“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 22 posts previously published on October 2nd
- 2022
- Heard? Google CC Image Search Now 433% Better (and still sad) Well the last post on Google Image Search for Creative Commons Licensed ones being broken did get some notice. The word was that it was JaB (Just a Bug) (I made that acronym up, check it) And now the evaporation of Google CC Search is being noticed by key figures. I can’t drop this bone. […]
- 2019
- Wonderous at the Human Scale I should not have to list out the things that can make one feel weary after a few (hours? minutes?) of opening an internet device. Is anyone else worn out? Thankfully, enough things happen, without seeing them coming, to- at least for now– counter the flood. And invariably for me, these are at the individual […]
- 2018
- Cori’s Superpower ~ Eyesight to the Blind As I gaze out the window at snow falling on October 2, it may help to situate the reader who missed the story that this year I migrated from Arizona to the prairies of Saskatchewan, the call to move being one of love. And you may glean from flickr/Instagram photos that Cori and I share […]
- Look At That? Is Google Images Showing Photo Credits Metadata? One of the biggest hurdles in giving and getting attribution for shared photos is that the information that might provide this information is either not included in the photo metadata, or if it is, it’s not really used. The technology is there to do this. It’s just messy. But via ResearchBuzz this is starting to […]
- 2016
- Rose. Rise. Rose. One would be hard pressed not to appreciate the beauty of roses. Juliet made the case that Romeos last name did not matter. A close up photograph helps a young creative man decide between a career in music or photography. Portland crowns itself as the City of Roses but they are not alone. While I […]
- 2013
- Photos in a Photo Stories: a Thimble Make Another Mozilla Webmaker make created with Thimble, actually this was just a test version I was trying out to see what kind of advanced interactions Thimble could do since they added Javascript functionality. The idea is to have larger photo with complexity within, and use a virtual “camera” viewfinder to make a series of snapshots […]
- 2012
- Five Points! I was curious last week to see how many of my ds106 students were doing their part to stay tuned to the class hash tag (or me) in twitter. What better way than a POP QUIZ? Testing if my UMW #ds106 students are listening in twitter. Particpation Quiz can get you EXTRA CREDIT POINTS https://t.co/BRZhTAkr […]
- phonar meet ds106 One the about 3,000 exciting things going on with ds106 has been the connecting with the open photography course, phonar from Coventray University in the UK- I am fairly certain we can thank David Kernohan for connecting us to Jonatan Worth et al. I’d written some about it this past July Impressive MOOCs You Never […]
- 2011
- If You Dig It… ds106radio cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by giulia.forsythe If you dig ds106 radio, then join us tomorrow, October 2, a group of us are running a telethon to support the effort. While it is free form radio, truth be known that Grant Potter has been paying for the technical infrastructure since […]
- 2009
- Waiting for Wave cc licensed flickr photo shared by Vermin Inc Thanks for people who keep trying to get me
- 2007
- Free Polls — with Embedded Porn Links This is really disturbing. I was looking quickly to embed a quick poll into a web page, so why not reach for a free easy tool? The first google hit on free web poll, nupolls.com, was nothing fancy, but seemed to do the job (ugh, decrepit 1999 vintage HTML generated). Until I glanced at the […]
- More Than Cool Tools K12 Teaser With my insane schedule picking up more insanity a week from now, I really should have said, “no” when we were approached to do a session for the K12 Online Conference coming up next month. But its such a great event, all volunteer run, and speaks to everything my colleagues I and support in terms […]
- What a Deal! And All Caps to Boot What an attractive offer in my inbox: GOODDAY. WE ARE IN NEED OF SPECIAL, RELIABLE AND STRONG APPLICANT THAT CAN WORK ONLINE.ATTRACTIVE SALARY. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. CONTACT: Mr Xxxxxx Xxx. EMAIL: xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk SIGN. MANAGEMENT. I’m not feeling all that special, reliable, or strong today, so I am going to pass. But thanks anyhow. But about […]
- 2006
- India to Arizona It’s easy to blog about bad tech service/support and even easier to glaze over when it goes the opposite way. I’ve had flaky experience with my satellite internet connection at my cabin (the last time I even tried customer support, I was 2 hours on hold before expiring from fatigue). So I was ready for […]
- 2005
- qtkpnk : Blogger Word Verification Sign of the times- Just noticed that a new setting available for Blogger hosted blogs you can add a “word verification” or captcha entry field for comments… one of those randomly generated graphics of scrambled letters that a human must enter to add a comment to a blog. This is intended to cut down automated […]
- 2004
- Surrealistic Walgreens I had a surrealistic moment in Walgreens. I was there to pick up a (legal) p;erscription. Walkign out, I noticed that the soothing background music was actually the pseudo 1960s Pictures of Matchstick Men by Status Quo which I always took as a trippy psychedelic song. No Muzak or cheap midi version, it was the […]
- MLX Spam Direct Route to Trash Yes, I have been a bit obsessed lately with the roaches who have been spamming our Maricopa Learning eXchange. This is not all I have been doing this week, but it grinds away. I have a latest fix which will be secretive since I believe the spammer is a reader here (“howdy!”)- but so far, […]
- And Speaking of Ripping and Mixing.. How Are the Objects Churning at Blogdigger? I seem to keep forgetting to take a look at the nifty Blogdigger service- a site that allows you to drop in a pile of RSS feeds, and have it return to you a single RSS that represents a combination of all the content. And there is more every time I go back. My experiment […]
- 2003
- Phil Phinds Phriendly Trackback Perched up at MIT, Phil Long is a key instructional visioneer, and in a recent Syllabus column he writes TrackBack: Where Blogs Learn Their Places. It’s a nice general overview of TB, yes, but Phil seems to not see as wide as we do by focusing only on what Trackback means in the blog world– […]
- Repository of (Learning Object) Dreams There is almost nothing more cliche than a Field of Dreams metaphor “If you build it, they will come”, but it is all so fitting for those that get glaze-eyed at the potential of building a Learning Object Repository (ugh, I despise the connotations of the “R-word”). But I can guarantee you, that if you […]
- Hosting Multiple MovableType Blogs The blog concept is continuing to spread in our system. I know two of our colleges are looking at setting up a MovableType environment for both faculty use as well as committee communication. I am looking for examples of sites hosting more than ahandful of MT blog sites to identify any relevant issues for scaling. […]
- Fake Philosophical Blog Spam it is getting worse. Now are these messages that arrive as comments to an old blog entry: We live in strange times, but someday I think we will look back on all of this and marvel at how crazy it was. God, I hope so. I sure wouldn’t want this insanity to become the norm. […]
On Michael’s site he might use There are 22 posts previously published on October 2nd
- 2022
- Heard? Google CC Image Search Now 433% Better (and still sad) Well the last post on Google Image Search for Creative Commons Licensed ones being broken did get some notice. The word was that it was JaB (Just a Bug) (I made that acronym up, check it) And now the evaporation of Google CC Search is being noticed by key figures. I can’t drop this bone. […] ➡
- 2019
- Wonderous at the Human Scale I should not have to list out the things that can make one feel weary after a few (hours? minutes?) of opening an internet device. Is anyone else worn out? Thankfully, enough things happen, without seeing them coming, to- at least for now– counter the flood. And invariably for me, these are at the individual […] ➡
- 2018
- Cori’s Superpower ~ Eyesight to the Blind As I gaze out the window at snow falling on October 2, it may help to situate the reader who missed the story that this year I migrated from Arizona to the prairies of Saskatchewan, the call to move being one of love. And you may glean from flickr/Instagram photos that Cori and I share […] ➡
- Look At That? Is Google Images Showing Photo Credits Metadata? One of the biggest hurdles in giving and getting attribution for shared photos is that the information that might provide this information is either not included in the photo metadata, or if it is, it’s not really used. The technology is there to do this. It’s just messy. But via ResearchBuzz this is starting to […] ➡
- 2016
- Rose. Rise. Rose. One would be hard pressed not to appreciate the beauty of roses. Juliet made the case that Romeos last name did not matter. A close up photograph helps a young creative man decide between a career in music or photography. Portland crowns itself as the City of Roses but they are not alone. While I […] ➡
- 2013
- Photos in a Photo Stories: a Thimble Make Another Mozilla Webmaker make created with Thimble, actually this was just a test version I was trying out to see what kind of advanced interactions Thimble could do since they added Javascript functionality. The idea is to have larger photo with complexity within, and use a virtual “camera” viewfinder to make a series of snapshots […] ➡
- 2012
- Five Points! I was curious last week to see how many of my ds106 students were doing their part to stay tuned to the class hash tag (or me) in twitter. What better way than a POP QUIZ? Testing if my UMW #ds106 students are listening in twitter. Particpation Quiz can get you EXTRA CREDIT POINTS https://t.co/BRZhTAkr […] ➡
- phonar meet ds106 One the about 3,000 exciting things going on with ds106 has been the connecting with the open photography course, phonar from Coventray University in the UK- I am fairly certain we can thank David Kernohan for connecting us to Jonatan Worth et al. I’d written some about it this past July Impressive MOOCs You Never […] ➡
- 2011
- If You Dig It… ds106radio cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by giulia.forsythe If you dig ds106 radio, then join us tomorrow, October 2, a group of us are running a telethon to support the effort. While it is free form radio, truth be known that Grant Potter has been paying for the technical infrastructure since […] ➡
- 2009
- 2007
- Free Polls — with Embedded Porn Links This is really disturbing. I was looking quickly to embed a quick poll into a web page, so why not reach for a free easy tool? The first google hit on free web poll, nupolls.com, was nothing fancy, but seemed to do the job (ugh, decrepit 1999 vintage HTML generated). Until I glanced at the […] ➡
- More Than Cool Tools K12 Teaser With my insane schedule picking up more insanity a week from now, I really should have said, “no” when we were approached to do a session for the K12 Online Conference coming up next month. But its such a great event, all volunteer run, and speaks to everything my colleagues I and support in terms […] ➡
- What a Deal! And All Caps to Boot What an attractive offer in my inbox: GOODDAY. WE ARE IN NEED OF SPECIAL, RELIABLE AND STRONG APPLICANT THAT CAN WORK ONLINE.ATTRACTIVE SALARY. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. CONTACT: Mr Xxxxxx Xxx. EMAIL: xxxxxxxx.xxxxxxx@yahoo.co.uk SIGN. MANAGEMENT. I’m not feeling all that special, reliable, or strong today, so I am going to pass. But thanks anyhow. But about […] ➡
- 2006
- India to Arizona It’s easy to blog about bad tech service/support and even easier to glaze over when it goes the opposite way. I’ve had flaky experience with my satellite internet connection at my cabin (the last time I even tried customer support, I was 2 hours on hold before expiring from fatigue). So I was ready for […] ➡
- 2005
- qtkpnk : Blogger Word Verification Sign of the times- Just noticed that a new setting available for Blogger hosted blogs you can add a “word verification” or captcha entry field for comments… one of those randomly generated graphics of scrambled letters that a human must enter to add a comment to a blog. This is intended to cut down automated […] ➡
- 2004
- Surrealistic Walgreens I had a surrealistic moment in Walgreens. I was there to pick up a (legal) p;erscription. Walkign out, I noticed that the soothing background music was actually the pseudo 1960s Pictures of Matchstick Men by Status Quo which I always took as a trippy psychedelic song. No Muzak or cheap midi version, it was the […] ➡
- MLX Spam Direct Route to Trash Yes, I have been a bit obsessed lately with the roaches who have been spamming our Maricopa Learning eXchange. This is not all I have been doing this week, but it grinds away. I have a latest fix which will be secretive since I believe the spammer is a reader here (“howdy!”)- but so far, […] ➡
- And Speaking of Ripping and Mixing.. How Are the Objects Churning at Blogdigger? I seem to keep forgetting to take a look at the nifty Blogdigger service- a site that allows you to drop in a pile of RSS feeds, and have it return to you a single RSS that represents a combination of all the content. And there is more every time I go back. My experiment […] ➡
- 2003
- Phil Phinds Phriendly Trackback Perched up at MIT, Phil Long is a key instructional visioneer, and in a recent Syllabus column he writes TrackBack: Where Blogs Learn Their Places. It’s a nice general overview of TB, yes, but Phil seems to not see as wide as we do by focusing only on what Trackback means in the blog world– […] ➡
- Repository of (Learning Object) Dreams There is almost nothing more cliche than a Field of Dreams metaphor “If you build it, they will come”, but it is all so fitting for those that get glaze-eyed at the potential of building a Learning Object Repository (ugh, I despise the connotations of the “R-word”). But I can guarantee you, that if you […] ➡
- Hosting Multiple MovableType Blogs The blog concept is continuing to spread in our system. I know two of our colleges are looking at setting up a MovableType environment for both faculty use as well as committee communication. I am looking for examples of sites hosting more than ahandful of MT blog sites to identify any relevant issues for scaling. […] ➡
- Fake Philosophical Blog Spam it is getting worse. Now are these messages that arrive as comments to an old blog entry: We live in strange times, but someday I think we will look back on all of this and marvel at how crazy it was. God, I hope so. I sure wouldn’t want this insanity to become the norm. […] ➡
// 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.
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