Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Vivitar 28mm Lens Bestiary Updated

Vivitar K01 frontFor some time I have been keeper of the Great Vivitar Bestiary, a listing of every variant of 28mm lens Vivitar made to fit Pentax cameras. This includes TX mount, M42, K and KA. (It's of use to fans of Nikon etc. as well, since lenses exist to fit other brands.) Now I can announce that this site has been updated with new variants, images of each lens and a full database of information, albeit with lots of gaps for you to help fill in.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Cuisle Poetry Festival Now On

Ed O'Dwyer at his reading for CuisleFans of poetry will be busy the next few days in Limerick as the Cuisle International Poetry Festival kicks off once again. The first event was a lunch-time reading (complete with lunch) at the Hunt Museum, by Limerick poet Ed O'Dwyer. He has had poems published widely and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series this year. I believe "up and coming" is the phrase used!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Blogger "Related Posts" Code

In a previous post I noted that there is no easy way to write conditional code based on which categories a post belongs to. In Blogger a category is called a "label". In this site I use labels to denote which section an article belongs to. So for me "category", "label" and "section" are the same thing. (Just saying, in case my terminology gets confusing!)

This is an issue because before now, if you were reading a specific post on this site, you would have no indication of what section that article belonged to. I wish to not only make this obvious, but also present other page code based on the current section. I found the hints of a solution from an article on WebUpd8. As a step towards integration, I decided to implement their method of listing Related Posts. This article will present my optimisations to their code.
Monday, October 11, 2010

New Subscription Options And Other Changes

I have made a few changes to the site once again. As mentioned in my last post, I corrected a template error that had two sets of social networking buttons appear on each post. I have also ditched the subscription buttons in the sidebar, replacing them with simple links that give you a new option.

If you are viewing the entire blog ("all" option on the menu) then you have the option to subscribe to "all posts" or "all comments". But if you are viewing one of the section pages, you also have the choice to subscribe to just the posts in that section. This means that if you visit the Theatre of Noise only to read about photography, you can limit your subscription to photography posts. Of course, this means that you will miss things like this very announcement you are currently reading, so maybe also subscribe to the entire site and give it a lower priority in your reading schedule.
Monday, October 11, 2010

Simple Tips For Editing Blogger Code

Blogger sometimes has a mind of its own. If you visited here recently you may have noticed that there were two sets of social networking buttons below each post. That is because the default Blogger set were showing up alongside the custom set I had inserted -- even though I had told Blogger not to display their own. Nothing I could do in the Page Elements screen seemed to effect this, so instead I deleted the offending code directly in the Edit HTML section. I'll now offer you some simple tips for making this editing process safer and easier.
Saturday, October 02, 2010

Bastt

Bastt with shadow
Bastt is a protector figure. She stays with me and looks out for my well-being, but only so long as I don't ask any special favours. It is important to never ask, but instead simply be open. Be a good receiver. This is also true in electromagnetism and communications theory.

Of course this is not really Bastt but merely one of her totems, a replica of a larger statue in the British Museum. I can feel her tracking me always from that immense building off Russell Square. This might make some nervous but to me it is reassuring.

I broke her ear but don't remember how. Bastt sucked the memory out of my head. It's better this way.

Though I leave this totem at home she has bound one of my fingers with a silver band, a ring of the sun, so that we might never be parted.

grasp