“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 21 posts previously published on December 11th
- 2023
- Twitter (the Platform Only Referred to as Twitter) I previously blabbed that Twitter had done a full reverse cycle to its first impression in 2007 of being “that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of”– I was wrong. The stupid levels have gone much lower, like DEFCON -1. I don’t need to say much. And I am not the first to lament the […]
- MoAD @ 55 + 2 Days The slow decay of memory… collective? My own? Two days ago, December 9 marked the 55th year since an epic event everyone should revel in, the 1968 Mother of All Demos (I am citing it as MoAD) by Doug Engelbart and his team from SGI. I think I saw one mention in my Mastodon feed […]
- 2018
- This is not the SEO You Were Looking For Yes, I know what SEO is, a term I don’t profess any useful knowledge (or interest) in. My simple approach has been- you want a lot of people to see your stuff? Write/publish a lot of it, share it. But don’t try to crack some secret sauce success. No, I am writing about something different, […]
- 2017
- 2014
- Nicecast Mixing This is just a test for Rochelle Lockridge, who is getting her chops as a new DS106 radio DJ. It’s been a really really long time since I used Nicecast, so I just took a few minutes to refresh myself for the set up I used previously for being able to DJ music and cross […]
- Stephen Goes Topless for MOOC Book Cover? Oh chastise me for a sleazy blog post title, and worse, for probably some bad taste in Photoshoppery. But I see these things, my little teenage brain starts whirring, and then I have to drop what I am doing for a half hour of mashing up. A few days ago the OLDaily in my inbox […]
- 2013
- Auto Embed Test Flickr
YouTube
- A Domain of Someone Else’s: Crafting the Doug Engelbart Tribute site on WordPress.com I might lose my Keep on Reclaimin’ bumper sticker, but there are sometimes when I chose (or am asked) to help on a WordPress.com hosted site. Yes, you are limited to their themes and plugins. And yes, they try and up sell you services. It was my choice to put the Cory Doctorow For the […]
- The Hasselhlof Video As part of the ramp up antics for the ds106 headless double header extravaganza Friday, I managed to get a video that represents a real problem for the GIFaChRome folks The full story and innuendo has been published there by possbile rogue or double agent BB. The silliness does not stop, the shark is not […]
- 2011
- No Wild Turkey Surprise A fantastic visit today the residents of Trowunna Wildlife Park near Mole Creek Tasmania. Let the media tell the story. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) […]
- 2006
- I’m in an Airport; It Must Be a Weekday At least I was home for the weekend! But Monday, and I made it through a 45 minute line at the security gate (hey folks get those dangerous gels inside the baggies!) for my flight to Austin. This week is the 2006 Pachyderm Users Conference — the first time around for this conference, but it […]
- 2005
- Some Business Model I’ve never taken a business class and come to my own conclusions on business practice based on my own direct experience. But shee-ooot, what do the folks in Harvard have in mind? A few months ago, I got a letter from Northwest Airlines– I used them about 4 years ago for a flight to Michigan, […]
- Throwing Stones at the Wiki Glass House First, of all, the answer is “no”. The question is what Will at Work Learning poses in Are Wiki’s Inherently Flawed?. While it provides a provoacative blog post title, the question is aimed wrong, and not really even answered. The underlying belief about wikis is that “all of us are smarter than a few of […]
- Inspired by an iWipe: Reuse Objects? Use Web Apps? I was pretty sure I had seen it before in quick passing, by Michael Feldstein’s recent mention of Instructables led me back for a slight deeper scan: Here’s a nice little tool, community, and design pattern for creating and sharing how-to learning objects. Basically, it provides a wizard for inputting text step descriptions and illustrative […]
- 2004
- Weird Statements Emanated From Our Television While doing some of our holiday decorations today, the television was providing some background white noise. We both were caught off guard by this statement. This is 100% honest– I think it was on the Disney Channel. This broadcast of “Ernest Saves Christmas” has been brought to you by Preparation H. No comments necessary. Share […]
- Sorry Courtney I got this message late Friday afternoon: I am a college student at Syracuse University. I am writing an article about weblogs. I understand you do a bit of “blogging” yourself. I would love to ask you a few questions about weblogging. Unfortunately, my deadline is tonight by midnight. I’d appreciate your help and eagerly […]
- The Dawn of the End of the Golden Age of RSS? It’s a sunny day in Phoenix, but a cloud of pessimism is on the horizon, an unfortunate evolution of innovative internet innovations that start as open environments, only to become more convoluted, and polluted as they mainstream. This came as I examined a series of new borg-like “RSS Services” that read like ads for Direct […]
- 2003
- MT Wiki Here is a nice resource for MovableType-rs, The MovableType Knowledge Base is a wiki chock full of tips and suggestions. This Wiki is dedicated to helping users of MovableType, a content management system. This is a place to add tips, tricks, instructions, and definitions. Topics are editable so everyone can add to them. These topics […]
- The XServe Files: (Almost) Back in Business If I had any doubt that my geek IQ was not so high… I think I have proved it in the last few days trying to get our new XServe into business with MovableType. Let’s say that getting it running under Panther OSX Server is a delicate operation for those not familiar with planet unix. […]
- Reflective Portraits in the Mirror Project… and it has RSS! I’ve been here before– “Adventures in Reflective Surfaces: The Mirror Project” was a community based site where people contribute all kinds of self portraits were the photographer is somehow reflected from a mirror or any reflective surface. The Mirror Project is a growing community of like-minded individuals who have photographed themselves in all manner of […]
- Gibson Gives up the Blog Related to recent wonderings of “Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?”, it appears that author William Gibson is blogged out. In “Last Postcard from Costa Del Blog”, Gibson pens: Time for me to get back to my day job, which means that it’s time for me to stop blogging. I’ve found blogging to be a […]
On Michael’s site he might use There are 21 posts previously published on December 11th
- 2023
- Twitter (the Platform Only Referred to as Twitter) I previously blabbed that Twitter had done a full reverse cycle to its first impression in 2007 of being “that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of”– I was wrong. The stupid levels have gone much lower, like DEFCON -1. I don’t need to say much. And I am not the first to lament the […] ➡
- MoAD @ 55 + 2 Days The slow decay of memory… collective? My own? Two days ago, December 9 marked the 55th year since an epic event everyone should revel in, the 1968 Mother of All Demos (I am citing it as MoAD) by Doug Engelbart and his team from SGI. I think I saw one mention in my Mastodon feed […] ➡
- 2018
- This is not the SEO You Were Looking For Yes, I know what SEO is, a term I don’t profess any useful knowledge (or interest) in. My simple approach has been- you want a lot of people to see your stuff? Write/publish a lot of it, share it. But don’t try to crack some secret sauce success. No, I am writing about something different, […] ➡
- 2017
- 2014
- Nicecast Mixing This is just a test for Rochelle Lockridge, who is getting her chops as a new DS106 radio DJ. It’s been a really really long time since I used Nicecast, so I just took a few minutes to refresh myself for the set up I used previously for being able to DJ music and cross […] ➡
- Stephen Goes Topless for MOOC Book Cover? Oh chastise me for a sleazy blog post title, and worse, for probably some bad taste in Photoshoppery. But I see these things, my little teenage brain starts whirring, and then I have to drop what I am doing for a half hour of mashing up. A few days ago the OLDaily in my inbox […] ➡
- 2013
- Auto Embed Test Flickr
YouTube
➡
- A Domain of Someone Else’s: Crafting the Doug Engelbart Tribute site on WordPress.com I might lose my Keep on Reclaimin’ bumper sticker, but there are sometimes when I chose (or am asked) to help on a WordPress.com hosted site. Yes, you are limited to their themes and plugins. And yes, they try and up sell you services. It was my choice to put the Cory Doctorow For the […] ➡
- The Hasselhlof Video As part of the ramp up antics for the ds106 headless double header extravaganza Friday, I managed to get a video that represents a real problem for the GIFaChRome folks The full story and innuendo has been published there by possbile rogue or double agent BB. The silliness does not stop, the shark is not […] ➡
- 2011
- No Wild Turkey Surprise A fantastic visit today the residents of Trowunna Wildlife Park near Mole Creek Tasmania. Let the media tell the story. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog cc licensed ( BY ) […] ➡
- 2006
- I’m in an Airport; It Must Be a Weekday At least I was home for the weekend! But Monday, and I made it through a 45 minute line at the security gate (hey folks get those dangerous gels inside the baggies!) for my flight to Austin. This week is the 2006 Pachyderm Users Conference — the first time around for this conference, but it […] ➡
- 2005
- Some Business Model I’ve never taken a business class and come to my own conclusions on business practice based on my own direct experience. But shee-ooot, what do the folks in Harvard have in mind? A few months ago, I got a letter from Northwest Airlines– I used them about 4 years ago for a flight to Michigan, […] ➡
- Throwing Stones at the Wiki Glass House First, of all, the answer is “no”. The question is what Will at Work Learning poses in Are Wiki’s Inherently Flawed?. While it provides a provoacative blog post title, the question is aimed wrong, and not really even answered. The underlying belief about wikis is that “all of us are smarter than a few of […] ➡
- Inspired by an iWipe: Reuse Objects? Use Web Apps? I was pretty sure I had seen it before in quick passing, by Michael Feldstein’s recent mention of Instructables led me back for a slight deeper scan: Here’s a nice little tool, community, and design pattern for creating and sharing how-to learning objects. Basically, it provides a wizard for inputting text step descriptions and illustrative […] ➡
- 2004
- Weird Statements Emanated From Our Television While doing some of our holiday decorations today, the television was providing some background white noise. We both were caught off guard by this statement. This is 100% honest– I think it was on the Disney Channel. This broadcast of “Ernest Saves Christmas” has been brought to you by Preparation H. No comments necessary. Share […] ➡
- Sorry Courtney I got this message late Friday afternoon: I am a college student at Syracuse University. I am writing an article about weblogs. I understand you do a bit of “blogging” yourself. I would love to ask you a few questions about weblogging. Unfortunately, my deadline is tonight by midnight. I’d appreciate your help and eagerly […] ➡
- The Dawn of the End of the Golden Age of RSS? It’s a sunny day in Phoenix, but a cloud of pessimism is on the horizon, an unfortunate evolution of innovative internet innovations that start as open environments, only to become more convoluted, and polluted as they mainstream. This came as I examined a series of new borg-like “RSS Services” that read like ads for Direct […] ➡
- 2003
- MT Wiki Here is a nice resource for MovableType-rs, The MovableType Knowledge Base is a wiki chock full of tips and suggestions. This Wiki is dedicated to helping users of MovableType, a content management system. This is a place to add tips, tricks, instructions, and definitions. Topics are editable so everyone can add to them. These topics […] ➡
- The XServe Files: (Almost) Back in Business If I had any doubt that my geek IQ was not so high… I think I have proved it in the last few days trying to get our new XServe into business with MovableType. Let’s say that getting it running under Panther OSX Server is a delicate operation for those not familiar with planet unix. […] ➡
- Reflective Portraits in the Mirror Project… and it has RSS! I’ve been here before– “Adventures in Reflective Surfaces: The Mirror Project” was a community based site where people contribute all kinds of self portraits were the photographer is somehow reflected from a mirror or any reflective surface. The Mirror Project is a growing community of like-minded individuals who have photographed themselves in all manner of […] ➡
- Gibson Gives up the Blog Related to recent wonderings of “Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?”, it appears that author William Gibson is blogged out. In “Last Postcard from Costa Del Blog”, Gibson pens: Time for me to get back to my day job, which means that it’s time for me to stop blogging. I’ve found blogging to be a […] ➡
// 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.
