“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 17 posts previously published on October 9th
- 2024
- There Lies Hope A lot of presentation slides just slide on by. They just keep flowing. Next slide. Next presentation. Next gushing about AI solving… oops, not this post. Yet, every other once in a while, you hear a talk, indeed the kind that a person speaks, not just reads, that well shatters your status quo. That was […]
- 2018
- Yes, We Do Give out SPLOT Lollies While I’ve gotten used to sharing most of my code projects in GitHub for the most part my repos are a one dog band. Rarely, I get a message submitted via issues, but for the most part I’ve maybe gotten less than 5 “pull” requests– meaning someone has added, fixed, augmented my spaghetti like code […]
- 2017
- Don’t Trope on Me Gah TV. For someone who was totally raised from watching 1970s cartoons, sitcoms on a large glowing box, my hunger these days to “watch” is nil. Not being any kind of “All TV is Bad” purist, I just choose not to have it beamed in my house. I find IM just end devouring time better […]
- #NetNarr at DML Where it Started Almost a year ago Mia Zamora and I got very excited about the idea for a class we would co-teach in the spring. The rest was is Alchemy. Last week I headed back to Irvine, California for the 2017 DML Conference where I will get to share that alchemy (sadly Mia is not able to […]
- Play The Game of Find the URL, Earl At least in spoken form we no longer have to explain who “Earl” is. But still, the fundamental element of the web (which to be understood we used to have to name as “The World Wide Web”) on what is now the more common platform of access, is becoming harder to even find. It’s worth […]
- 2014
- 2014 Kiwi Tour: The Auckland University creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Monday. In Auckland. This means morning alarm clocks, dressing up, getting in the car, and going downtown. Hey, is this A JOB? No. It’s a visit to The Auckland University, for the first of 4 speaking days in the area. This campus sits at […]
- 2014 Kiwi Tour: Weekend at Nigel’s creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog A fitting end to the first week of the tour. Five days, 4 locations, 2 cities, 13 presentations. And now for a break in the action, a chance to catch up (whatever that means) sleep late (sort of) and relax at my friend/host Nigel […]
- 2012
- What Car to Buy (ds106 might help) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog As we move into audio week, I wanted to whip together a quick example of a ds106 assignment just in case students are having trouble in Audacity. I hit the random button a few times in the audio assignments and ended up on Theme Verse: […]
- 2011
- Book Report: Things the Grandchildren Should Know Based in the recommendation of David Kernohan I bought a copy and devoured “Things the Grandchildren Should Know”, the life obstacle overcoming journey of Mark Oliver Everett, the man behind The Eels. Before David played a long set of Eels, my limited by very satisfying exposure was the haunting Novocaine for the Soul, a frequent […]
- 2010
- Barking Dog Photo Blog Note: Updated December 7, 2010 for use of new theme…. Nothing like a little WordPress hacking to get back in action. A few months ago I registered the domain barkingdog.me as a place intended to set up a photo gallery, but decided today to finally get around to hanging something for real there. My goals […]
- Lifting, Nod, or ? cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by jerebu Plagiarism in the act of conducting what is offered as original work (school essays, magazine columns,) is obviously, a Wrong Thing. I’m not aiming to talk about lifting in that sense, but there are places, perhaps, where perhaps one might feel okay to condone […]
- 2008
- Dear John Letter from Eyespot photo credit: jespis (a.k.a. Friends Friends Friend) Like Leigh and many others (apparently “a hundred thousand” people), I got a Dear John letter from Eyespot announcing their departure from the video editing/publishing service. It’s not all that surprising; what is surprising that there are not more Web 2.0 dead sites, at least ones that will […]
- 3 Weeks, 3 Countries, 814 Photos Asia Express by cogdogblog posted 8 Oct ’08, 2.31am MDT PST on flickr This is what the three previous weeks seemed like with my jaunt to Shangai, Hong Kong, and Japan. One tired dog. That worked out to be approximately photos per day. I’ve plopped them into a single flickr slideshow. Well, depending how how […]
- 2004
- Metadata: “Point. Shoot. Kiss It Good-Bye” In his October 2004 Wired article “Point. Shoot. Kiss It Good-Bye”, David Weinberger paints us the problem that comes with the joy of digital photography: As our hard drives fill up with thousands then tens and hundreds of thousands of digital snapshots, we’re all going to face the same basic challenges as the Bettmann Archive. […]
- McLuhan On a Dime Today I picked up a copy of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. I found it in a thrift store in the small town of Pine, Arizona. It set me back 10 cents. For another dime I got a book from the mid 1970s full of funny predictions for the 21st century… according […]
- 2003
- Learning Objects: Believe It or Not! Here is a sneaky dog’s first peek at Learning Objects: Believe It or Not!, the gist of what I am presenting 1:00 PM Friday as part of the “Learning Objects Lounge” at the EDUCAUSE/NLII Focus Session on Learning Objects. Please do not alert the lawyers for the Ripley’s enterprise. It was an irresistable metaphor. Actually […]
- Lora and Boris Show (part deux) Our learning object bloggers Lora and Boris are making a second appearance at the October 14-17 NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects. Taking to a new level their story presented at MERLOT 2003, a garden varierty PowerPoint, for the NMC conference they have speaking parts as well, as the presentation appears via Macromedia Breeze, the […]
On Michael’s site he might use There are 17 posts previously published on October 9th
- 2024
- There Lies Hope A lot of presentation slides just slide on by. They just keep flowing. Next slide. Next presentation. Next gushing about AI solving… oops, not this post. Yet, every other once in a while, you hear a talk, indeed the kind that a person speaks, not just reads, that well shatters your status quo. That was […] ➡
- 2018
- Yes, We Do Give out SPLOT Lollies While I’ve gotten used to sharing most of my code projects in GitHub for the most part my repos are a one dog band. Rarely, I get a message submitted via issues, but for the most part I’ve maybe gotten less than 5 “pull” requests– meaning someone has added, fixed, augmented my spaghetti like code […] ➡
- 2017
- Don’t Trope on Me Gah TV. For someone who was totally raised from watching 1970s cartoons, sitcoms on a large glowing box, my hunger these days to “watch” is nil. Not being any kind of “All TV is Bad” purist, I just choose not to have it beamed in my house. I find IM just end devouring time better […] ➡
- #NetNarr at DML Where it Started Almost a year ago Mia Zamora and I got very excited about the idea for a class we would co-teach in the spring. The rest was is Alchemy. Last week I headed back to Irvine, California for the 2017 DML Conference where I will get to share that alchemy (sadly Mia is not able to […] ➡
- Play The Game of Find the URL, Earl At least in spoken form we no longer have to explain who “Earl” is. But still, the fundamental element of the web (which to be understood we used to have to name as “The World Wide Web”) on what is now the more common platform of access, is becoming harder to even find. It’s worth […] ➡
- 2014
- 2014 Kiwi Tour: The Auckland University creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Monday. In Auckland. This means morning alarm clocks, dressing up, getting in the car, and going downtown. Hey, is this A JOB? No. It’s a visit to The Auckland University, for the first of 4 speaking days in the area. This campus sits at […] ➡
- 2014 Kiwi Tour: Weekend at Nigel’s creative commons licensed ( BY-SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog A fitting end to the first week of the tour. Five days, 4 locations, 2 cities, 13 presentations. And now for a break in the action, a chance to catch up (whatever that means) sleep late (sort of) and relax at my friend/host Nigel […] ➡
- 2012
- What Car to Buy (ds106 might help) cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog As we move into audio week, I wanted to whip together a quick example of a ds106 assignment just in case students are having trouble in Audacity. I hit the random button a few times in the audio assignments and ended up on Theme Verse: […] ➡
- 2011
- Book Report: Things the Grandchildren Should Know Based in the recommendation of David Kernohan I bought a copy and devoured “Things the Grandchildren Should Know”, the life obstacle overcoming journey of Mark Oliver Everett, the man behind The Eels. Before David played a long set of Eels, my limited by very satisfying exposure was the haunting Novocaine for the Soul, a frequent […] ➡
- 2010
- Barking Dog Photo Blog Note: Updated December 7, 2010 for use of new theme…. Nothing like a little WordPress hacking to get back in action. A few months ago I registered the domain barkingdog.me as a place intended to set up a photo gallery, but decided today to finally get around to hanging something for real there. My goals […] ➡
- Lifting, Nod, or ? cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by jerebu Plagiarism in the act of conducting what is offered as original work (school essays, magazine columns,) is obviously, a Wrong Thing. I’m not aiming to talk about lifting in that sense, but there are places, perhaps, where perhaps one might feel okay to condone […] ➡
- 2008
- Dear John Letter from Eyespot photo credit: jespis (a.k.a. Friends Friends Friend) Like Leigh and many others (apparently “a hundred thousand” people), I got a Dear John letter from Eyespot announcing their departure from the video editing/publishing service. It’s not all that surprising; what is surprising that there are not more Web 2.0 dead sites, at least ones that will […] ➡
- 3 Weeks, 3 Countries, 814 Photos Asia Express by cogdogblog posted 8 Oct ’08, 2.31am MDT PST on flickr This is what the three previous weeks seemed like with my jaunt to Shangai, Hong Kong, and Japan. One tired dog. That worked out to be approximately photos per day. I’ve plopped them into a single flickr slideshow. Well, depending how how […] ➡
- 2004
- Metadata: “Point. Shoot. Kiss It Good-Bye” In his October 2004 Wired article “Point. Shoot. Kiss It Good-Bye”, David Weinberger paints us the problem that comes with the joy of digital photography: As our hard drives fill up with thousands then tens and hundreds of thousands of digital snapshots, we’re all going to face the same basic challenges as the Bettmann Archive. […] ➡
- McLuhan On a Dime Today I picked up a copy of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. I found it in a thrift store in the small town of Pine, Arizona. It set me back 10 cents. For another dime I got a book from the mid 1970s full of funny predictions for the 21st century… according […] ➡
- 2003
- Learning Objects: Believe It or Not! Here is a sneaky dog’s first peek at Learning Objects: Believe It or Not!, the gist of what I am presenting 1:00 PM Friday as part of the “Learning Objects Lounge” at the EDUCAUSE/NLII Focus Session on Learning Objects. Please do not alert the lawyers for the Ripley’s enterprise. It was an irresistable metaphor. Actually […] ➡
- Lora and Boris Show (part deux) Our learning object bloggers Lora and Boris are making a second appearance at the October 14-17 NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects. Taking to a new level their story presented at MERLOT 2003, a garden varierty PowerPoint, for the NMC conference they have speaking parts as well, as the presentation appears via Macromedia Breeze, the […] ➡
// 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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