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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Learning Python

I'm supposed to have been learning Python since December, but just started yesterday. I thought I'd put my notes here since I'm not writing much else. It took two hours for me to figure that I have to type "Python3" to invoke the latest version of Python that I installed under OS X. Although I asked for help online, the solution was in the docs. My goal is to see how much Python I can learn in two months. Why? a number of reasons. 1. I'm trying to make myself learn to code. 2. I'd like to do something with gamification and my writing courses. Not sure exactly what. Initially I'd like to make something that let's my students rank and respond to snippets of writing. 3. I'd also like to have a tool that aggregates snippets of writing in some manner. I'm using "Inventing Games with Python" because it has gotten good reviews, is free, is project based and looks fun. The writing is clear and enjoyable.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Remixing movies

I want to live in a world where anyone can remix and recombine any art they want, if they're not making money from it. I want to start a Kickstarter for a version of VLC that lets you insert control scripts that let you move through a movie in a predetermined fashion, so you could create a phantom menace edit, for example that left out Jar Jar Binks, or a version of the The Dark Knight Rises that would allow one to decrease or increase the scenes with a particular character. Imagine good movies that were damaged by the inclusion of brief scenes that didn't work. Just download the remix script for that show. They could be stored on a website and the most popular scripts would appear in the "greatest hits" section. The second Lord of the Rings movie, with about 20 minutes less of Sam staring with concern at Frodo. Mormons taking two F-bombs out of a PG-13 movie so they could show it to their kid would just be a byproduct. Incidentally, the Cleanflix version of The Wedding Crashers is a very different movie than the original, almost absurdist. Also, Back to the Future would not have been damaged had the swears been removed. I'd like there to be some sort of universal tag that torrenters use to designate TV edits. I'd buy originals if they contained tv edits.

the C2 wiki.

I feel like I keep returning to the same types of projects.  Right now I'm collecting, editing and publishing historical rhetoric texts ...