talk minus action = zero

I'm going to abandon this blog, in favor of moving all of my blogging to my new site, automattack.net. Not that I'm the most prolific blogger in the world, I'm not. But I want to consolidate. I don't plan on closing this account, too many people I know are here. If you have a paid LJ account, you can actually syndicate my new blog to your friends page at the bottom of this page. Just put http://automattack.net/feed/ into the Feed URL field and click Add Feed. Other folks who want to keep up on my exciting life can subscribe with your favorite feed reader...

Photos of CBGB In Transition

The closing of CBGB made me sad. It was the birthplace of punk, a movement, culture, and musical style that has meant so much in my life.

I recently got a Squeezebox Duet and have been getting my large MP3 collection into shape. It turns out that SqueezeCenter prefers different tags than Amarok. So getting my music to appear the same in both places has been quite a task. What I figured out is that I had to remove extra junk from the files, convert any tags to ID3v2.4, and then for good measure I strip the ID3v1 tags.
I found three linux programs that do this well, mp3check, eyeD3, and id3convert (part of the id3lib project), but running them manually and remembering which one does what was too hard... So I wrote a Perl script to simplify the process. It takes paths as command line arguments, and will process the MP3s the way I like 'em. It even sets the permissions correctly!

( Here it is. )

Never mind, I got one.

Hi Philly folks,
I need to borrow a car this Saturday to pick up Meridian from summer camp. My usual channels aren't available so I'm posting this call for help.
It's an hour drive and I have to be there by 12 noon, and stay for an end-of-camp presentation. So I'd need to leave by 11am, and could return the car by 4pm. I'm more than happy to return the car with a full tank.
Please contact me If you can help me out.
Thanks.

This is a follow up to the email I sent a week ago regarding Critical
Path. It seems snail mail is the best way to support the continued
existence of this important Philadelphia ISP.

( more behind the cut )

I got this in the mail today. For those that don't know, Critical Path is run by Philadelphia FIGHT and provides free internet services to the larger AIDS community and allied groups.

Recently Critical Path had a drastic funding cut. Without adequate funding, thousands of Philadelphia families will loose internet access and many nationwide non-profits and organizations will loose websites, mailing lists, and email.

For more information on Critical Path, look here: http://critpath.org/isp/info.php

Please sign on to the attached letter that will be forwarded to Mayor Nutter if appropriate. Please distribute this widely.
( original letter behind cut )

To go along with this post, I finished the first working version of my pidgin-identica-status plugin today. It pulls an RSS feed from identi.ca, and sets the latest entry as your status in Pidgin.
It feels like a hack to me; the Perl API for Pidgin is poorly documented. I set up a Google Code project for it, and would welcome contributors to clean up the code, ad functionality, etc...
http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-identica-status/

I'm trying to write a plugin for the Pidgin IM client in Perl that would take your latest post to http://identi.ca from an RSS feed and set it as your Pidgin status message. However the Perl API for Pidgin is poorly documented and I'm having trouble. I based a lot of it on the pidgintwitter-plugin.

I'm not sure what's going on exactly though I suspect I'm not passing the URL correctly to the the parsing subroutine.
Any help would be appreciated.

( code behind the cut )

Earlier today, while watching Cookie Monster eat the letter of the day cookie yet again, Miles asked, "Why is it never the banana of the day?"

June 13th, 2008.
Philadelphia Police descended upon the home of
homeowners who have been questioning police tactics in Mayor Nutters new
"stop and frisk" program. Four residents were arrested in their home at
17th street and Ridge Avenue, and the police are in the process of
sealing the building. The homeowners are being held at the police
station, no charges have yet been filed.

Homeowners had been circulating petitions calling upon Mayor Nutter and
Police Commissioner Ramsey to attend community meetings on the use of
excessive force, surveillance cameras, and the new "stop and frisk"
policy. The mayor and police chief have declined to attend these
community forums, but instead have seized the home and possessions of
those who question "Stop and Frisk," and are currently holding them in
jail. While many civil liberties advocates and residents of affected
neighborhoods have questioned the new police tactics, few imagined that
simple criticism of a city policy could result in the seizure of one's
home and subject residents to arrest.

More details coming soon.