Category: Shakespeare Geek

The Complete Works In A Tweet? No, Not Really

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Although this story will be old by the time it gets posted, I would not be living up to the geek part of my name if we didn’t talk about the UK student who managed to fit the complete works of Shakespeare into a single tweet. At least, that’s what the headlines would have you believe:

To be or not to be 280 characters: All of Shakespeare’s works in a single tweet

Someone just tweeted the entire works of Shakespeare with one tweet

You can unzip this tiny image on Twitter to reveal the complete works of Shakespeare

You get the idea.  That last one at least gives more of a clue about what’s going on.

Here’s a link to the original tweet from David Buchanan.

It contains a link to a small image of Shakespeare (Chandos style, for the curious who can’t see it) with the words UNZIP ME over the top.

If you’re not familiar with the term, a zip file is basically a compressed version of another file, or files.  What Mr. Buchanan figured out how to do is make a single file that behaves both like an image and a compressed zip archive at the same time.

So if you were to take that image (right click from your browser, do “Open in Image New Tab”), and then save the image by itself with a .zip extension, and then double click on it to expand the archive, and what you’ll get is the single file HTML version of Shakespeare’s works, from Project Gutenberg.

Is it a cool technique? Absolutely.  Even better is that Buchanan went on to release the source code for how he did it.  So I get to do cool things like this:

This image is actually encoded with the plain text version of The Tempest (also from Project Gutenberg), in case you’d like to play with it.  Save it with the extension .zip, then unzip it, and there you have it!

If you know how to read source code it’s even cooler, because the code to do it is very small (as in, just one file).  It’s very neat indeed, and Mr. Buchanan deserves the credit for demonstrating the technique so vividly.  This is a great example of why geeks are attracted to Shakespeare, because it represents a big body of text to play with that immediately brings a bunch of attention with it every time you touch it.

But saying that the complete works fit into a single 280 character tweet is not really what happened.  The image is linked in the tweet.  The image itself is 2 meg in size!  That’s kind of like putting a First Folio in a room, locking the room, then handing someone the key and saying, “You’ve got the entire First Folio in the palm of your hand!” It does sound cooler that way, though.

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. If you’ve ever thought about how you can support the site, here’s your chance. This month we’re donating all proceeds from advertising, merchandise and book sales to raising cancer awareness.  You can make direct donations as well at the above link.  Thanks for your support!

 

 

Sponsored by No Shave November

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

In past years I’ve half participated in the charity drive known as No Shave November, mostly as a joke excuse to stop shaving for a month. But as I’ve gotten older I came to realize two things:

  1. I have an audience here.  And not a small one.
  2. It’s not like cancer is “other people’s problem.”

This past year alone several close members of my family, both male and female, were diagnosed with cancers of different sorts, requiring removal of things, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy. None of those things is a joke.

So this year let’s see if we can’t put some money where my big mouth is. Many of the posts I make this month are going to be “beard” themed.  I will, from time to time, post progress pictures. All the posts I make this month are going to contain links to the fundraising page I’ve set up over on the No Shave November site.

If you want to click on it and donate some money directly, great.  Much appreciated.

I’ll also be donating all of my profits this month, whether from Google Ads, t-shirts and other merchandise, or book sales.

Ok, that’s about all I’ve got to say about that. If you’ve ever wanted to help support in some way, here’s a new chance.

Donate to Shakespeare Geek’s No Shave November Fundraising Page by Clicking Here!

Thanks in advance!

 

Give Me An S! No, Seriously.

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

The funniest thing happens to all my keyboards. Check it out.

This is on a relatively new MacBook. If you can’t see it, my A S and E keys are basically wearing off.  Just those.  Here’s the weird thing, though:

That’s two different keyboards!  Same problem.  Not so much the E on that one, but it’s clear on the S and starting on the A.  I’ve had it happen on about 4 different computers, if you can imagine.  And it’s not purely a MacBook problem, as it’s happening on my USB keyboard as well (I don’t have a picture of that one). I actually even had one keyboard replaced because of it.

Now, you might say “Those are the most common letters in the English language, it makes sense.”  But there’s two reasons why that’s not the problem.

First, the most common letters in English are, depending on where you look, E A T or E A R.  S is much farther down the list.

Second, if this was indeed the problem, then wouldn’t all people experience the same problem?  I’ve yet to see another case of it. In fact everybody that sees my keyboard says, “I’ve never seen that before.”

Here’s my theory.  What word do I type more often (much, much more often) than the average person?  You got it.  And hey, check this out:

S h A k E S p E A r E

All those letters appear two or more times in my favorite word. Coincidence? I think not! I am literally writing about Shakespeare so much that I am wearing out keyboards.

 

 

 

In The Year 3000

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

Romeo 3000Here’s a funny story that offers a glimpse into how I find some of the more unusual links I post here.

  • There’s a random Friends episode on in the background. They make a reference to a fictional character who’d performed in a Macbeth movie. They then pin it in time by saying, “They showed the trailer before Jackass.”
  • Well off I go to IMDB to see if there’s any interesting Macbeth adaptations that came out right around a year after Jackass (2001).
  • I find this weird 2003 version that is supposedly set in a surreal fantasy world where reality keeps changing.
  • Random browsing gets me interested in whatever happened to the Romeo and Juliet: The War movie that was supposed to be coming out.
  • It’s still in development so IMDB won’t let me see any details. I go googling and find this Variety article from 2015. There’s a comment on the bottom of that article from a guy named John Schnurr saying, “I just filmed this same plot, please don’t make this movie.”
  • <shrug> Sounds like a unique enough name.  Found him!  I look for Shakespeare credits (amid the pro-wrestling credits, strangely enough).
  • Sure enough, look what I found!  I give you… Romeo 3000.

This looks *so* bad. I don’t mean the acting or the special effects. Got to love everybody rocking the Borg eyepiece, the oddly out of place steampunk villain, and Romeo with the Winter Soldier arm.  Those are all straight out of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (oooo, the irony of making things sound sci-fi by adding 3000 at the end….)

No, I’m talking about the painful “This sounds like Shakespeare” writing. In the trailer alone:

  • “This be the year 3000…”
  • “This be not the story of star-cross’d lovers…”
  • “Romeo be the last of his line.”
  • “Romeo, Romeo, where arst thou Romeo?”

I’ll give them this, it looks like they sure went for it with whatever budget they had.  It’s actually a good trailer, with a nice quality video that shows it wasn’t shot on a potato. The fight scenes look like they could be fun.  Everybody’s acting their damnedest. And there’s some money left over for special effects.

Keep an eye out for the full-length version and report back if you ever get to see it!

 

Play The Reddit IFTTT Game With Me

~ duane ~ Leave a comment
Whoa, wait, hold on a second. Talk to strangers??

Are you familiar with the service IFTTT, short for “If This Then That”?  I’ve been using it for years to automate large parts of my online life.  You understand how the concept of a “push notification” works on your phone, right?  Some event happens, and you are alerted to that fact. Maybe the football game is over and you want to know the score. Maybe you got a text from a person on a particular favorites list.

What IFTTT does is extracts that out to a web service so it’s not limited to your phone, and the possibilities are endless. You can say things like “When the weather service says it’s going to rain tomorrow, text me to remember my umbrella” or “Every time I connect or disconnect from the car bluetooth, add a row to a Google spreadsheet” (so I can track my commute times).

Where’s the Shakespeare, you ask?  I’m getting to that part.

Continue reading “Play The Reddit IFTTT Game With Me” →