Waffles Radio

Because if you don’t let off steam you’ll explode

FoxyTunes Update and Problems

FoxyTunes has updated (check the blog, it’s true).  I hate the way the new thing works.

OK, maybe hate is a strong word.  But really, FoxyTunes isn’t something that I need with the way I have Winamp set up.  Hotkeys can change the song being played without having to leave the keyboard and if a song comes up I can quickly have something pop up that tells me not only the artist and title, but also the album, track number on that album, and track number on the current playlist.  So in reality using FoxyTunes is a bit of a downgrade.

Here’s the feedback email I sent to FoxyTunes:

I run both Winamp (for the playing) and Media Monkey (for the organizing).  I’ll admit it might not be the most efficient way to do things, but it’s the way I like to do it.

So here’s the problem.  When I have both Media Monkey and Winamp open Foxytunes will switch between saying Winamp is idle (or not show anything in the old versions) and showing what is playing.  To the best of my knowledge it shows nothing/idle when Media Monkey was opened first and shows what is playing correctly when Winamp was opened first.

Before the current version I would just switch my player to Media Monkey then back to Winamp to have things show up correctly (I’m assuming it would work if I switched it to anything, I just don’t remember every actually doing that).  Now that 3.5 has rolled out when I switch to Winamp it stops whatever song is playing.  I hope I don’t have to tell you how annoying it is to have to think about opening programs in a certain order so that I can have Foxytunes show the songs correctly, and then having to replay part of a song if I opened things in the wrong order.

I have 2 ideas, and I understand that it might be impossible to get either of them to work.

First, it would be nice if Foxytunes would be able to ignore the fact that Media Monkey is open if I have it set up to look at Winamp for the currently playing information.

Second, I would really like to know how I can get my music to not stop when I switch Foxytunes to the currently playing player.  It didn’t do this before, so I know it’s not something that the program has to do.

I know it says you can’t reply.  I’m giving you my email address anyway in case you decide to follow up on this and need to get in contact with me.  osbornec3@gmail.com

I hope to see this corrected quickly.  I like using FoxyTunes, but I also have a hotkey set up for Winamp that brings up the notification window which gives me more information than the status bar for FoxyTunes does.

It’s true.  I know my setup is weird, and I don’t expect things to go perfectly.  I also know that I can have Media Monkey set up to use Winamp as the player and then no matter what it will show the correct information.  But my friends and I have also accidently told songs to play  while I was playing something else, so I prefer to have Media Monkey on it’s own player.

Really, is it too much to ask that FoxyTunes doesn’t stop my music on its own?

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Getting Peed On

I’ve decided to start keeping short entries about things that won’t change my mind about teaching.

First, we have getting peed on.  Yesterday I was holding a kid who swore he didn’t have to use the bathroom.  He did.  Luckily I’d ridden my bike to work so I had an extra shirt with me.  Also luckily I was in a good mood anyway, plus we were near the end of the day.

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Character Battle

It’s time to add some fun to this place.  So with that in mind (and the rush to get super hero movies out on the market), I’m going to host a Character Battle.  The breakdown will go as follows:

1. Marvel Super Heroes.
2. DC Super Heroes
3. Video Game Super Heroes
4. TV/Movie Super Heroes

So let’s get those nominations in.  Top 8 from each category gets into the battle.

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IRB Approval Pending

After the masterpiece of last Thursday/Friday (where I got the informed consent, debreifing, survery, IRB form, slept, and went to class in around 24 hours) things are out of my hands for the next bit.  My stuff has been sent to Winthrop’s IRB chair for approval.  Basically they’re looking to make sure that I’m not going to scar anyone psychologically and that I have measures in place to protect privacy.

Now I get to sit around and wait for that final approval to come through.  What fun.  Can’t order pictures because I have to make sure the ones I picked aren’t too bad.  Can’t do any part of the study.  All I can do is call Carowinds.

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I Hate Random Warm Weather

Don’t get me wrong, I like warm weather.  I just don’t like 70 degree February days when I know that colder days are coming.  It shouldn’t jump from 70 to 40 in less than a week.

Plus, there’s something that makes people think they’re allowed to dress like a whore.  Not cool.  Yes, it’s warm all of a sudden.  And you finally won’t freeze if you wear those really short shorts.  But that doesn’t mean I want to see you in them.

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25 Things

This is going around Facebook, but I thought I’d post it here as well.  After all, the posts from all 3 of my blogs get sucked into Facebook anyway.¹  So, here it goes.

1. I feel like I’m an idea person more than an actual getting things done person.  Which really sucks when I think of a good idea and then someone wants me to get it done.
2. In that same vein, I tend to get caught up in things.  When I find a band that I like, I want to hear as much from them as possible.  After I got Fear of a Blank Planet I listened to it just about every night when going to bed for about a month.  The nights that I listened to something else I switched to a different Porcupine Tree album.
3. College is the first place where I felt like I could really establish myself.  Which isn’t to say that anywhere else was bad, but being a military kid I was always either the new kid at school or on my way out.  And that tends to make it so people don’t think about you for everything or don’t want to get too invested in someone who isn’t going to be around pretty soon.
4. I’m the subject of a game where people try to find me.  Kind of like Where’s Waldo.  And honestly, I don’t really understand why or how it started.
5. My favorite color is black.  Not because I feel all dark or I’m secretly a Goth kid or I think the world sucks.  I just like how it compliments other colors.
6. I’ve tried before to have a calendar that I actually kept up with.  Dilbert my sophomore year didn’t work, neither did old maps last year.  And for that matter, neither did the Sudoku last year but that was a daily and a lot of people don’t keep up with those.  Ironically, at least to me, the procrastinator’s calendars that I’m using right now seem to be a great fit.
7. I waited this long to talk about my girlfriend because for some reason I’ve decided that she equals seven.  I don’t understand that, but it just seems to make sense.  I’m glad she’s so wonderful, because otherwise that would be really weird.
8. I love music.  I’m a self described music whore.  Vinyl sounds a lot better that all of this high-fi stuff.
9. I like coffee.  I’ll drink black, but I prefer to have creamer in it.  I like flavor in the morning.
10. I love watching bad movies, as long as I’m expecting them to be that way.  Lady in the Water wasn’t worth the $1.50 I paid to see it.  Butterfly Effect 2 was awesome.
11. I’m a photographer.  I shoot sports for The Johnsonian and love it.  Floor seats are so much better than seat seats, even though the difference is only a few feet.
12. I work at a preschool playing with 4 year olds.  It’s the best job in the world, partly because they’re all either smarter than me or 2.
13. I like tinkering with my computer.  Right now I have a theme designed to look like Linux, AutoHotkey so I can open the programs I use a lot with a key combination, and two separate docs (Mac style) so I can get to other things faster.
14. I tried Linux.  And as much as I like the idea of free stuff, I don’t think I’ll be trying it again until I can get the wireless internet stuff to work.
15. I’ve only had 2 roommates in college, and haven’t had problems with either of them.  Which I think is an accomplishment considering I know some people who either never had a good roommate or had so many it’s not even funny.  I think it’s because both I and the roommates are pretty laid back about most things.
16. My musical tastes are, to put it bluntly, interesting.  Mostly I like hard rock and metal.  Then I turn around and listen to a bunch of Chopin stuff.  Goes to some rap.  Check out the list of what I have and see for yourself.
17. If you followed that last link you can probably tell that I like odd covers of things.  Why else would I have lullaby renditions of Metallica and Nine Inch Nails?  I like the covers to be different.
18. I’m weirdly organized about things.  My CDs are organized in the CD books chronologically within artists by release date.  Artists are next to each other based on what I think makes sense, which doesn’t always make sense to other people.
19. I never really got into basketball until I got to Winthrop.  I’d always liked to play (although I wasn’t ever really that good at it), and I’d watch the occasional game.  But once I started going to Winthrop games I was hooked.  Now I don’t miss a game unless it’s absolutely necessary.
20. I think Dr. Pepper tastes like vanilla ice cream.  And I’m not the only one, my brother agrees with me.  My girlfriend thinks I’m an idiot.  Which is true in most cases, but with this one she’s wrong.
21. I don’t get sick a lot.  When I do and it’s more than a cold, I’m a giant baby about it.  I guess it comes with being forced into a situation you’re not used to.
22. Whenever I play a sports video game I create myself.  I also tend to make myself really good.  That shouldn’t be a surprise.
23. I tend to make a mess of things.  I want my desk to be clean enough to actually use all of, and so far that isn’t happening for more than a day at a time.
24. For the most part I’d much rather watch a movie at home than at the theater.  You can make fun of things there, and pause it, and make sure you can hear everything that you need to.
25. I really try not to Facebook stalk people.  I just think it’s creepy.

1. Check out this post on Juggle Chainsaws for more about that. [↩]

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We Want Jonnie

Let me preface this by saying that I’m writing this because I want to, not because anyone has asked me too.  With that said, let’s get on with the rest of this thing that I’m writing?

What the hell is Peele thinking?  The men’s basketball coach at Winthrop either doesn’t know how to count or just hates Jonnie Rice.  Or maybe it’s Gary McCann who covers men’s basketball for Winthrop.  I can’t figure out which problem is going on or whose problem it is.  In an article appearing in The Herald on Friday Februaru 6 about the effects of Reggie Middleton’s season ending injury, McCann wrote the following statement:

With Middleton out and Robinson’s status uncertain, Peele called his player rotation “a mess.” Heading into Saturday’s game at Liberty, Peele has nine healthy players.

Excuse me, but when I count the players on the roster I see 10 who aren’t injured somehow and are eligible to play.  Raymond Davis, Justin Burton, Cameron Stanely, Marc-David Vil, Andre Jones, Byron Faison, Chris Malcom, Chalres Corbin, George Valentine, and Jonnie Rice.  Yeah, that’s 10 and not 9.

In an article in Saturday February 7’s paper, McCann has this to say:

Peele’s dilemma tonight is figuring out how to get after the Flames with the possibility of just eight scholarship players available while lacking his best playmaker, defender and rebounder.

That’s better, but not by much.  At least here he’s only counting scholarship players.  And the missing player in this equation is Charles Corbin, which is how we got down to 8.  But that still leaves Jonnie available to play.

Look, I get that Jonnie is a walk on who averaged 3 points a game in high school.  He’s not exactly going to light it up when he plays.  And I get that he got on the team under Marshall.  And I understand how last year he didn’t play a lot because of the team bringing in Andy Buechert, Corbin, and Valentine.

But let’s look at the facts.  In Jonnie’s first two years here (when Gregg Marshall was the coach) he managed to get into 35 games (13 freshman year and 22 sophomore year).  During the 2006-2007 season Jonnie saw action in games on the road.  Since Peele took over he’s only played in home games.  Hell, ESPN gives him credit for a start.  Granted he has 0 minutes in that game, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he saw action in road games.

Later today Winthrop travels up to Liberty.  We’re down our starting point guard and our best defender for sure.  We might be down one of our inside players too.  We have to every game for the rest of the season, win the conference tournament, and somehow get into the secound round of the NCAA tournament to even finish with a .500 record.  If Peele doesn’t find a way to get Jonnie into a game that will cause a bigger problem with me than anything else that has happened with the team this year.

One final thing to look at before I go.  Under Marshall Jonnie got to play 143 minutes, which I think is a better indicator that games played anyway.  Under Peele so far, he’s gotten to play in 28 minutes.  If things keep going at the pace they’re on now, there’s a good chance that Jonnie will have played in more minutes during his freshman year than in his junior and senior year’s combined.  And that’s just not right.

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How to Import Posts From Multiple Blogs Into Facebook

If you have multiple blogs, then picking one to import into Facebook’s notes can be a pain.  I’ve rotated between Sapid Existence and Waffles Radio, even had this one for a bit, and never really felt comfortable being forced to pick one and leaving the others out.  I’d also seen other blog posts saying that you can use the Yahoo Pipes service.  But I’ve figured out a way around that, and you don’t even have to sign up for anything.

The solution is an RSS Aggregator (I use ChimpFeedr).  The process works pretty much the same way as the Pipes solution, but without the required sign up.  Put in the feeds that you want to combine and hit the button to combine them (in this case it’s labeled “Chomp Chomp!”.)

The only downside is that if you lose the address to the combined feed for some reason there’s no way to get it back.  But it’s such a simple process that doing the work again shouldn’t be a problem unless you’re combining a lot of RSS feeds.

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And Now The Fun Begins

Due to a large rush in donations, I now have around $335 to play with for my honors’ thesis.  Which means that I won’t be as relient on Carowinds to give me a deal on ticket prices in order to get tickets and still have money left over.

It also means that I won’t have to get prints and mount them onto science fair boards.  I had toyed with the idea of getting standouts from Mpix before, but never thought that would actually happen.  Now it can.

I’m not doing this just because I can, I’m doing it because I will be adding a level of control that I thought before I would have to sacrifice.  If I was putting things on a science fair board I would open myself up to differences in picture height from the table, which might not make a big difference but you never know.  Now everything will sit directly on the table.¹

The next three steps (in no particular order) to e-mail the art professors at Winthrop Univeristy and ask if they can either let me have some class time to do my study there or at least highly encourage their students to come participate in the study, make the final decisions on which pictures will be used, and call Carowinds about getting tickets.  I’ll probably still see if they can get me a deal.  I’ll be able to offer more prizes that way, which hopefully will translate into more people wanting to participate in the study.

1. I know, I’m a dork.  But even though this is quasi experimental I want to control as many things as possible. [↩]

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Incentive Changes and Donations Update

I was thinking and talking to a few people and thought that instead of offering discounts at restaurants (where most likely you’d still have to spend some money) I would offer tickets to Carowinds.  The way I see it, people will have more fun with this and I won’t have to guess at what restaurants people will like.

The best part is that this shouldn’t cost me any more money, and could end up costing me less.  At worst I would pay $145.98 for two full price 2 day tickets with a parking pass for all 4 days.  At best, well, I’ll have to talk to the Carowinds ticket office to see if they can knock anything off for me.  Even if they can’t knock anything off, I can get 2 full price single day tickets and a parking pass for both.

Also, we have a donations update.  I have now collected $93.63.  I’m amazed at the generosity of people.

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