James MacAulay Has An Internet!

Here’s how:

You could probably shave a minute off the process by using this rails template to generate your app:

rails my_shopify_app -m http://github.com/jamesmacaulay/rails-templates/raw/master/shopify_app.rb

Over at Overcoming Bias, the Bayesian sensation Eliezer Yudkowsky is syndicating a wonderful SF tale he wrote called Three Worlds Collide. Here’s a snippet from part one, describing just the tip of the iceberg of how alien an alien system of ethics could be:

“And anyone who tried to cheat, to hide away a child, or even go easier on their own children during the winnowing – well, the Babyeaters treated the merciful parents the same way that human tribes treat their traitors.

“They developed psychological adaptations for enforcing that, their first great group norm. And those psychological adaptations, those emotions, were reused over the course of their evolution, as the Babyeaters began to adapt to their more complex societies. Honor, friendship, the good of our tribe – the Babyeaters acquired many of the same moral adaptations as humans, but their brains reused the emotional circuitry of infanticide to do it.

“The Babyeater word for good means, literally, to eat children.”

It just gets better from there. He’s halfway through releasing the eight-part story, and I am thoroughly engrossed.

This site now has an alter-ego in the form of a new tumblelog that I’m using exclusively as an outlet for photos uploaded from my iPhone. Phumblelog = photo-tumblelog (or perhaps phone-tumblelog? What about “mumblelog” for mobile-tumblelog?).

Our lives are full of little moments that are kind of funny, or kind of beautiful, or just kind of interesting, enough to be recorded and shared with others. I like the idea of using the internet to record these moments, even if no one else ever actually follows along. I use this blog to write for other people, but I think the phumblelog is more for myself. I value it more in an archival sense: when I think back on my life so far, I wish I could have been phumblelogging the whole time. I think that would be an amazing resource to have.

My iPhone is usually the only camera I have with me, but aside from its low image quality it is perfectly suited to this task. I’m using the excellent tumblr for my phumbling. I’m not using my flickr account because this phumblelog is very explicitly sacrificing photographic quality for quantity and spontaneity. I got Bitfire’s Tumble Pro to let me start phumbling from anywhere, and I bootstrapped the site with a few older shots from my iPhone that I particularly liked.

Tumble Pro is pretty nice. The app’s geotagging system is much appreciated but seems a bit buggy; I’ve now started turning it off and on again in the app’s settings before each post to make sure it really has my location. The relatively low accuracy of the iPhone 3G’s GPS makes me want a quick way of re-positioning the co-ordinates on a map (any suggestions?). I find the text of the geotag a bit distracting in the caption the way it is, but it wouldn’t be so bad if I styled the caption like a caption instead of like a header. I might end up making a little javascript which takes the geotag from the caption and turns it into a link target for the image itself.

It takes a little longer than I’d like to upload an iPhone photo over 3G, but overall it is very convenient. I tend to just tap the “post” button and then put the phone in my coat pocket and keep walking (or whatever) while it uploads.

The iPhones of the near future are undoubtedly going to make it easy to do audio and video tumbling/phumbling/mumbling as well. Perhaps other mobile phones can already do such things. Screw flying cars, am I right?

MONTREAL — Richard Stallman auctioned off (a plush) Gnu at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference on Saturday, with the winning bid going to Microsoft tech evangelist Joey deVilla using his Microsoft corporate credit card.

I was lucky enough to witness this historic event in the flesh, and snapped this blurry iPhone photo so that the interwebs could see it as soon as possible. Joey’s blog, however, has much better photos and explanation.

I grew up here in Ottawa, and I have fond high school memories of going to the Mayfair Theatre with friends to experience its wonderful atmosphere and unique blend of off-the-beaten-path programming. One memorable evening was Mayfair’s 3D triple-bill, which provided old school 3D glasses and included the likes of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Just about every month there would be a screening of Baraka (likely as part of a double bill with Microcosmos). Another particularly inspired bit of scheduling was the Pi/Eraserhead/Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb triple-bill night. I mean, Jesus. Anyone who’s seen those three films can appreciate the noteworthiness of a theatre that will put them together like that.

The trouble was that starting around 2001 or 2002, the programming really went downhill. The second-run screenings of hollywood flicks that had always played a necessary but minor role in the Mayfair’s schedule started becoming the major focus of the theatre, and I quickly lost any motivation to keep up to date with the theatre’s monthly schedules. There were still worthwhile things going on at the Mayfair, like the raucous annual halloween Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings. But the glory days of eagerly anticipating the next monthly schedule to see what treasures lay in store were sadly long gone.

A few months ago I heard that the theatre was going out of business, and my sadness was both for the end of the theatre and for the fact that its best times were so far in the past.

Imagine the smile on my face when I learned that the business was being bought by a group of local filmmakers and film aficionados with the promise of bringing the old spirit of the Mayfair back along with renovations to the theatre itself. I went to their grand re-opening on Friday, and was not disappointed. It was a free screening of a recent 35mm print of Metropolis, preceded by a collection of short films from Ottawa filmmakers. Hors d’oeuvres and cake were laid out for the lucky ones who actually came early enough to get into the theatre (there were a couple hundred waiting outside to get in for Metropolis, apparently, hoping for some of us to leave). Beer was served, which I believe will now be a regular occurrence at the Mayfair.

The real kicker, though, was the live band accompanying Metropolis with music based on the original score to the silent film. The band was mostly members of the Hilotrons, and their roughly two-hour-long performance was exceptional; they were spot-on throughout the whole film and they didn’t have any breaks or intermissions to catch their breath. I shot up in standing ovation as soon as the credits started rolling.

The schedule so far is looking great (Eraserhead this Friday at midnight! James Bond double-bills all month!), and also happens to be available as a Google Calendar. Very smart. They’ve got an active presence going on Facebook. Et cetera. Basically the new management is doing a lot of things right, and I hope it is enough to keep them in business showing interesting films for a long time. If you live in Ottawa, or are ever here for a visit, do yourself a favour and see what’s playing at this beautiful cinema.