Megan: dad said "both of you were bff, and now again bff"
me: where did he learn that word.
Megan: i do not know
i was gonna ask YOU
me: we need to put parental controls on the tv
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
tweet tweet
If you don't use twitter, you won't care about this post. FYI.
I wrote a little python commandline script to tell me followers I've gained and lost. The gained part twitter already implements (you can get emailed or just visit your follower page; new followers are at the top) but it doesn't give me a way of seeing who has stopped following me, and I got curious when I saw the numbers fluctuate a lot. I have been meaning to hook this up as a cron job to email me once a day; that way one could theoretically track if certain tweets are making people unsubscribe :) I need to install some mail server thing on my machine though.
This was a tiny little twitter-related project to poke at the API when i was sick, not something i did because i'm really crazy about who is following me (i realize you probably don't believe that). If anyone knows how to adjust the code so that I don't constantly run into the 100 requests/hour limit, please let me know. Oh, and I did not pay attention to performance, robustness, or portability when writing this so don't make fun of me.
If you want to use it, download the script, make a subfolder called "gold" and run
python tw.py gen neha
to generate a gold file of who is following neha, and
python tw.py diff neha
to see followers neha has gained/lost since the last time you ran it. After the initial gen you will not need to run it again unless you want to fastforward a lot.
I wrote a little python commandline script to tell me followers I've gained and lost. The gained part twitter already implements (you can get emailed or just visit your follower page; new followers are at the top) but it doesn't give me a way of seeing who has stopped following me, and I got curious when I saw the numbers fluctuate a lot. I have been meaning to hook this up as a cron job to email me once a day; that way one could theoretically track if certain tweets are making people unsubscribe :) I need to install some mail server thing on my machine though.
This was a tiny little twitter-related project to poke at the API when i was sick, not something i did because i'm really crazy about who is following me (i realize you probably don't believe that). If anyone knows how to adjust the code so that I don't constantly run into the 100 requests/hour limit, please let me know. Oh, and I did not pay attention to performance, robustness, or portability when writing this so don't make fun of me.
If you want to use it, download the script, make a subfolder called "gold" and run
python tw.py gen neha
to generate a gold file of who is following neha, and
python tw.py diff neha
to see followers neha has gained/lost since the last time you ran it. After the initial gen you will not need to run it again unless you want to fastforward a lot.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
harsh but true
Wow.
- Nick Denton, interview on Advertising Age
People -- particularly if they're under 40 -- have news priorities other than those of the editors of The New York Times or producers of the "NBC Nightly News." A new tablet from Apple -- or last night's episode of "Gossip Girl" or the adventures of the hipster grifter -- is a bigger deal than the latest petty scandal in Albany. You think that's a damning indictment of modern society and a recipe for idiocracy? Fine. Start a nonprofit to cover all the local-government news you think a healthy society needs. But don't expect advertisers -- or commercially-minded publishers or readers, for that matter -- to share your interests.
- Nick Denton, interview on Advertising Age
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
SIM cards in Germany
I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart. And also because I enjoy complaining about it but people have stopped listening to me.
So, you're going to Germany. Great! Oh but you're worried about not having a mobile phone? No problem! SIM cards are easy to purchase and you can probably google around and figure out how to unlock your phone. Unless you have Sprint or Verizon, in which case go hide under a rock until you feel ready to join the rest of the modern world on GSM. Do not just "use" your regular US phone abroad (it will probably work), unless 1) you are very rich and 2) looking at ridiculous bills doesn't give you a splitting headache. If you're fine with that, then go right ahead.
If you hate actually talking, then clearly a phone is not enough and you also need a data plan. I recommend blau.de. Setup is a little tricky though, as all instructions and messages and the entire website are in German.
You can purchase a blau.de SIM card at places that sell ePlus once you're in Germany, which is nice. It's about 20 euros, but that comes with 20 euros of credit. The shop keeper can set it up for you, but he will need an address in Germany for the form.
Once set up, you basically just need the first PIN to activate the SIM card and be able to make calls. You can turn off the need to enter it over and over in your phone. At the time of this post, blau.de had 1 GB of data in a month for 9.90 euros, a pretty good deal. I even used it to tether to my laptop and I didn't use anywhere near the whole GB in two weeks. You order it by calling 1155, and following the menus: press 8, press 1, press 2, and then (THIS IS IMPORTANT) pressing 1 again to confirm. Do not use data until you receive TWO text messages (the first will come immediately and say that you ordered it, the second will come within 2 hours and say that it's ready).
To enable data, set up a new APN. APN internet.eplus.de, username eplus password eplus. Especially if you are using the G1 (google phone), DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOU GET THE SECOND TEXT MESSAGE. Otherwise your stupid phone will churn through your credit eating data while it downloads a whole new android operating system. Sigh.
Notice that I haven't told you how to reload your credit. At the time of this posting, they wouldn't take credit cards with an American address. I managed to convince them to do it once but I still had to call customer service number (which costs like 0,30 euro per minute) every time I wanted to recharge, and my friend couldn't do it at all. If you have a credit card attached to a German address, you can do all of this through the website. Run it through google translate.
Good luck and have a great time in Germany!
So, you're going to Germany. Great! Oh but you're worried about not having a mobile phone? No problem! SIM cards are easy to purchase and you can probably google around and figure out how to unlock your phone. Unless you have Sprint or Verizon, in which case go hide under a rock until you feel ready to join the rest of the modern world on GSM. Do not just "use" your regular US phone abroad (it will probably work), unless 1) you are very rich and 2) looking at ridiculous bills doesn't give you a splitting headache. If you're fine with that, then go right ahead.
If you hate actually talking, then clearly a phone is not enough and you also need a data plan. I recommend blau.de. Setup is a little tricky though, as all instructions and messages and the entire website are in German.
You can purchase a blau.de SIM card at places that sell ePlus once you're in Germany, which is nice. It's about 20 euros, but that comes with 20 euros of credit. The shop keeper can set it up for you, but he will need an address in Germany for the form.
Once set up, you basically just need the first PIN to activate the SIM card and be able to make calls. You can turn off the need to enter it over and over in your phone. At the time of this post, blau.de had 1 GB of data in a month for 9.90 euros, a pretty good deal. I even used it to tether to my laptop and I didn't use anywhere near the whole GB in two weeks. You order it by calling 1155, and following the menus: press 8, press 1, press 2, and then (THIS IS IMPORTANT) pressing 1 again to confirm. Do not use data until you receive TWO text messages (the first will come immediately and say that you ordered it, the second will come within 2 hours and say that it's ready).
To enable data, set up a new APN. APN internet.eplus.de, username eplus password eplus. Especially if you are using the G1 (google phone), DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOU GET THE SECOND TEXT MESSAGE. Otherwise your stupid phone will churn through your credit eating data while it downloads a whole new android operating system. Sigh.
Notice that I haven't told you how to reload your credit. At the time of this posting, they wouldn't take credit cards with an American address. I managed to convince them to do it once but I still had to call customer service number (which costs like 0,30 euro per minute) every time I wanted to recharge, and my friend couldn't do it at all. If you have a credit card attached to a German address, you can do all of this through the website. Run it through google translate.
Good luck and have a great time in Germany!
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