Whilst messing around with ircd to set up a sandpit environment (as I’ve recently gone back into IRC to check out the WordPress IRC channels and wanted to remind myself about how a few things work.) I discovered that-

ircd-seven is used by freenode, but there is not a whole lot of information about it.
If you install it, it seems that most people forget oper:staffer in the privset block. Without which, much stuff doesn’t work.
The config examples will suggest that “Connect” blocks are needed for your server to join to another server, but gloss over the fact that you need one for services to connect to it.
In a similar fashion, the “Services” block examples may claim that the service names don’t need to relate to valid DNS records, but what they do need to do is point to the actual address of your services. It can’t just be free-form text as the examples seem to suggest.

Armed with that small knowledge, I think configuration is somewhat easier, so maybe those tid-bits might help some other folk who want to experiment.

It’s nice to get a mention. And so it’s pleasant to read the WordPress support forum all-stars post on weblogtools collection, because I’m noted in there for my continued presence on the WordPress support forums, attempting to help folk out.

I’ve been frequenting the forums for a while now, and whilst some questions are beyond me, and I don’t have a whole lot of time, I do try to help folk where I can. I’ve lately been moderating there (as well as the Codex and Ideas sections) so it’s good to get a nod for that work, too.

If you’ve got some knowledge and time to spare, why not head over to the support forums and lend a hand yourself, maybe you can make the next list.

The howbigreally site shows you historic events, natural disasters, war zones, and suchlike and lets you plot the scale of them over places you know. Try it!

Lately we’ve caught up on some of the films that we’ve not watched over the last year – oddly our film watching went down when baby arrived, not sure why or how – so here’s my brief summary of the last few.

District 9 was entertaining. If it had higher messages in it that I was meant to take away and reflect on, then I didn’t really get them. I was satisified with the ending of the film, and pretty much everything tied itself up nicely, although the reason why the fuel had the effect that it did I think was a tad overlooked. Also as the film reached its climax I found it getting steadily more and more fantastical. I mean, it was never 100% believable but I did feel that I was working harder to suspend disbelief at the end than the start. Something like 7/10 for this.

Iron Man was an amusing jaunt. I’m not familiar with the comic character so I have no idea how “true” an adapation it was, or anything like that, but I found it moved along at a good pace, and I liked the light moments of comedy and the character interaction. The downside with this film was that it was entirely predictable from start to finish. Also 7/10 for this one I think.

Lastly for now, we had Cloverfield. A very short film this one, I thought, though that’s probably for the best as if it had been longer I suspect that parts of it would have dragged, whereas at it’s current length the pace is good, and the story is moving forward quickly enough to maintain the sense of panic and disorder felt by the characters. I enjoyed the perspective, and the humour of the characterisation. Of course due to the way the story is presented we sort-of already knew the ending at the start, but the journey was entertaining and pulled me in nicely. I’d say 8/10 for this.

I’ve put together the bare bones of how to add WordPress 3+ navigation menu support into your themes into this Navigation Menus Codex page. What’s covered in there is the method I’ve used to add the menu support to this site, so it should be easy enough for most folk to use! If you have anything to add or if you want to add menu support to your theme, go give the article a read.