Posted on 2024-11-06
Exif Metadata Key Fields For Exifgal
Artist - image creator
Photographer - a more specific Artist key field
Copyright - Copyright information (and license)
DateTime - creation date and time of image
DateTimeOriginal - may be better than DateTime for creation date
DocumentName - the document from which this image was scanned
ImageDescription - the title of the image (and description)
The description of Copyright says to also include rights. I could also add a verification link to the rights. So.
Copyright by John Doe 1955, CC BY, https://verification.link
Created by Arthur Rackham 1917, Public Domain, https://gutenberg.link
I don't like overloading data fields but everything except the verification link is in the spec.
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Also available
XPTitle - title
XPComment - description/alt text
XPAuthor - artist name
XPKeywords - comma delimited tags
XPSubject - gallery collection (ties image to a specific gallery)
Is there a reason to use/not use the windows Keys listed above.
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GPSTimeStamp - could be read to find DateTime key field
GPSDateStamp - maybe even better that GPSTimeStamp
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Posted on 2024-11-05
The Dragon's Egg
A System agnostic TTRPG by Larry Heyl
Licensed CC BY
The goal of the game is to steal the dragon's egg.
The game includes exploration, combat, and puzzles.
Exploration
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The DM adjudicates actions and decides when the dragon is going to attack the party.
When not in combat the party travels together to try to find the dragon's lair so they can steal the dragon's egg. The DM chooses the rules for exploration using any published system or their own system. The players make a character sheet for the chosen system.
The players encounter NPCs who can be good or bad on their travels who they can talk to. They also encounter animals or monsters on their travels that are more difficult to talk to. Every encounter should contain clues to the location of the dragon's lair.
The players act in any order saying what they would like to do and the DM adjudicates their success. The DM might use dice rolls to determine the difficulty of the action or the DM might not need dice rolls for this.
The DM just says yes you can do that or they can tell the player what to roll to suceed in the action.
The DM never says you can't do that. Instead they say that will be really difficult. To do that you'll have to roll a critical success and if you don't roll a crit bad things might happen.
And the story begins.
You are all drinking in a tavern called The Dragon's Egg. You've been staying here for over a week partying every night, sleeping in every day. It's already dark when you realize you don't have enough money left to pay for a room for the night. You call the barkeep, Olaf Cranberry, over to the table and explain your situation. You've been good customers and he doesn't really want you sleeping in the common room so he says, "You've been good customers so I'll put your room on the tab for tonight. But on one condition. I'll wake you early in the morning and off you go to steal the dragon's egg. After you sell the egg you'll be rich so you have to promise to come back and settle up with Olaf." You're all drunk so you agree and after one more round you trundle off to bed.
At the crack of dawn there's Olaf, waking you up and putting you out. Oh no, you think, barely remembering what you had agreed to do last night. Once Olaf has you out of his tavern he says, "Go north. All the dragons are in the north."
All of the above are just suggestions. It's totally up to the DM to decide how they are going to run exploration and start the story.
Combat System
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All players start with 5 d6 dice. The dragon starts with 5 plus the number of players d6 dice. Other antagonists will have fewer d6 dice to start with.
A Turn
The players attack in any order. They describe what they are going to do and they roll all of the dice in front of them. If they have n dice left they have to roll 3n to hit. If they hit the dragon puts one die in the middle of the table. If a player hits, the dragon shoots a firebolt at that player. If the dragon rolls n dice, a total of 3n or better hits. If the dragon hits, the player puts one die in the center of the table.
After the players roll the dragon uses her breath weapon. If the dice roll is not critical all players move one die to the center of the table.
Critical success is all sixes. Critical success gives double damage. Two die go into the middle of the table. If there is only one die left a six is a critical success.
Critical failure is all ones. One die goes into the middle of the table. If there is only one die left a one is a critical failure.
Combat ends when either the players have no dice left or the dragon has no dice left.
There is no death in combat. When a player has no dice left they are unconscious. If all the players are unconscious they wake up imprisoned in a dungeon. If the dragon has no dice left she flies away.
Combat with NPCs or monsters is the same except when their turn comes at the end of a round of cambat they attack with whatever weapons or spells they have.
If the players win the NPCs or monsters are unconscious and the players can safely leave without fear or worries about being followed. Their defeated enemies will not strike again because they don't want another whooping.
If the players lose they wake up where they are with no money, food, or weapons except knives, daggers, walking sticks, or other small weapons. Anything from a crossbow up is gone. Magic users still have their staff, books, and scrolls.
Imprisonment
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If the players wake up in a dungeon they must escape the dungeon before they can continue the quest. Every dungeon is a puzzle.
(Sample dungeons should be included. Also a way for people to submit their dungeon puzzles. The dungeons can be as simple as a three room dungeon with a monster guarding the exit to classic logic puzzles or magical runes and lore.)
The End Of The Game
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The final combat is in the dragon's lair. If the players win the dragon flies away, the players steal the dragon's egg, and they win. Now that they have the egg they can Rule The World but they don't really want to do that so they sell the egg and party until they run out of money.
If they play again they are on a quest to steal another dragon's egg.
If the dragon wins the players wake up in the dungeon under the mountain and it's the end of the game.
If they play again they must escape from the dungeon under the mountain, an even harder puzzle. The dungeon under the mountain is a cave with no entrances or exits so when the players solve the puzzle they are teleported to an unknown destination. From there they continue their quest to steal the dragon's egg.
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Josh Parks At The Biscuit
Posted on 2024-11-04
DJ Hairy Larry Presents Josh Parks Playing Part Time Love
From The Archives Of Something Blue - 2024-11-03
https://sbblues.com/2024/11/03/dj-hairy-larry-presents-josh-parks-playing-part-time-love/
Thanks Marty, today we're going to hear an Arkansas Blues Man play a song about relationship problems.
I went to the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena Arkansas, in October, 2024, camping for the first time since before the pandemic. My friend Brent and I went down to the main stage on Wednesday night and we saw Josh Parks jamming the blues.
Josh had been jamming with The Emporium Orkestra at the Downtown Bar And Grill five years back and we had visited at the campground then too, so I really wanted to see him again.
Well, at the biscuit Josh is a busy man. I kept looking for him at the campground, I even got directions from some other campers, but I couldn't find him. Then on Friday night I was playing some music with my friend Pat and he asked if I wanted to go play with Josh. Well ... of course!
Pat and I had a great time jamming with Josh and with my new friend John who I met at Mayor Mike's campfire. I also got to meet Josh's friends and family. Some of them even older than I am.
So when I got back I was checking for recordings at KASU and on my hard drive. I found this show from a KASU Bluesday Tuesday, recorded on April 17, 2018.
I contacted Josh about the show and he filled in the personnell for the concert.
Josh Parks - guitar
Lance Womack, drums
Stewart Bear, keys
Jerry Bone, bass
All fine outstanding Arkansas musicians.
Now Josh plays in the style of Albert King and Michael Burks, also both from Arkansas. I have had the pleasure of hearing them both play many times and I just love the sound, all the way around.
The song I'm featuring is "Part Time Love", written by Clay Hammond. Little Johnny Taylor sang the number one hit in 1963. Taylor was born in Gregory, Arkansas.
So now, here's The Josh Parks Band playing "Part Time Love" recorded at KASU Bluesday Tuesday.
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Posted on 2024-11-03
This isn't really a blog post. More of an internal document. Of course none of it is secret. I'm not going to promote it and I don't expect it will generate a lot of interest.
Heyl family holiday plans chat log.
For some reason it stopped there at the end of the meeting instead of at the end of the chat. After that I typed a few jokes and then a lessons learned post.
I don't really know why it cut off like that. Maybe the nesting was too deep.
???
Do not be alarmed. This is just a bug report. Not an infestation.
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Posted on 2024-10-31
Oleo by Sonny Rollins
I was inspired by a post
Stuck on Rhythm Changes? Here Are 4 Coltrane Concepts That’ll Set You Free
https://www.jazzadvice.com/lessons/how-play-rhythm-changes-like-john-coltrane/
where Eric analysed Coltrane's playing on Oleo with the Miles Davis Quintet.
I started to practice some of the transcibed phrases and I came up with the double bebop scale technique where I use the chromatic runs from both the C and F bebop scales over the rhythm changes A part in Bb.
Thanks Eric.
...
I talked to an Old Hippie for a while.
...
Like a lot of Sonny Rollins compositions it has a tricky rhythm. I am determined to use the opening phrase when I solo on my rhythm changes composition, Low Earth Orbit.
Not at all like Oleo it's slower and has an easier bridge than Rhythm Changes. I call it Honky Tonk Jazz because it leans towards Boogie Woogie.
It's the opening song on our Bebop Beatniks set at Blues Fest in 2024.
Here's the conversation on Mastodon.
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Posted on 2024-10-30
@jeff@soapbox.hackdefendr.com @conniptions@mastodon.social @EcksDy@techtoots.com @malin@dice.camp
part1
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I've created an instance of Embed Mastodon Threads at home.gamerplus.org. This is my home server with fiber optic bandwidth. I can rely on robust performance of the program on this server. Here's the link.
https://home.gamerplus.org/Mastodon_Thread_Embed/thread.php?link=https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry/113371172717103264
So to use Embed Mastodon Threads copy that link and then replace the link with the embed code link for the parent post of your thread. Put that in an iframe in your blog or website and test it.
part2
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Adjust the height and width of your iframe to fit your page. I used width=600, height =900. The iframes generated by the program have a width of 400 and as much height as it takes. I will make a config.inc file so the width can be adjusted without altering the program code.
I have removed all the gamerplus references in the code and replaced them with variables from the json data. This should work the same on any server that supports embeds.
part3
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I have tested it quite a bit and it doesn't always work. Some accounts don't give an embed link. Instead you get a text message. It might work on those accounts but the id of the parent post would have to be deduced somehow.
On some accounts I get only the parent post and a link. On some accounts I get the security error.
This seems to be account dependent, not server dependent but it could be either or.
part 4
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On mastodon.social most accounts give the text message instead of the embed link but I did find one account that gave the embed link and it worked fine.
Most people will want to embed conversations that have one of their posts as a parent. That's how I intend to use it. I will make a Mastodon post that will be used for comments on a blog post. Then I'll embed that on my blog page.
So if it works on the account you're using you're gold.
part 5
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This is the comment thread for this blog post.
Embed Mastodon Threads Hosted On Gamerplus
https://home.gamerplus.org/permalink.php?fname=Embed_Mastodon_Threads_Hosted_On_Gamerplus.txt
Pretty cool. Thanks for all your help. You are all in the script for my next podcast.
part 6
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I added a config.inc file for the width of the comments.
I put up a repository at codeberg.
https://codeberg.org/hairylarry/EmbedMastodonThreads
Next on the list is to create another Plain Text Program. A help page to generate the embed code just by pasting your Parent link into a form.
That will be the index file in the directory hosting the Embed Mastodon Threads program enabling turnkey installation of both programs from a zip.
part 7
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I wrote the index page for Embed Mastodon Threads as a web app that makes the iframe code ready to embed. There are instructions.
After you paste your embed link in you can copy the embed code and view the embed.
I'm happy with it. Very old school.
Please help me test it here.
https://home.gamerplus.org/Embed_Mastodon_Threads/index.php
Let me know if it works for you.
I need to take a break.
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Posted on 2024-10-29
I wrote a program, Embed Mastodon Threads, and I wanted to host it where it could be used as a service by anyone who wanted to Embed Mastodon Threads.
So I hosted it at home.gamerplus.org. That's where I host my blog. It's my home server and it runs on a robust system with good bandwidth. It also hosts my Mastodon instance, gamerplus.org.
The program is licensed GPL and I will put up a codeberg repository so you can download it and install it wherever you want. But feel free to use my server.
I have started a comment thread for this post and it will be embedded below using Embed Mastodon Threads. There's more information about how to use the program to embed your threads on your blog or website in the posts below.
If you have questions or suggestions reply to one of the posts below or if you're not on Mastodon you can email hairylarry@gmail.com
I want to thank my friends on Mastodon who helped me with this project. There will be a lot more information about this on my next Plain Text Programming podcast on Hacker Public Radio.
Thanks
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Posted on 2024-10-28
This is a test of my program, Embed Mastodon Threads, that I have been working on for the last couple of days.
It is not exactly a Plain Text Program, but close enough. It uses a database but it's accessed through an API so I don't have to maintain it.
It's 44 lines of php. 7 of those lines are commented out debug code. So 37 lines of code.
At the parent node, toot, post, status (all mean the same thing) click the menu and then Embed. Copy the embed code.
Extract the url from the embed code. For this example it is.
https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry/113385070171973043
Use the embed code to make a link like this.
https://home.gamerplus.org/Embed_Mastodon_Threads/thread.php?link=https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry/113385070171973043
Use that for your iframe src.
I'm going to try it. Control your iframe with width, height, etc.
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Bebop Beatniks Photo By Rachel Ann Wilson Washam
Posted on 2024-10-28
DJ Hairy Presents Bebop Beatniks Playing The Blue Crane
From The Archives Of Something Blue - 2024-10-27
Thanks Marty. Today I'm going to play the title track of the soon to be released Bebop Beatniks album, "The Blue Crane".
Every fall I enter my festival season starting with Beatles At The Ridge, then Blues Fest, and then The King Biscuit Blues Festival. Sometimes things work out better than you could expect. Jeremy Jackson and Alex Washam both have busy lives, Conley Hunt started working on weekends, and I also had issues so we hadn't played together as a full band all year. And we also hadn't played with a horn player since last year's Blues Fest.
We were scheduled to play at Beatles At The Ridge, the next weekend at Blues Fest, and then the next weekend Alex was getting married. So congratulations to Alex and Rachel, but you can see how this would complicate our schedule.
Fortunately, Jeremy was able to play both dates and Alex was able to play at Beatles At The Ridge so, fingers crossed, I soldiered on.
And now ...
Introducing Dr. Paul Lessard.
Paul is the new theory and composition professor at ASU this year. I'm not in school but I took my degree in composition and I wanted to meet him.
We got together in his office and hit it off immediately, talking about music composition. It's surprising how few people I know who actually want to talk about composition and it's definitely one of my obsessions.
Well ... Paul plays jazz saxophone and he said to let him know if we were getting together to play because he'd like to sit in.
So I got to thinking and the next time I was getting the band together to play I invited Paul. As it turned out Alex and Jeremy were busy so, as the song goes, it was just the two of us.
We had a repertoire session playing some of my originals which, surprisingly enough, Paul had never played before.
He played great and I invited him to join us at Beatles Park to fill out our quartet. He said he could do it and the rest is history.
We played the Beatles Park gig on September 21 and then Alex's Blues Fest Sunday opened up and we played Blues Fest on September 29.
Sometimes the stars align and everything goes right. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon at the Craighead Forest Bandshell, we had the lake behind us, a small but appreciative audience, and we had played every song on the set at least once before.
I got good audio and video recordings. I will post links at sbblues.com to the Youtube videos. In early November I will release the new Bebop Beatniks album, "The Blue Crane", featuring three songs I wrote.
And now, here's Bebop Beatniks playing "The Blue Crane".
Something Blue Archives - List Of Concerts
https://archive.org/details/somethingbluearchives?sort=-publicdate
Bebop Beatniks - Beatles At The Ridge Festival - September 21, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6-LYX4YDnU&t=10s
Bebop Beatniks Live At Blues Fest - September 29, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXeH69cZuHc&t=2600s
music
And that's Bebop Beatniks playing "The Blue Crane". All of the musicians in the band play solos. The solo order is Paul Lessard, alto; Hairy Larry, piano; Jeremy Jackson, bass; and Alex Washam, drums. Visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com for links to the videos. Don't miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00, to hear Geri Allen and Kurt Rosenwinkel, Nigel Harpur, and ADHD.
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2 AM Paradise Cafe-Barry Manilow
Posted on 2024-10-26
@djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology had a reply to a post about 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe by Barry Manilow.
Here's his post
https://gamerplus.org/@djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology/113373836960302108
Here's his reply
https://gamerplus.org/@djsundog@toot-lab.reclaim.technology/113373880138545307
This is my response.
I can't wait to hear it. It's on my Freegal wishlist now. I prefer to listen from my hard drive.
1 Jazz guys just hate it when anyone is successful. They call success a sellout. Sure Barry Manilow had some outstanding pop hits. Doesn't mean he can't play jazz.
2 And jazz guys just hate female vocalists. They want all the solo time. If you want to make a living playing jazz backing up a female vocalist pays. Every few years there is a jazz resurgence almost always led by a female vocalist. Or Herbie Hancock. (see 1)
3 Jazz guys refuse to acknowledge Barbra Streisand. (See 1 and 2)
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