31 Aug 08 Birth of a ‘Horrible’ Fandom

A brief look at the Big Bang birth of a fandom: the explosion of ‘Dr. Horrible’ fandom in just 47 days. Quite a lot of “more inside” follows.

29 Aug 08 A Speech So Stirring It Converted Pat Buchanan

On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Barack Obama accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to be their Presidential candidate with a speech so well-crafted that Pat bloody Buchanan couldn’t stop raving about it, and had to be cut off by his fellow broadcasters. It was an occasion so historic that McCain chose to release an ad congratulating his opponent.

29 Aug 08 Obama Speech So Good It Converts Pat Buchanan — PAT FREAKIN’ BUCHANAN …

I’m just utterly, utterly without words. I just want to say “holy shit”.

You can find tons of stuff about this wonderful speech on the Web. But the thing I’m staggered by this evening before I go to bed?

Pat Buchanan — Pat Buchanan — Pat Bloody Freakin’ Buchanan — adored Obama’s speech.

Listen:

24 Aug 08 How to Bulk Assign Unassigned Posts to a Category in WordPress

There’s occasionally a time when I run into a blank spot on the Internet — and it’s kind of cool because instead of just passing along information I found elsewhere, I can actually create useful content.

This is one such case. In certain situations, you can have a large amount of posts in WordPress that don’t have a category. However, no WordPress feature, nor any plugin that I can tell, offers the ability to select and assign all of these unassigned posts to a category. The user is faced with the rather unpleasant possibility of opening each post and altering the category individually. This is a way you can reassign all of them at once. It’s not ideal for assigning unassigned posts to two or three different categories, but it is ideal for assigning all unassigned posts to a single category (such as “Main” or “Blog” or whatever your default category is).

Please note that I may have left something key out that will result in your WordPress database installation achieving sentience and taking control of the world’s military grid, ushering in a deadly age where mankind is united, all differences forgotten, but where shiny metallic cyborgs hunt us over hills and in vallies, shouting at us in MySQL queries. Only a cyborg that looks like River Tam will be able to save us. But in all seriousness, I just want to say very explicitly that I claim no responsibility for these directions being in any way faulty — I obviously don’t think they are faulty at all, but be sure to back up so that if your database becomes toast, you can come back from it.

We’re going to use Excel, phpMyAdmin, and three WordPress tables: wp_posts, wp_term_relationships, and wp_term_taxonomy.

First, we need to generate a list of all of the post IDs that correspond to posts that have no category. To do this, we are going to combine individual columns from two tables: the ‘ID‘ column of wp_posts, and the ‘object_id‘ column of wp_term_relationships. With each of those tables, I clicked the Export tab and used the ‘CSV for MS Excel’ format. I clicked the ‘Save as File’ checkbox and downloaded the resulting files to my computer.

I copied the ‘ID‘ column from the wp_posts table into an Excel spreadsheet, and the ‘object_id‘ column from the wp_term_relationships into the same column in that spreadsheet, beneath it.

The function that then needs to be performed is to eliminate all values that have a duplicate. Note: this is not the same as removing duplicates. In other words, say we have a list: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9. Most “remove duplicate” methods make this list 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We are looking to make the list look like this: 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 — both values that are duplicates of each other are removed, with neither left.

I described that in this abstract sense so that in case you don’t have Excel or something that can do this, you can try to discover an alternate tack. The way I did it myself was to use Excel’s “Conditional Formatting” feature with the “Formula is” choice, with this as the formula: “=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$3339,A1)>1“. You would change the A1 and A3339 to whatever your starting and ending rows are, of course. For visibility, I asked it to color the text red, boldface it, and italicize it. I then went down through the column and deleted every duplicate I could find, and sorted the remainder in order to remove all the blank spaces. (You have to select the entire column, then pick the Sort feature, in order for this to happen.) This was a somewhat laborious process, and I imagine there was an easier way to do this. But it’s what came to mind at that moment.

Okay. By eliminating the duplicates, we eliminated all posts that had an entry in both wp_posts and wp_term_relationships — in other words, all posts that had a category already assigned to them. So we now have a column that contains the post IDs of only those posts that do not have a category. Now, we need to create the raw data that assigns them a category. We are going to do this by creating a file that we can import into wp_term_relationships.

Take the downloaded version of wp_term_relationships and erase the data that’s currently in there, but leaving the headers (for now). Paste this column (the column of unassigned post IDs) into your spreadsheet. Sort it to put it in numerical order.

There are three values in the wp_term_relationships table. There is object_id (the post ID), term_order, and term_taxonomy_id. term_taxonomy_id is the category number, but it is not the same category number as you might see when looking at category-related URLs inside the WordPress admin interface.

In my wp_term_relationships table, all of the post IDs had a term_order of 0, so I applied the same number to my new posts.

Now, we need to find out the right term_taxonomy_id to put into there. We find this using that last table I mentioned, the wp_term_taxonomy table. First, go back to your WordPress administrative interface, to your Manage » Categories page. Hover over the name of the category you want to put these unassigned posts into. You should see a URL in your status bar or as a tooltip that ends with “cat_ID=” and a number.

Go to the wp_term_taxonomy table. Look for that number in the term_id column. Then look to its left and match it up with the corresponding term_taxonomy_id.

Now we’re going to go back to our spreadsheet. In the term_taxonomy_id column, we’re going to paste this number in for each of the post_ids there. Essentially, we are inserting records into this table that say, “For this post (post_id), it belongs to this category (term_taxonomy_id).”

Okay. So you should now have a table in which the object_id column has all of the posts that have no category; in which the term_taxonomy_id column has the taxonomy numbers that correspond to, but are usually not, the category number you want; and in which the term_order column is probably full of zeros.

Save this in CSV format, say as “insert.csv”. Open this file up in a plain text editor. Remove the header row (it’ll just show up as bad string data in the import), and do a search and replace to make sure all values are surrounded by quotation marks. [You can usually do this by two search-and-replaces: one to replace \r with "\r" (quote-\r-quote), and one to replace , with "," (quote-comma-quote).]

Open up the wp_term_relationships table. Click on the Import tab. Warning: this is now your last chance to have a fairly fresh backup ready in case it goes boom. Select “insert.csv” using the Browse button next to “Location of the text file”. Click on the “CSV” radio button. Make sure that “Replace table data with file” IS NOT, repeat, IS NOT checked. (Otherwise, you’ll wipe out all existing category assignments.) Make sure that “Ignore duplicate rows” IS, repeat, IS checked. (Otherwise, it’ll stop when it hits a duplicate. You don’t want that.) Change the semicolon in the “fields terminated by” box to a comma. Leave everything else the same.

If you’re ready, and you think everything’s been done correctly, click the “Go” button. You should get a successful result. Head over to Manage » Posts. Are all of your formerly unassigned posts in a category now? If so, congratulations!

22 Aug 08 Net Crap (8/18 - 8/21)

These are things I ran across recently on the Internet and thought were interesting, remarkable, or stood out in some way to me.

14 Aug 08 “Great Space Coaster” and “Kids, Inc.”

Man, you want to talk about nostalgia? Odd combination of links led me to these:

Very trippy.

My sister, as a child, loved Kids, Inc., so this song is very much not unfamiliar to me:

(That little blonde girl you first see, named Stacy Ferguson? That’s the Black-Eyed Peas’ Fergie.)

What made me chuckle was I just for the hell of it clicked on the 1991 version of the song … and “Love Hewitt” was in the 1991 cast. Yeah, it’s who you think it is:

14 Aug 08 If There Was Any Doubt Before, Dubya Truly Separated from Reality

“I don’t see America having problems.”

— George W. Bush to Bob Costas, NBC Interview, August 10, 2008

14 Aug 08 Brilliantly Scathing Review of “Clone Wars”

Harry Knowles buckles under Lucasfilm pressure to take down scathing Star Wars: the Clone Wars reviews:

Harry hated THE CLONE WARS!

I’ve never hated a STAR WARS film before. I have weathered Jar Jar and any number of Ewoks. I survived Hayden and a wooden Portman. I even accepted Jake Lloyd. I handled all that because it felt like STAR WARS.

I can accept all of Lucas’ flaws, so long as at its heart it felt like Star Wars. I can deal with politics in Star Wars. I can deal with trade skirmishes in Star Wars. I can deal with musical numbers, breathing in the vacuum of space. Basically - so long as it feels like STAR WARS - I can watch any of it.

Was I looking forward to STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (2008)?

Fuckin’ A!

I was dying. After Genndy’s CLONE WARS - I felt that perhaps Lucas “got it” - and that this new animated series was taking a lead from Tartakovsky’s brilliant assembly of pieces. Genndy’s CLONE WARS got STAR WARS better than anyone has got it since Lawrence Kasdan and Irvin Kershner. Genndy took designs and characters that folks were dissatisfied with and made them cool. He did this by using and adapting the themes created by John Williams, the wholly perfect entity involved with Star Wars along with … the sound effects of Ben Burtt. He understood speed and motion - not just with action, but in editing. He understood classic film composition and iconography. And he knows what BADASS is.

The folks behind this STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS movie … you could tell, they looked at what Genndy did - but they didn’t understand any of it. There’s a shitload of battles and shit going boom. There’s noise everywhere - fury everywhere … but none of it is directed. The music by Kevin Kiner is criminally bad. Why they didn’t employ Paul Dinletir and James Venable is beyond me. No, no - let’s hire the composer of WALKER, TEXAS RANGER. Ahem.

Now - I made excuses for this film as I was watching it. I don’t think you understand how much I love STAR WARS. Maybe you do, maybe you do too.

Before the movie started I was firing myself up to go out after the film and buy that new $200 Hasbro Millenium Falcon. I really wanted to go buy it, and I wanted this movie to empower my brain to go through with that. Instead, I found myself at home - putting on Genndy’s THE CLONE WARS - to try and rebuild my passion - so I can go get that new Falcon.

Instead - I’m thinking I’ll just be here at home enjoying this and that’ll be all I need.

Anyway - as I was watching the film, I was excusing the sloppy shots, the sloppy use of the Clone Troopers and Droids - undoing all the awesome work that Genndy had done - and the droids are silly again. The Clone Troopers are limp. And the Jedi - they’re at 25% power from the mind of Genndy. But I was accepting that. I figured that was Lucas dialing back so that the animated series wouldn’t overpower his features.

Then they introduced Baby Jabba aka Rotta the Huttlet aka Stinky. At the point of this character’s introduction - it officially became, the worst character in the history of STAR WARS. If you hate George Lucas cutsiepoo bullshit - oooooooh boy. You’re gonna have a field day of venting and hatred directed at this unbelievably fucking awful little shhit.

Oh - but wait … Little Stinky the Hutt isn’t the worst character in the history of STAR WARS … because Stinky got introduced earlier in the film. As much as I hated lil Stinky … I was weathering Stinky. I seriously was. But later there was a character of such immense shit - offensively bad. The character was so bad, so incredibly awful - that it was a slap to the face. It woke me out of my shit-accepting stupor and made me angry. SUDDENLY my “inner fanboy rage” was awoken.

As I watched this terrifyingly awful character named Ziro the Hutt. A seemingly female Hutt - with tattoos and make-up that sounds like a racist take on a Black New Orleans Crack-Dealing Whore. Because this Hutt speaks ENGLISH - and it is many times worse than I’m actually describing. This character was actually too much for me. So bad that every flaw I was looking past, was now a road sign to inadequacy and mediocrity. All of a sudden my brain realized that Asajj Ventress’ voice no longer was acceptable - and sure enough - the amazing Grey DeLisle, who originally voiced the character back in 2003 - had been replaced by a Nika Futterman - and that voice was missed. The character didn’t have that snarling menace anymore.

I realized that nothing in this animated film felt right. I felt time expanding. It seemed that the film was dragging - nevermind that lots of shit was firing all over the place - and stuff was going boom and things were being revealed. I just didn’t care because this wasn’t what I wanted.

I hated the score, the animation, the shots, the characters and most of all the retarded fucking idiot story.

I hated the film. HATED IT. REALLY HATED IT.

Does this mean the whole Star Wars Animated Series is doomed? No - but it isn’t a good sign. So much of this is awful because of the Hutt plotlines and character. I also feel that Dave Filoni must be a hack. His work here is sloppy - and depending on writers and directing talent - individual episodes may be better. This film was several episodes all strung together - my prayer is that the individual episodes will be both great and awful - and we’ll discover which talents are responsible for each.

That said - the audience did have light applause. My father liked it. My sister felt too much was going on. Me nephew really liked it. That said - Yoko was complaining right along with me. She thought it was shit too. I know Moriarty liked it. Wonder what Quint and Massawyrm thought.

Shit. I hated a STAR WARS. That fucking sucks.

14 Aug 08 Knight Rider: the New Series — Holy CRAP, That’s Awful

Oh, dear sweet God, what have they done to my childhood …

11 Aug 08 links for 2008-08-11

• QDN: More hilarity on Yahoo Answers

10 Aug 08 Wash Interviews Mal

I’m cracking up about every five seconds with this clip of Alan Tudyk interviewing Nathan Fillion:

If you’re not a fan of Firefly, Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk are fellow castmates from the show, and it’s nice to see the comic chemistry between the two once more.

08 Aug 08 Rainbows: a Secret Government Conspiracy!

It scares me that this woman has the ability to vote.

There’s 49 of these.

08 Aug 08 Some Interesting Stuff

Danny O’Brien makes a very good point regarding why copying used to be an act naturally associated with being paid, but is no longer.

A good scientific rundown on what the Large Hadron Collider may find, and the respective probabilities.

11 reasons why the Star Wars prequels aren’t really that bad. And, honestly, I agree with all of them.

04 Aug 08 “There Was No Light in her Eye … “

I seem to be running across a number of these lately. Another utterly heartbreaking yet utterly amazing story:

The doctors and social workers had no way of knowing all that had happened to Danielle. But the scene at the house, along with Danielle’s almost comatose condition, led them to believe she had never been cared for beyond basic sustenance. Hard as it was to imagine, they doubted she had ever been taken out in the sun, sung to sleep, even hugged or held. She was fragile and beautiful, but whatever makes a person human seemed somehow missing.

Armstrong called the girl’s condition “environmental autism.” Danielle had been deprived of interaction for so long, the doctor believed, that she had withdrawn into herself.

The most extraordinary thing about Danielle, Armstrong said, was her lack of engagement with people, with anything. “There was no light in her eye, no response or recognition. . . . We saw a little girl who didn’t even respond to hugs or affection. Even a child with the most severe autism responds to those.”

Danielle’s was “the most outrageous case of neglect I’ve ever seen.”

02 Aug 08 WSJ Cherry-Picks Idiotic Board Post and Rewords McCain Release

Amy Chozick: “Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks!”

Les1954: “Easy to see that for some people in the world, totally meaningless drivel is what keeps them occupied and up at night. The good news is that these people probably do not see the real problems in the world - living in the one they are in. Hopefully, there is something that can legally keep you from voting - or remember to vote on November 20th - you will miss the rush!”

OnlineBeerBellyGirl: “Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.”

Amy Chozick: “Love your response and your username (onlinebeerbellygirl). Would you mind shooting me an email so I can ask you a few more quesitons? My email is amy.chozick@gmail.com. Thanks so much!”

Les1954: “The scary thing is that you have the right to vote and both parties are probably trying to get your vote.”

Chozick’s article in the Rupert-Murdoch-of-FOX-News-owned Wall Street Journal: “But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.” (and much, much more)

AND.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis: “…Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand ‘MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea’ and worry about the price of arugula.”

The same Wall Street Journal article: “These days he stays away from junk food and instead snacks on MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, a healthy organic brew.”

And she grabbed the three-times-a-day bit and the arugula bit, too:

• ” … as Sen. Obama learned last month after he made three stops to local Chicago gyms in one day … “
• “Sen. Obama drew cringes on a campaign stop in Adel, Iowa, in July 2007, when he asked a crowd of farmers: ‘Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for arugula?’ The upscale supermarket specializing in organic food doesn’t have a single store in Iowa.”

So essentially, you have a WSJ reporter trolling for a nasty quote about an idiot precept, then grabbing parts of a McCain press release to support the “article.” (This wasn’t in the WSJ’s op-ed section.)

I really hope this story gets at least a little bit of traction. It’s absolutely despicable ethics, and Chozick really should get tossed not only out of her paper but out of the industry. But if it’s owned by the financial titan who owns FOX News, then I don’t have much hope for that.

(via Metafilter, via Sadly, No! and No More Mister Nice Blog)