Over the last few days, I’ve been visiting my middle school and sitting in on classes. In other words, it hasn’t really been break.
Why did I go to school during school break? Well, I wanted to get an early start on the photo essay I have to do for photojournalism class. I decided to work with the 7th grade laptop project; because of that, I went and sat once again in the classes I took seven years ago. Truthfully it was a lot of fun; the only thing that kind of surprised me was that the students were calling me “Mr. Russell” and asking if I was a student teacher. That’s a bit scary. But I was sitting in a chair looking over the room and my desire to be back in school as a job returned; I felt like I did when I was in the FTC. I’m not a very good teacher, though, so maybe there’s some combination in there somewhere that would work for me.
First impressions of the laptop program: it works. Kids like them. They help with classes. It lets everything be more flexible for current events or sudden modifications. Unfortunately for the report I have to write, there aren’t many problems happening. For me personally, though, I’m really, really glad to see that.
One question: WTF?
Isn’t this so much more effective?
This was popular a year ago, according to Blogdex, but since I haven’t been enlightened yet, it’s about time I do it.
You’re the HREF tag- you need someone to lean on and take care of you. You can be shy but you shine in difficult situations.
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I blame my lack of sociability on McGruff the Crime Dog. After all, he was always telling us not to talk to strangers.
I went down to the Saint George area today to visit Marshall Point Light. It’s the first time I’d been there in a while; the last time was when a hurricane was offshore, I think. The waves are always huge since it’s right on the ocean. If you look carefully in Forrest Gump, it’s one of the locations at which Tom Hanks kept runnin’.
Anyway, as is usual with a trip such as this, I took bunches of pictures. Go and admire. And rate. And stuff.
And there’s TrackBack now… hopefully. I never really understood the concept of TrackBacks, but it all makes a lot of sense to me now. Basically, you link to a source. It goes back to the original philosophy that a weblog is basically a bunch of links to other stuff; TrackBacks allow you to reference another site.
But wait, you say, isn’t that what a simple link is for?
Why, yes it is! TrackBacks offer something different – they allow you to see who has linked to a particular entry in your blog. So if I wrote a long, drawn-out tutorial on how to put XML headlines in your blog, for example, you could click on the TrackBack link on that entry and, if the person/people who mentioned my tutorial in their blog have TrackBacks enabled, you’d see who was referencing my entry from my blog. It’s kind of unclear, but it’s really cool once you figure it out.
Thanks to hitormiss.org for a wonderful tutorial. Don’t blame that site if something goes wrong with mine.
Now there’s a button directly to the XML feed of justinrussell.com… it’s in the Info module. You know, the one you can’t get rid of no matter how hard you try.
Put me in your NetNewsWire!
After being inspired by Mike (congratulations, btw, Daddy Chandler!) and with Chris’s recent pimping of RSS, I decided to set up XML feeds from a few of my favorite sites as modules. One problem, though: I’m not exactly an XML genius. In fact, this is the first thing I did with parsing. And really, I didn’t do anything at all.
Mike had a script to grab the Bits and Bytes from Lockergnome available on his page. I swiped that and made a few changes to it to make it more generic: now you can use it as just an include and call any XML/RSS feed. It’s a heck of a lot easier than parsing. Anyway, full credits are in the readme file.
So ShareAlike: use it. Steal it. It’s really simple to use, thanks primarily to Mike. And if you want to get Lockergnome or TJU headlines, scoot on over to the modules page.
Download the script:
xmlgrab.txt
xmlgrab-readme.txt
Over the first few days of break I’ve been thinking a lot about ThisJustUp (a better main page is coming soon, I promise). As I’ve said before, I’ve been tweaking the code so that I can port it to many different categories with ease (starting with TechTV, moving to UMaine, and soon probably starting one for Hampden to see how that works out). The latest code is version 1.1.1, and I’m setting out to work on 1.2 over break.
Thinking about the code has made me realize what the site might truly be about: a news democracy. I view Google News as one of the prime examples of how such a service can be a great advantage. Slashdot also contributes to that philosophy. Basically, it’s people who can submit whatever they want for others to read. While this is limited and checked somewhat by the editing/approving process, I’m thinking I’ll be pretty open in the future in my editing and will encourage any future editors to be also. In fact, I think one of the most important sections of each site would be the opinions section; I want each TJU to have a huge Op/Ed section, because that’s what really makes the news.
Anyone can submit a story. Isn’t that one of the main goals of the Internet and the Web in the first place? Connecting people. Hearing people. The TJU model is open enough so that one could be established for pretty much anything – Bangor, Maine; Britney Spears; baked Alaska; or Boston University. Would a TJU on Britney change the world? Probably not. But I’m beginning to realize that a large portion of my M@ineSites vision is attempting to make surfing the Web easier by combining everything into one place. Then, from there, people can extend it out with, say, the XML/RSS feed from TJU. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see the current TJU headlines running on the right side of the UMaine or TechTV home pages? While it would obviously have some advantages for my site, I think the benefits would be even greater for the site running the headlines. At one glance, you see the latest on what’s happening; that’s what goes on with Slashdot RSS headlines (look for a module with these soon on JR.com).
Back to the news democracy. I think most of you know by now I love feedback; I’ve already gotten some suggestions for TJU. I’m thinking about setting up a forum on the TJU main page so that people can suggest new features. While TJU isn’t open-source (yet…), I want the development project to be as democratic as possible. If there’s something you’d like to see, let me know. Here are a few things I’m thinking about for 1.2/2:
- Ability to rate stories
- Top stories based on ratings
- Open-source for development on other sites
- Code for adding RSS on your site
- Personal page (login, preferences, etc.)
So let me know. Remember, nothing’s impossible.
Over the past two weeks I’ve seen two movies: ‘Road to Perdition’ and ‘S1m0ne’. Now, as is traditional with review category entries, I will review them.
I’m not usually a fan of crime movies, but I am a fan of Tom Hanks, Thomas Newman (composer), and the people from ‘American Beauty’, including Newman, who worked on the film. ‘Road to Perdition’ really was an incredibly shot movie, and every scene was very beautiful. Above that, the content of the film was very interesting, too. My favorite part, though, was the musical score; I actually wanted to see the movie the most because I love Newman’s soundtrack. Overall, a very good movie.
I watched ‘S1m0ne’ tonight. The aspect I noticed most was that the movie tried to send a message about a bunch of different groups: directors, fans, actors, teenagers. It actually stressed a lot of the messages that I believe: people like things that are continuing to become faker and faker, the media is really too involved with the lives of famous people, etc. Another great feature: a geek girl (Evan Rachel Wood)… woohoo! Unfortunately, the movie was often saturated with technological errors or lapses in reasoning or technology. I think the movie more than made up for it, though, by the messages it contained. I think everyone should watch it just for that – and maybe see what things might be like not too far in the future.
