Pharnabazus has an excellent essay on political and historical makeup of the Harry Potterverse called Expecto Patronus: or How the Wizarding World Really Works. The various comments are also quite interesting.
Comments Off on Essay on the Wizarding WorldI have posted tonight’s chat transcript.
Comments Off on Latest Succubus Club Chat Transcript… as if thousands of bloggers cried out and then were silenced.
Turns out that bloggers who had their websites hosted on weblogs.com for free (about 3000 total) had them shut down today without any notice.
I know very little about Dave “Darth” Winer, apart from his associaton with Radio Userland. I have been to his website on occasion. I do understand that he was providing the service for free and feel that he is completely within his rights legally and morally to stop doing so. I just think his decison to pull the plug without any notice was wrong. I thought of this analogy:
You are looking for a place to store some of your belongings. A fairly well-know person in the neighborhood says that you can store them for free at his place and get them at any time. He does this for quite a few other people. Then one day, you go over to his place to pick up some of your possessions and find out the door is barricaded shut. There is a sign saying that the host has decided not to offer storage anymore. The sign says that you can get your stuff if you leave a note saying you still want your stuff, but you will have to come back in two weeks for them.
While no analogy is perfect, I think this one is pretty close. While the owner is certainly within his rights to ask you to remove your belongings, locking you out from them without any notice is wrong.
Hat Tips:
Jeneane Sessum at Allied
Aristide posted a question in the guestbook about when I will update the website.
Here are my plans, subject to the vagaries of real life:
I love Google. Not just because of its usefulness as a search engine. What I really like is their new G-Mail Service. Mind you, I don’t use it or plan to, but I really love it.
Why? Because I have a paid account at Yahoo! Mail and today I got an e-mail from them telling me the following:
I know Yahoo didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts (though I presume their hearts are in the right place)… they did this in order to compete effectively against Google’s new E-mail service.
Which is why I love Google.
Comments Off on I Love Google!Sorry about the site being down for most of today. Appparently, the server LaunchPad Zero was on at my hosting provider (Powweb) had severe hardware difficulties.
Comments Off on Site Down TodayWrote some one-shot VBA code to move stuff around between a couple of Excel worksheets:
Public Function CompareTT(T_Div As String, T_ST As String, T_Add As String, _
S_Div As String, S_ST As String, S_Add As String) As Integer
'Returns -1 for "<", 0 for "=", 1 for ">" .
Dim Temp As Integer<br>
T_Div = Trim(LCase(T_Div)): T_ST = Trim(LCase(T_ST)): T_Add = Trim(LCase(T_Add))
S_Div = Trim(LCase(S_Div)): S_ST = Trim(LCase(S_ST)): S_Add = Trim(LCase(S_Add))
Temp = StrComp(T_Div, S_Div, vbTextCompare)
If Temp <> 0 Then
CompareTT = Temp
Exit Function
End If
Temp = StrComp(T_ST, S_ST, vbTextCompare)
If Temp <> 0 Then
CompareTT = Temp
Exit Function
End If
CompareTT = StrComp(T_Add, S_Add, vbTextCompare)
End Function
Public Sub CopyTT()
Dim Source As Range, Target As Range
Dim SourceRow As Integer, TargetRow As Integer
Dim CompareValue As Integer
Dim TempFormula As String
Dim SFormulaReplace As String
Dim TFormulaReplace As String
Const cDIV As Integer = 1
Const cST As Integer = 5
Const cAddress As Integer = 2
Const cHardWare As Integer = 13
Const cYearBuilt As Integer = 17
Const cSqFt As Integer = 19
Const cOccupancy As Integer = 21
Set Source = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Source").Cells
Set Target = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Target").Cells
SourceRow = 4: TargetRow = 4
Do While Source(SourceRow, cDIV) <> ""
CompareValue = CompareTT(Target(TargetRow, cDIV), _
Target(TargetRow, cST), _
Target(TargetRow, cAddress), _
Source(SourceRow, cDIV), _
Source(SourceRow, cST), _
Source(SourceRow, cAddress))
Select Case CompareValue
Case -1
TargetRow = TargetRow + 1
Case 0
'Calculate new formula
TempFormula = Source(SourceRow, cHardWare).Formula
SFormulaReplace = "Y" & SourceRow
TFormulaReplace = "Y" & TargetRow
TempFormula = Replace(TempFormula, SFormulaReplace, TFormulaReplace)
Target(TargetRow, cHardWare).Formula = TempFormula
Target(TargetRow, cYearBuilt) = Source(SourceRow, cYearBuilt)
Target(TargetRow, cSqFt) = Source(SourceRow, cHardWare)
Target(TargetRow, cOccupancy) = Source(SourceRow, cOccupancy)
TargetRow = TargetRow + 1
SourceRow = SourceRow + 1
Case 1
SourceRow = SourceRow + 1
End Select
Loop
Set Source = Nothing: Set Target = Nothing
End Sub
Sure it’s a hack, but it worked. It certainly beat looking through 500 rows of excel that span 30 columns and manually copying everything over.
Comments Off on What I Did At Work TodayI went to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with a friend yesterday. The interesting thing is how different our reactions were. I was thoroughly spoiled from reading online reviews and the Harry Potter mailing lists I subscribe to. She has read the books for times but is not part of the online Harry Potter community at all.
I knew the movie was very different from the book. She didn’t and it kept surprising her. She must have whispered “that wasn’t in the book” at least a dozen times through the course of the film and told me at the end that she just didn’t enjoy it as much as the first two films. I, on the other hand, liked Prisoner of Azkaban a great deal though I think it had a great many flaws as well.
Some of my observations/comments on the film in no particular order (warning – spoilers ahead):
(more…)
Fic Title: The Slayer In Question
Author: Booster
Links: The Slayer In Question on Twisting The Hellmouth, The Slayer In Question on Fanfiction.net
Content: Rated PG-13 by author.
Status: Complete
Rating: G-Good
Don Sample makes a recommendation on alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer.creative for the The Slayer In Question. I’d like to second that recommendation.
The Season 5 Angel episode, The Girl In Question, was not one of the better episodes of the series. I found it rather boring and other people actively disliked it. The Slayer In Question gives that episode an entirely new meaning.
Booster doesn’t change any of the scenes of The Girl In Question, he merely adds new ones showing background events which places that episode in an entirely new context. His characterization of Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies is pretty good and his new scenes blend seemlessly into the events of the episode.
While I prefer long, epic-length fics, The Slayer In Question is an excellent short story. I hope to read more of Booster’s stuff in the future.
Comments Off on The Slayer In QuestionFic Title: Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness
Author: kyc639
Links: Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness on Fanfiction.net
Content: Mystery story. Rated PG-13 by author.
Status: Complete
Rating: A-Acceptable
Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness by kyc639 is mystery story set after Harry Potter leaves Hogwarts and becomes an auror. It is a Harry/Hermione shipper fic, although that is not the main plotline.
I have mixed feelings about this story – it is well written from a grammatical point of view and has lots of potential. Harry’s characterization is well done and the original character of Robert Toms is rather interesting. The groundwork for the mystery is laid out rather nicely also. Where I feel the fic falls short is in the endgame. The mystery is very straightforward…nary a red herring in sight. What is a mystery without at least one detour leading the character(s) and reader astray? We don’t learn much about the main villain(s) in the story either…they seem rather flat and one dimensional, as does kyc639’s characterization of Hermione. While I am a Harry/Hermione shipper, it just doesn’t interest me in this story.
Overall, Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness is better than the average fanfic, but it didn’t leave me wanting to reread it or hope for a sequel, which is why I rated it merely A-Acceptable.
Comments Off on Harry Potter and the Rising Darkness