“Who ya gonna call?” “CODEBUSTERS”
No.
But the metaphor of Ghostbusters crossing the streams was inversely appropriate to a little bit of code action over the holidays (of which the actual action was nil).
But this was fun.
This nice tweet from John Johnston (who spawned the idea) reminded me of a WordPress plugin I had made
The WP Posted Today plugin is meant to offer a short code you can put on a site and it will list all previous posts on the current calendar day (this of course is useful if you actually still blog regularly) (cough) (cough).
Just for grins I checked the page where I use my own plugin. Yikes. Red Alert. It displayed all the ones for December 29 in years past, but the part where it should list how many there were was blank.
I dug into my own code… and found myself a bit lost. Crossed. I was not even sure where I got the sprintf functions (John’s original code?) that were aimed to be compatible if anyone every wanted a language translation (maybe, or it’s just that thing when people code things differently).
Taking the path of least resistance, I took out the code where I think the problem was occurring and did it a more simple, but brute force way.
And it worked.
So I updated the version on GitHub and felt at peace with the world. In the off chance someone stumbled into my little corner of code, they would find something that works (or should work).
And then (here comes a stream crossing) Michael Hanscom @djwudi — someone I don’t think I’ve ever communicated with — tweets that he had seen pretty much the same bug and offered a fix.
In looking at his post I saw the fix he made, and said– that’s better than mine! So I decided today to roll back my changes in place of Michael’s solution (but also keeping a modification I had made to remove extraneous calls when not needed for singular versus multiple results).
I noted the extra change he made in hos own version
Plus, I’ve made one other tweak to the plugin, so that it adds a link to the end of the excerpt to better handle “microblog” style entries that don’t have titles, so I still get to feel good about that part, as well. 🙂 My coding skills may be underdeveloped and rusty from lack of regular use, but they’re not entirely atrophied!
In this case, these microblog type entries (see Michael’s demo page) lack titles, so yes, a link is needed at the end of the post excerpt.
Yet I could see that regular posts (like on my site) did not need the extra link, and also, not everyone might want the arrow Michael likes.
I solved this cleverly by creating an additional shortcode parameter more which defaults to a blank string. In the shortcode function, we convert any attributes passed to variables with
extract(shortcode_atts( array( "month" => '', "day" => '', 'excerpt' => 1, 'more' => '' ), $atts ));
So on my site, where I just used the shortcode There are 14 posts previously published on December 23rd
- 2017
- Walking to See the Lights The do it every year. There are three adjacent houses in Strawberry, Arizona, where Wingfield Way turns into Tonto Rim Drive and the north edge of town folds into the forest. Each Christmas, whomever lives there, sets up a huge display of lights. Of course it’s not novel, it happens everywhere. And it’s not anywhere […]
- 2014
- Tap. Tap. Is this Thing On? 2014? In past years I have done the extensive mailing of hand made letters/cards to friends and family. I have also done nothing too. I’ve done web based greetings. I’ve done lame text messages. Gotta mix up the game. With being away from home in Canada since late October, the plans for anything year end have […]
- 2013
- Building a Happy Birthday Alan Egg into Projects cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by laura I can be so clever I… oh forget it. But still, I think this is neat. back in the beginning of my web career I “discovered” something in my first big (and the “big” was never planned, it just happened) web project that […]
- 2012
- [almost] Daily Photos 2012 This year marks the fifth I have run my own “daily photo” project (2011 , 2010 , 2009 , 2008), going back to that first year when D’Arcy Norman had invited others to join along with him. The act of focusing time every day, for over these 5 years, has very much helped me improve […]
- Can You GIF The Real Me? Time for a little bit of Rock and Roll GIF-action (“I can’t get no…”) for the ds106 GIFfest, this in response to the Rock ‘n Roll ‘n GIF call… actually a few different music action sequences from the BBC documentary on the Who’s Quadrophenia, Can You See the Real Me?. Besides the retrospective perspectives fro […]
- 2010
- mooooooooooooc cc licensed flickr photo shared by crowdive At first it was just one stray. Then another. Make it three or four. Now they see each other, and its a herd, movement… stampede? cc licensed flickr photo shared by crowdive Yup, there are MOOCs on the moooooove. Okay, enough of the bovine innuendos. But what is […]
- 2008
- At the Speed of a Tweet Fast Food (Roadrunner) by Nick Chill posted 11 Nov ’08, 4.11pm MST PST on flickr Here is another of the Greater Roadrunner, actually running across the road. He was very challenging to shoot. View On Black 20081108-088 As astutely commented by John Larkin another Twitteronema (Twitter+Phenomena) is how fast software and web site creators respond […]
- Animoto iPhone App Rolls Over, Plays Dead I was excited to try Animoto‘s new app for the iPhone that allows you to create videos from iPhone photos and their music selection. So I loaded up 16 photos, arranged them, and selected my music. Then when I went to create the video, I keep getting told my phone is offline, despite the 5 […]
- Dog Tired Road Dog by cogdogblog posted 23 Dec ’08, 9.39am MST PST on flickr Happy to be done traveling for 2008! Stuff organized by TripIt www.tripit.com/people/cogdog Woot! I shall not see the inside of another airport for a long while (well, til January 15). It was quite a thrill to place the blue dots as tracked […]
- Eye Test 20/20 by cogdogblog posted 23 Dec ’08, 9.07am MST PST on flickr Make your own Custom Eye Chart www.eyechartmaker.com No cheating, cover the left eye and read the smallest line you can see clearly. Share this barking on social media
- 2007
- Flickr Drops the Hammer on Spammer Yes another log on the fire for my adoration of flickr. One of my “dogs only” rss feed in my Reader is a watch on my comments in flickr (there is an RSS feed for yourself at http://www.flickr.com/recent_activity.gne?days=2). There is asome bit of ego involved, but mainly so I can reply to comments, yes that […]
- 2004
- My Custom Photo I got a not so notice photo mailed to me form the city of Scottsdale. They took an unflattering photo of me doing 36 in a 25 mph zone. In this modified scan, I am seething red at being caught by these machines designed to extract money from citizens. Well, my portrait arrived in the […]
- Holy Sweet Updates! Mac OXxxxxxx In the last 2 hours I experienced a computer religious experience. I opened the box for my new G4 laptop, connected a firewire cable from it to my old laptop, and then watched in awe as the entire content, applications, and set up were transferred over. It was 100% smooth (so far). Details on how […]
- Last Day at Work– a Present! flickr foto A Presentavailable on my flickr My last day this year in the office, and there is a new present I ought to be playing with… replacing a 2.5 year old G4 Powerbook with a shny new… Today is our last official day of work until after New Years. Trying to take care of […]
On Michael’s site he might use There are 14 posts previously published on December 23rd
- 2017
- Walking to See the Lights The do it every year. There are three adjacent houses in Strawberry, Arizona, where Wingfield Way turns into Tonto Rim Drive and the north edge of town folds into the forest. Each Christmas, whomever lives there, sets up a huge display of lights. Of course it’s not novel, it happens everywhere. And it’s not anywhere […] ➡
- 2014
- Tap. Tap. Is this Thing On? 2014? In past years I have done the extensive mailing of hand made letters/cards to friends and family. I have also done nothing too. I’ve done web based greetings. I’ve done lame text messages. Gotta mix up the game. With being away from home in Canada since late October, the plans for anything year end have […] ➡
- 2013
- Building a Happy Birthday Alan Egg into Projects cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by laura I can be so clever I… oh forget it. But still, I think this is neat. back in the beginning of my web career I “discovered” something in my first big (and the “big” was never planned, it just happened) web project that […] ➡
- 2012
- [almost] Daily Photos 2012 This year marks the fifth I have run my own “daily photo” project (2011 , 2010 , 2009 , 2008), going back to that first year when D’Arcy Norman had invited others to join along with him. The act of focusing time every day, for over these 5 years, has very much helped me improve […] ➡
- Can You GIF The Real Me? Time for a little bit of Rock and Roll GIF-action (“I can’t get no…”) for the ds106 GIFfest, this in response to the Rock ‘n Roll ‘n GIF call… actually a few different music action sequences from the BBC documentary on the Who’s Quadrophenia, Can You See the Real Me?. Besides the retrospective perspectives fro […] ➡
- 2010
- mooooooooooooc cc licensed flickr photo shared by crowdive At first it was just one stray. Then another. Make it three or four. Now they see each other, and its a herd, movement… stampede? cc licensed flickr photo shared by crowdive Yup, there are MOOCs on the moooooove. Okay, enough of the bovine innuendos. But what is […] ➡
- 2008
- At the Speed of a Tweet Fast Food (Roadrunner) by Nick Chill posted 11 Nov ’08, 4.11pm MST PST on flickr Here is another of the Greater Roadrunner, actually running across the road. He was very challenging to shoot. View On Black 20081108-088 As astutely commented by John Larkin another Twitteronema (Twitter+Phenomena) is how fast software and web site creators respond […] ➡
- Animoto iPhone App Rolls Over, Plays Dead I was excited to try Animoto‘s new app for the iPhone that allows you to create videos from iPhone photos and their music selection. So I loaded up 16 photos, arranged them, and selected my music. Then when I went to create the video, I keep getting told my phone is offline, despite the 5 […] ➡
- Dog Tired Road Dog by cogdogblog posted 23 Dec ’08, 9.39am MST PST on flickr Happy to be done traveling for 2008! Stuff organized by TripIt www.tripit.com/people/cogdog Woot! I shall not see the inside of another airport for a long while (well, til January 15). It was quite a thrill to place the blue dots as tracked […] ➡
- Eye Test 20/20 by cogdogblog posted 23 Dec ’08, 9.07am MST PST on flickr Make your own Custom Eye Chart www.eyechartmaker.com No cheating, cover the left eye and read the smallest line you can see clearly. Share this barking on social media ➡
- 2007
- Flickr Drops the Hammer on Spammer Yes another log on the fire for my adoration of flickr. One of my “dogs only” rss feed in my Reader is a watch on my comments in flickr (there is an RSS feed for yourself at http://www.flickr.com/recent_activity.gne?days=2). There is asome bit of ego involved, but mainly so I can reply to comments, yes that […] ➡
- 2004
- My Custom Photo I got a not so notice photo mailed to me form the city of Scottsdale. They took an unflattering photo of me doing 36 in a 25 mph zone. In this modified scan, I am seething red at being caught by these machines designed to extract money from citizens. Well, my portrait arrived in the […] ➡
- Holy Sweet Updates! Mac OXxxxxxx In the last 2 hours I experienced a computer religious experience. I opened the box for my new G4 laptop, connected a firewire cable from it to my old laptop, and then watched in awe as the entire content, applications, and set up were transferred over. It was 100% smooth (so far). Details on how […] ➡
- Last Day at Work– a Present! flickr foto A Presentavailable on my flickr My last day this year in the office, and there is a new present I ought to be playing with… replacing a 2.5 year old G4 Powerbook with a shny new… Today is our last official day of work until after New Years. Trying to take care of […] ➡
// output post and link
$output .= '
' . get_the_title() . '';
// display excerpt if we want it
if ( $excerpt ) $output .= ' ' . get_the_excerpt();
// for microblog output where there might not be titles so add a link at end
// h/t https://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2020/01/02/rss-feed-weirdness-and-php-debugging/
$output .= ' ' . $more . '';
So how is that for the odds of streams crossing on the same obscure bit of code? That’s the old fashioned kind of net serendipity that still happens.
Thanks Michael! Check out his 20 year old blog, he’s an “Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk” quite the tag line.
Featured Image: Edit of the Ghostbusters Cross Streams scene found in the Ghostbusters Fandom Wiki site which states “Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.” I replaced part of the background with a screenshot of the WP Posted Today PHP code.
