Kevin Beal

Heya James! So I've got a .zip here containing: - The stylesheet - The sprite for that stylesheet - the .swf file for jPlayer 2.4.0 - and jPlayer.2.4.0.min.js Here's the download link. It appears to me that the only thing wrong with the player is that the stylesheet isn't being loaded. I did however run into an issue like you're describing when I tried to develop it on my machine, but Chrome prevents .swf files from being loaded (remotely) when you do that for security reasons I don't understand. If you do use these files you may have to update the paths used like in the swfPath property of the jPlayer initializer and for the image in the stylesheet. Also I noticed that all jQuery selectors are returning null on this domain. In the javascript console, I tried doing this: $('head').append('<link href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/online/demos/jplayer-black-and-yellow/skin/jplayer-black-and-yellow.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">'); so that I could load in the stylesheet, but all selectors (or any usage of $() for that matter) returns null. On a global level anyway. Maybe it's a security thing I've just never encountered before. I did use the Chrome developer tools to insert the stylesheet, and it seemed to work just fine. That is Chrome anyway... Let me know if I can provide any more help!

Here's a working couple of snippets using jQuery 1.7.1 and the newest jPlayer. <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://jplayer.org/2.4.0/js/jquery.jplayer.min.js"></script> Here's a player skin that looks almost exactly like the JWPlayer currently being used (includes volume bar) with the correct CSS classes attached to the right elements for the player to actually do stuff: <link href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/online/demos/jplayer-black-and-yellow/skin/jplayer-black-and-yellow.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"><div id="jPlayer-holder" class="jp-jplayer" style="background-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></div><div class="jp-audio-container"> <div class="jp-audio"> <div class="jp-type-single"> <div id="jp_interface_1" class="jp-interface"> <ul class="jp-controls"> <li><a class="jp-play" tabindex="1" style="display: block;">play</a></li> <li><a class="jp-pause" tabindex="1" style="display: none;">pause</a></li> <li><a class="jp-mute" tabindex="1" style="">mute</a></li> <li><a class="jp-unmute" tabindex="1" style="display: none;">unmute</a></li> </ul> <div class="jp-progress-container"> <div class="jp-progress"> <div class="jp-seek-bar" style="width: 100%;"> <div class="jp-play-bar"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="jp-volume-bar-container"> <div class="jp-volume-bar" id="volumeBar"> <div class="jp-volume-bar-value" style="width: 80%;"></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div></div> And here's a mini jQuery plugin I just wrote to initialize the player knowing only the element you're loading the player into and the path to the mp3 file: (function($){ $.fn.playerInit = function(podcastURL) { this.jPlayer({ ready : function(event) { $(this).jPlayer('setMedia', { mp3: podcastURL }); }, preload : 'auto', swfPath : 'http://www.jplayer.org/latest/js/Jplayer.swf', supplied : 'mp3', solution : 'flash, html', cssSelectorAncestor : '.jp-audio-container' }); }})(jQuery); You initialize it by using: $('#jPlayer-holder').playerInit('http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_2443_Truth_About_Bradley_Manning.mp3'); This has been tested in Chrome and Firefox. I have no windows computer to test it with, so I don't know about the IE browsers. The online tool BrowserStack doesn't support flash apparently which is required since the podcasts only come in mp3 and not ogg (damn you Firefox!). Here's a link to a working demo of exactly the code above. (It won't work locally on your computer so you have to develop it remotely.)

Ok! Sounds good

Ah, I see. I will post future suggestions in there then, unless they're enormous or vague.

Sweet! It would be cool if I could modify the thread title, append a "[closed]" or "[completed]" or something like that

I'll throw something together soon!

Well, I was thinking upcoming events might be super cool and get more people in those areas who may not know about the Meetups to go. And just generally try and connect people more locally. I like the map idea too

Wait, which is it? Is "god" energy, science or objectivity? Those things are disparate, mutually exclusive definitions. You say that if you understand physics then you are going to be compelled to see a "god", and yet physicists are among the most atheistic groups. Professional scientists are the least likely of people to believe in gods. If god is defined as something that creates a universe and exists everywhere then "energy" loosely fits that bill, but to call that a god is to confuse the issue. It doesn't explain anything to call energy "god". "God" has constantly changed in definition throughout history to escape it's nonexistence. The "god" you are describing it completely different than the "god" described in the bible (for example). People call say that "god" is "love", an super advanced alien, energy, life itself etc etc etc. At what point do we just get to say "no, there are no gods" and end this silly game of redefining "god" back into existence? Even in your definitions, "god" is only a concept, and since concepts don't exist, neither does your "god". And you can't just say that something is scientific or objective without making that case. Like, come on guy.

So I noticed that there are actually a surprising number of people using Meetup.com to meet other FDR-folk. Unfortunately not in my area, but it gave me an idea. It would be cool to see more integration of Meetup and the forums since there is already a subforum devoted to meeting other people. It would seem to me to promote more meeting of decent philosophy minded people to have something right in the forum template (like at the bottom in a separate box) that has (for example) the biggest 10 FDR meetup groups and also a list of upcoming meetups in these groups. And just generally remind people that they could have the opportunity to actually meet other like-minded people face to face. Writing in a forum is kind of a weird thing. Not having the immediate feedback of body language or inflection can (at least for me) make me doubt myself. "Did I say that in a clear enough way?", "what if they thought I meant something else...?", "what if I come off like a weirdo" and so forth. In contrast, talking about philosophy with people IRL seems to be always more preferable (at least to me) even if they aren't particularly good at it. Here's the link to the Meetup API I don't know exactly what that would look like, just an idea.

I just realized that the jwplayer doesn't play the podcast all the way thru, it actually stops somewhere around a half hour in Other than that, it's a nice little player. Having a volume level would be cool to have on the player, but I can just adjust my speakers, no big deal. The stopping half way thing tho makes me cry just a little bit :_(

Below the content box and above the review box there are several sharing options that aren't really going to work anyway unless the people you're sharing with are also donators. Not the end of the world or anything. Just if yall are lookin' for things to do.

Awesome! Works great

I believe the paradox is due to a lack of definitions and not to the nature of tolerance itself. The first two adjectives here are "fair" and "objective". Being tolerant of someone being unfair to you (anti-UPB) is a contradiction in terms because that's not tolerance. I don't know what that is exactly. Placating? Enabling? Something along those lines. Also, I don't think tolerance should be regarded as a virtue. Certainly people shouldn't be assholes/witches or impose things on people who obviously aren't interested, but I don't think people ought to be permissive of certain practices, religions or opinions either. I absolutely disapprove of many cultural practices (infant genital mutilation for example) and I have a hard time seeing how it would be better of me to look the other way and just dismiss it as just one of those things I dislike. Actually I feel contempt, and that is itself a virtue (more here). Additionally, a concern I have is that (like catholic guilt) people will use their own lack of tolerance as self castigation. That every asshole they bump into is a test for them to practice tolerance in a sort of way. And I see this too often with certain people in my life. And (at least for them) I think that's the entire purpose of having tolerance as a virtue. It's heartbreaking actually (and maddening at the same time). As far as using force in defense of liberty, I think it could definitely be justified (depending), but I don't think it's wise. I remember this family that didn't pay taxes and resisted their arrest (kidnapping) with guns in self defense and everyone looked at the family like they were insane (and in a way, they're kind of right). Using violence against the monopoly on violence is bound to only hurt the freedom movement more by painting us as lunatics in the minds of the public.

Working with different protocols (like HTTP) is generally considered incredibly difficult and tedious, so I would suggest using a library. The Kryonet library for Java is supposed to be good if you plan to use TCP or UDP. I don't know how P2P works much less how these crazy cool alternate internet projects work, like Netsukuku. It's a really interesting and ambitious project, but it's way over my head

Lol. A whole heck of a lot, actually. There's a quote I heard recently by a javascript developer that I liked: "Java is to Javascript as ham is to a hamster". In terms of web development, Java is either run on the client side via a plugin (those annoying "update your Java" messages) (kinda like Flash) or it's on the server generating responses or doing something with the files on that server. Java is also used a lot for desktop applications. The Android OS is written in Java and it's apps are written or translated into Java (I think). I have never written a single line of Java and am certainly no expert. Javascript is run directly in the browser. All major browsers have their own implementation of Javascript with their own quirks, but abide by the standards body ECMA. Flash's Actionscript is actually based on the same standards and is a very similar language. The user interfaces on this message board are written in Javascript because Javascript is the only scripting language the browser will run without some sort of plugin. Java's structure is class based while Javascript's is a prototypal model which means that everything is an object and can inherit from any other object. It is the programming language of the web. Assuming it's not server-side javascript, it's all open source and you can manipulate it in the browser (with some kind of developer tool). This is the link to the javascript that runs this page we're on now: http://board.freedomainradio.com/public/min/index.php?ipbv=2dbc154af1f1954084ec94443e4c1350&charset=UTF-8&f=public/js/ipb.js,cache/lang_cache/2/ipb.lang.js,public/js/ips.hovercard.js,public/js/ips.quickpm.js,public/js/ips.sharelinks.js,public/js/ips.textEditor.bbcode.js,public/js/ips.textEditor.js,public/js/ips.topic.js,public/js/ips.like.js Based on the way the url looks, it's safe to assume that it goes to a place on the server that responds back with a list of different javascript files (.js). The reason that people do this sort of thing is because to load all of them individually would be a lot of requests that we would have to wait on before the javascript could finish parsing. (Performance is a big concern when you write Javascript.) Hope that helps. I wish I knew more about Java to provide a clearer answer.

Javascript doesn't really do video games very well, but there are game engine libraries for javascript (ex CraftyJS). So a game engine is an example of a kind of library. A library is really just a collection of methods designed to make whatever it's designed for easier (and for code re-use). So there are libraries for grabbing dates and formatting them, there are libraries for for making graphs and presenting data, there are libraries for manipulating, sorting and looping through arrays (you get the picture). Frameworks, game engines, plugins, API's etc are basically just different kinds of libraries. At least that's how I understand it.

Thanks! And yea, that's a big part of it. A good library should also make you have to type less code to accomplish what you want, should be more declarative so it's easier to read what you are doing with that code and it should conform to best practices to encourage the developer to write better code, so that something like this: var AnimationStep = 10; //pixelsvar AnimationInterval = 100; //millisecondswindow.onload = function() { var oDiv = document.getElementById("Div1"); oDiv.style.display = "block"; var height = oDiv.clientHeight; oDiv.style.height = "0px"; Animate(oDiv, height);};function Animate(element, targetHeight) { var curHeight = element.clientHeight; if (curHeight >= targetHeight) return true; element.style.height = (curHeight + AnimationStep) + "px"; window.setTimeout(function() { Animate(element, targetHeight);}, AnimationInterval); return false;} becomes more like this: $(element).animate({ height: element.height()}, 500); It's much easier to see what is being accomplished here and it's much easier to remember. It's more enjoyable to write code like this. It can be overwhelming a lot of the time trying to make things work as a programmer, so whatever we can do to make it easier on ourselves is important. And that's why I use libraries.

One of the bigger reasons that I rely so heavily on libraries (like jQuery) is because of cross browser inconsistencies that jQuery smooths out, and because there are a lot of situations where it's overly difficult to do something that really should be simple like sliding down this reply box. That involves creating new elements on the page and gathering height information on it in order to make the animation look smooth. Using jquery it's just: $('#my_reply_box').slideDown('fast'); I also rely heavily on the javascript framework AngularJS (by Google) because it provides a really nice structure for larger projects. When I was starting to build larger and larger projects I was falling all over myself, unable to find elegant ways of not repeating myself and afraid of updating one section of code which had unintended consequences on another block of code. That is somewhat to do with the nature of javascript itself being so unstructured. There are no classes (in the programming sense) in javascript like there are in the C based languages and it's much easier to write very bad code as a result. If you are doing smaller projects, you don't really need to worry about these things as much, but once things start to get bigger there are some important principles you kind of have to have in order to have a code base you can maintain and build upon, so that you aren't pulling your hair out fixing bugs or adding new features. A framework (as opposed to a library) should ideally make that part of your development a lot easier so you can focus more on the particulars of your project. Also there are often job postings for programmers that require you to know a particular library/framework so that if you get hired, your whole team is speaking the same language (no pun intended). It was a huge thing for a while to get Ruby developers who knew the Rails framework, and C# developers who knew .NET. I actually got the job I have now because I knew the PHP framework CodeIgniter (and also because I'm so delightful to work with ).

I think another important factor if you are going to choose between two options is the libraries and frameworks available in those languages. When I started learning javascript, what I was really learning more was the jQuery library and less about the intricacies of the language itself. Now I know the language a lot better, but I'm still relying heavily on frameworks (like AngularJS) and libraries to get things done. I don't actually know a whole lot about the C languages, but the big framework for C# seems to be the .NET framework, and C++ programmers seem to like Qt and Boost (both of which are mostly cross platform).

Here's what I think: I do web development because I think it's the most interesting field there is. Javascript (which is the primary language I write) is the most popular language in the world, and I think that's because it's so powerful and simple. It's actually a joy to write for me because you can do it anywhere very easily and you can write it for anyone with a browser. You don't have to compile it, you aren't confined to running executables, it just simply works. It makes it so that testing and developing are nearly the same thing. It's instantly gratifying and it can do almost anything other languages can do. As far as Microsoft goes, I actually really like them. The patent trolling and the ridiculous adherence to proprietary software bothers me, but generally they add a lot to the industry. Even in web development where nearly everyone hates Internet Explorer, they are responsible for so much of the progress in browser development. Microsoft gets a bad rap, I think. I use very few Microsoft products, but I think they are more good than bad. (That's just my opinion based on how Microsoft affects me personally.) And btw, I think it's totally awesome you want to get into programming. It's a great industry, mostly free market, growing and changing quickly and does a lot to actually help people. Good for you

It really depends on what you want to build with the programming language. There are primarily two types of programming languages: compiled and interpreted. Compiled languages (C, Python, Java etc) are harder to get into, but the programs you make will run WAY faster and you can even create interpreted languages with them. Interpreted languages (PHP, javascript, Ruby etc) are way easier to get started using and is what I work in. It's not considered programming by some snooty, more hardcore programmers, but you can do almost as much in an interpreted language as you can in a compiled language. You can write javascript right now in your browser. Just open up the console (firefox)(chrome) and type: alert('it worked!'); Hit enter and you get a dialog box. If you want to work in web development (like me!) then you are better off using interpreted languages for sure. You can write some cool stuff on your server in compiled languages like low latency responses to build chatrooms on top of, but anything you can think of you can probably accomplish in a language like PHP or javascript. The way I learned them was by diving in headfirst and fiddling around with it. Any problems I run into I can almost always find someone else who had the same problem and a series of proposed solutions on the Q/A site Stackoverflow.com. There is also Team Treehouse which has a whole lot of courses to teach people web development for cheap. I've only heard good things about it. I think it's best to put as little in between yourself and seeing the results of your work as possible. Programming is hard, but it can/should be enjoyable. Having to figure out how to build and execute your programs can be relatively easy, but if you're just starting out with programming, then I would highly recommend something like javascript because you can do it immediately and it's increasingly being used to replace things that java and other languages used to do (for good reason: it's an awesome language).

If you want to learn Java to build android apps you can take the Team Treehouse course on Android. They have a series on Java as part of that course. I have only heard good things about Team Treehouse and while it's not free, it's probably the way I'd go if I was just starting out. And that's totally awesome that you want to get into programming. Good for you

I was noticing that in order to listen to premium content you have to download the file to your computer and then play it in iTunes or something like that. I think it would be cool to be able to play it straight in the page. Maybe it could just be a simple jPlayer like the one that was at the bottom right of the old chatroom. The podcast URL doesn't look like it's being loaded into the template and is behind some kind of api, so maybe the api can expose it, but if you can get it you can just throw it right into the jPlayer initializer. jPlayer can be lame and fickle sometimes, but I've used it in a few projects and could help out if it seemed like a good idea.

That's why I only ever read technology news...

My brain honestly hurts. It shut itself off after reading this to spare myself the trauma of actually trying to follow this logic. I'm afraid to read it again.