Lifestream, ala WordPress

UPDATE: I have a fix for the time problems.  You need to add the following code right after line 93 of stream.php (that line should look like this: $date = strtotime( substr( $item['pubdate'], 0, 25 ) );):
$date -= 3600*N;
Where N is how many hours you need to remove.  If you need to add time, then change the -= to +=

I really like the concept of Jermey Keith's Lifestream, and after reading Mike's cry in the dark for something akin to this, that caches, I decided to create a plugin/page template combo that replicated Jeremy's code, but using only bits and bots that are present in WordPress.

This doesn't really address much of Mike's needs... I am pretty sure I could easily wedge this data into an RSS feed if I wanted to, but I don't really care to at the moment.  Maybe tomorrow.  What this does do is use the bundled versions of snoopy and magpieRSS to query and render the content.

This gives us built in caching, and a mechanism for retrieving the data that gets around host restrictions on fopen and the like.

There are currently two caveats to this code:

1. Twitter doesn't have a valid RSS feed, so magpie chokes on it.  A quick trip through feedburner fixes that right up.
2. I can't for the life of me, get my del.icio.us feed to display correctly.  A trip through Feedburner couldn't even fix it.

So there swell, I have a Lifestream, now I just need to stay on top of updating it.  If you would like to take it for a spin, you can download the code, sans CSS, over here

Sillyness, Now and Then

When Khaled approached me, asking for some help with exporting his blog content, which would eventually become Broken Kode Season 1, we spoke a little about blogs, blooks and what moving your prose from this medium of immediacy and interaction, to a more traditional, non participatory one meant.

I also confided in him that I was thinking along these same lines as well (publishing some or all of my posts here on Sillyness as a book through LuLu), I just wasn't ready yet.  One reason that I wasn't ready to undertake this large task was that I had no idea what I wanted out of a dead tree version of Sillyness.

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Way to go MS and Universal

So yeah, I have heard the news that Redmond will be paying a "percentage" of profits generated from the sales of the Zune to Universal Music Group, to "offset the revenue lost due to music piracy".

What kind of morons are in charge over there now anyway?  I have read all the arguments... and I just don't buy that Microsoft can afford to lose that kind of money just to de-throne Apple's iPod.

At some point that war chest will run dry, and then what do you do?

On the bright side we now have been given carte blanche to download music from the internet illegally... if you own a Zune that is.  Thanks for picking up the tab for the little man Microsoft.  And what leg will the RIAA have to stand on if a Zune owner is sued for illegally downloading music?  The argument is that the industry is losing money, well now they are being compensated... do the lawsuits stop?

I think we should all go out and by Zunes, right now and find out.  What do you think?

Live Redesign Underway

And I mean live.

Expect so much broken-ness and unstyli-ness that it might make you want to smack your mamma.  Seriously.

I love live redesigns, but usually I try to have most things done before I go live with a new theme... I thought this time it would be fun to let everyone follow along as I discover how this layout ends.

Fear not, if inspiration leaves me, or I get to busy to focus on the site in the next few days I will go back to one of my other themes; but I think this will be an interesting experience.