A chaise longue next to the windows in Thomas Woodrow Wilson's second floor bedroom, the location of his death on Sunday, 03 February 1924, in the Woodrow Wilson House (1915).

2340 S Street NW, Washington, District of Columbia: 31 January 2014

part of the Woodrow Wilson House album

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As I was recently listening to a friend's opinions on the Ferguson, Missouri situation, there was one thing I kept thinking again and again: post hoc ergo propter hoc. Not only did I disagree with their assessment of the events, but much of it seemed to be hinged on that common logical fallacy.

It was a discussion among friends so we shared our opinions and then moved to the next topic. Since then however, I have had a particular scene from television intermittently running through my mind, one that does a nice job of explaining post hoc ergo propter hoc.

The scene in question comes from the second episode of The West Wing appropriately entitled "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" (S01E02). You can currently watch the scene on YouTube and I have also transcribed it below.

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Chief of Staff Leo McGarry: What else? Press Secretary C. J. Cregg: The Ryder Cup team is declining our invitation to come to the White House. McGarry: You're kidding. Cregg: Because of the joke. President Josiah Bartlet: You're kidding. Cregg: I'm not. Bartlet: The Ryder Cup team? Cregg: It's a group of the best golfers in the country. Bartlet: I know what the Ryder Cup team is. Thanks, Mrs. Landingham. Cregg: Sir, this may be a good time to talk about your sense of humor. Bartlet: I've got an intelligence briefing, a security briefing and a ninety-minute budget meeting all scheduled for the same forty-five minutes. You sure this is a good time to talk about my sense of humor? Cregg: No. Bartlet: Me neither. McGarry: What else? Cregg: It's just that it's not the first time it's happened. Bartlet: I know. Communications Director Toby Ziegler: She's talking about Texas, sir. Bartlet: I know! Cregg: USA Today asks you why you don't spend more time campaigning in Texas and you say it's cause you don't look good in funny hats. Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn: It was "big hats". Cregg: What difference does it make? Bartlet: It makes a difference. Cregg: The point is we got whomped in Texas. Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman: We got whomped in Texas twice. Cregg: We got whomped in the primary and we got whomped in November. Bartlet: I think I was there. Cregg: And it was avoidable, sir. Bartlet: C. J., on your tombstone it's gonna read "post hoc ergo propter hoc". Cregg: Ok, but none of my visitors are going to be able to understand my tombstone. Bartlet: Twenty-seven lawyers in the room, anybody know "post hoc ergo propter hoc"… Josh? Lyman: Uh, uh… Post, after. After hoc. Ergo, therefore. After hoc, therefore. Something else, hoc. Bartlet: Thank you. Next? Lyman: If I had gotten more credit on the four-forty-three thing… Bartlet: Leo? McGarry: After it, therefore because of it. Bartlet: After it, therefore because of it. It means one thing follows the other, therefore it was caused by the other. But it's not always true; in fact it's hardly ever true. We did not lose Texas because of the hat joke. Do you know when we lost Texas? Cregg: When you learned to speak Latin? Bartlet: Go figure.

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"Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc" was written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Thomas Schlamme and first aired on Saturday, 29 September 2001.

Roman god of freshwater and the sea Neptune in the Marine scene of Constantino Brumidi's fresco 'The Apotheosis of Washington' (1865) on the dome of the United States Capitol (1811/1866) from the center of the rotunda floor.

First Street SE, Washington, District of Columbia: 01 February 2014

part of the United States Capitol album

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After the developers of Gallery 3 — the software I was using to host my photographs — decided to walk away from the project in June, I knew that I needed figure out a new solution. For better or worse, a subsequent technical issue encouraged me to find that solution more quickly than I had first planned.

There were fewer options available than I had expected, no doubt as many people now use third-party hosted services for their photography. I decided to look at Coppermine, Piwigo, Zenphoto and WordPress as potential alternatives.

WordPress

As I already use and develop with WordPress, it seemed like a good place to start my reviews. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that it would not meet my requirements. The built-in media features are probably fine for managing post content but would not scale or be configurable enough to serve as my gallery.

Piwigo

Next on the list was Piwigo, which I looked at based on former Gallery project contributor Serguei Dosyukov's review and migration article. Piwigo has a lot going for it. After some experimentation though, I decided that its design was too different for me to adapt. In addition, I was not keen on the way it abstracts albums and their hierarchy.

Coppermine

As I was reminded in July 2013, I had used Coppermine for a time in the past. The fundamentals are all there but the package seems dated. Beyond some security patches, Coppermine has not really been updated since the first time I used it. Wanting to move forward and not backward, I left this one behind.

Zenphoto

I was initially reluctant about Zenphoto because of the recent departure of a key developer. After observing an active community and finding that most of my needs were already accounted for in some way, I settled on Zenphoto and set out to develop a custom theme.

Designing how the theme would look was the easy part; I already had a model to go off in the form of my Gallery 3 theme. The basic look would remain the same but improvements would be made and annoyances fixed. With these details in mind and the user guide in hand, I got to work.

At first, the structure of things seemed awkward and I did not understand several design choices. The process of learning the core functions and coding the theme completely changed my initial impressions, however. I discovered that theme development for Zenphoto was actually easier and its structure more intuitive.

Implementing specific features was mostly accomplished using available plugins, although I did modify a few of them as well as write several custom functions. In addition, I had to update three core extension files to force the interactive map to use HTTPS and two other core files for other reasons.

Within a few days, I was uploading previously published photographs and tweaking the theme as I went. That process was completed earlier this week and I have but a few minor items remaining on the checklist.

Conclusion

Even though outside circumstances necessitated the change, I think that the Mount Sutro Gallery is better than before running on Zenphoto. Not only does my custom theme look and function as desired, but I completed it ahead of schedule due in part to Zenphoto's logical architecture.

I am pleased to be able to get back to processing and publishing photographs, not to mention slowly continuing work on the original migration project.