IRC thought of the day

On freenode, every IRC channel is the zoo of another one.

Google charts on Flickr

Looks like the Google Chart API now does maps. I like maps.

I figured that I could map some of my flickr tags to a map, just to see where I've taken my photos. Here are some of my location-related tags, and the current number of photos tagged with:

amsterdam	40
birmingham	19
brussels	9
venice	79
nice	70
paris	274
lyon	60
(total for France tags)	404

It's then almost trivial to come up with an image URL from google:

Neat, huh?

But where to go from there? Obviously, it would be a good idea to tag photos with the two-letter ISO country name, maybe as "country:FR" or "country:NL" (not sure what a good convention would be); then, the associated number of photos could be retrieved effortlessly via the Flickr API. Alternatively, if one wants to construct a nice mashup, having a DB full of city names or/and using geotags would be a nice idea too. Tuits anyone?

CPAN reports colors

search.cpan.org has, on each distribution page, a link to CPAN testers reports, and, thanks to Slaven Rezic, to matrices that neatly summarize the report statuses per distribution or per author (here's an example for Safe 2.15).

Unfortunately, the default color scheme isn't really readable for color-blind people. However, Slaven used a less known feature of CSS to provide an alternate colouring scheme. In Firefox, when viewing the matrix page, select View > Page Style > High Contrast to get the alternate CSS, et voilà, the colours are now accessible. Thanks Slaven!

Harry Connick Jr, the pianist

I recently discovered the pianist side of Harry Connick Jr, who is best known as a crooner. The influence of Thelonious Monk is remarkably high. Broken rhythms, weird block chords, minimalist improvisations: we are in presence of one of the only disciples of The Sphere. He even grabs full codas from Monk. For evidence, listen to One Last Pitch, a trio recording.

And what's remarkable, is that it seems that this influence has been completely overlooked by everybody. Connick is a much, much better pianist than singer. And his piano style is certainly not what you'd expect from a white crooner with the look of an Hollywood playboy.

Well, I guess that it's just another confirmation of the old saying, all jazz musicians are underestimated.