gRadio on http

Monday, January 14, 2002

Alwin predicts the follow-up news blurb to the big scare reported today.

It should be noted that alert Secret Service agents wrestled the pretzel to the ground, and is now being held in protective custody in an unknown location (rumoured to be Guantanamo Bay) pending close interrogation by federal authorities.

BTW, when was the last time you heard of someone watching football and eating pretzels, but wasn't imbibing something that might impair driving?
9:27:15 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this [blinked via ViewFromTheHeart]

Yes, with all these new Radio blogs, you do see many of the same items. But you also catch some goodies that you might have otherwise missed, like this one that almost caused a coffee spit-take this morning, from the ever-zany Mike D, which I saw on Adam Curry's Radio blog.

Blackholebrain: Bush says "I feel great" after fainting from massive bong hit. "Dick Cheney always says, 'When doing gravity bong hits, let go of the carb before you inhale,'" Bush said. "Always listen to your Dick."

Also, just a BTW, but many of these new Radio users are quickly learning how to better denote a quoted chunk, and it's pretty cool to see the personal styles start to come out. Can't wait for more themes to hit the bitstream, so we don't have to see quite so many little coffee mugs. (Go garrett! Go Bryan! Go who-ever-you -are!) ;-)

9:03:28 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this [blinked via Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Note to self: brainstorming idea for new macro...

Why:
Since I'm currently using Adam Curry's foo.opml file for the links over there to the right, and I'm seeing some odd but cool activity courtesy of those links in my referer page, this could be another cool way to get some blogRolling action going.

What is would do:
Variation on drawLeftLink that grabs a pseudo-random foo.opml navigation link file from some else's Radio blog, and inserts their blogRollng links into your blog. Kinda like the guest blogger feature on Boing Boing, but just for links. It wouldn't replace your own set of dLL links, but maybe it would, if you wanted to use it instead of your own. :-)

It should grab the Author info from the foo.opml file, to provide proper attribution for that list o'links. Also, could have some sort of pref for how long a particular foo.opml file might remain included on your weblog.

Implementation:
Now how to get the files in the first place...

1) The files could be collected by you, and stored within a specified folder in your gems file (It is easy to d/l foo.opml files from others who are using the drawLeftLinks macro. You populate the folder with files, specify the path to the folder in the macro, done. Easiest to implement, too.
2) There could be a central depository (perhaps like a manila directory) for folks who want to share their foo.opml files, and the macro grabs one from there. Need to announce the existence of the site, and wait for folks to join up or submit files. Could be slim pickings for a while, perhaps even for a very long while.
3) Coolest would be a macro that prowls the gemspace of radio.weblogs.com, and seeking foo.opml files which contain only URLs. Hardest to implement, and most intensive bandwidth-wise, since there would be a lot of network activity (...search for an opml file, read it in and check to see that it's only URLs, ...), and there would have to be some serious error protection. Most difficult to implement, least bloody likely to ever exist.

Gosh, number one sounds almost reasonable, eh?

Of course, it's entirely likely that this is completely waaaaaaaaaay over-engineered, and could be done much more easily.

Could just grab foo.opml files from other folks, and call a copy of the drawLeftLinks macro that points to a particular file, then rotate them from time-to-time (repub the site to send the changes everywhere (or not). Now that sounds like something even I could implement easily. Must make some changes to my template files one of these days....
6:33:55 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this

Link-ho that I am, I checked my referer page today, and saw an entry from a Radio 7.xx news page, by someone running their copy on port 8080. I wonder who it is, and why my own little bits of crapola have made it into their feed...

Would our mystery guest please sign in?
5:50:37 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this

Now here's some serious comfort food, and the caloric data and serving size commentary are courtesy of Mark Pilgrim.

Southern Living magazine: Macaroni and Cheese.

16 ounces macaroni (640 kcal)

20 ounces sharp Cheddar cheese (2280 kcal)

10 ounces extra sharp Cheddar cheese (1140 kcal)

1/2 cup flour (230 kcal)

1/2 cup butter (815 kcal)

2 cups whole milk (310 kcal)

2 cups half-and-half (630 kcal)

salt, pepper, garlic, and coronary angioplasty as needed

Serves 6-8. And by "6-8", we mean "6". And by "6", we mean "2".

I always questioned Southern Living's sense of serving sizes, too.

SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) has a subscription, and we've made some variations on some of the recipes we've seen there, and really haven't been able to stretch the servings as far as they seem to.

Maybe they expect you to have a spread laid out like one of their photo shoots, and you're supposed to grab a little of everything. Emphasis on little. That's not how I think of comfort food, though. If your gonna, do it up right, and feel slighty guilty after the food coma wears off.
12:53:29 PM [] blah blah blah'd on this [blinked via diveintomark]