Dude! Joe's Jottings, Mostly Junk

A new home page - https://aboutjws.info/
Geek jottings moved to https://aboutjws.info/jottings/
Tech jottings on https://jwsdev.net/jottings/

and i've social media on bluesky and mastodon now. "jwsgeek" (universeodon)

you can follow on https://twitter.com/hashtag/tfz2015?src=hash

Ok, everybody remember 9/11? Of course you do. You also all remember so many of the false stories that the radio stations and sometimes the TV were telling until we all calmed down a little and got to focus on our thoughts (well, until buildings 5 and 7 fell, which kinda shook us all up again).

One example: there were explosions at the state department (false). There were explosions at the capital (false). There were military planes chasing civilian airliners (mostly false). There were military planes shooting other at civilian planes (false). Lots of these little rumors, all called in to the radio stations or reported on the internet (for those of us who had connectivity in that day of ultra over-load). All false.

One of the problems we had, partly due to that internet overload, is that of those rumors still being posted even after they'd long since been discredited. The caches of the news reports, or copies of them, kept getting passed around, or links to the original page continued to be spread around after the news sources had made a new page for the updated information. The old info, out of date and known to be wrong, was still on their site.

The news media took to handling that situation by basically making a master page for the news story, which they would then update and edit as if it was a wikipedia page. Any time you clicked it, it would be the most up to date version possible. This is a reasonable solution.

It is not a solution Facebook is expecting. Facebook's "OpenGraph" system basically caches an image, headline, and summary on the page as soon as somebody shares it with the system. Any one of those 3 items may change later on the actual news page, but Facebook continues to show the original summary which is full of false information, or the original headline which is very leading, subjective, and possibly not even true. All because it has cached that as being the headline for the url.

This is happening today.

Right now, the WTOP story on the DC and Southern Maryland blackout is a rather mild take on a "problem with a transmission line", belonging to PEPCO. But if you were to try to share the URL, the original headline and summary, that there was an explosion in a St. Mary's transmission station belonging to SMECO, is what gets displayed. Lots of false information, but Facebook won't correct it. This is a problem, because someday there WILL be something serious, something full of false headlines and false stories, and people's reliance on links in facebook is going to make things worse, not better.

Facebook needs to solve this problem. And soon.

About JWS :: Facebook and Emergency Handling

My late friend Pete Brown used to sing this often, with his own minor variations, of course, at the Foggs' various pub stops.

Teddy Bears Rave Up

If you go down in the woods today you better go in disguise.
If you go down in the woods today you're sure of a big surprise.
'Cos every bear that ever there was is gathered there for certain because
today's the day the Teddy Bears have their Rave Up.

There's Angel Bears who've come on their bike dressed in their leather gear.
There's gallons of Scrump all green with limps and 'orrible Watney's beer.
Yogi downed a pint of it quick, was very promptly 'orribly sick
and filled up both of Paddington's new wellies

Rave Up time for Teddy Bears.
The little Teddy Bears are having a lovely time today.
Grooving to those heavy sounds
that only Status Quo know how to play.
Cresta Bear is freaking out.
He's frothing Man, he's blown his little brain.
Rupert's spaced, he's on a trip. Winnie the Pooh is doing the strip.
They reckon he's on The Game.

Now every bear that's ever been good is sure of a treat today,
for Mummy and Daddy and Baby bear have found a new game to play.
Beneath the leaves where nobody sees there's Goldilocks tied up to a tree.
You bet your life she's getting more than porridge.

So if you go down in the woods today you better not go alone.
It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home.
'Cos it's a really kinky scene, a big butch bear is playing the Queen
and they don't call him Sugar Puffs for nothing.

Rave Up time for Teddy Bears.
The little Teddy Bears are having a lovely time today.
Groping in the undergrowth,
Oh what would Enid Blyton have to say?
See them gaily stagger round, collapsing on the ground,
they haven't got any cares.
At 12 o'clock the coppers are coming to take them all away,
'cos they've been naughty little Teady Bears

(Mudcat Credit: This was recorded by Fred Wedlock on his album Oldest Swinger in Town, with Chris Newman. I'm not sure whether he wrote it or if it's attributable to someone else.)
About JWS :: Naughty Little Teddy Bears...

i've always wondered how to handle the aspect of showing classic shows to the kid (currently 3 and a half). we grew up (or more recently, grew older) with certain things happening in a certain order. our parents, too.

my parents had to patiently wait and hope for that next Beatles album. we had to patiently wait for that next Star Wars film, that next (and eventually last...sigh...) MASH episode. as we grew older, that next Harry Potter book and movie. That next (and eventually last) Star Trek episode from a series that didn't suck. What introductions we had to things before us still came from TV - the episodes were only day-to-day on repeats (who knew if they ran them in order, and shows never really had finales in those days except The Prisoner), the movies were seen only when they just happened to come up on a saturday afternoon.

so how do we introduce those to someone much younger (say, my 3 year old), who has today all of that, every movie and ever episode of every series that has ever existed (if it survives) at the click of a remote (and the parents paying for a netflix subscription etc etc)?

do we try to recreate that anticipation we had with seeing it week by week, day by day (or you have to wai three years to see the next Star Wars film), or just get on with it in a huge marathon viewing, the same way we adults catch up to a show we realize we like, and see what the world comes up with that will be this tiny generation's "gotta wait and see..."
original: About JWS :: How should I show the Classics to a Kid?

tl;dr summary: I like & use Google Drive, OwnCloud, PicasaWeb, Flickr, Amazon Cloud Player, Subsonic, PlexTV, Feedly, Pocket, Disqus, and especially Trello. I hate Amazon Cloud Drive for photos now, and rant about Adobe CC's business model. Links in the original blog...

As a modern techie, I do tend to keep quite a bit of my life on the cloud (or web 2.0, or just "the net", because in the end, isn't it all the same at heart - I have a client, somewhere there's a server, and they talk to each other and exchange data).

So not that anybody's asked, but here are my personal favorite cloud-based applications and services (some self-hosted, some only exist "out there"), for the media and things I tend to keep.

( Read more... )

So that's it. My cloud lifestyle in a nutshell.
About JWS :: Living in the Cloud

as we get closer to the 25th, the seasonal albums that aren't just tolerable, but i absolutely love countdown...but not in any order, so nyah.

• Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio


• December - George Winston


• A Celtic Heartbeat Christmas - various


• Jethro Tull's Christmas Album


• A Scottish Christmas - Maggie Sansone, Al Petteway, Bonnie Rideout. (Maggie's Music has lots of good holiday albums, including a new one this season just announced, but this particular one strikes me the most)


• A Winter's Solstice - Windham Hill artists (the first one remains the best)


• If On A Winter's Night - Sting (though I prefer his mid-80s version of Gabriel's Message more than the one on that album)


• A Collection of Recycled Gifts - Marillion (my copy's still on its way, but I know most of the tracks already...)

About JWS :: As we get closer...

Soundchecking - 5:30pm

• Flock of Seaguls - Nightmares
• Depeche Mode's Policy of Truth
• Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome
• Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
• Eurythmics - Who's That Girl
• Eurythmics - Here Comes the Rain Again
• Kate Bush - Experiment IV
• Kate Bush - Running up the Hill

first kid at 6:35

• Madness - House of Fun
• Madness - One Step Beyond
• Men at Work - Who Can It Be Now
• Men at Work - Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde
• Missing Persons - Destination Unknown
• Modern English - I Melt With You
• Oingo Boingo - Weird Science
• Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party

only my second kid (and Wiggles is on her way out now). by the way, this is my 11th year, 10th anniversary of the first TFZ!

• Planet P - Static
• Planet P - Why Me
• B 52s - Channel Z
• The Cars - Moving in Stereo
• The Cure - Lullaby
• The Cure - Fascination Street (Mix-up extended version)
• Big Pig - I Can't Break Away
• Peter Gabriel - I Don't Remember

Now switching into classic rock mode

• Alan Parsons - Recurring Dream within a Dream
• Moody Blues - Lost in a Lost World
• Keep Talking - Pink Floyd
• Careful with that Axe Eugene - Pink Floyd (Pompeii version)
• Sting - I Burn for You (Bring on the Night version)
• Spirits in the Material World (heard this one at lunch) - The Police

already feeling like it has slowed to the end. only 8:18 and maybe 16 kids total. :/

• Invisible Sun - Police
• Veteran of the Psychic Wars - Blue Oyster Cult
• Home by the Sea - Genesis (yes, both parts...)
• Mama - Genesis
• Osmosis - Liquid Tension Experiment
• Nighttime Birds - The Gathering

and I think we'll call it a night, as far as broadcasting outdoors goes...