destroyed any sense of productivity.

I set up my entire workflow based on having access to my server that is as of now mostly useless. For example, my subversion repository is inaccessible, which throws a huge wrench in my source-coding. All of my current projects (including the one that might make me any money) demos are all down.

full time job + life crap = not getting the chance to take care of this stuff quickly

which could wind up costing me the one project with potential income

which means I can’t afford a backup server…

My main web server is still hosed. I managed to completely screw up the open directory config, and have 0 remote access to anything. And the web service is down.

Plan A* is to have my buddy attempt to re-create the open directory structure.

Plan *B is to have the server shipped to me so I can reinstall the OS

Plan C*, which is completely independent of the other two plans, is to kick myself in the ass for not taking the time to more throughly troubleshoot when I was *STANDING NEXT TO THE SERVER last week. Can I was only in town for 3 days be my excuse? I hope so, because that’s all I’ve got.

Just a short post to let everyone know that I’m still alive. My main web server has been down for a while, and I’ve had a full plate of personal crap to deal with. Posting from a rest area in West Texas, headed back to AZ after seeing my folks this weekend. Pics and details later/on my twitter.

A picture is worth 100 words, so a video must be worth at least 1 million!

We had another brief cache outage, reverted that deploy, and then
killed the load balancer at our managed host. We’re working with our
hosting provider to bring everything back up. Hang tight, and sincere
apologies.

I can’t believe it. This always happens to me. Pissed off about something. Go somewhere to rant in 140 characters or less, and the damn service is down.

At least it’s slowly coming back to life.

I’ve updated the live WeeMap with the numerous minor changes in the last few days.

• Corrected email subjects
• User info bar (with username and logout link)
• Login redirects to Maps instead of Home
• Various tweaks

The BIGGEST change in this release is the addition of tag based filtering/searching.

And with that, I’m off to bed. Be sure to check back here or the lighthouse for support/feedback.

Oh, and I’ve created a topic on the WeeWar Tangler Group for the app as well. Trying to keep everyone up to date.

My simple little WeeWar maps app is live!

Check it out: WeeMap

DNS might still be updating, so check back if it’s down for you.

Man, I am getting warmed up to Leopard Server quick. Although I don’t think I’ll be replacing Simplelog just yet, the ability to use 3rd party apps to interface with the built-in blog system makes it that much more attractive.

To access your blog, use an applicatioin that works with the Metaweblog API. Use the following information to configure the editor:

RPC Access Point: http://serverDNSname/RPC2
Username or Blog ID: Your user name or the name of your group

I’ve managed to get SVN & Warehouse somewhat up and running on my server, and now that he’s online, I’m trying to get everything 100%.

Right now, I’m testing the following post-commit hook in one of my repositories to see if it works. The directory names have been changed to match my server, but otherwise this is just the basic suggestion from the Warehouse FAQ.

#!/bin/sh
cd /Library/WebServer/Rails/warehouse-1.1.6
/usr/bin/rake warehouse:post_commit \
     RAILS_ENV=production \
     REPO_PATH=$1 \
     REVISION=$2

My $50 gift card for being a sucker HD-DVD early adopter came from Best Buy the other day, and I stopped in this evening to blow it. Being the wonderful husband that I am, I got a pre-paid xbox live card for Shay (who still hasn’t ever gotten around to subscribing herself), and bought some Wii Points.

So far, I’ve only downloaded 2 games from the VC: Paper Mario [N64] and Battle Lode Runner [Turbografx]. I spent my some of my new points on another Turbografx game, Double Dungeons.

I’ve created a simple wishlist of (mostly VC) games on my tadalist page, click here to see for yourself.

Battle Lode Runner:

Read the rest to see Double Dungeons in action!

more

Another Bookman’s find, King’s Knight was a whopping $10, including dust cover.

Snagged this game @bookmans today for $8. In the box. With the manual. Not a bad find at all, especially combined with the fist full of NES cartridge sleeves that we scooped out of the free box. I only need 7 more sleeves and all my games will be covered!

Get your new NES games here

Seriously.

Gunna snag me a copy of Glider when it’s available. Lookin at Airball too! Man, I am a sucker for old school video games!

I don’t know what’s worse: that these songs are playable in Mario Paint, or that someone took the time to compose them in Mario Paint. Either way, this is some major geekiness!

I’m up to 2,639 roll over minutes. That’s on a shared plan (2 iPhones)…

[From iPhone owners do everything but talk – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)]

I tend to be a free thinker. Not exactly rebellious, but definitely not conformist either. Turns out, there is no ‘little’ rebellious, and I usually get labeled as a rebel, or troublemaker.

I’m ex-Navy, currently working at an Intel fab just outside of Phoenix. I don’t actually work for Intel, but one of their suppliers. It’s a mostly electronics tech position. Without getting into the whos, hows, or whys, it just isn’t working for me.

I’d really like to get back into some sort of web development or design.

Looking around and submitting applications the old-fashioned way is daunting at least, and depressing at worst. So enough with the standard resume. Here’s what I can do, why you should hire me, and what I want.

What I can do

I started messing around with HTML in 1996. I got my first web design job in 2000, where I started learning web development with SQL and Cold Fusion. Since, I’ve also worked in Flash, PHP, and a little ASP. I’ve worked directly with IIS and Apache, MSSQL and MySQL, on various Windows/Linux/Mac environments.

Currently, as in the last 14 months or so, I’ve been working almost exclusively in Ruby and Rails.

I’ve worked with several of the Macromedia Adobe products, including Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop. Since switching to Mac, I’ve been using mostly smaller apps for my designing, mostly TextMate and Coda.

I’m proficient with most versions of Windows, even though I’d prefer not to use it. Standard Windows apps like Office aren’t a problem.

Learning new systems/software isn’t a problem. I’m a self-motivated self-teacher.

Why you should hire me

Probably the most important: This is what I want to do. I’ve done web development and design as a hobby for years, and off and on professionally. It’s what I would do if I didn’t have to do something else.

I’m all about getting the job done. Not afraid to work overtime (paid overtime, of course) to finish a project. I’m used to working 12+ hour shifts, and used to being on time. I’ve got an excellent work record, both with my current employer, and before. I’ve averaged less than 2 unscheduled missed days a year.

I’m ready to travel. In the country and abroad, at a moments notice (this was a requirement for my last position).

What I want

My biggest concern is satisfaction. To be concise, less bullshit, more GTD. I’d much rather work in a small development team, and for a small company. I’m not so concerned with salary, as long as it’s enough to pay the bills. I’m wiling to relocate, depending on location. Schedule is important, as I’d like to get back into school before my GI Bill runs out.

I’ve got some recent code samples/design mockups. Since I’ve been out of the industry for a while, I don’t really have a current ‘portfolio’ together. I’m working on getting my own web-server up and running so I can show off some of my rails work.

Contact

If you’re reading this on my blog, you can reply to this post; via email, you can reply also. For everyone else, you can check out my blog at blog.bustikated.net

Inspired by a similar php solution found here, I decided to try and do this in Rails.

I quickly realized that something like this could be implemented as a plugin, in spite of it’s simplicity.

Google led me to this howto on creating generators, and following along with this and another of Urubatan’s guides, I was able to get a working plugin created.

Installation

As of right now, I do not have a public subversion repository. This should change within a week or two. The only way to install the plugin is to manually unzip it into your application’s vendor/plugin directory.

Get the zip here

This is my first plug-in, and was written more as a chance for me to explore plugin creation than out of necessity.

If you’re interested in creating your own plugin, you can read my notes by clicking ‘more’.

more

There’s a brouhaha going on over Apple forcing Safari 3.1 down the throats of Windows iTunes users, via the Apple Software Update app.

This is, in simple terms, idiocy.

Software Update on a Mac behaves this way. Wether you use iTunes/Safari/iLife/iWork or not, you get all the updates as they roll out.

How fucking hard is it to READ the screen BEFORE you click the install button and UNCHECK the items you don’t want installed.

Only 2 types of people would complain about something like this. Whiny little bitches, and morons.

I know I’ve posted about Ecto before, but I just wanted to say that I’m pretty happy with the direction it’s going. I’ve started using it again since the v3 beta, and haven’t been disappointed.

Someone re-made Metroid II by borrowing graphics from the later GameBoy Advance Games, and re-designing the sprites!

This is beyond kick ass. I give it 22 hours till Nintendo C&D’s this guy out of existence :(

full remake of the classic Game Boy title

to Love Safari

With one simple command, you too can force Safari to open all “new window” links as new tabs. Open up terminal and paste in this line. Don’t forget to restart safari afterward!

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

I wonder if there is a similar fix for WinSafari

[From Terminal Tip: Safari 3.1 brings true one-window mode – (TUAW)]

Why am I such a WeeWar junkie? For starters, turn based strategy games are awesome. Then you’ve got the fact that WeeWar is a pretty open game (ie the API). Combine all that with me needing projects just like this to learn RoR, and you’ve got full on addiction.

Since GoDaddy’s (expected) response of “Go Screw Yourself” to my Update Gem Request, I’ve had to resort to a less interactive means of showing off my mad bad Rails fu. I give you the awesome screenshot.

This is part of a table that will list unit attack & defense strengths, as well as movement ranges on the various terrains of WeeWar. This info can be helpful while trying to design your maps, esp when it comes to placing starting units.

As expected, I received a ‘you’re not important, so we’re not updating our system gems’ message from GoDaddy.

While this sucks, I’ve resorted to plan ‘b’ ship my mini, Hobbes, out to be colocated a little earlier than planned.

I don’t plan on renewing my hosting contract with GoDaddy, and I haven’t since I bought the mini, so I’m not really that upset by their response. The biggest disappointment is not being able to publish my lil weemap app.

WeeWar custom map makers and players will just have to wait a little longer. Hobbes should be online in a week or so.

Ok. I’ve re-uploaded the gems. Still nothing. I switched over to development mode and CGI instead of fastCGI and finally started seeing error messages. Turns out GoDaddy is running old system GEMs, and needs to update.

The biggest problem here is that I’ve frozen my rails version to my app’s vendor/ directory. There should be nothing else (core Rails wise) that is needed to run my app. I’m not using any non-standard gems, and my plugins are all in the app itself.

For more details on the exact issue I’ve run up against, see this ticket

This ticket has been listed as ‘invalid’. Such a shame that the core developers disregard those of us who eek out a meager existence on shared servers.

Mostly for my benefit later, but maybe helpful to you other rails newbs: I always seem to not be able to find this quickly when I want to freeze mah gems. It isn’t that hard, I’m just that absent minded.

rake rails:freeze:edge TAG=rel_2-0-2

rake rails:update:configs

script/about

sad

Thanks to the Daring Fireball for bringing me this sad news.

I’ve thrown together a lil rails app for providing feedback on WeeWar maps.

I’ll be honest, right now it isn’t that great. But I’m still working on it. Besides, it’s my very first published rails app. Hell, it’s my first published web app in a LONG time.

Which is your favorite WeeMap?

Due to the instability of the app, I’ve decided to release as private beta, you’ll need a key to join. Also, the app requires your weewar api key. The way it works is you provide your weewar login and api key to guarantee that you have the same name here as in weewar. It’s just better that way.

Let me say it again, yes this is a VERY early release. Yes there are several features that I want to add or fix. If you have constructive criticism or bugs, please leave comments. I hope to have a better method of leaving feedback up shortly (looking into lighthouse for tickets, and beast for a forum)

I’m not responsible for anything other than amusement that comes out of this app!!!

Oh, and the only way to get an invite is to ask ;)

Most of this was stolen directly from the Readme

Since I stole everything else, I figured I’d duplicate the donation link as well.

If you find this plugin useful, please consider a donation to the author to show your support!

Author’s Email: jonathan.viney@gmail.com

Installation

ruby script/plugin install
http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/acts_as_taggable_on_steroids

ruby script/generate acts_as_taggable_migration
rake db:migrate

more

The Window

All of the action takes place in the window.

• Map – Where the action is
• Cash and income
• Inspector
  
  1. Name & Description of currently selected (hovered) terrain or unit
  2. The current unit is strong against these units
  3. The current unit is weak against these units
  4. The current unit can’t be used to attack these units
  5. Terrain effects on this unit
• Chat Window
• Player List

The point of WeeWar is to build an army and destroy your opponents.
To do this, you need to build units.
To build units, you need money.
To get money, you must capture bases.

Only bases generate income. The amount varies from map to map. This cash will be deposited every round.

Bases also build ground units and hovercraft.
Airports can build helicopters, and planes.
Ports can build hovercraft and ships.

Repair patches aren’t capturable. Repairing a unit on a patch totally repairs that unit!

Most units can either
1. Repair increase 1 or 2 HP
2. Move and stay
3. Move and attack

• Infantry & Hovercraft can capture if they are on a building. Infantry are a LOT weaker during capture.
• The Light Artillery, Heavy Artillery, and DFA units can not attack after moving.
• Planes can move, attack, and move again.
• Air units can’t be repaired.
• The Battleship can move and then attack twice.

Most units can only attack adjacent units, that is units they are right next to. Indirect units can fire on units in their range.

Terrain

• Different units move differently over the different types of terrain.
• Some units can’t cross certain terrains.
• Some units get bonuses or penalties in combat if they are on a certain terrain.

One step closer to getting my server up to production!

After several mis-steps, I’ve finally configured subversion in leopard server, and have mostly gotten Warehouse running.

I can’t wait to migrate all of my sites over to the server and get it live!

What kind of how-to would this be if I just sat around cooing about my own accomplishments? After all, I just stole the work from other people. And here it is:

Subversion

This page was instrumental in getting subversion up and running properly. A lot of other pages helped/got me started, but in the end I just wiped all of that other crap, and started over from the top of this page. When I finished, Subversion worked. That simple.

One gotcha, noted in the comments, is that for some reason OS X Server Admin seems to be fond of changing the line DAV svn to DAV off. Some vigilance in TextMate prevented this from bringing me down!

I’ll be posting more specifics about my Warehouse experience as soon as it’s actually working ;)

Disclaimer. I don’t drink Bud Light, and I don’t think Will Ferrel is funny, but this is pretty good.

Lately, I’ve been using the built in speech synthesis on OS X to read wikipedia articles out loud while I do other stuff. It’s cool, but requires either a little patience or “lower standards”.

If you’ve tried this, or you do try it, you’ll see what I mean. The layout of the articles isn’t designed to be read this way. The speech service wasn’t designed to parse HTML documents, but rather flat text.

Staring with the directions found here after a quick google search, I set up an automator action to request text, and then read it to the desktop as an aiff file.

I chose the San Francisco article as a good example, and copied the text into TextMate. I made some quick edits, adding periods after all of the headings, for instance, to force “Alex” to pause properly, and removed all of the footnotes.

The reading went well, after a few minutes I was presented with a 100+mb aiff. After manually adding it to iTunes & playing around with some quality settings, I settled on the AAC podcast setting. The convert ran quickly, and reduced the file size by almost 90%.

Finally, I went back in and added this action to my automator application, so that the iTunes import and conversion happens automagically. The important thing here is to remember to set iTunes’ conversion preferences before running the automator app.

Don’t forget to change the quality back to your normal music ripping standard!

Links

• Here’s the Disk Image containing my Automator Actions.
• The sample text file
• The compressed result

I’d voiced this concern earlier, but I definitely feel that my photo is short lived on the post at MediaShift. That’s not really what I wanted. So, the question is: What did I want?

Well, to be completely honest, my name directly under the photo, with a direct link back to my Flickr photostream is good enough for me.

Well, then why all the noise?

What’s good enough for me doesn’t satisfy the terms of the license that I’ve chosen for my photos. The purpose of that license is to permit other people to use my works, in a limited fashion, without my explicit consent. Use under the license is pre-approved and greatly appreciated.

If you want to use a photo outside that license, then it is up to you to receive proper permission. In this case, a simple Flickr message would have been more than sufficient.

I feel that this particular use was outside the scope of the existing license. I also feel like I’ve proposed a reasonable compromise: a specific agreement to let you use my work outside of the scope of the public license, in exchange for a slightly modified by-line.

I’m still at a loss for words as to a reply. Mr. Glaser seems to have misunderstood my original complaint, and hasn’t really provided a counter-point.

This whole exchange reminds me of a recent post on xkcd:

By Randall Munroe, via xkcd. Used with permission.

The next message. Copied & pasted directly here, no changes were made.

I’d rather not get in an argument with you, especially
as you decided to post my private emails with you on
your blog.
I will see if I can replicate the caption that you
asked for. If not, I will remove the image and use
another one.
Best,
Mark

Mark,

I appreciate the prompt response to my comment, and would like to thank you again for choosing my photo. I would like to take the time to reply to your points.

1. PBS is not a commercial site

I fail to see how you classify this site as non commercial. You have links to your underwriter, and sponsored links. Surely these links generate income for PBS. Income through money, goods or services constitutes commerciality, regardless of for-profit status.

2. Attribution

This is a less clear issue. Yes, you have provided a by-line for the photo. However, the attribution and the photo are placed such that it is possible to view the photo without ever seeing the credit.

3. Contact before usage and the CC license

You are correct when you say the point of CC is to allow usage. However this usage must be governed by the applicable license. You have not used the image within the confines of the license which I’ve provided.

• You have used my work on an commercial site.
• You have not provided a copy of or link to the CC license.
• Your attribution is not placed in reasonable proximity to the work.

If you’d wanted to use the image in this way, you should have contacted me.

Resolution

My intent is not to have the picture removed, but to protect my rights. I would like to see the following changes made to your post.

I would like the credit placed closer to, if not directly under the photo. Also, either a link back to the photo page added in the credit (ie via Flickr) and/or make the picture itself link back to the photo page. Lastly, a link to the CC license should be added somewhere.

I’ve put together this example of how I would attribute this photo. This is just an example, but will hopefully clarify my requests.

This letter, as well as your reply to my original email can all be found on my blog.

Thank you again for your time,

Byron Bowerman

Photo by BM5k, via Flickr. 

This is how I would attribute this particular picture. The usage of my Flickr screen name or my full name is a matter of preference, and doesn’t bother me either way. The picture itself links back to the Flickr photo page, as well as the text link below. One, the other, or both is good.

The CC license requires all copyright notices to remain intact. The third image is a link to the “human readable” license text, which satisfies this requirement.

Also note that the image title (as provided on the image page) is intact in the title of the link. This is another requirement of the CC license.

I encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with the restrictions and expectations they release their intellectual property under. As a producer of content, take the time to know the license you are extending. As the user, be sure that you follow the guidelines and requirements set forth. These licenses and agreements exist to allow content use, not prevent it.

As the copyright holder, it is your job to actively protect your content. Failure to do so effectively terminates your copyright.

Here is a copy of the e-mail reply I recieved as a follow up. Copied & paseted directly here. The only change is the removal of the phone number.

Hi Byron,
I read your comment on MediaShift about use of your CC
photo. For your background I’ve been using CC photos
in the same way for the past two years and have never
had a complaint about usage. In fact, I wrote a story
about CC/Flickr at MediaShift too:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/10/digging_deepercreative_commons.html

PBS is not a commercial site, but is non-commercial.
I’m not sure what you mean about hosting the image on
Flickr vs. PBS. If you want me to link to where the
photo is originally hosted on Flickr, I can do that in
the credit. It’s really up to you on the attribution.

You’re the first person who told me that I needed to
get permission for usage before using the photos. I
thought the point of CC was that you could use the
photos as long as you followed the guidelines.

Anyhow, please explain what you’d like me to do on the
post and I’m happy to do it. If I can’t do that, then
I can easily remove that photo and use another one.

Sorry to have upset you.
Best,
Mark

Mark Glaser
PBS MediaShift
MediaShift Idea Lab @ PBS
Online Publishers Association
phone: -removed-

This is an almost exact copy (some styling improvements here) of the comment that I left on the original story.

Mr. Glaser:

My name is Byron Bowerman, you might remember me as the photographer of the picture that accompanies this post¹. While I’m honored to see my work published, there are a few concerns that I would like to address.

Flickr’s Community Guidelines² require users to link back to the Flickr photo page for photos that are hosted on Flickr. I realize that this particular guideline isn’t exactly applicable in this particular case, as you have chosen to mirror my image on your own server, but this practice is considered proper etiquette. Although within your rights, by hosting the picture on your server, I am losing out on the traffic that would otherwise be generated by either embedding the image from Flickr, or at least providing a link back to the proper page.

In addition to this informal courtesy, I would like to point out that this picture, as well as all of my public pictures that are hosted on Flickr, is protected by the Creative Commons “attribution, non-commercial, no derivative works” license³. This license grants any non-commercial copying, distribution, transmission, provided that the file is not modified, and the proper attribution exists.

On your page, you have placed the byline for this photo at the end of your post. Combined with the lack of link back to my photostream, I feel that this goes against the spirit of the attribution clause of the CC license. More importantly, you have not provided the terms of the license to your viewers.

Further, the PBS site is clearly a commercial venture. The license that governs use of this photo clearly states that ALL commercial use is prohibited.

The icing on the cake is the fact that all of this confusion could have been avoided by simply following basic common curtsey and contacting me directly. You have obviously taken the time to find my photo, on a site that provides an easy means of communication. You used a link to my website in your post. Clearly you are more than capable of finding a valid email address to contact me directly regarding the use of my intellectual property.

It is only fitting that all of this should take place here, on this post. You have penned a call to action, directed at the leaders of this country to take up this new medium and participate with the people. I can not agree with you more, however if those of us who already embrace the culture and community of the Internet can not be bothered to follow its basic tenants, how can we expect anyone else to?

In closing, I must insist that you immediately cease and desist the illegal and improper use of my intellectual property, either by removing the image, or-more desirably-correcting the issues noted above. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions. I can be reached via e-mail at byron [dot] bowerman [at] gmail [dot] com

¹The picture page, on Flickr

² The Flickr Community Guidelines

³ Creative Commons License

On February 18th, 2008 MediaShift, a PBS run blog written by Mike Glaser, used a picture of mine on their site. I feel that in doing so, they violated the terms of the Creative Commons License that governs the use of that photo.

I will be contacting the author shortly to attempt to remedy this professionally.

If you haven’t already, see parts 1, 2 and 3

This script checks your HQ and prints out a list of games. You can see the returned xml data here.

Example Output

Active Games
One if by land
Someone else’s turn for the last 2 hours

It’s been brought
Someone else’s turn for the last 8 hours 12 Minutes

WAR 2
Someone else’s turn for the last 10 Minutes

Go Baby Go
Someone else’s turn for the last 1 hours 35 Minutes

Lobby
Moo, This Means War

more

If you haven’t already, see parts 1 and 2

This script will request information about a game, and output it nicely. You can see the returned xml data here.

Example Output

Game Info
map => lakes1187102532212
type => Pro
pace => 1 day
cbp => 150
round => 14
credits => 100
name => One if by land
started => Mon Feb 25 02:54:46 UTC 2008

Players
BM5k, bowerman4875, sbowerman’s turn

more

So, apparently I’m that guy that has comments on his blog, but never checks them, much less replies. Well NO MORE. I’ve finally added my own comment feed to my feed reader, so I can be less of a jackass and more responsive. If you’ve left any comments before, I apologize for my ignorance and thank you for the feedback.

If you haven’t already, see Part 1

I’ve thrown together a script that requests my player info, and outputs it to the screen. You can see the returned xml data here.

Example Output

About Me
name => BM5k
online => true
id => 10908

My Stats
wins => 9
losses => 4
draws => 1
credits => 103350
points => 1523

Friends
sbowerman, bowerman4875, spacecadetjuno

Games
56945, 56698, 56939, 56992, 57266, 57641, 57639

more

As a ruby newb, I thought that I’d document my first trek into API development.

Lately, I’ve been quite taken to wasting hours in front of WeeWar, to the extend that it’s interfering with my normal goofing off. Among other things, WeeWar has a relatively simple API. An introduction can be found here.

There are only a few API accessible objects, Players, Games, All Players, and the HQ. Click on the preceding links for sample of the data returned by each.

These URLs are pretty straight forward. The key thing to realize is that while games are selected by numerical id, players are selected by name. (Names are NOT case sensitive, i.e. Bert is the same as BeRT.) Also, accessing your HQ requires both a user name and an API token. You can find your API token on your account page.

Clicked on a link in google reader and got this

If you’re interested, I also saved the source code from this page

Filed under “Can’t Live Without”

I must have palm emulation on my iPhone! The mere thought of all those old apps I used to love on my Handspring Visor (the deluxe, translucent blue one) that I insisted on blowing an entire paycheck on (I was in HS at the time) makes me all giggly.

I still have a Sony Clie. It gathers dust on my dresser 99% of the time, but that isn’t the point.

I read the entire 5 book series of HHGG on my handspring.

Dope Wars, Space Trader.

What better death for the palm os?

I snagged this game today for $4 at Bookman’s in Mesa, AZ!!! It is a prequal to Advance Wars, and is the 2nd in the Nintendo Wars Series.

NOTE I did NOT make this video

Are you playing WeeWar yet?

WeeWar is a great, browser based, turn-based strategy game in the vein of AdvanceWars. If you’ve played AW you will be right at home playing WeeWar.

Here’s a quick look at my google reader shared items. I’ll be adding this to the sidebar sometime soon!

Thank’s to dacort for this one!

A quick screencast I made for the basic handbrake config.

more

Quinn is a OS X Tetris clone that includes multiplayer support & customization.

Thanks to John Siracusa for pointing me to Fancy Zoom

This seems to be similar to the javascript image library I’ve already set up, possibly better.