... at least the last bit:

“when the world ends, the only things left will be cockroaches, rats, Keith Richards, and mangled text that has been escaped one-too-many or one-too-few times” — Dave Walker

(found this little gem via Sam Ruby)

According to Ohloh, Drupal 6 core now consists of 8% JavaScript. This is quite a lot.

Drupal and JavaScript haven't always seen eye to eye though.

While the first clean and consistent usage of JavaScript in core was the textfield autocompleter and accompanying drupal.js base (committed a little over two years ago), this was not the first line of JavaScript in Drupal core.

The Yaroon theme for example had a little JS dropdown navigator in 2001, while the Goofy theme used JavaScript to compress its gigantic table-based markup—yes, we were n00bs at one time too. In fact it took until January 2003 (with the retiring of the Goofy theme) for core to go back to plain PHP, HTML and CSS.

From that point on, JavaScript was shunned and suggesting it as a solution to a problem was sure to cause grumpy voices to rise. So it's not surprising that in 2005, a lot of people were skeptical about the proposed JavaScript features for Drupal 4.7. Still, the new incarnation was written with the clear mindset that everything must degrade gracefully without it, and that the methods used should be accessible, extensible and clean. The code got committed and was eventually released in May 2006.

Even so, it really wasn't until we included the jQuery library in Drupal 5 core that a significant amount of Drupal contributors started working with JavaScript in their modules and themes, as it lowered the barrier to entry for browser scripting massively.

Given all that, I'm quite impressed with this 8% figure for core. Slowly but surely, JavaScript in Drupal has gone from ugly duckling to shining star.

I'm a big fan of sci-fi, and lately Stargate Atlantis has been holding my interest. So when I stumbled upon a YouTube contest for best Stargate Atlantis fan video, a light bulb went off in my head: Line Rider + YouTube = Magic!

I present to you Go Rodney!, a Stargate Atlantis themed Line Rider track, set to the SGA theme song:

Just like in my previous tracks, I've tried to maintain the principle that all solid lines are part of the scenery. I drew the track in function of the theme song, with much planning ahead, and tried to synchronize the tricks as much as possible. I've also tried to maintain better perspective throughout.

A higher quality version can be found on Rapidshare (DivX + MP3, 17MB, and no contest ad). I've also uploaded a view of the entire track (with line types indicated). There are 5945 separate lines.

Digg this video.

In case you missed it, digg has a user revolt on their hands. After a story containing a key to crack HD-DVD encryption was removed, angry users started reposting it more and more, to the point where it overwhelms all normal stories on the site.

Personally, I think this is fascinating to see in action and I've never seen anything quite like it, at least not on this scale. An interesting quote that was thrown around was that "You can't take something off the Internet. It's like taking pee out of a swimming pool."

Obviously digg has little legal choice in the matter, but I can't help but sympathise with the disgruntled mob. As someone who's moved to another continent, I experience every day the walls brought up by DRM, both online and offline.

For example, I can't play any Canadian DVDs on my Belgian laptop, and I can't lend my own DVDs to friends or colleagues. Similarly, my Belgian credit card only grants me access to the Belgian iTunes Music store, so I can't buy TV shows that are shown locally.

It's pretty obvious that DRM is a bad measure against piracy, but still a great way to squeeze money out of unsuspecting consumers and inconvenience them at the same time. So I'll just be sitting here, enjoying how this plays out, rooting for the right team :).

8 tips for the aspiring Drupal developer

Open source is really great. You get to cherry pick from some of the best software out there and build neat stuff with it, fast. Most open source projects will also encourage you to contribute your own work back to the project. Supposedly, so others can benefit from your work.

While that's often an easy, karma-scoring move, it can have some unintended, annoying consequences. For example, people might start sending in bug reports for your code or may offer suggestions on how to improve it. Even worse, meddling know-it-alls may even offer to 'help' with development and do things with it that you never intended. Some projects, like Drupal, even trick you into such forced participation, by automatically supplying issue trackers, RSS feeds, revision control and other, undesirable community interaction.

Luckily, there are several things you can do to keep those pesky contributors away altogether. You can participate in open source without suffering any of its extended effects. Here are some concrete tips for the aspiring Drupal developer. Of course, a true creative will find novel ways of keeping their open source involvement to an absolute minimum!

No so long ago Jeff Robbins unleashed the Drupal Song upon the unsuspecting Drupal masses.

By popular demand, the source tracks for the song were released, and several people have posted what is IMO a brilliant set of remixes. The multi-talented Drupal community surprises again.

Check out these three gems in particular:

• Just say Node by Hip Hop Anonymous
• Vocoder Dub Mix by jm
• Kids are at it again by dvessel

Also, if you haven't seen these already, check out the awesome Drupal paintings by Andrew Stevenson.

Rock on!