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Started by Golden Applesauce, April 09, 2008, 11:14:59 PM

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Lilith Complex

Ok Nig, hook up with me on IRC or IM. I need to know details about your server, and some specifics about what needs to be done.

Particularly: is it your server, or is it hosted? If hosted, do you have Python usable on it? Do you have MySQL? (You'll likely have both). What types of articles are you looking for to be pulled?

I'm not so confident about the actual blog layout, though I could probably find something to use and modify (seriously...I'm horrid at XHTML and CSS, though I do need an excuse to improve). The script, however, should be doable even if I can't do the layout. Someone else could work with the output at least...

Anyway, like I said, hook up with me in real-time. Either IRC or any of my IM accounts on my profile (preferably over Google Talk using my email address, but not a requirement)

Cramulus

000 had a good suggestion:

with wordpress, you get a special e-mail address which you can configure so that stuff mailed to that address is immediately posted.


so if you could configure an RSS feed to output to that e-mail address, it would automatically update the blog with news.

Lilith Complex

Eeeeh, that's a little roundabout for my tastes. I like as simple as possible, and I'm looking for an excuse to tinker with a little Python web dev :P

Honestly, this should be REALLY easy depending on the setup. My only issue is potentially not having the feedparser module available on the server, which means I'd need to shove it in there somewhere  (I am NOT writing an RSS parser on my own...yipe).

It depends on Nigel's needs. If she wants auto posts in a blog-like format, I'll probably club WP into doing it. If she just wants it as a little decoration, it's even easier to sandwich in.

Cramulus

let me frame the project a bit better -

this is an extension of the Adam Weishaupt Society, a cult of discordians focused on playing disinformation games. One of the society's games is to create "news masquerades", news articles which appear real but are quite misleading.

For a while, the AWS did its work by stealing the HTML from actual news articles, replacing the text, and uploading it to an FTP. But that's kind of crude and only works at a cursory glance - it would be obvious from looking at the URL that you're looking at some wacky FTP and not the Boston Globe.

So Nigel bought the freepress gazette (what a kickass URL!) with the intention of using it for AWS projects. We figure that our nefarious causes would be best served if it worked just like a real news site, but also contained disinformation. So if the blog automatically posts real news articles, it would be easier for the fake news we post to pass as real news.

does that make sense?

Lilith Complex

Ahaaaaaa, so you wish to work in real news articles and pepper them with spurious insanity.

Definitely far more complicated from my noobish standpoint, but still probably doable. Now I just need to know what options I have on the webserver. I REFUSE to work with PHP (I hate it, I suck at it, and it makes me cry). So, yeah, it's probably going to have to be Python. Good thing is, Python is pretty common.

The good news is, it does make it a bit easier on me because I don't have to shove embedded code in necessarily (which PHP apparently does better than Python, but I'm no expert).

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Lilith Complex on March 18, 2009, 06:23:33 PM
Ok Nig, hook up with me on IRC or IM. I need to know details about your server, and some specifics about what needs to be done.

Particularly: is it your server, or is it hosted? If hosted, do you have Python usable on it? Do you have MySQL? (You'll likely have both). What types of articles are you looking for to be pulled?

I'm not so confident about the actual blog layout, though I could probably find something to use and modify (seriously...I'm horrid at XHTML and CSS, though I do need an excuse to improve). The script, however, should be doable even if I can't do the layout. Someone else could work with the output at least...

Anyway, like I said, hook up with me in real-time. Either IRC or any of my IM accounts on my profile (preferably over Google Talk using my email address, but not a requirement)

I'm renting space from Telana, and I know nothing about it. I wasn't sure yet whether I was going to be hosting it or if someone else was?
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Lilith Complex

Quote from: Nigel on March 19, 2009, 12:05:06 AM
Quote from: Lilith Complex on March 18, 2009, 06:23:33 PM
Ok Nig, hook up with me on IRC or IM. I need to know details about your server, and some specifics about what needs to be done.

Particularly: is it your server, or is it hosted? If hosted, do you have Python usable on it? Do you have MySQL? (You'll likely have both). What types of articles are you looking for to be pulled?

I'm not so confident about the actual blog layout, though I could probably find something to use and modify (seriously...I'm horrid at XHTML and CSS, though I do need an excuse to improve). The script, however, should be doable even if I can't do the layout. Someone else could work with the output at least...

Anyway, like I said, hook up with me in real-time. Either IRC or any of my IM accounts on my profile (preferably over Google Talk using my email address, but not a requirement)

I'm renting space from Telana, and I know nothing about it. I wasn't sure yet whether I was going to be hosting it or if someone else was?

Ok, Telana seems to have what I should need. I will progress with the experimentation on my end. I've got a lot going on in the next few days, so don't expect anything until around this time next week at best.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Cool! That's awesome, thanks!
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Kai

Lilith, proof again that you are good at this stuff, I didn't understand a bit of what you were just going on about. Srsly.

So quit being so hard on yourself, k? You gotz teh skillz.  :)
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Lilith Complex

Nah, I'm good at faking it :P

Seriously, while I know ABOUT this stuff, I don't really know how to DO any of it yet. I just know where to start.

Kai

Quote from: Lilith Complex on March 19, 2009, 04:45:07 AM
Nah, I'm good at faking it :P

Seriously, while I know ABOUT this stuff, I don't really know how to DO any of it yet. I just know where to start.

"Srsly, while I know about entomology and systematics, I don't really know how to DO any of the gene sequencing and light trapping and laboratory techinques yet. I just know where to start."
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Kai, gene sequencing is part of what you'll be doing?

If you ever make it out here, maybe you would enjoy talking to B. His doctorate is in organic chemistry, but what he actually does is design gene sequencing arrays. I don't understand it very well, but I think the gist of it is that he develops arrays to help biologists identify markers.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


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Triple Zero

Quote from: Lilith Complex on March 18, 2009, 08:39:47 PM
Eeeeh, that's a little roundabout for my tastes. I like as simple as possible, and I'm looking for an excuse to tinker with a little Python web dev :P

um allow me to politely disagree :) how is writing a python script to fetch an RSS feed and post it to WordPress "as simple as possible", compared to changing one WordPress setting (to get it to accept emails to be posted) and signing up this (secret) email address to a bunch of news feeds?

what do you mean by roundabout? if you mean there will be a lag because it has to travel through some random gmail account (which supports POP mail fetching, which is what WordPress does), sure, but I don't think it's an issue for cram's goal.
but if it's against your taste to use whatever internet ducttape that is available to accomplish a task with minimal coding and hassle, because you'd rather code it yourself ... well let's see :-) I got a leftover WordPress blog that I'm not using, I like this idea too much not to try it. But by all means, go write that Python script, it's probably more configurable, and reusable too (plus I'd like to see it)

"excuse to tinker a bit with Python webdev" is a perfectly good reason to ignore what I just said, though :-P

btw I totally agree with you on PHP versus Python, I tried starting to code a new website project I'm working on, in PHP, and within 30 minutes I was like feck this, PHP is like the GWBASIC for webdesign, srsly. the only reason why this hack of a language is still popular is because it's on nearly every webserver everywhere (like BASIC). anyway, I quickly switched to Django, and I'm happy with that :-)

however, WordPress is written in PHP. But since it's a well-rounded finished software product, I dont really care what language it's written in, it's a simple CMS, not too much frills, easy to set up and with the Sandbox skin it outputs beautiful semantic XHTML.

QuoteHonestly, this should be REALLY easy depending on the setup. My only issue is potentially not having the feedparser module available on the server, which means I'd need to shove it in there somewhere  (I am NOT writing an RSS parser on my own...yipe).

i found with Python,if it's a module you need to install, all the installation does is to put the module's python code somewhere in the python library path. if you happen to be on a server where you don't have rights for that path, you can simplý unpack the module in a subdirectory and use it from there.



It depends on Nigel's needs. If she wants auto posts in a blog-like format, I'll probably club WP into doing it. If she just wants it as a little decoration, it's even easier to sandwich in.
[/quote]
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Lilith Complex

Ok, see, I didn't know the entire chain was covered here. I was envisioning having to monkey wrench something together to handle the mail fetching for me (and with GMail, I don't feel like it...dunno if you have to use SSL anymore, but it's enough of a reason to run away screaming).

The script would theoretically be INCREDIBLY simple. I was actually off-base in what needs to be done. Since Telana has cron support, I'll just write a tiny little thing to pull the feed and wedge it into the MySQL database. Probably shouldn't be more than a few dozen lines, really.

Considering I was a bit off base, however, there is a little concern about getting the full article. If it's text only, easy. If Nig expects the images and like to be preserved, it means either linking to the AP's stuff (and hoping they don't get all whiny about it) or retrieving in the script and reformatting the page. Either way, not terrible, but a bit of a concern nonetheless.

Like I said, come Monday I'll have a chance to really sit down and do something. Between CCNA studying, target shooting, sex, and Beth I'm kinda tied up til then at least :/