Month: May 2012

Trying out Social 2.5

A few days ago, Alex King announced the release of the new version of Social plugin for WordPress.  It’s one of those that can broadcast your blog posts to Twitter and Facebook.  But not only that.  It can also synchronize Twitter re-tweets and replies and Facebook shares and comments back into your blog, as comments.  Now that sounds pretty interesting.

I’ve installed the plugin and connected it to both Twitter and Facebook easily – no need to create your own apps or anything like that.  But given that I already have some sort of synchronization between Twitter and Facebook, I wonder how weird things will go.

This is a test post.

Update #1: Social plugin seems to work really well.

Update #2: Disabling broadcasting to Twitter from Twitter Tools plugin should decrease the amount of dups posted.

Updated #3: It is still not obvious how to keep the synchronization between Twitter and Facebook while avoiding dups.

Weekly digest – 2012-05-27

Живые и мёртвые

Перечитываю “Живые и мётрвые” Симонова. Конечно же я читал это произведение в детстве и, возможно, во время школьной программы.  Но тогда я очевидно не был к нему готов, ибо не запомнилось оно мне ни чем.  Помню, что читал, и помню, что про войну.  А вот в последнее время проснулся у меня некоторый интерес к истории, и особенно к Великой Отечественной войне.  И по этой теме, “Живые и мёртвые” – совершенно замечательное произведение.  Форматом даже немножко нынешние блоги напоминает.  Только происходит там такое, что мало какому блогеру и в кошмарном сне приснится. Однако также, как и блог, даёт неплохое представление о том, чем жили люди, как думали, и за что боролись.   И как и во все времена – были и тогда сволочи и трусы, но были и Люди.

Он поднял докторшу на руки вместе с плащ-палаткой и, не став пристраивать за спиной, понес, как ребенка.
— Может, я еще в дом зайду, разведаю? — остерег Золотарев.
Но Синцов уперся:
— Раз немцев нет, пойдем прямо. Мы люди или не люди?!
Ему вдруг показалось унизительным идти в какую-то еще разведку у себя, на собственной земле, в дом, куда раньше, до войны, он и любой другой человек, не колеблясь, в любую минуту внес бы на руках больную женщину.
— Не верю, чтоб там сволочи были, — сказал он. — А коли сволочи, на сволочей у нас винтовка есть.

Flickchart – your own Top 20 Movies of all times

Flickchart is yet another one of those sites that is supposed to help you choose the next movie to watch, as well as share with your friends the list of movies that you’ve enjoyed.  The interface is somewhat simple and straightforward, even though the functionality is plenty.

Basically, you are presented with the two movies next to each other and you have to click on the one you think is better.  If you haven’t seen either one of the given movies, you can skip it for the next.  Flickchart computes your voting into a Top 20 Movies of all times list, as well as a bunch of other sub-lists – by genre, by decade, etc.

Overall, that’s a much needed site with some really cool features.  There is only one problem with it.  It doesn’t work.  I mean, it doesn’t work as I expected it to.  It keeps throwing unknown weird films that I’ve never heard of at me.  It keeps giving me movies for voting which I clearly marked as I haven’t seen.  And the resulting Top 20 Of All Time list is weird at best.  Some of the movies which I want there – are there, yet not at the places I’d put them manually at.  The other movies seem to not make it there at all.

There is a “By Title” voting mechanism which one could use to move things around, but that is not very useful at this stage either.  For example, I had “Avatar” at position #2.  I thought, even though it’s a nice movie, #2 is a bit too high for it.  So I took the “By Title” tour and in just a five or six clicks “Avatar” ended at #46.  Seriously, WTF is going on?

As much as I’d love to use this site, I think it’s still too early.  I need to give it some time to mature.  But I’ll definitely be back to check out later.  Have you tried it yet?

Robin Williams – Weapons Of Self Destruction

Outside of the US, Robin Williams is mostly known for his movie acting career.  But in the States, his stand-up comedy success goes hand-in-hand with the movies and theater.  I’ve seen quite cuts of his gigs on YouTube, but it’s a first time that I came across a full-length show.  “Weapons of Self Destruction” is a 1.5 hour video on YouTube.  If you don’t mind a lot of swearing, it will send you laugh, while covering a variety of subjects – from stereotypes and politics to progress and drugs abuse.  Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiCxqbT2Ru8]