Running with Scissors

Jim is always pointing us to his favorite YouTube videos, including things he has created himself using old footage from movies or archive.org.

In his honor, here is one for him that I’m sure he will enjoy – it is a fan video created for the Massive Attack song “Angel” that uses a scene from a 1932 film, “Vampyr.” This video is so well done that I didn’t even realize this was not done by Massive Attack until I read the credits on the YouTube site.

This one is so haunting, it is mesmerizing. Enjoy Jimmy!

UPDATE – 12/2/07

I found the entire “Vampyr” film on Google Video for your viewing pleasure.

When I was in high school in the late 70′s early 80′s I had an obsession with music. I had a music collection of vinyl, but I recorded it all to cassette tapes. I had a portable cassette player that I would carry around with this weird external speaker hook up that I rigged together from left over pieces of an old stereo because it sounded good. I had cases and cases of cassettes that I would lug around too. It was important to have the right music for any occasion.

In this day of iPod, where you can carry your whole collection everywhere, you might not realize the mad dedication it took to have the right music for any occasion – I mean, after all, you could only carry so much stuff around. Thus, my workaround became the mix tape. Mixes of songs that could meet the need on the fly. I loved making them. I loved mixing them. I loved how cool it could be if you found that nice combo of songs that clicked together perfectly.

Needless to say, when I heard about Boomshuffle, a new web service that allows you to create your own mixes for free, I just had to look into it.

All you have to do is create an account, then start mixing. You choose from Boomshuffle’s large library of songs (not everything, but a good collection) and create a mix of full length songs that can be streamed over the web. You can also invite your friends in to add songs to your mixes if you like (I’m not sure I’m mentally prepared to share the creation of my mixes – I’ll need to make some serious steps in the personal growth area before this happens).

So, of course, the question is how is this legal? Boomshuffle works within legal parameters that exist for internet radio services to stay legit. To comply, mixes need to have a minimum of 15 different songs by different artists to hear the full songs, they have to be streamed in a random order, and the listener can only skip a certain number of tracks per hour. A bit of a downer, but you know how reasonable the RIAA and record companies tend to be about this sort of thing.

I tried it out, liked it, and here is my first mix to share with you. Mostly, at trip through the 80′s – with a few newer things sprinkled in there. Hope you like it.

Thanks to taurusaficionado on Flickr for the cassette deck image.

Did I ever tell you the story about user interfaces, Twitter, open-source, Greasemonkey, Firefox, Creative Commons, and desks pushed together in a group?

I use Twitter, but sometimes it is a day or two between my sessions. One thing that always bothers me about the user interface at Twitter is that it makes it difficult to read the tweets in chronological order from where I left off last time. Since Twitter pages are arranged in reverse chronological order, that means I have to go back a few pages to see those tweets. My frustration with the UI at Twitter is that the “older” and “newer” buttons to navigate back in the pages is at the BOTTOM of the page. So, it is a minor pain to scroll to the bottom of every page to go back, then repeat that process as many times as needed to get back far enough in my tweets to start reading again.

Though complaining is fun for me (ask my colleagues), I decided to submit a suggestion to the Twitter comment page on adding “older” and “newer” navigation buttons to the top of the page. I got a nice “thanks” response and that they would pass the suggestion on to the development team. While I’ve been waiting to see if that suggestion gets incorporated, something interesting has happened that makes it irrelevant in a way.

In talking with Martha and Patrick about my Twitter request, Patrick suggests “why not a Greasemonkey script?” If you are unaware, Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that allows folks to write JavaScript to change the content on a web page – for example, adding “older” and “newer” buttons to the top of the Twitter page. Now, this change doesn’t happen on the central Twitter page for everyone else in the world, just those that are using Firefox with Greasemonkey and the script installed that adds the buttons to the Twitter page.

So, the search was on – looking for a Greasemonkey script that someone may have already written that addresses my needs – surely I’m not the only one who has thought of this brilliant user interface addition for Twitter.

After a short Google search on “Greasemonkey Twitter navigation” I found Twitter PowerToys on UserScripts.org, a script written by Manuel Gonzalez Noriega. The description was “Duplicates twitter navigation at the top of the status box + adds a “send personal message” link besides every user name on the timeline.” Bingo! (or, as some in my shop say, “Disco!”).

So after downloading the script and installing it, I was disappointed to discover that the Greasemonkey script didn’t work – it seems that script was created this past summer, but since then Twitter has changed the UI on their pages, so though the script was creating a second set of buttons, it was still located at the bottom of the page, just above the original buttons. So, what seeming was in my grasp was taken away – but only temporarily.

Did I ever tell you how cool it is to have a programmer working right across the desk from me? Patrick was able to open the Greasemonkey script, make a tweak or two, and then send me the updated file. I loaded it, cleared the cache from my Firefox browser, navigated to Twitter, and basked in the glow of navigation buttons at the top of the page.

The story doesn’t end there.

Now, I can also turn around and share this script with you – you too can have navigation buttons at the top of the Twitter page. You see, Manuel Gonzalez Noriega, the original author of the Greasemonkey script published it under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This means, he gives us permission to modify his original script and offer it to others by simply giving him his due credit for creating the original script. That said, you can download and use it yourself.

So, thanks Manuel, Patrick, Creative Commons, Greasemonkey, Firefox, and my colleagues who don’t seem to mind having all of our desks pushed together in the middle of the room.

I love it when a plan comes together.