Connected: Myo, one more step towards Cyborg me

About 2 years ago, I stumbled across an interesting project: a team of developers from Ontario was developing an armband named Myo that would detect all muscle movements in your arm. It would then allow you to control all kinds of objects around you. Look at their demo video to find out more:

You’re sold, right? I was, too. I immediately pre-ordered one, and started imagining tons of potential uses for this thing.

Fast-forward 2 years, I finally received it! I’ve been playing with it for the past few weeks and it definitely has some potential. We’re still far from the demo video though: Thalmic (the company behind Myo) will need to get more developers involved to integrate Myo support for games, applications, and other gadgets. Still, it’s a nice little toy, and it could become very useful!

Details and first impressions

Evolution of language: gender neutral pronouns, slang, and American Sign Language

I’ve always been interested in linguistics, their evolution over time, and their impact on culture in different languages.

Working and writing in English for the last 7 years made me discover They, and the beauty of gender neutral pronouns. It took me a while to get used to it but I now use it every day!

Yesterday, Ben Lowery shared this article: Internet slang meets American Sign Language

It’s interesting to see how new words make their way into every language!

If you wanted to know how to sign words like Screencap, Selfie, Photobomb, or Emoji (another interesting evolution of our written language), check the post!

Jetpack: add hashtags to the twitter sharing button

A few days ago I explained how to add hashtags to the tweets sent out by Jetpack Publicize. But what about the tweets your read can send using the Jetpack Sharing buttons at the bottom of your posts?

Here is how to get tags from your posts, and add them as hashtags to the twitter sharing button. As always, you’ll want to paste that code in a functionality plugin.

function jeherve_custom_sharing_title() {
        $post = get_post();
        if ( empty( $post ) ) {
                return;
        } else {
                // Create sharing title
                $sharing_title = get_the_title( $post->ID );

                // Get the tags
                $post_tags = get_the_tags( $post->ID );
                if ( ! empty( $post_tags ) ) {
                        // Create list of tags with hashtags in front of them
                        $hash_tags = '';
                        foreach( $post_tags as $tag ) {
                                $hash_tags .= ' #' . $tag->name;
                        }
                        // Add tags to the title
                        $sharing_title .= $hash_tags;
                }

                return $sharing_title;
        }
}
add_filter( 'sharing_title', 'jeherve_custom_sharing_title', 10, 3 );

Hat tip to Ryan for the idea!

Jetpack: add hashtags to tweets sent by Publicize

Jetpack’s Publicize module allows you to automatically publish your posts to your favorite Social Networks like Twitter or Facebook.

You can customize the message that is posted to Social Networks thanks to the small input field right above the Publish button:

Publicize Options

But what if you wanted to automatically add details to each Publicized post? Since both Twitter and Facebook support hashtags, you could append the post tags after the post title, like so:

Tweet tags

To do so, add the following code to a functionality plugin:

function jeherve_publicize_hashtags() {
	$post = get_post();
	if ( ! empty( $post ) ) {

		// Grab the tags of the post
		$post_tags = get_the_tags( $post->ID );

		// Append tags to custom message
		if ( ! empty( $post_tags ) ) {

			// Create list of tags with hashtags in front of them
			$hash_tags = '';
			foreach( $post_tags as $tag ) {
				$hash_tags .= ' #' . $tag->name;
			}

			// Create our custom message
			$custom_message = get_the_title() . ' ' . $hash_tags;
			update_post_meta( $post->ID, '_wpas_mess', $custom_message );
		}
	}
}

// Save that message
function jeherve_cust_pub_message_save() {
	add_action( 'save_post', 'jeherve_publicize_hashtags' );
}
add_action( 'publish_post', 'jeherve_cust_pub_message_save' );

Ingress Game Dynamics: are Home Portals fair game?

Don’t know what is Ingress? You should check my previous post on this topic.

I stumbled across an interesting survey on Google+ today, asking whether we should avoid destroying Home Portals from the opposite faction, hunt and destroy them all, or just ignore the whole thing and play as usual. What’s your take on this?

Continue reading Ingress Game Dynamics: are Home Portals fair game?

Cinema: Predestination – twisted and good

Yes, I’ve just watched a movie about time travel that won’t be released until next month. Magic!*

Adri and I just watched Predestination, and I must say I was happily surprised. I expected a boring thriller / action movie, but both main actors (Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook) really made this movie interesting. Time travel movies are always interesting because of that interesting twist about manipulating the past to change the future (think Looper, or Minority Report), and Predestination definitely walks on that same path. Don’t fall asleep if you want to follow the plot! :)
I won’t say more not to give any spoilers; I will just say that you should go see it when it comes out in cinemas!

  • The movie was originally released back in August in Australia :)