Site News

As the title implies, Oasisband 3.5 is in the works. I know you and I know what you are thinking: “But Jesse, Oasisband 3 was never fully completed”. And you're right, but the work I invested in Oasisband set me up with a decent framework to base other sites off. The problem was it lacked sophistication. It was written awkward and weird, inheriting mistakes from someone learning PHP and MySQL while creating it.

During work on other sites the framework has matured and blossomed into something wonderful. Fully encapsulated modules, much simplified image management, clean up of stacks. I plan to open source this framework at some point in the future, the preemptive name being “phrame” with the note that this is just a codename until something more suitable is found.

Also, as a side note I intend to use this framework on my other site as well, PHPStandards.net which is a work in progress.

Moved from a comment to a post by Jesse Donat

Well I was looking to log onto the server because I wanted to update my Ipod as I forgot to do it before coming. But since I can´t find the ftp server I might as well make a comment on this dead website.

Currently we have no understanding what the media´s role is on the cognitive development of kids. The only studies that are done in this area are studies that attempt to get kids to consume more media and how to go about doing it. But what we don´t know is whether or not kids immersion into the media makes them more or less susceptible to subconsious control through the media.

Does completely omnipresent, unregulated, ever sophisticated, and incredibly addictive forms of media make children better consumers, less like to think creatively and develop resistance and revolutionary attitidues towards our current system of massive thought control...well I would have to think so.

The fear that you might be addressing Jesse is that the government would start playing a role in what kids and others are able to access. Sure, this seems like the common cold war fear that the federal government will be censoring us in order to believe that they are our masters and we should simply lie down and obey.

But on the other hand, what does a completely unregulated media system mean. It means the people that are controlling what we have access aren´t even people that we elected. They are people that are responsible to a system of capitalism that cares not for the individual, cares not for society, but only cares for an increase in the share value for the next quarter.

On one hand we have the federal government regulating, and on the other hand we have a bunch machine like capitalists regulating. It seems necessary that the two forces at least try and balance one another, at least there needs to be some conflict between these two forces. One tries to create new and ever more addictive media, and other tries to think about the consequences and if it believes those consequences are atrocitious they should try and do something.

Rampant government and, or rampant industry provide no hope for a future where the individual is able to think and act freely. Government regulation is a small pebble amongst a massive culture of thought manipulation.

If you haven't already noticed, there is a tear in the upper left. Shame on you, America, for making Oasisband.net cry! Vanity and fear have brought onto this country a great pestilence. We'll see if Oasisband outlasts another president. One not even elected for a day already talking about censoring media.

I would call upon the video game industry to give parents better information about programs and video games by improving the voluntary rating system we currently have. Broadcasters and video game producers should take it upon themselves to improve this system to include easier to find and easier to understand descriptions of exactly what kind of content is included. But if the industry fails to act, then my administration would.

And even if the industry does do some responsible self-policing, there’s still a role for the federal government to play. We need to understand the impact of these new media better. That’s why I supported federal funding to study the impact of video games on children’s cognitive development.

Oasisband.net has not had a post in forever, so here it goes. The Obloglog is, and has been for quite some time, 95% functional with posting everything but images and movie reviews (mostly because movie reviews *require* posting images...) completed. I think the community just fell out in the down time between OB2 and OB3 because not only has no one posted anything, but we have not had a single comment I didn't write since OB3 went up.

Other news, I got my drivers license today, finally. This was my second attempt, the first time featuring me turning from the wrong lane of a one way into a two way... see: here.

After a long hard weekend of fighting with code, the new Obloglog (writer admin) is nearly complete. There are some unresolved issues / inconsistencies with the way foreign characters are handled, ie: my review of Amélie... but I'm working hard to figure these out as well as some issues with the manner in which post attributes function, but writers will soon be able to post again without bugging me!

Update: Very Rough Version is Online!!!

As you've probably noticed updates have been slow to non-existent lately. A lot of this has been my hectic life as of late. I would like to get some more work in on the site now that my kidney stone is gone and things are starting to settle. First order of business is to get the Writers admin working. I have absolutely nothing to do this weekend, so we'll see if I can't knock that out. I've also got some restructuring I'd like to get in, but one thing at a time.

Just a little note before I head to bed, working on restoring most of the missing Oasisband 2 stuff, users pages are kind of back, The Medium / PM5MT is uploading right now and has been moved here: http://medium.oasisband.net and all goes well will be fully functional when I get up in the morning (pending a possible redesign). Obloglog for the writers soon, my attribute system is proving a pain to write an admin around.

As you have probably already noticed Oasisband version 3 is live. There's quite a bit left to do yet, but frankly, I was sick of looking at the old one. If you're one of the crazy few using IE6 I feel sorry for you because frankly, I didn't make this site to work in IE6 at all.

As for the few remaining writers, a new version of the Obloglog is heading nearing completion, and you'll be able to post again fairly soon, I can get anyone their login info who needs it.

I'm arguing with my self over if I should, and which rich text editor to use. I built one based on a friend at works, but it has some flaws.

This isn't quite what I had planned, but it is certainly a stepping stone to better things. If anything the new database will empower us to do a lot more. There are several design elements in the works, certainly some art-deco-ing. A prettier footer, and integrating a search box into the header.

Any way about it, things are going to get fixed. I realize I forgot about Omnipresence when my widget broke, hehe. That'll be fixed soon.