I needed to archive several WordPress sites as part of the process of gathering the raw data for my thesis research. I found a few recipes online for using wget to grab entire sites, but they all needed some tweaking. So, here’s my recipe for posterity:
I used wget, which is available on any linux-ish system (I ran it on the same Ubuntu server that hosts the sites).
2 entire series of novels later, and a scattering of other standalone books. I’m reading more now than I have in years. But I haven’t bought the Big Ticket eBooks. Most of these are either free, or low-cost books put out by independent authors. Very cool stuff.
Every now and then, I have to pause a little when I realize that almost all of my photographs this year were taken with a cell phone. Many (most?) of the photos would have never happened otherwise - I’d grow tired of lugging out a DSLR and all that entails. But because a good-enough-camera is in my phone, in my pocket all of the time, I’m documenting stuff that would have gone forgotten otherwise. That’s worth far more to me than pixels and f-stops.
Fear of Apple is about losing control over the software on our computers. Fear of Google is about losing control over our privacy.
That’s the best, clearest description of the difference I’ve seen. I don’t care what anyone else uses. But I value my privacy more than I value the ability to compile the kernel behind my operating system.
A few years ago, we headed into the mountains to spend a few days at a cabin with family. It’s a development built on top of the remains of a failed ski resort on Pigeon Mountain, overlooking the Bow Valley. The weather was pretty crappy for much of the stay, but I was drawn to the way the clouds and wisps played along the crags. I think these peaks are Windtower and The Rimwall, forming the south part of the famous Three Sisters overlooking Canmore.
I’ve been using several pieces of “enterprise” software lately - applications that university basically runs on. Until recently, I’d only been exposed to a small portion of Peoplesoft (and even then, only for processing extremely infrequent travel claims). But now… I get to use several apps. And they all seem to have something in common: disdain or even active loathing for the users. From the application that is deployed as a “web site” built using ActiveX controls so we have to use IE on Windows to even see it. To the application that manages all IT support activity, but is designed to use a rigid unresizable 640x480 web page crammed with tiny bits of data. Etc…
I noticed a rather severe spike in CPU usage on my Mediatemple server, and dug in to see what was causing it. For an hour, someone was hammering the login form for my blog, accounting for 98% of all CPU usage for my account during the “attack”. That’s not OK (I have lots of CPU/bandwidth left, but it’s silly to leave a login form exposed to some kind of sustained script-kiddie “attack”).
Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that’s the social graph.
Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.
First, this is not a pity party thing. If things go that way, comments get turned off or this post disappears.
I finally got a GP, after 20 years without having a regular doctor. Drop-in clinics just don’t cut it. So I see him, and he gives me a pretty thorough checkup. If you know what I mean. And he pauses, and checks again. He says there’s something he’s feeling, while examining a nut.
people gripe about content consumption and distraction and superficiality. but, we choose how we are. we choose to waste the potential of what would have been described as science fiction only a few years ago.
You can decide to throw birds at pigs. You can decide to check in on which strangers are pretending to like you today. You may even decide to see what you would look like if you were really fat.
I haven’t posted a photo to Flickr in a couple months, and am starting to think about how to migrate photos from there (a place I don’t own, and where the photos are only fully available if I pay an annual fee) to here (a place that I do own, where I get to say when/if stuff goes offline).
I can think of two scenarios:
Some mythical WordPress plugin that connects to my Flickr account and sucks in all of the images as Media items (for management) and Posts (so they’re visible) using the correct date/title/description/keywords. This doesn’t need to pull in the full resolution originals - I’d be happy with the Large (1024 pix wide) version.
