“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 19 posts previously published on July 27th
- 2022
- Were You At SPLOTapalooza? Whether you were present at this fest may be a future cultural touchstone, like all those who were at Woodstock after it happened. Or maybe the reputation might be as glowing as the basis of our metaphor. Huh? Today I co-wrangled a 3 hour online BCcampus FLO Lab with Jessica Motherwell McFarlane whom I can […]
- 2016
- Not So Glamorous Updates to DS106 Assignment Bank Theme Today I pulled put the trowel and mortar mix for some work on the DS106 Assignment Bank WordPress theme, my pile of code and stuff so you can make a bank of anything (not just assignments) that works like the original DS106 Assignment Bank. I’ve got some reason as it looks like we might use […]
- 2015
- From Dream to Tweet to Data I know I dream at night. But 99% of the mornings I awake with zero recall of what and where my subconscious roamed overnight. Friends can recount dreams with fully developed plots, dialogue. My recall of dreams is usually like “I was in a boat.” Perhaps due fatigue of finally getting home after an intense […]
- 2014
- My Tiara Arrived in the Mail. I am Retired from DS106 creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by stevendepolo You do know the irony of #ds106 #4life? Right? With a four month fellowship at TRU starting in late October through March and no plans to teach ds106 for a while, I shall be dialing back my role in keeping the lights on inside […]
- Lonely Is The Search for OER Reuse Stories Having failed to find a story of OER Reuse in the forest I took my search to the mysterious waters of Loch OER. My luck was a tad better having surfaced a written story of Latin Tattoos by Laura Gibbs and a not boring OER video by Brendan Murphy. That’s not many stories in my […]
- 2013
- ds106 Daily Create Challenge (27): Dreaming of That Technology Smell in the Morning Did you think I fell of the challenge? Well maybe I did, with guests in the last week, but I am not a quitter or a crybaby, and I am on track to pick up the pace of daily creates from the last few days. Today was a video challenge, to make use of unused […]
- Photogiffing Again Maybe it’s the impeding headless ds106 course coming next month, or maybe it’s just the phases of the moon, but I felt the rekindled urge to experimenting once again with making animated GIFs from a sequence of still photos. This happens in two ways: (1) I anticipate an action sequence, and deliberately take a series […]
- 2012
- Two Quick Wigglers I thought it was time to try the ds106 Wiggler Spectroscopy assignment: Take two photos of the same subject from slightly different angles. Merge the two photos into a single looped, animated gif to create a wiggle stereoscopic image that simulates 3-D. I decided to use my pal Spike, the metal dog in my front […]
- MOOCs a la Tiger Beat Time after time the road out of a blog funk is sitting down to make some silly ds106 art. So it was later this afternoon, when this tweet form Cathy Finn-Derecki set me in motion: https://twitter.com/saracup/status/229003436803383297 So challenged to put Sebastian Thrun on the cover of Tiger Beat, I got out the old Photoshop clone […]
- 2011
- The StoryBox Gets Around Here is another one from the Department of Internet Serendipity, where I am fortunate enough to have a mail slot. I got to Seattle yesterday, with a plan for a quiet catch up night at a non-descript airport hotel as I wait for my girlfriend to fly in tomorrow (now today) (now soon). That act […]
- 2009
- Song Lyrics Data cc licensed flickr photo shared by crabchick There’s something afoot abut data. Whether it is Sir Tim’s vision of a Web of Data (or is it the W3C Linked Data?), there is something emerging with not only the availability of more data (heck even the government is on it http://www.data.gov) but more what we can […]
- 2008
- I Give You These 50… 57… maybe 72 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story It’s been almost a year since my half baked idea emerged for 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story — I presented it 7 times, which for me, a reluctant presenter is a lot of repeats. But it is a fun show, and the highlight was getting a packed auditorium at Northern Voice 2008– […]
- Goin’ to Camp I’m loading up my duffle bag with mosquito repellent, mess kit, multi-tool, flashlight, sleeping bag, laptop, blog…. woah woah… well I am not taking all that stuff but I am going to camp… WordCamp! WordPressCamp! Thanks to a direct message nudge from @lloydbudd as a reminder, I hemmed and hawed and then just spelled out […]
- 2007
- New Dog in Da House Now I am Comfortable posted 27 Jul ’07, 8.09am MDT PST on flickr New Puppy X gets ready for first night with her new family. Puppy X needs a name. Operators are standing by. Share this barking on social media
- 2005
- No cc For Dvorak Holding back no barb, John Dvorak is a self proclaimed Creative Commons Humbug: Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford? Dubbed Creative Commons, this system is some sort of secondary copyright license that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten […]
- Logogle – Make Yourself Into Google More fun, graphics creative Frivolity. Logogle, the Google Logo maker, allows you to turn any text into the style Google’s word log. See for example, the new monetizing entity, CogDogBlogoogle: This was found via a curious site trendalicious which bubbles up popular sites that have recently been tagged in del.icio.us: trendalicious is a near real-time […]
- 2004
- Stephen Blogs then Spammers Mob I hold Stephen Downes as the uber edu-blogger- and givne his following, when he mentions one of our sites like he did today, the comments come flying in, the Trackback meter spikes… and as an un-intended sign of the ripples in the net, the spammers swarm in like a bunch of vultures in meth. I […]
- Staking My Claim No Need to Click Here – I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster Share this barking on social media
- More RSS Joins for the Ocotillo Action Groups Recently, I outlined our “small pieces (not so loosely) joined” approach for setting up a system of blogs + wikis + discussion boards for the work next year by our faculty-led action groups. These groups will be leading activities next year related to Learning Objects, ePortfolios, Hybrid Course structures, and Emerging Learning Technologies. While waiting […]
On Michael’s site he might use There are 19 posts previously published on July 27th
- 2022
- Were You At SPLOTapalooza? Whether you were present at this fest may be a future cultural touchstone, like all those who were at Woodstock after it happened. Or maybe the reputation might be as glowing as the basis of our metaphor. Huh? Today I co-wrangled a 3 hour online BCcampus FLO Lab with Jessica Motherwell McFarlane whom I can […] ➡
- 2016
- Not So Glamorous Updates to DS106 Assignment Bank Theme Today I pulled put the trowel and mortar mix for some work on the DS106 Assignment Bank WordPress theme, my pile of code and stuff so you can make a bank of anything (not just assignments) that works like the original DS106 Assignment Bank. I’ve got some reason as it looks like we might use […] ➡
- 2015
- From Dream to Tweet to Data I know I dream at night. But 99% of the mornings I awake with zero recall of what and where my subconscious roamed overnight. Friends can recount dreams with fully developed plots, dialogue. My recall of dreams is usually like “I was in a boat.” Perhaps due fatigue of finally getting home after an intense […] ➡
- 2014
- My Tiara Arrived in the Mail. I am Retired from DS106 creative commons licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by stevendepolo You do know the irony of #ds106 #4life? Right? With a four month fellowship at TRU starting in late October through March and no plans to teach ds106 for a while, I shall be dialing back my role in keeping the lights on inside […] ➡
- Lonely Is The Search for OER Reuse Stories Having failed to find a story of OER Reuse in the forest I took my search to the mysterious waters of Loch OER. My luck was a tad better having surfaced a written story of Latin Tattoos by Laura Gibbs and a not boring OER video by Brendan Murphy. That’s not many stories in my […] ➡
- 2013
- ds106 Daily Create Challenge (27): Dreaming of That Technology Smell in the Morning Did you think I fell of the challenge? Well maybe I did, with guests in the last week, but I am not a quitter or a crybaby, and I am on track to pick up the pace of daily creates from the last few days. Today was a video challenge, to make use of unused […] ➡
- Photogiffing Again Maybe it’s the impeding headless ds106 course coming next month, or maybe it’s just the phases of the moon, but I felt the rekindled urge to experimenting once again with making animated GIFs from a sequence of still photos. This happens in two ways: (1) I anticipate an action sequence, and deliberately take a series […] ➡
- 2012
- Two Quick Wigglers I thought it was time to try the ds106 Wiggler Spectroscopy assignment: Take two photos of the same subject from slightly different angles. Merge the two photos into a single looped, animated gif to create a wiggle stereoscopic image that simulates 3-D. I decided to use my pal Spike, the metal dog in my front […] ➡
- MOOCs a la Tiger Beat Time after time the road out of a blog funk is sitting down to make some silly ds106 art. So it was later this afternoon, when this tweet form Cathy Finn-Derecki set me in motion: https://twitter.com/saracup/status/229003436803383297 So challenged to put Sebastian Thrun on the cover of Tiger Beat, I got out the old Photoshop clone […] ➡
- 2011
- The StoryBox Gets Around Here is another one from the Department of Internet Serendipity, where I am fortunate enough to have a mail slot. I got to Seattle yesterday, with a plan for a quiet catch up night at a non-descript airport hotel as I wait for my girlfriend to fly in tomorrow (now today) (now soon). That act […] ➡
- 2009
- Song Lyrics Data cc licensed flickr photo shared by crabchick There’s something afoot abut data. Whether it is Sir Tim’s vision of a Web of Data (or is it the W3C Linked Data?), there is something emerging with not only the availability of more data (heck even the government is on it http://www.data.gov) but more what we can […] ➡
- 2008
- I Give You These 50… 57… maybe 72 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story It’s been almost a year since my half baked idea emerged for 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story — I presented it 7 times, which for me, a reluctant presenter is a lot of repeats. But it is a fun show, and the highlight was getting a packed auditorium at Northern Voice 2008– […] ➡
- Goin’ to Camp I’m loading up my duffle bag with mosquito repellent, mess kit, multi-tool, flashlight, sleeping bag, laptop, blog…. woah woah… well I am not taking all that stuff but I am going to camp… WordCamp! WordPressCamp! Thanks to a direct message nudge from @lloydbudd as a reminder, I hemmed and hawed and then just spelled out […] ➡
- 2007
- New Dog in Da House Now I am Comfortable posted 27 Jul ’07, 8.09am MDT PST on flickr New Puppy X gets ready for first night with her new family. Puppy X needs a name. Operators are standing by. Share this barking on social media ➡
- 2005
- No cc For Dvorak Holding back no barb, John Dvorak is a self proclaimed Creative Commons Humbug: Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford? Dubbed Creative Commons, this system is some sort of secondary copyright license that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten […] ➡
- Logogle – Make Yourself Into Google More fun, graphics creative Frivolity. Logogle, the Google Logo maker, allows you to turn any text into the style Google’s word log. See for example, the new monetizing entity, CogDogBlogoogle: This was found via a curious site trendalicious which bubbles up popular sites that have recently been tagged in del.icio.us: trendalicious is a near real-time […] ➡
- 2004
- Stephen Blogs then Spammers Mob I hold Stephen Downes as the uber edu-blogger- and givne his following, when he mentions one of our sites like he did today, the comments come flying in, the Trackback meter spikes… and as an un-intended sign of the ripples in the net, the spammers swarm in like a bunch of vultures in meth. I […] ➡
- Staking My Claim No Need to Click Here – I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster Share this barking on social media ➡
- More RSS Joins for the Ocotillo Action Groups Recently, I outlined our “small pieces (not so loosely) joined” approach for setting up a system of blogs + wikis + discussion boards for the work next year by our faculty-led action groups. These groups will be leading activities next year related to Learning Objects, ePortfolios, Hybrid Course structures, and Emerging Learning Technologies. While waiting […] ➡
// 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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