Category Archives: Geek Out!

Nerds Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Roman Numerals To Identify Star Trek Movies

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My husband David and I were watching a cable rerun of one of the original-cast Star Trek movies last night, because we are nerds and thus we have no life. The official title of this movie is something long and involved: Star Trek (Insert Roman Numeral Here): The Search For Spock.

At least in our house, the official name of this movie is actually “Star Trek: You Klingon Bastard, You Killed My Son. You Klingon Bastard, You Killed My Son. YOU KLINGON BASTARD, YOU KILLED MY SON.“

It takes place on the Genesis planet, immediately after the events in the previous movie, Star Trek: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! which of course was a sequel to the very first Star Trek classic-cast movie, Star Trek: VEEJUR NEEDS SPACE GUITARS.

In like fashion, the only way I can remember the Star Trek movie that follows ST: YKBYKMS is by calling it either “Star Trek: Double Dumbass On You,” or “Star Trek: Save The Damn Whales.” You may also remember it’s the one with the antique nuclear wessel.

The one after that is either “Star Trek: Oh, God!” or “Star Trek: Uhura’s Embarasssing Fan Dance,” and the one after that is generally “Star Trek: The Last Hurrah,” or “Star Trek: FFS, Let Picard Drive Next Time, Grandpa!”

And so on. The “Next Gen” installments, being more recent, have aged a little better for me. Some of them were excellent (“Star Trek: Very Manly! Lots of Testosterone!*“), and one or two of the later ones (“Star Trek: Sexy Bald Captain’s Clone”) were stinkbombs.

The new reboot was rousing, but inevitably, in my mind it has become both “Star Trek: You Romulan Bastard, You Blew Up My Vulcan!” and “Star Trek: Sector 90210.” The newest installment, which is still in “teaser mode” is likely to become Star Trek: Sexy Hot KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN!” if the hints and spoilers are accurate.

So anyway, in spite of some serious scenery noshing mostly by Shatner, we enjoyed watching “ST:YKBYKMS.” Our affection for the characters still overcomes our dislike of the hokey plot elements. Also, this movie is the one with Christopher Lloyd doing a little “Spaceman Jim” riff when he drops into laid-back English while using his communicator screen, instead of barking orders in monosyllabic Klingon. I started watching pretty early on; the makeup on the Klingons looked pretty bad and you could see where the prostheses began on the upper cheeks.

This is also the one where the mighty Enterprise is given the space-operatic version of a Viking funeral; since Starfleet wasn’t going to refit the old gal, it seemed fitting that Kirk destroy her (with the classic destruct sequence from the old series). That’s okay, they get a shiny new one in the next movie, but not before limping home (and back in time) in that creaky old Klingon Bird of Prey with the rather useful cloaking device. Oh, that reminds me; the next movie after this one also goes by “Star Trek: Everybody Remember Where We Parked The Car.”)

How do you remember multiple-installment genre movies? How the hell does anybody remember all the Friday the 13th and Halloween installments? My system works for me, but admittedly it worked better when there were Shatnerisms to play with.

*Before Star Trek: First Contact was released, I distinctly remember reading an interview somewhere with Jonathan Frakes, who directed in addition to playing Riker. The interview included a tease of Frakes directing Patrick Stewart hunting Borg survivors on the Enterprise armed with a prop plasma rifle. Frakes was shouting encouragement, such as “very manly! Lots of testosterone!,” and so that is how I will always remember this movie.

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Still No Amazon Affiliates Love For Illinois

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As a resident of Illinois, I can’t participate in the Amazon Affiliates program due to a law passed in the state awhile back that was supposed to protect brick-and-mortar businesses from online businesses that didn’t charge Illinois tax. I thought maybe that might have changed since there had been some stories about the law being ruled unconstitutional, but not according to this newly updated boilerplate from the Amazon Affiliates page. I still get their emails, I just have to keep hoping this will change someday.

In addition, if at any time following your enrollment in the Program you become a resident of Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, you will become ineligible to participate in the Program, and this Operating Agreement will automatically terminate, on the date you establish residency in that state. In addition, you must promptly notify us in writing of your Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut residency, which you may do via the Contact Associates Customer Service form available here.

via Amazon.com Associates Central

Gobekli Tepe: Amazing 11,000-year-old site predates Stonehenge by thousands of years

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I’m watching an H2 program called Civilization Lost, covering little-known sites that hint at entire civilizations that have been lost to history, the segment on the Turkish site Gobekli Tepe was striking to me. The History 2 channel seems to be slightly more “woo-woo ancient aliens!1!” than the regular History channel. Also covered: Varna, Tel Hamoukar, the Minoan culture, and others.

Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced its the site of the worlds oldest temple.

via Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine

Happy Easter! I’m Off To Sing The Hallelujah Chorus

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It’s that time of year again – I’m singing at the Easter Vigil tonight at St Nicholas, and we’re doing the Hallelujah Chorus tonight and tomorrow. Much like in 2007, in fact, but we’re much more experienced now, and the freshening we’ve felt with Father Manny beginning his tenure has been a LOT of fun!

I’m also the web and social media boffin for St Nick’s so I do the website, Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else that’s internet-y. So I’m always interested to know how people find St Nick’s. I’m also on the Welcome Committee, just  so that all makes a kind of sense.

Work is good too – not that busy, but expected to get busier after the “spring break lull.” One exciting thing: we’re all going to be working from home, the entire office. It’ll be a big undertaking but I’ve asked to be put on the list for the first wave. One of my teammates is already working from home and loves it, and I have a spare bedroom that’s small enough to be kind of ideal for a home office. All the tech gear and connection will be handled by the office, so we’ll be very interested to see how they deal with the wiring.

I’m looking for computer parts these days anyway; my desktop computer lost the graphics card I upgraded it with (WAAAAH!) so I’m limping along on the default one. So far it looks like we’ll swap for a bigger case and power supply, and then there’ll be room for a good quality graphics card. Hoping to spend less than $500 on it, maybe a lot less as prices are about to come down.

Anyway, Easter. My music is all collated, in spite of the best efforts of my choir mistress to keep throwing new pieces of music and hymns in that she planned for but never gave out because it was “in our Anglican DNA” and thus something we ought to know. Ah, well, it’ll be a good service and I’ll be very, very happy when we get through the “big stuff” like the Hallelujah Chorus.I also get to chant in the dark, which is always… fraught, but fun when it sounds good.

More later. Happy Easter, can’t wait to see who Bunny Stig turns out to be at church tomorrow.

Google Reader Sharing Still Crippled

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I’m still pissed off about the Share feature of Google Reader being ruined, and it’s weeks and weeks or months and months since I did any blogging of stuff I ran across in the Internets tubes.

Somebody at the Google Reader user forum, in a thread entitled “I HATE the new format” came up with a possible solution: share your old Shares page to Google Plus (ugh) and use tags to add items to it. However, it was dependent on another site, which has since shut down (and I suspect Google of being evil).

Farther down in the thread, someone else points out a link that at least shows you your shared items in a Google Reader link, but it leads to the same old familiar page. However, it’s now possible to use Reader’s crippled Share button to add items to my Public Google Plus page… from my REAL Shared Items page.

It’ll only be updated from iPhone or iPad as there’s no app for the desktop that allows old-style sharing. That guy at Hivemined has lost all credibility with a very, very enthusiastic group of potential users; he grabbed the limelight and then didn’t know what to do with it, and in the end we’re all burned.

 

 

via I HATE the new format. Why don’t my shared items show up on my shared page. – Google Groups

425-390-8105 Is Probably the ANTI Do Not Call Database

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I received a call at work from a Renton WA number, and immediatly after got a spam text message. When I called the Renton number back, it was a voicemail saying “Welcome to the Do Not Call database. If you would like to be added to the database, enter your 10-digit phone number.”

Note, no “Federal,” no mention of a US governmental entity. So I assume that it was actually an opt-in database for phone spammers, based on a bit of Googling around as seen below. One commenter remarked that it’s probably “out of country” spammers using some kind of bundling service based in Washington state.

Link: 425-390-8105 / 4253908105 1/5

Not so Simple: Simple Facebook Connect « WordPress Plugins

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20111110-101631.jpg

I finally got Simple Facebook Connect working between the St Nick’s webpage and the Facebook page, mostly.

It was both simple and not simple: Facebook had changed the look of their Apps page, and there is more than one Apps page. So one “how to install this app” tutorial I tried to follow was visually outdated, but a text update had been added at the bottom.

The plugin developer had not bothered to remove screenshots on an old blog post on his site, but added a terse update noting that the instructions in the plugin readme.txt file and on the options page are correct, and that the link to the correct Apps page was correct. Also, to link to a Page (business page, fan page), where the Option page says “Enter the ID of your page,” he means the number contained in your Facebook fan or business page, not the entire URL.

Once I finally got that, and deleted the duplicate app I created with the wrong domain name, and recopied and pasted the correct app ID and Secret key, and saved, and authorized additional permissions for SFC and saved AGAIN, I was good to go.

It now automatically reposts from blog post to Facebook page, and I can manually publish both posts and pages.

I followed instructions at the developer’s website to get the enhanced comments working. Code details in the extended post.

I’m using a different plugin, Tweet Like Share +1, to add more share boxes. They don’t seem to conflict now, after enabling SFC first, then enabling TLS+1. Testing to follow, the SFC developer has +1 on his blog but doesn’t include it as an option.

Otto is rather… blunt about not using other Facebook plugins, so proceed carefully and follow directions to the letter. Your own assumptions, and selective blindness, are your biggest stumbling blocks when installing Simple Facebook Connect. Also, older posts and comments on his support sites can be helpful, but may be outdated.

Screenshots and the steps that eventually worked to follow.

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Kevin Fox Makes Offer To Google They Shouldn’t Refuse

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They really should take him up on this.

Also, I have surrendered; I don’t welcome our Google Plus overlords, but I’ll let them in the house on a hot day and listen politely. And I like the clean “if you like this, please share” icons in Kevin’s post, so will implement that here and at Holy Moly.

And so I put my resources where my mouth is. As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements. I will put my current projects on hold to ensure that Google Reader keeps its place as the premier news reader, and raises the bar of what a social newsreader can be.

Link: My offer to Google Reader « fox @ fury