Posts Tagged ‘WordPress’

Upgraded the site to use the latest release of WordPress (2.8.1) without any problems.

I’m in the process of switching my web site to running on wordpress. A lot of the hard works done but there may still be a few bits I’ve not quite finished moving properly and there may still be the odd problem for a couple of days. So in the mean time Please Mind the Gaps when Boarding the Train.

I rebuilt the Vue Links Directory from one database to another yesterday as part of finishing off a complete rebuild of the impworks site into WordPress. There were 268 links to migrate and while the basic move was handled easily I then had to work my way through and do some data cleaning to improve the quality of the directory on the new site. I’ve been working at it on and off for a couple of months now and its getting closer and closer to being done. One last push in the next few weeks and it’ll be done and I’ll be able to get on with adding stuff to it more easily.

Having finished The Translated Man I felt like reading some more fiction so I’ve just finished reading Kim’s latest novella Consort.
Skipping quickly past the rather cliched cover. Not that its badly done but it reminds me of racks of second hand romance books in charity shops. At least with an e-book its not there on the shelf for visitors to see and you can skip printing that page.

Its not obvious from the cover (which at least means its not a total cliche – no blood – no fangs) that this is a vampire story.
Clearly Kim has gotten past her worries about writing the naughtier bits of romantic fiction. I’ve not counted but I’d say half to three quarters of the pages could be rated on the Scoville scale. We’re not talking Bell peppers either more something in the Tabasco pepper to the Naga Jolokia. Yet somehow Kim manages to keep the plot moving too even in amongst all the main characters hormones. And she subverts her favourite tea related scene into something a bit different this time too.

Back in the 80s the Guardian ran a series of jokes about Amstrad launching weird devices combining different white goods the PC and Tea Maker. I’m wondering if Amazon won’t need to release a Kindle with Fire Extinguisher and integral Cold Shower if Kim keeps putting out work like this…

Made with Poser 7, Vue 6 and post processing in Photoshop Elements

1. Darts, arrows or spears – poisoned for extra deadliness
2. Pit fall (optional spikes, snakes or water)
3. Quick sand
4. Boulders falling from ceiling
5. Funnelled Tunnel of Wind
6. Gas – Poisonous or Explosive
7. Blades – Scything or Circular
8. Swinging logs
9. Jets of flame
10. Flooding Chamber
11. Giant Crushing ceiling block or walls
12. Giant lens focusing sunlight into a deadly death ray
13. Giant Rolling Boulder of Doom

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

The Annual Girandola at the Castel Sant’ Angelo, Rome (1775-76)

Joseph Wright of Derby (1734 – 1797)

1. Finish short story for ASTONISHING ADVENTURES MAGAZINE – Success
2. Work on my novel – Failed misserably
3. Tidy my flat: Mostly except one room which is a tip
4. Reading – lots of it: Not quite lots but some
5. Catching up on some DVD watching: Caught up
6. Go to the cinema – Saw "Run Fat Boy Run"
7. Work on my impworks web site: Failed but did some last night
8. Finish writing my first facebook application – Failed Misserably to touch this
9. Make some pictures with Vue: Success
10. Taking some photographs for Wordless Wednesday: Took four pictures and I used the only one already
11. Write at least one new python script for Vue: Failed
12. Go to the Liverpool 800 exhibition: Failed
13. Fail to do 50% of the above because of either sleeping in, getting a cold or bad weather: I’m blaming a cold that took out 8 days of my break

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Yesterday my Wordless Wednesday picture was of this vase full of nuts and I promised I’d post an explanation.
   
2. I was walking in Newsham Park in Liverpool a year ago. As I went under a Horse Chestnut tree a gust of wind brought a liberal shower of Horse Chestnuts down on me. Fortunately it was a chilly day so I had a thick hat on. The one at the front is new and shows what they looked like when they fell on me.
3. I don’t know why but I collected them up – it seemed like the thing to do. I probably wasn’t thinking straight – I’d just been nutted by a load of nuts on my nut.
4. I dried them out, got rid of a few bad nuts and put the 122 that remained in a glass vase from Woolworths.
5. If I were a modern artist I’d sell them to a gallery and call it "What the sky looks like when it falls on your head"
6. The Common Horse Chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) was introduced to Britain from the Balkans in southern Europe in the 17^th century. They have distinctive oval leaves. A typical mature Horse Chestnut tree is around 25m tall although some reach 35m.
7. The nuts are inedible but much sought after by children. In Britain we call them Conkers and children play a game with them.
8. Now the science bit: They weigh 0.6kg (1.3lbs) so the average conker is 0.05kg (0.01lbs).
9. They have a volume of 0.55l or 0.0005m³ (0.12 imperial gallons 0.15 us gallons) giving an average volume of 0.0045lm³ or 4.5cm³ (0.001 imperial gallons 0.0012 us gallons) each. That gives a density of 1090kg/m³ (68.1lbs/ft³).
10. Assuming the tree is 25m tall a conker falling from the top of the tree will take 2.3s to hit the ground. Assuming the conkers on average fell from half that height 1.6s to hit the ground.
11. The velocity of that theoretical falling conker will be 16m/s (51ft/s) or 56km/h (35mph).
12. The impact energy for our theoretical conker is 0.6J (0.8 foot-pound force). As a comparison the impact energy of a brick falling the same distance would be 370J (500 foot-pound force). Or if I was a journalist being hit by a conker is equivalent to being hit by two three millionths of an elephant falling out of a tree.
13. I’ll take getting conked on my cranium by conkers over elephants any day.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. When they say it will only take a minute of your time it never is. I wouldn’t mind but they’ll never give me an address for me to send my bill.
2. 99% are a waste of my time and the company paying for its time. I don’t need new double-glazing tested to withstand the long artic winter.
3. When they pretend to be calling on behalf of a company you actually deal with for something important but can’t tell you which one or my name. The law has two words for that – False Pretences. I also have two words for it but I’m too polite to say them here.
4. That they call at times their statistical models say they will catch me and make a sale. Otherwise known as dinnertime and when I’m in the shower.
5. When you ask them nicely to go away they’ve been told they have to keep trying. They’ve been taught we are too polite to hang up. I’m not too polite I apologise and do it anyway then I feel bad because I’ve been rude and that makes me angry for about five minutes. Then I think why am I the one who is angry and hope their boss has an accident at a demonstration of stone cladding double glazing and ends up with an attractive new look.
6. That an over-paid marketing executive is so uncreative; so burnt out; and so lacking in ideas at their job that they think this is the best way to make me like their brand and buy their mythril framed double-glazing. If you can’t come up with a better strategy why not get work doing something you’re good at. Something honest. Like robbing banks.
7. I’m signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (UK) so the ones that call me are they’re ignoring that. Basically I only get the really unethical cold callers with the cheapest scripts, Dickensian sweatshop conditions and the staff who’ve already taken the most stick.
8. They have to have my number either from a company I’ve given it to for some important reason or be using hardware that calls banks of numbers. One is a breach of trust the other is an abuse of the phone system. At least when you get an obscene call your not the only one getting abused*
9. Friends use answer phones to screen calls for cold callers and I hate speaking to answer phones. The beep makes me a gibbering idiot. I can’t put words together in the right order. I’m more coherent speaking to an attractive woman than an answer phone. The only worse thing is an attractive woman’s answer phone.
10. Sometime I get more cold calls in a month when I’m in than I get calls from people I know. Make your own punch line up for that one.
11. When the phone rings and you’re expecting a call you get a bit excited. A bit like a small child, maybe it’s an attractive woman calling, but no it’s a cold call to sell me raspberry ripple flavoured double glazing.
12. A section of the most talented and well educated part of many developing countries population is sat around trying to sell me antique style double glazing because it’s cheaper to employ them than to come up with a smart targeted way of selling me double glazing for my car. The only experience of westerners workers in foreign call centres get is from cold calling. We hate their calls and they think we’re rude, obnoxious, angry bores who need double glazing. . That’s great form of cultural exchange.
13. That’s a great message to send when one of those workers is the leader of their nation in twenty years. One day one of them may have nuclear launch codes.

* This joke was "acquired" from Margaret Smith

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!