Dan Walmsley

George Saunders has perfected Sarah Palin’s speech patterns

dan — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:51:31 +0000

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Super Satire!

So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.

A lose-lose for the pig.

Internet Satire’s Cambrian Explosion

dan — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:22:21 +0000

It used to be about re-cutting new trailers from old movies (see Something Blue for the ultimate). Now we’re getting completely original trailers for movies that never existed at all.

This is a really, really impressive video. Matt Damon was right: Sarah Palin’s life really is a bad Disney movie.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Fringe Show: Set List

dan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:45:36 +0000

Greetings Evildoers,

As occasionally happens, I have a show in Fringe. This time it’s an improvised musical show — we create a new band at that the beginning of the show from audience suggestions, and then play a whole gig as that band. The music is rehearsed, but the lyrics are improvised based on our interaction with the audience. It’s a truly unique new form of theater, and we really enjoy playing it.

Each week is a different genre, so you can come along to all 3 if you like!

For this event we’ve assembled some of the finest improvisors and musicians in Melbourne to play our 3 debut genres: Folk, Jazz and Rock. We’ve got members of folk ensembles, orchestras, music theater shows, rock bands and more to create an improv supergroup that you will blow your mind.

The gigs are on Saturdays at 4:30pm at Trades Hall and run for about an hour:

27th September @ 4:30pm: Folk
4th October @ 4:30pm: Jazz
11th October @ 4:30pm: Rock

Tickets are $15 full price, $12 concession. The theater is gorgeous, with 200 seats encircling the stage complete with Rolling Stones-style walkway. Oh yeah, baby! And of course in the same building there’s the Bella Union Bar for drinks before and after the show.

Tickets are already selling fast, so book today through Melbourne Fringe (03 9660 9666), or online at http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/season/2008/show/174

Thanks for reading, and I hope to catch you all during Fringe.

Free SMS service notifications using Google Calendar

dan — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:14:24 +0000

Today I had a small revelation.

I was wracking my brains trying to figure out the SMS messaging provider to use to send myself service outage notifications for my clients’ web sites. Given that I have just a handful of clients so far, it makes no sense to use a provider that requires a minimum monthly or yearly spend.

Ideally of course, I’d like to spend nothing at all, and in exasperation I finally threw my hands in the air (they’re detachable) and whined: “Google sends SMS’s for free - why is it so hard for everyone else?”

(answer: not everyone has billions of dollars)

And then came the revelation: Why not create a command-line tool that uses Google’s Calendar API to create events 6 minutes in the future that have an SMS notification set for 5 minutes prior to launch? That way, within a minute you get a notification sent to your phone for free within 1 minute. Sweet!

So, here’s the code (it’s in Java… sorry)
/** * Simple command-line notification command that uses Google Calendar ATOM API to create * a single event 6 minutes in the future with a 5 minute SMS reminder * * @author Daniel Walmsley * */


import java.io.IOException;

import java.net.MalformedURLException;

import java.net.URL;

import java.util.Date;

import java.util.List;
import com.google.gdata.client.calendar.CalendarService;

import com.google.gdata.data.DateTime;

import com.google.gdata.data.PlainTextConstruct;

import com.google.gdata.data.calendar.CalendarEntry;

import com.google.gdata.data.calendar.CalendarEventEntry;

import com.google.gdata.data.calendar.CalendarFeed;

import com.google.gdata.data.extensions.Reminder;

import com.google.gdata.data.extensions.When;

import com.google.gdata.data.extensions.Reminder.Method;

import com.google.gdata.util.AuthenticationException;

import com.google.gdata.util.ServiceException;
/**

 * This is a test template

 */
public class GCalNotifier {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		/**

		 * Command line args:

		 *

		 * username

		 * password

		 * calendar name (e.g. “Notifications”)

		 * TimeZone offset (in hours)

		 * event start offset (in minutes)

		 * event end offset (in minutes)

		 * title

		 * description

		 */
		try {
			// Create a new Calendar service

			CalendarService myService = new CalendarService(”GCal Event Notifier”);

			myService.setUserCredentials(args[0], args[1]);
			String calendarName = args[2];

			Long tzOffset = new Double(Double.parseDouble(args[3])).longValue() * 60 * 60 * 1000;

			Long startOffset = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(args[4])).longValue() * 60 * 1000;

			Long endOffset = new Integer(Integer.parseInt(args[5])).longValue() * 60 * 1000;

			String title = args[6];

			String description = args[7];
			// Get a list of all entries

			URL metafeedUrl = new URL(

					“http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/default/allcalendars/full”);

			System.out.println(”Getting Calendar entries…\n”);

			CalendarFeed resultFeed = myService.getFeed(metafeedUrl,

					CalendarFeed.class);

			List entries = resultFeed.getEntries();

			for (int i = 0; i < entries.size(); i++) {

				CalendarEntry entry = entries.get(i);

				String currCalendarName = entry.getTitle().getPlainText();

				System.out.println("\t" + currCalendarName);
				if (currCalendarName.equals(calendarName)) {

					sendDowntimeAlert(myService, entry,

							title, description, startOffset, endOffset, tzOffset);

				}

			}

			System.out.println("\nTotal Entries: " + entries.size());
		} catch (AuthenticationException e) {

			e.printStackTrace();

		} catch (MalformedURLException e) {

			e.printStackTrace();

		} catch (ServiceException e) {

			e.printStackTrace();

		} catch (IOException e) {

			e.printStackTrace();

		}

	}
	private static void sendDowntimeAlert(CalendarService myService,

			CalendarEntry entry, String title, String description, Long startOffset, Long endOffset, Long tzOffset) throws IOException,

			ServiceException {
		String postUrlString = entry.getLink("alternate", "application/atom+xml").getHref();
		URL postUrl = new URL(postUrlString);//was: "http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/jo@gmail.com/private/full"
		CalendarEventEntry myEntry = new CalendarEventEntry();
		myEntry.setTitle(new PlainTextConstruct(title));

		myEntry.setContent(new PlainTextConstruct(description));
		Date now = new Date();
		Date startDate = new Date(now.getTime()+startOffset);

		Date endDate = new Date(now.getTime()+endOffset);
		DateTime startTime = new DateTime(startDate.getTime()+tzOffset);
		DateTime endTime = new DateTime(endDate.getTime()+tzOffset);
		When eventTimes = new When();

		eventTimes.setStartTime(startTime);

		eventTimes.setEndTime(endTime);

		myEntry.addTime(eventTimes);
		// Send the request and receive the response:

		CalendarEventEntry insertedEntry = myService.insert(postUrl, myEntry);

		System.err.println("Got response for: "+insertedEntry.getTitle().getPlainText());

		for(When when : insertedEntry.getTimes()) {

			System.err.println("When: "+when.getStartTime()+" to "+when.getEndTime());

		}

//5 minute reminder Reminder reminder = new Reminder(); reminder.setMinutes(5); reminder.setMethod(Method.SMS); insertedEntry.getReminder().add(reminder); insertedEntry.update(); } }

Don’t forget, you’ll need to download the Google Data APIs and put their JARs in your classpath before this will work!

Personally I use this with Nagios. I always use the same args for the calendar offsets, so I’ve encapsulated most of my settings (except title and body) in a script.
#!/bin/sh


export SCRIPTDIR=/opt/calAlert

export USERNAME=username@gmail.com

export PW=mySecurePassword

export CAL=Notifications

export TZOFFSET=10

export STARTOFFSET=7

export ENDOFFSET=12

export TITLE=$1

export BODY=$2
#export CURRDIR=`pwd`

export CLASSPATH="${SCRIPTDIR}/calAlert.jar"

#assumes GData libs are in "libs" subdirectory of SCRIPTDIR
for jarfile in $(ls "${SCRIPTDIR}/lib")

do

    CLASSPATH="${CLASSPATH}:${SCRIPTDIR}/lib/${jarfile}"

    echo lib/${jarfile}

done
echo "CLASSPATH=${CLASSPATH}"
export CLASSPATH

java GCalNotifier ${USERNAME} ${PW} ${CAL} ${TZOFFSET} ${STARTOFFSET} ${ENDOFFSET} "${TITLE}" "${BODY}"

ACN Video Phone part XCVIII: The ACN-enning!

dan — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:46:21 +0000

This is the umpteenth in our ongoing saga of the ACN Video Phone. To bring any newcomers up to speed:

I was conned into meeting with an ACN representative under false pretenses, and blogged it. I don’t like the way ACN does business because it exploits family relationships, desperate and/or naive individuals, and the products don’t seem valuable.
I wrote a letter to the ACN representative trying to tell him my point of view — only fair after I’d given him 2 hours to tell me his.
Francis issued a sarcastic reply, so I reiterated my main point.
I started to discover documents around the web detailing ACN’s marketing techniques, and these tended to validate my position.
People started reporting on me in a seemingly half-positive, half-snide kind of way. I start to react in a fairly snarky way. Words make me feel powerful because I’m a paraplegic. But hey, I’ve been cynical before and usually been right.
I found out that the ACN video phone is nothing special, certainly not the exclusive, revolutionary item that ACN is trumpeting it as.
End of story, right? Nope. Because now I’m the #2 hit on Google when you search for “acn video phone“!

Most recently some readers began criticising my rhetorical style, claiming I’d been particularly unfair on one commenter and that this had discredited my arguments in their opinion.

That’s a shame, because I’m really quite obviously correct about ACN, even if I’m not correct about the motivations of certain commenters (and that point remains to be proven one way or the other).

(I would point out that if a commenter criticises me and also runs an ACN-based business, as the person in question does, I’m entitled to assume they’re biased)

So now! Another great and worthy comment criticising my overreaction to someone’s comment and failing to engage critically with my main point. I see a pattern forming.

Interesting that you would respond in that way to Ravi and have to agree with matsonian about the manner/tone in which you required acknowledgement of/for yourself in a prescribed manner and yet could not return the favour.

You, sir/ma’am, write like someone trying to sound smart! And failing!

At what point did I “require” anything from Ravi? And in a prescribed manner? Uh, nope.

Reeking with sarcasm and cynicism, why is it so hard to allow Ravi his freedom to be an entrepreneur (obviously) for his business?

I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that I was preventing Ravi from being an entrepreneur!

Well in that case: Ravi! You are freed! Quit your cage and fly, my pretty, and be an entrepreneur!

I was under the mistaken impression that I was telling him his ACN-based business generates little value for resellers or customers but rather plays on people’s desperation and nativete. My bad.

Whoops! There goes that sarcasm again.

Note that I don’t have a personal problem with Ravi, I just think he’s got a conflict of interest. I have a far bigger beef with ACN, though it’s still not something I ever think about unless someone comments on my site and I have to write another one of these articles.

And there is always a prescribed manner in which one does things in their work regardless of what type of work, employment, career that person has… wouldnt you agree?

I have no idea what you’re asking. You are being way, way too general.

If you’re talking about moral principles then yes, absolutely I would agree. For example, I think that lying and/or misrepresenting the profits that can be made from a home-based business by a global megalith like ACN is morally wrong.

I think that business should grow and individuals in that business should become wealthy based on the direct generation of value for consumers, not by selling someone a dream that is extremely unlikely to come true.

Life is full of dialogue and prescribed ways so in all fairness - live and let live ..?

I am living and letting live. In what way am I not? By writing about someone’s comment on my site that I own? You realise I actually approved his comment to go live, don’t you?

It’s not like I’m following this guy around or anything. I haven’t even sent him an email! How is that not living and letting live?

You’re weird, man.

My slightly crap comparison between ACN and Scientology

dan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:36:14 +0000

Reader Matsonian writes:

Wow dan. I was very interested in your post, until you attacked Ravi about how he responded to you. Oops… look I did it to. Compliment you on your post… wow, I must be trying to manipulate the argument. And then to throw Scientology into it? A bit intelectually off center, don’t you think?
I am interested in knowing if the Iris 3000 supports other protocals. In fact I found this forum because I was looking ot see if there was any way for me to use Skype video to call a video phone, and not just another Skype user. Any information would be helpful… thanks! (and lay off attacking others, just provide information, it gives you greater credibility… just look at our presidential race for guidance)

My response below:

Hi Matsonian,

You make a good point - I was rather too cynical about Ravi’s post. But then again, he’s an ACN reseller, so don’t I have reason to be?

I think my language was too negative. I do (in real life) tend to be the kind of person that gives others the benefit of the doubt, however everyone knows the online world can tempt us to vent for its own sake

The comparison with Scientology is actually valid, in my opinion. Scientologists (and I have spoken with quite a few over the years, at various levels of the organisation) are often trained using very particular negotiating techniques that typically represent a bit of traditional marketing, a bit of religious hyperbole, and some aspects of NLP.

Let me also make the point that there are many other organisations that operate similarly to ACN and to Scientology. I’m singling these out as case studies rather than saying “they’re the only two organisations in the world that practise network marketing”. Also, there are many distinctions between them, and I would agree that Scientology is much more insidious and generally crap for society. Nevertheless, a valid comparison can be made.

My first personal encounter with an ACN representative was very, very similar to encounters with Scientologists. He misrepresented his business to get me to come to the table (Scientologists do so using “free IQ tests”), and then used this opporunity to try and sell me mobile phone plans. I tried to find out more about his business model and plans, however at every point where a matter of hard facts was raised (e.g. “is this phone compatible with video phones from other manufacturers? Does it use the standards?”) he referred to material that was unavailable (”Oh, I’d have to ask my boss that”, or “that’s in the fine print”, or “I’m sure it’s compatible, but you’d have to check with head office”). The Scientologists respond in similar ways, though they also use that as an opportunity to sell you books (”You’d have to read the book to find that out”).

In addition, both Scientology and ACN exploit relationships with friends and family to grow their network (I’m not singling either out exclusively here - many other organisations do this too). Scientology does this by drawing a clear distinction between those that are potentially open to scientology, and those that are clearly not going to embrace it (they call them “suppressive personalities”). Scientology encourages you not to socialise at all with people who think Scientology is a load of crap.

ACN exploits familial relationships by encouraging members to recruit family and friends to be representatives of ACN. In fact, the whole focus of the organisation is heavily weighted towards growing the network over actually selling products. ACN members, I am sure, will be worded up on tactics to identify those that are open to this opportunity, and then either shut down or shut out those that aren’t.

I could go on, but I’m late for ice skating.

Thanks for reading my site! I’m sorry that my harsh response invalidated for you what was otherwise a fairly reasonable argument.

Cheers,
Dan

Has convenience come full circle?

dan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:12:30 +0000

An ad spotted on Facebook:

WTF? Michael Phelps? Isn’t the point of fad diets that they’re easier than becoming an Olympian?

The USS Condoleeza Rice

dan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:47:05 +0000

This made me laugh in the Huffington Post:

I don’t believe Condoleezza Rice can actually play piano. Everything else she’s ever touched has been a fraud and a catastrophe, why should her alleged musical abilities be any different? Think about it. Think about any event she’s been even remotely involved in since you first heard her name. An endless string of threats and blundering and arrogant bluffs turned squalid pigfucks. It’s not that she can’t do her job; she can’t do anything. I think when she plays piano the piano catches fire and the audience dies.

Cynically: Is it because she’s a black woman? We want so badly to believe that she’s in her position on merit because it means that gender and/or race are longer barriers to the highest office.

Then again, maybe her failure is actually a validation that we’ve moved yet further than that. Blacks, women, asians, transsexuals - there are so few barriers now that those who reach the highest office are just as mediocre as the old white men who’ve monopolised those positions for centuries.

It kinda makes me feel good about the world. She’s just another blinkered idiot in the White House.

Though, really, having an Exxon oil tanker named after you should have set a few alarm bells ringing when she first took office.

The ultimate expression of the contradictions of modern China

dan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:01:26 +0000

Smiley-face explosions.

That was one heck of an opening ceremony.

Gay!

dan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:14:13 +0000

Is the BBC getting ruder? I mean, I realise on some level they’re competing with Fox News, but… is this necessary?

Headline: Injury eased Olympic nerves - Gay

They’re just one exclamation mark away from discrimination. Go BBC!