the village buzz

okay, here’s something to think about..

we just released a new website at:

http://www.theresthisplace.com

it is heavily reliant on google maps.. actually, the whole point of the site is google maps.

i learned a WHOLE bunch of interesting things doing this.. just when i think that the i have found out where all the pitfalls of javascript are, i find a new one..

this one is TOTALLY my fault.. but i would imagine tons of folks will make this error, so i am hoping to save someone a few hours.

when programming application that have heavy reliance on geographic location, it’s VERY tempting to use variables like:

add_marker(lat, long);

BUT!

in case you have forgotten, ‘long’ is a reserved keyword in javascript..

here’s the problem..

firefox, ie, and everything else will not have a problem with this..

safari will choke on this.. and.. safari doesn’t really clue you in on errors.. there is no firebug..

if you find your maps are not showing up in safari, do a quick code search for this error..

let me know if this worked for you..

i have been looking into doing a google mymap, and today, i finally did it, just to add a photo of a haunted spot i know in this area. i need to figure out how to scale photos in this thing, but i will have to figure that out later. i have a bunch of ideas for this, since i have become intimately involved with google maps in designing:

http://www.theresthisplace.com

whew!

if you wanna have a little fun with someone’s mac, and are not afraid of the command line.. check out osascript..

here’s the scoop.. log into their machine using ssh.. you have to turn ssh on first.. it’s in system preferences/sharing. then, have at it..

i got most of my initial ideas from macoshints but you can have some real fun by automating these pranks..

here is some ruby code that we used to stir up trouble here:

phrases = ["im feeling kinda gay up in here", "charlie murphy",
            "i like boys", "does this shirt go with these shoes, darling?",
            "somewhere... over the rainbow", "im driving a boat",
            "Cold Blooded", "unity-eee", "my processor has informed me that your are gay",
            "i bet your favorite movie is brokeback mountain", "stihl chainsaws rule.. if you are a  homo",
            "your middle name is gaylord","hand check!", "check that price again, corey!"]
            
voices = ["Agnes", "Kathy", "Princess", "Vicki", "Victoria",
          "Bruce", "Fred", "Junior", "Ralph", "Hysterical"]

loop do
  phrase = phrases[rand(phrases.length)]
  voice = voices[rand(voices.length)]
  `sudo osascript -e ’say “#{phrase}” using “#{voice}”‘`
  sleep_time = rand(300)+300
  puts “Sleep Time: ” + sleep_time.to_s
  sleep(sleep_time)
end

i made another shot at observing for the 365 days of observations, but as it started to get dark, clouds fell over the whole sky. i couldn’t even see the moon at all..

i tried to hit a few satellite passes on the radio, but it was raining like mad outside, so i didn’t get to do any kinda dorky shiz tonight..

i have been working for a few months on a way to backup our server so that the files are easy to access when needed, and easy to deal with at the same time.

for a long while, we used tape as a backup means. since we only have a few hundred gigs a day to backup, tape was slow, clunky for retrieval, and expensive..

we switched a few months ago to a pair of hard usb hard drives. each one has a 400g drive in it..

i have previously used ssh -> rsync to do the backups, but the 400g drives can no longer carry the whole thing.. i wrote a cron job in ruby that does all the work, but like i said, the drives are tapped out.

my first thought was to use the ‘compress’ option in rsync, but that does not compress the final destination, but only compresses the files as they are transferred.

i dug around yesterday, and found DAR this seems to do exactly what i need, other than run over ssh (it may well do this just fine, i will have to see..) right now, i just want to get something workable in place..

rsyncing all my files over now, and will try a DAR backup in a bit here.. the cool thing about DAR is that it will compress the archive.

if this sounds interesting, here are some links to some good stuff..

• mini how-to

• tutorial

i really should spend some time going over the system to make sure it’s based on common libraries, etc.. but it seems pretty solid.

some concerns that i do have:

*how to script this so it runs a new differential backup each day.. i am not sure if i need to take care of incrementing the filename of the differential backup. i am not really too concerned with how to do it programatically, i just want to make sure i am not doing something that DAR might do internally, and more elegantly..

okay, i did my first observation tonight..

i did see the moon, as on the photo on the website, but the one thing i noticed was that the moon was cocked a few degrees counter clockwise over here. i will take a few more peeks as the night progresses, but i seem to be seeing the little belly button thing on the moon shifted around ten degrees..

also, i checked the binoculars i have, and found that they are bushnell 10×50.. they don’t adjust focus, which strikes me as odd. almost sounds like i am making some sort of optical tradeoff here.

anyway.. i will check on the moon again in a bit, and see if it is revolved.

while i was out there, i tried tuning in to some amateur satellites. i heard TWO!! i am not sure which ones they were, but i heard them loud and clear. it was awesome. the first one just passed some packets, the other was voice. i will be checking more and more of these out tonight.

another thing i did was use Stellarium to figure out what is where. i found that saturn is supposed to be up somewhere, but it is too cloudy to see it.

i think im gonna try this. i am gonna haul myself outside each clear night to see if i can find all the doodads this guys is pointing out each night.. i will blog it and see how it goes. i have a small telescope, but it looks like i can do at least the first part of the year with my binoculars. i don’t know what kind i have, but i will check into it and let you know. they are some crap ones i got at kmart a long time ago. maybe i will buy some new ones.. we’ll see..

for the sake of completeness, i will add where i am. i have been using heavens above for awhile, and this is the observing site i have been using. the elevation is not correct, but i would guess it’s close enough for observing:

Coordinates: 40.8690� N, 82.3180� W Elevation: 0 meters (0 feet) Region: Ohio, United States of America Time Zone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT - 5:00)