[GASM] Robotic High Weirdness by Mail

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

while their 250 $59.99 price is cheaper, the thousand isnt    $119.99
eta: also looks like vista charges you to upload your photo... and proof it.

and im not sure id trust something that shares the same name as a microsoft product...
are they going to take the money and run?

I order my business cards from them, haven't had any trouble for the last 6 years or so. The charge to use an uploaded photo is one-time; then you have the photo stored under your account to use whenever you want.

[NotPublished]

I've made some Progress (albiet slowly, I have not been focusing on this proj at all). I suppose with the API we will keep with Postful since we can completely automate it, I'm just working on the admin functions atm - the way it will be set up is in 3 split ways.

(Anything labeled WIP is a 'Work In Progress')


1) Addresses
- Anyone with admin access will be able to insert/modify/remove entries from the Addresses.

2) Letters (WIP)
- Able to upload either a bunch of text (will be saved as a .txt), pdf ,rtf or DOC (Not a DOCX - prefered format would be MSWord 6 I think?). Still wondering if manipulating HTML to convert into a letter is plausable.

3) Postcards (WIP - I couldn't get the API to work with it; I'll look into that when I come across it)
- Upload images for both front and back of the postcard (I suppose since I'm lazy, the words should already be written out on the postcard! Though I do think I need to figure out the X/Y pos for where the address goes (?) again I'll look at it when I come across it); picture formats must be in PNG/JPG/GIF format, dimension seem to vary (I think I saw it at 900x638 px)

Once those basic things are covered... I guess the next step is to fill it up with content, then get a real Postful account (since I am only using Sandbox atm) and muck around with that.

[Telarus]

Good to hear some progress, this is a bomb idea.

[Placid Dingo]

Bumping due to this being just about the most exciting GASM I've come accross.

Any more progress?

Also, what's that cold reading, who made it and can I use it?

[Triple Zero]

"cold reading" is a technique to save water-damaged books by placing them in the freezer:

http://lifehacker.com/5488295/save-water+damaged-books-docs-and-photos-by-putting-them-in-the-freezer

[Cramulus]

Quiet you!

Cold Reading is how I know that you have an old box of photographs sitting in your house somewhere, and that you had an accident involving water when you were a kid.

Not Published - have you poked around at the code recently?

[NotPublished]

Ack! Absolutely forgot about this, did a little bit extra but nothing spesh; I'll get behind it soon

[Cramulus]

let us know if there's anything you need help /direction with

IIRC zippletits and enki already have great tools for automatically cobbling together text and images

[NotPublished]

Will do

When I get thrown back onto the Java Project (Has like a 5 minute compile time) or if I don't need to go into the office anymore then I will get cracking on this .. Its probably all together a days or two worth or work, just gotta find the time to throw it in between.

[Placid Dingo]

What i mean to say is, I like that piece of writing; Who wrote it, and am i able to use it for my own nefarious purposes?

[Cramulus]

sorry, which piece of writing?

[Placid Dingo]

Lys's Cold Reading Of Ultimate Doom:

You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the party; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a facade.

This means that you will often be at a gathering and find yourself playing a part. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. You’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what that person really meant when he said such-and-such – conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to.

How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured fluid kind of stability (but because this is self-consciously created, it will create bouts of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme). You most easily recognize this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people, you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency kicks in which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed that status.

Because you are prone to self-examination, you will be aware of these traits. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that you have become concerned about what the real you is. You have become all too aware of facades, of sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you.

You are very creative, and have tried different avenues to utilize that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having vivid and well-formed ideas which others will find hard to grasp. You set high standards for yourself, though, and in many ways are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t get stuff done, because you are frustrated by the idea of mediocrity and are wearied by the idea of starting something afresh. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself sailing. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or some such, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve quite what you want stops you from getting on with it. But you have a real vision for things, which others fall short of. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against restraints upon your desire to express yourself freely.

Your relationship with your parents is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration – from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past – something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group or who exhibit any cliquey behaviour, and you always feel a pang of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection.

However, for all that introspection, you have developed a sensational, dry sense of humour that makes connections quickly and wittily and will leave you making jokes that go right over the heads of others. You delight in it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ’spontaneously’ impress others with them. But this is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be so worried about.

There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can.

There are some strong monetary shifts taking place at the moment. Both the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change.

You have links at the moment with people abroad, which are quite interesting, and will look to yield worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, unorganized into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to procrastinate and put them off. Equally, you’ve given up dreams a little easily when your mind flitted elsewhere. There are in your home signs of an excursion into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried your hand at and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the be all and end all of everything and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than settle for the little that you see others content with.

Conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a conundrum, which won’t surprise you. You are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities – something not normally found among achieving people. I’d say you’d do well to be less self-absorbed, as it tends to distance you a little, and to relinquish some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like).

You really have an appealing personality – genuinely. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most.

/coolaid

oh yeeeeeeah.



I don't think this would fit on one postcard, but, would be pretty cool for a one every week till its finished with appropriate pictures

Not sure who Lys is?

[Triple Zero]

Lysergic. A member of this forum. Bet he wouldn't mind, but you can PM him to ask.

[Placid Dingo]

OHHHH ok cool.

[Cramulus]

bumped for the fuck of it!