16 January, 2015

Now I’m going to have to update MegaMegaMonitor…

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMasonsLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

All I needed was an excuse, really! Hurrah!

Edit: Done! You’ll need to update both the userscript and the data to see the changes – instructions over here on /r/MegaMegaMonitor.

Edit2: Screenshot.

Is it possible to show a list of posts by a particular subset of users?

This self-post was originally posted to /r/redditdev. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

E.g. with subreddits, I can view multiple ones at once with /r/aww+cows (for /r/aww and /r/cows), but I can’t find a way to do the same for multiple people (I guessed that /u/ketralnis+spez might work, but it didn’t). Adding all of the requested people to my friends list would work, but isn’t ideal. Any suggestions?

^{Edit: sorry – I might have just tagged ‘ketralnis’.}

v0.51 released – fixes all the things I broke!

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Turns out I shouldn’t code after I’ve been drinking. v0.50 will have not-worked for almost everybody, because I forgot what programming language I was writing in about half-way through it and tried to use a feature that doesn’t exist. And then somehow managed to deploy it and not notice. Sorry.

v0.51 fixes it. It should work again. Sorry, sorry, sorry…

Review of Total Recall (2012)

This review originally appeared on Amazon. See more reviews by Dan.

Total Recall (2012)

Rating: ⭐⭐

Why are there remakes?

Sometimes I wonder why a film gets remade only to make it worse. The original Total Recall was a good film. Not a masterpiece by any stretch, but a clever, funny, action-packed (and only slightly campy) romp through space and the human mind. Not so this remake – if you can see past the overused lens flares, here’s what you’ll learn about our future:

Cars, elevators, emergency exits, surgical equipment, and life in general will become less safe, not more, as we invent increasingly smart automated systems.
All common sense will be lost along the wayside: when faced with the opportunity to kill their enemy, both good guys and bad guys alike will prefer to give them another chance to fight back. Again. And again.
Even though a nation is capable of building robots capable of working tirelessly and surviving in the inhospitable parts of the planet, they’re far more-likely to use those robots to kill other humans working for them in the hospitable parts of the planet.
At some point in time, people will stop caring how practical their mobile phones are, and instead start using ones that require that you find a nearby window before you can use the screen (which can then be seen by all the strangers near you).
Gravity turns out not to work like we think it does. Who knew!

If you can forgive the silly plot and unbelievable characters, the acting isn’t intolerable and the story’s “fun enough” that it’ll distract you for a while. Don’t expect miracles, though: this film should have gone straight to DVD.

MegaMegaMonitor 0.50 – Greypo Edition

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’ve just made available version 0.50 of MegaMegaMonitor. Thanks to everybody who’s helped test it so far. This version removes the limitation on people who’re listed as approved contributors to more than a hundred subreddits, like /u/Greypo. Well, it probably does that. Personally, I’m only an approved contributor for like 65 subreddits. Give it a go and let me know how you get on!

Those of you getting automatic updates should “just get” it within the next day or so, not that you care because it probably already works for you!