For quite some time, I’ve been wishing the thumbnail images WordPress creates when you upload an image were slightly bigger. The function that generates the thumbnails accepts a maximum dimension as an input parameter, but then the value (a paltry 128 pixels) is hardcoded in the script that calls the function, and there’s no way in the standard WordPress configuration to change the value, other than manually editing the admin script where the call is made.

This is easy enough to do, if you know how to find the block of code in question, but it’s wrong wrong wrong in terms of ongoing WordPress updates: when a new version is released and you update your files, the changes you made will be lost. Read more »

As I read this summary of complaints about some Google thing, it made me glad once again that I’ve made a reasonable effort to keep my truly private information to myself (as far as I know), and have always tried to keep in mind that anything I put into any Internet-based system, even if it’s supposed to be “private,” is something that could potentially be seen by eyes unknown to me.

Not that I disagree with the people who are pissed about this but… well, if it’s really sensitive information, don’t leave it in someone else’s database.

I’ve already made my opinion of the RIAA known, but this latest development is truly unbelievable.

Apparently, the RIAA now feels that CDs you’ve ripped for your own personal use are unauthorized. What ever happened to the long-standing clause in copyright law that allows the holder of content to make up to five copies for personal use? What of the fact that it’s built right into the stupid DRM that the RIAA has forced Apple to implement on iTunes that you can put purchased music on up to five computers (and, implicitly at least, an unlimited number of iPods synced to those computers)?

It is patently absurd that any kind of legal case to this effect could be made in the current technological climate. According to the RIAA, just about everyone who owns an iPod (or a similar device) is a thief, even if they’ve paid for every single song on the device.

Well guess what: fuck you, RIAA. We are not thieves, we are your customers. But maybe we shouldn’t be.

The other day, for reasons I’d best not get into, I was listening to the Steven Wright tracks from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that the soundtrack is interspersed with segments of deadpan comic Steven Wright’s voice as a DJ on “KBILLY’s Super Sounds of the ’70s Weekend.” Listening to those tracks in sequence with absolutely no music in between them is a surreal experience. Read more »

Say it ain’t so! Well, it’s so. I have my Music Man StingRay 5 bass up for auction on eBay.

I love that bass, but I just can’t justify having a $1400 bass that sits in its case 99% of the time. Especially when I can sell it and use the money to buy both a bass and a guitar from Fender’s Mexican factory. And have almost half the money left over. Read more »