Today's Mighty Oak


The world is awful, and there’s a lot going on, but let’s see what we have. First up, let’s calm down a bit with a beautiful exploration on Canon in D:

Dumb Runner (The Onion but for running) had two great articles which made me laugh a lot recently. The first, local runner receives photos from his virtual marathon and one that is so true locally, ‘without the marathon, residents scramble to find something else to bitch about.’

Brass players (and percussionists, opera singers, etc), be the change you (and hero) you want to see in this world.

Feeling down? Here’s Chris Hemsworth to tell you, yes you, how awesome you are!

We’re getting a new Star Wars Holiday Special! Which….that is news, but this time it’s Lego!

Also, here’s how we should swap the titles of the Star Wars movies around.

Okay, buckle up, getting to politics. First up, the Mass Dem party coordinated with the College Democrats of Mass to try to levy false sexual abuse accusations at a gay candidate in the primary. The whole thing is dirty and reeks of homophobia, as well as a misunderstanding of the dynamics of gay relationships.

AT the DNC, Michelle Obama was immaculate (transcript here):

Likewise, President Obama set out in the starkest of terms what is at stake (transcript here):

On the final night of the convention, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was extremely funny, and since I enjoyed VEEP so much, a nice touch!

Pete Buttigieg had a moving moment talking about his marriage as he was introducing Biden.

And then finally, the acceptance speech:

Since then, of course, things have gotten worse, with more stoking of hatred and violence, but in a stirring move, the Mets and Marlins left their game and left a BLM shirt draped over home plate.

And finally, the NBA has come to agreement to turn their arenas into voting sites!

That’s it for today. Have a great one, wash your hands, wear your mask, double check your voter registration and make a plan to vote!



Part of my Camp NaNoWriMo project has been working on this site, so doing a lot of behind the scenes work as well as getting some public pages finally up and sorted.  I have two projects left for that.  The first is a minor change, but will take a bit of work to future-proof it.

The second, was what I was working on yesterday, so I want to take a minute to write about it, because, it’s a story.

So, one area I’d like to include is photo galleries.  I tend to take a lot of pictures (especially of signs) and I do enough interesting things that I have a sizable photo library.  Years ago, on an older version of this site, I uploaded them into galleries, but then I realized that I didn’t want to deal with server space and manually uploading everything.

Enter Picasa.  I was able to upload images to it and quickly and easily create shareable galleries.  Worked great (and I do still like the, no unsupported, desktop client), but eventually Google moved to Google Photos.

Here’s what I’ve found out in the last few days: they didn’t make a Google Photos API, meaning, there was no way for other websites to communicate with Google Photos.  The Picasa API still exists, it just hasn’t been updated in the last two years (and my galleries are still out there, thank goodness).  So while there are plenty of plugins to make image galleries easy for Picasa, all my photos which are now automatically uploaded to Google Photos, had no where to go.

There are workarounds, but it takes quite a bit of know how, and I stumbled my way through about half of it, but I”m still working on getting things how I actually want them to be.

But all of that changed a few weeks ago!  Google released an API for Google Photos and now extensions are being updated and added.  So while I won’t have the galleries up for July, it will still, finally, be a thing!  So look for that sometime soonish, I hope!



Alright, let’s see what we have today.

I really, really, really hope they don’t get sued, but a children’s hospital has rebranded chemo treatments as superhero formula.

So under oath, a gun executive called proposed gun control legislation “common sense.

Surviving the World celebrates victories of marriage equality:

Sometimes, I hate the world.  White supremacist are all up in arms because…well does it really even matter.  The point is Cheerios.

A bunch of really awesome people debate how Superman shaves.

Following up “Ship My Pants”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1yir-p68xM

I was all excited about the great outreach the Pope was doing, and then the Vatican reminded us all that Atheists are going to hell.

An idiot Idaho sheriff is dropping his BSA charter because “sodomy is against the law.”  While it is true that law is still on the books in Idaho, that law has been rendered void by the Supreme Court.

The best wedding photo ever.  Seriously.

More about the Oregon bakery who won’t bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.  Their version of City Paper called and was able to order cakes for Pagan ceremonies, divorce parties and even stem cell/cloning celebrations.  The bakery claims it didn’t act with an anti-gay animus, just faith principles, but I’m not seeing it.

I spent Friday night watching the house floor of the Illinois legislature.  Their marriage equality bill failed, and this was the tearful ending of the night.  The bill however, in a surprise move, has been extended until August 31 by the Speaker, giving it a new chance.:

The Lutherans join the Episcopalians with their first openly LGBT bishop.

That’s it for today, have a great one!



Alright, let’s see what I have today.  First up, fun WTF posters:

This is what annoyed me about college, especially freshmen year.  Students who didn’t know how to live away from home.  Apparently, now it’s even worse with students paying for disposable sheets, cleaning services and deliveries of snacks.

Beer-drinking chart:

Internet Addiction may be linked to the same gene that makes one more susceptible to nicotine addiction.

Awesome accidental photos from Google street view.

A primer on how to ride the subway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_duJUp9emY

A vial of John Paul II’s blood was stolen and then recovered. Creepy.

A schism in atheism?  Never thought I’d hear of that.

The Ohio Art company is once again cashing in on the Etch-a-sketch, and I don’t blame them at all:

The richest women in the world thinks that those who are poor are just lazy and should work harder.  Like her, you know, since she inherited $30 billion from her father.  You know, hard work.

This is just shameful: remember a few weeks ago Romney had a rally in Ohio that was attended by “enthusiastic” coal miners?  They were forced to attend by their employer, and not paid for that day, either.

Also in somewhat political news, a delegate (from PA, sadly) at the RNC was offended that a Mexican immigrant was working at the America station in Epcot.  Sigh.

And the reaction shot from the White House to #Eastwooding:

That’s it for now, have a great one!

 



Second bonus update for everyone, let’s see what else I have for you:

First up, this is just too cool, I’m just not sure how well he could see:

Apartment Therapy has a couple cool posts: first up, playing laser tag with your smartphone.  They also cover what they think Siri looks like:

And lastly, art made from old CDs.

The first picture (the one on the post) to me looks altered, but if you click through it’s actually a series of pictures: Meh, Romney.

Science is working on creating a thread that converts body heat to electricity, allowing you to charge electronic devices, pretty awesome.

Oh, somebody was bitter:

Slog covers the future of photography, as well as billboards and real-life Google Googles.

And finally, we’ve found the corner in which you can place baby:



One of the things I’ve been working on is sorting all my photos.  I’ve added a new menu item, which will show some of the photo galleries which I have uploaded.  Once I get caught up, new photos will go up a lot faster than before, so I hope you like it.  Not only will they all show up in the photo gallery page, but I can easily link to them here, just like these pictures from my trip to Quantum Theater:

{sfx rss=’http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/mcrane.j/albumid/5531724258802351073?alt=rss&kind=photo&hl=en_US’ display=’Quantum Theater”}

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