The Satanic Verses (S. Rushdie) - Partial Final

Ok, I give up. After 40 years of slogging through any book I’ve had to endure – including War and Peace, the Bible, and various heavy-weight textbooks on theoretical physics, I finally found one that could outlast me. The Satanic Verses couldn’t hold my interest for more than 2 pages at a time, and the prospect of having to read all 561 pages of it was just way too much. At that rate, I would have read that book for more than three quarters of a year!

Registered Project and Released Feather

As of now, I did all the required work to register the project and release the first version on extensions.joomla.org. You should be able to download the file, com_weight.zip from there and install it on any current Joomla 1.0 instance.

A few words to go with the download:

1. This is an initial release. The component works just fine for me, and I have it running on gawd.at to track my weight – but I am extremely interested in feedback. Both improvements and bugs will be actively considered, so don’t be shy!
2. Plans for 1.5: now that the software is stable, I’ll start working on a 1.5 implementation. I’ve looked at the structure of 1.5, and it looks like it’s really 2.0 – a major rearchitecture of the underlying infrastructure. If the interfaces for components have stayed stable, though, there shouldn’t be too much work to do. Congrats, Joomla Core developers!
3. Who is this for? When I was a fitness trainer, I found that my clients had a hard time keeping their weight, losing it, or gaining it (whatever they fancied). One of the reasons was that they looked at their weight on any single day and made silly decisions based on that. If they lost a pound they’d start eating like crazy, if they gained one they’d starve until the end of the day, and then overate. Seeing the trend in the past few weeks helps a lot more.
4. Installing: in the Administrator, choose Installers → Components. There select the ZIP file and upload it. You should get something with lots of “success!!” on it. Then go to the menu manager, and add a Component menu item with the component “com_weight” in it. Place it in any menu, make sure it is published, and off you go!

The Running Man (1987)

This review is the result of a Netflix crime: I just started my subscription (why has the time to process just trebled?), and this was one of the movies they strongly suggested I watch. Not sure why, but here are my thoughts.

First: in hindsight, the 80es were just as creative as the 70es or 60es, only their innovation was mostly atrociously ugly. Watching The Running Man shouts instantly “1987” at you, what with the women’s dress and hairstyle, the cheesy music, the crapola choreography in the dance numbers.

Mika @ the Warfield - Followup on YouTube

Well, one of the things that was amusing at the Mika concert was the number of cameras pointing at the stage throughout the night. Indeed, sometimes the glow from the cameras was stronger than the light on the stage. I guess that’s what you get in the capital of geek!

I made the comment to my friend Julie that half the videos shot that night would be on YouTube by the end of the evening. Now, it wasn’t half, and it wasn’t until the day after, but there are indeed 6 videos that match the search “mika warfield” on YouTube.

Mika @ the Warfield - Followup on the drummer

From a blog post on the net, more information on the drummer in Mika’s concert that left such a huge impression. The original location is this.

I’ve been a little bit quiet here because I’ve just got a new job. Hooray! It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to work for ages and combines both my radio and web skills. Ace. Now I just need to get back into coping on little sleep after djing. A call to arms Londoners – where is good for lunch around Brick Lane/Shoreditch High Street area?

Mika @ the Warfield

For those of you who don’t know Mika, you have probably already heard at least one of his songs. In a good mood, he delivers “fun” music that is very catchy, instantly memorizable, but somehow too generic to have a particular imprint. He’s very young, so he probably is still working on a particular style, but right now he fits the mainstream glam rock category quite well, with other acts like Scissor Sisters.

Locked out of Facebook (2): The Reply

The reply without comment:

Hi Marco,

Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. You have received a warning because Facebook determined that you were going too fast when sending messages.

If you have also been blocked from sending messages, please note that these blocks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Unfortunately, we cannot lift the block for you. When you are allowed to resume using this feature, please proceed with caution to avoid reaching the limit again. Please be aware that the threshold at which you are warned is not a specific number, but rather determined by different factors (such as speed, time, and quantity). For security reasons, we are unable to provide additional information about this system. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Locked out of Facebook

No sooner do I discover the new personals ad on Facebook that I start getting flagged for sending too many messages. It starts with a warning that you are about to exceed your quota for sending messages, that you have to slow down. This message shows up every time you send a message. Then I am shut out: I can use Facebook, can receive and read messages, but cannot send them.

The Satanic Verses (S. Rushdie)

Well, it’s a bit early for a review of The Satanic Verses just yet, since I barely have dented the first 20%, so forgive me for sharing preliminary thoughts. On the other hand, the first impression is probably what is going to be leading into the final review, so I probably should share how the beginning feels, alright.

I always wanted to read this book. Mr. Rushdie had been heralded as one of the greatest writers of the century, and not having read anything by him was a little dirty secret that I couldn’t confess to anyone, even to me. I was going to read him, one day, I swore, constantly forestalling the moment whenever I ran into The Satanic Verses at any bookstore.

Facebook apps - personals

I have been following the ascent of Facebook, just like everyone else in the Bay Area that likes technology. The advent of a company that does so much so well is astonishing, especially after considering all the competitors that didn’t do so well.

In particular, Facebook opened up their own application to third party app developers. They provided a series of APIs that allow geeks to create add-ons that use the Facebook database and integrate into its user interfaces and communication mechanisms.