Management Has Another Thing Coming...
Congratulations to the Jimmy John's Workers of Minneapolis! The Union makes us strong!
Maintenance File Module on Drupal.org
I just released a simple little module on drupal.org called Maintenace File. It allows you to put your Drupal site into maintenance mode by uploading a specific file to your filesystem, rather than having to do it through the database.
It comes in very handy for automatic deployment scripts, such as Capistrano, Phing, etc.
A Couple Thoughts on Drupal and Sexism
For those of you who haven't been following, the Drupal world has been wrapped up in an extremely interesting dialogue about sexism within the community. I just have a couple of thoughts on the matter that I would like to share. For some context, check out this good article and this appalling article.
One:
The Drupal community is awesome. Never, anywhere, have I seen people rally around issues of rampant sexism in such a strong way. I feel extremely happy to have my "radical" (insofar as anti-sexism and anti-homophobia is still even radical) beliefs upheld by such a wide community of seemingly unrelated people. In a lot of ways, the response of the Drupal community against the recent examples of sexism is more forthright, less bullshit-ridden, and more widespread than that of some supposedly-radical "anarchist" groups I've been a part of.
Two:
I'm really glad this discussion is happening within a tech community rather than a political community. So often, debates about sexism remain purely theoretical and academic in their approach. I feel like the community has done a very good job of keeping the debate practical while still keeping the critique systemic.
Three:
My experience with oppressive ideas people have is that once one wall begins to crumble (i.e. sexism), the others are not far behind. I've seen this with union organizing; once you begin to doubt the very essence of capitalist production, other oppressive systems like racism, sexism, monogamy, and homophobia just kind of stop making sense. I think it is really cool that a dialogue on sexism has become a dialogue on homophobia as well (partially because the asshole who wrote the bad article linked above also railed on gay and lesbian folks).
Four:
I work in an office with all male developers. It's nice to be reminded (forcibly, even) that not all of the tech world is a sausage fest. I find that when I'm surrounded by all men in this context of my life, it's easy to slip into ingrained, socially-programmed sexist habits and mindsets. Dialogues like these help me keep that shit in check.
That's all. While I'm upset that this debate is sort of bringing out the absolute dregs of the Drupal community, I think this is not only a dialogue that weeds those assholes out, but also keeps the rest of us (hopefully, trying to be) good ones in check. So good job, everyone, for being so rad.
Mall of America to Build Luxury Hotel with Tax Dollars
Bloomington officials got their wish Tuesday, as the Hennepin County board voted to pledge its $40.3 million in tax-free Recovery Zone bonding to help build a 501-room hotel at the Mall of America.
Yes, that's right; the biggest mall in the country is getting bigger. And guess who's funding it! We are!
I guess this is kind of a new stage of backlash to the supposedly failing economy—the state is now issuing bailout money to completely profitable venture capitalists. It's a very Shock Doctrine idea, using the constant threat of recession as a method of passing all kind of heinously conservative and capitalistic measures.
Of course, their justification is that the mall expansion will create jobs for Minnesotans. We know, however, that what they've neglected to mention is exactly how shitty, low-paying, and exploitative these new jobs will be.
Quotes by Lenin
Here are a couple choice ones:
All bourgeois politicians in all bourgeois revolutions "fed" the people and fooled the workers with promises.
and:
Ours is a bourgeois revultion, therefore, the workers must support the bourgeoise, say the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs, and Chkheidzes, as Plekhanov said yesterday.
Ours is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists say, therefore the workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception practiced by the bourgeois politicians, teach them to put no faith in words, to depend entirely on their own strength, their own organisation, their own unity, and their own weapons.
Revolutionary Certainty
Today I started reading Revolution at the Gates, an examination of Lenin's writings by Slavoj Žižek. I just finished the introduction, but already Žižek has advanced some pretty compelling ideas, one of which I wanted to share and discuss a bit.
Žižek states, according to Lenin, who displayed an almost maniacal sense of revolutionary fervor in the time between the February 1917 bourgeoise revolution and that of the Bolsheviks in October 1917, that people are always looking for a sense of "certainty" in revolution, and that this usually marks the first, most conservative revolution in a series thereof. He claims that Lenin and the Bolsheviks pushed past this desire for certainty into an altogether unknown terrain—a true revolution. He understood that there was a risk, a "paradox" that resulted from being a revolutionary building a base as he (they) went.
This reminds me a lot of organizing now. I feel compelled to present a whole package to people when trying to organize, to approach people once we have a formidable plan and the resource to make it a sure or feasible thing.
This simply cannot happen.
The very nature of working class revolution is that it is a risk. It is a fight. We stand a very good chance of losing, of being crushed under the massive weight that capitalism throws against its detractors. As such, our approach should be one of convincing people that the risk is worth the potential gains, which are, of course, the prospect of complete and total freedom and the creation of a new cooperative society. Once we are willing to fight knowing full well and despite the risks, then our revolution is within reach.
After all, the risk becomes minimal when "we have nothing to lose but our chains."
The Right To Speak
Here's a cool video of one of the lawyers involved in the striking down of Proposition 8 in California defending his point to some knee-jerk Fox News reporter. His argument is rock solid.
Watch the video here.
His point in the case of Fox News' freedom of press is kind of disconcerting though. Fox News is barely more despicable than most other corporate news stations, but it is a huge error to think that I, Jake Bell, or you, dear reader, have the same access to press as that of Fox News or CNN. In other words, the logical extension to this lawyer's argument is the removal of capital's role in limiting access to services, resources, and power in the world.
I can definitely get behind this, but only if it is taken to this ends. In the meantime, however, I'm happy this argument is being used to lessen such widespread discrimination against LGBT folks (well, some of them at least).
Drupal Features Module Presentation
Here's a little presentation I made for work. It's pretty basic, and is meant to be coupled with something verbal, but I thought I'd post it here anyway just in case. I'll try to post the audio when I actually deliver the presentation.
Click here for a big version.
Arcade Fire
is my favorite band ever. Their new album, The Suburbs, is so goddamn good.
UPDATE: It's actually the best album I've heard in a very, very long time. I am enjoying every single second of it. It is a fucking masterpiece.
Find and Replace Text in Entire Document with jQuery
I did some work for a client today in which I had to replace every occurrence, site-wide, of (TM) with ™ (the actual trademark character). I though I'd share it here.
$(this).html($(this).html().replace(/\(TM\)/g, '™'));
});
The backslash (\) character in the regular expression is an escape character, so if your pattern does not include special characters (like parentheses, in this case), there is no need for the backslash.
Making a Living...
From here.
It's funny how the phrase "making a living" has become synonymous with achieving the bare minimum required to maintain life. This, to me, is evidence of how surreptitiously and completely capitalism has embedded itself in daily life.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, the process was not surreptitious at all. It was wrought over the course of several bloody battles.
Bye Bye Bedlam...
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
So frustrating.
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/onstage/98469589.html?page=1&c=y
Pink, Pink, Pink, Pink...
I've been listening to and reading a lot about Nick Drake lately, having been inspired by a couple recommendations. I've, of course, heard his music in the past, but I guess I didn't pay close attention. Pink Moon is pretty awesome, although it feels a bit oppressive by the end.
Bike Mileage Module
You may have noticed the little bike icon that appeared recently in the top-right corner of my blog (maybe you didn't—meh). Well, when you click on it, you should see a little pop-up that displays some stats about my bike-riding mileage.
"What's powering that?" you may ask. Well, it's my Bike Mileage Tracker module! It allows you to enter your mileage in, then provides various stats about your trips. Also, if you have the Charts and Graphs module installed, you get some neat graphs detailing your mileage over time.
I've been wanting to do something like this for quite a while now, but couldn't really think of a clean an easy solution. Having each trip be a node seemed a little bit heavy, especially considering that I don't have much need for a title or description. But, if each trip is a node, I get the benefit of using the Views, Services, Feeds, etc. modules without having to write a bunch of custom code.
So I had to make a choice. Having been recently stricken with a decent amount of motivation and curiosity, and because I've been riding the shit out of my new bike (pictures still forthcoming), I chose to just go with a new database table and to write integration for Views and Services. So it's half a functional tool, half a pet project.
Future plans include writing Views and Services integration, implementing statistics as a hook so that developers can define their own custom stats, and (perhaps) an iPhone app!
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