Sidenote: I wrote this article two months back, at WordCamp US, and am only now getting around to posting it. Sorry for the delay.

A few months ago, the culmination of nearly two years of internal work was open-sourced to the world. A new WordPress admin interface built by Automattic on top of Javascript technologies like Node.js and React, codenamed Calypso.

A lot of folks got excited and a few got scared. Some folks got a bit confused. But I haven’t heard many folks drawing the parallel and writing the explanation that I’ve cobbled together, so here’s my take on it:

For a while now, there’s been a variety of WordPress apps — iOS, Android, and some defunct ones for Blackberry, Windows Phone, WebOS, and the like. They all interact with WordPress via the existing XML-RPC API. They’re not really extensible for plugins — if someone installs “The Events Calendar,” events don’t start showing up in the app as they would in your traditionally PHP-generated WordPress Admin UI.

Calypso currently mirrors those mobile apps more than anything else, just shifted to a wholly different space. Instead of using the legacy XML-RPC API, which is meant primarily as a way to publish content and has a host of issues (sending user passwords in plaintext with every request, for one), it uses a REST API with far better authentication. Instead of running on mobile devices, it runs either in your web browser at WordPress.com or encapsulated in a Desktop app. But at its core, it’s a self-contained administrative application for WordPress sites.

I feel that the biggest win in releasing the Calypso interface, though, is that it can remedy a situation that’s festered for some time now. The current WordPress mobile apps are maintained by a crew of mobile developers that work for Automattic.

Development happens in the open, and community contributions are welcomed, but they are comparatively few and far between — largely due to the fact that the majority of folks who are really passionate about WordPress are primarily familiar with the languages that WordPress is written in — PHP, CSS, Javascript, MySQL, etc. Very few have much interest in leaping into App development. Likewise, most mobile developers have their own set of problems that they are passionate about solving, and volunteering their free time to build and maintain an administrative app for WordPress would ordinarily be low on their list of priorities.

So, it falls to someone to find and hire Mobile developers to maintain the assorted WordPress mobile apps.

With the release of Calypso, though, there is a bit of a paradigm shift. Calypso, being written in Javascript, is already in the skill set of many of the folks who are already passionate about building the core software, as well as those that leverage WordPress to build sites.

This, I think, will mean a significant renaissance of community interest in API-driven apps for maintaining a WordPress site. I also predict that we’ll see a lot of folks passionate about WordPress forking Calypso and tweaking it to make customized apps and distributions for specific clients and use cases — which will only expand further once REST API endpoints ship in WordPress Core, and Calypso migrates to use those, instead of the WordPress.com REST API.

Faro Shuffling is a technique where two packets of cards are pressed together and stitch themselves together, one to one. It takes a goodly amount of practice to actually pull it off reliably, but if you can, it’s a tremendously fun skill to have.

There are two primary kinds of faros performed on a 52-card deck, that being an ‘In’ and an ‘Out’ faro.  An ‘Out’ faro is one where the top and bottom cards of the deck are preserved on the outside of the deck, an ‘In’ is where they are moved to the interior of the deck.

If the user can perform perfect cuts and faro shuffles, it will take 26 ‘In’ shuffles to completely reverse the deck of 52 cards, and another 26 shuffles to return it to original order. However, by performing ‘Out’ shuffles, the full deck will be returned to the original sequence in only eight shuffles.

I’m working on mastering this, because it’s dang fun and appeals to my brain.  And, as a predictable way of reordering decks and can be rolled into some fun illusions.

For reference, standard new deck order is A♠️-K♠️,A♦️-K♦️,K♣️-A♣️,K♥️-A♥️.

While performing eight perfect cuts and ‘Out’ faros, if you start with standard new deck order, these are the eight cut cards:

1. K♣️
2. A♦️
3. 7♣️
4. 4♦️
5. 9♠️
6. 5♠️
7. 3♠️
8. 2♠️

Or, if you prefer Emoji,

🃞🃁🃗🃄🂩🂥🂣🂢

Babylon 5

Summary:

It is the dawn of the third age of mankind, the middle of the twenty-third century. Man is far from alone in the universe.

A hundred years ago, humanity made contact with its first alien civilization — or more to the point, they made contact with us. Before the arrival of the Centauri, we were confined to our own solar system, forced to use slow sleeper ships to explore the universe. The Centauri gave us the stars, offered us the use of their “jumpgates” — portals into hyperspace — and later, taught us to make our own. In exchange for this and other technologies, they asked only for trinkets, novelties to sell back home.

In the eighty years that followed, humanity flexed its muscles, expanding outward at a rapid pace. When a group of less powerful races was attacked by an invading army, Earth came to their aid, cementing its role as a major galactic power, if a young, brash one.

The wave of euphoria came crashing down when humanity made contact with a mysterious race called the Minbari. The Earth-Minbari War began with a misunderstanding, a human captain and a Minbari commander too quick on the trigger. Thanks to bad luck or something darker, our first meeting with the Minbari resulted in the death of their supreme religious and political leader. To the Minbari, what followed was a holy war, vengeance for the murder of their spiritual leader. Earth was no match for the technologically superior Minbari, and they easily beat us back to our home planet.

Then, without explanation, as their ships closed in on Earth and wiped out our last desperate defenses, the Minbari halted their advance and surrendered. Only an elite few knew why.

The Babylon Project was conceived in the aftermath of the war. Modeled after the United Nations, it would be a meeting place, neutral ground where the powers could meet and work out their differences peacefully.

The first three Babylon stations were sabotaged in mid-construction. The fourth was completed, but just as it was about to go online, it vanished without a trace. The Earth government would have stopped there, but some of the alien governments, seeing the value of a meeting ground, offered financial assistance for the construction of a fifth station. Naturally, there were strings attached.

Babylon 5 is the story of the last of the Babylon stations, the last hope for a galaxy without war. It begins in the year 2257 with the opening of the Babylon 5 station.

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Unlike most television series, Babylon 5 is a single story, completely planned out from day one with a beginning, middle, and end. Each episode is enjoyable on its own, but is also a piece of a larger whole, a chapter in a five-year-long novel for television.

(summary swiped from The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5)

Viewable on:

• Amazon Instant Video (pay per episode or per season)
• iTunes (pay per episode or per season)
• The WB.com (free) (possibly depending on locale)

24

Summary:

Jack Bauer is a officer on Los Angeles CTU (Counter-Terrorist Unit). Each season takes place over a 24-hour period, and all 24 episodes proceed in real time. It does require a bit of suspension of disbelief, as phone batteries never die, and people neither eat, sleep, or use the restroom facilities, but it is a very engaging show.  Ideal for binging.

Viewable on:

• Netflix (Discs and Streaming)
• Amazon (Streaming, free with Prime)
• iTunes (Pay)

Others that I have yet to flesh out:

• House of Cards (US)
• Deep Space Nine
• Hustle (UK)
• Spooks/MI-5 (UK)

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