Wait Wait Stats Update: Jumping Down to a Specific Show

Up until now, there was no way to create a link that goes to a certain show on the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me statistics page. Instead, you would have to go the page and scroll down or search for the show’s date. Now, you can create links that refers to a specific show’s entry.

To link to a specific entry, you can use the following URL template:

http://closedsrc.org/_apps/waitwaitstats/#s<YYYYMMDD>

Replace “<YYYYMMDD>” with the show’s four digit year, two digit month and two digit day. For example, to create a link that points to the spot for the April 23, 2011 show, the URL you would use is:

http://closedsrc.org/_apps/waitwaitstats/#s20110423

I know, it’s a small update, but I hope someone finds it useful. :)

Mo Rocca, The World’s Worst Obstetrician

During the second panelist round of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! that aired the weekend of 2011-06-18, the discussion lead to Mo Rocca saying that having a Hula dancer in the same room as a mother giving birth would help the mother relax. This led to Luke Burbank responding by asking if this would be blogged on “Mo Rocca, The World’s Worst Obstetrician dot net”.

I didn’t get to listen to that segment until several days later and noticed that the MoRoccaTheWorldsWorstObstetrician.net domain had not been taken… yet. So, I decided to register the domain and set up the site to redirect to my Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! statistics page.

Well, this week’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! show was all about listener favorite segments and requests. Many of the listeners wanted a lot of Mo Rocca moments, but Peter and Carl included Mo Rocca’s Hula dancer moment. Peter then added:

A note to that story. You may know that a listener named Linh Pham keeps a detailed archive of past Wait Wait episodes. Shortly after that question aired back in June, Linh registered “Mo Rocca, the world’s worst obstetrician dot net” as a website and it takes you to the Wait Wait archive.

Yep, got another mention on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!; and as a fan of Wait Wait, that’s pretty darn awesome.

Wait Wait Stats Update: Page Loads

I have made a significant change to how the Wait Wait Stats page is served up to visitors. Up until earlier this morning, each page view required the server to process and parse through all of the data, then serve up the results. Each time the page is processed takes about a second and requires the server to send out the contents out in its entirety, even if there hasn’t been any changes. That’s a waste of time and bandwidth (both mine and yours), along with processor cycles.

With the new change, the server generates a static version of the page every Saturday at 13:00 (Pacific Time) and each request of the Wait Wait Stats page will go through a simple script that determines if the static file is newer than original dynamic script file. If it is, the server provides the last modified date and time of the static file to the browser along with the contents of the static file. In the case where the dynamic script file has been updated before the static file was last generated (due to a bugfix or coding update), the dynamic version will be used instead.

So, how does that help save bandwidth? Well, if you visit the page for the first time after the static file has been generated, your browser would be able to cache that page. By caching the page, each time to view the page again, only a small amount of traffic has to be sent back and forth, as the browser will use the cached version of the page. The next time that you view the page after the next time the static file has been updated, the browser will note the new modified time and pull in the updated page.

Since I am in the slow process of updating information for older shows, I have the ability to generate the static file manually so that the changes will be available in a timely manner.

I know… that was a lot of techie jargon. At the end of the day, this change should be a win-win for everyone, including my poor DSL circuit (which is where my server is currently hosted through). If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment to this blog post.

Wait Wait Stats Update: 1998 Part Deux

As noted in the original “Wait Wait Stats Update: 1998” post, my goal was to complete filling out the panelists, guests and descriptions for all of 1998 by the end of June. Well, it’s now 1 July 2011 and I still haven’t gotten all of the show descriptions filled out. At least I have the guests entered in (without scores).

What I was able to do before the end of June was to add one of the features that I had been thinking about doing (and some have been asking for). If you visit the stats page, you will notice that all of the show dates are now links. When you click on the link, it will send you over to that show’s specific page on NPR.org. That way, you can view the transcripts for the newer shows, listen to a segment or the entire show, or figure out what song was used as an inter-segment button.

I am still thinking of the cleanest way of storing and presenting the location of where each show was recorded. Before that can happen, I will need to rewrite the code that handles the data query and processing of that data, before generating it for display. That rewrite should also open up the ability to display the breakdown of the panelist points and who had the correct bluff.

Update [2011-07-02]: I have made a couple of tweaks to the panelist scoring graph to make it a bit easier to quickly determine how many times a panelist has scored x points.

The voice of Carl Kasell has arrived

When I got home tonight, I saw a package that was addressed from Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and Chicago Public Radio in the pile of today’s mail. Within the package was a CD with an audio track containing the greeting that I requested Carl to record for me. Below is the picture of the CD that I received:

So, as promised, I have uploaded the greeting to Google Docs and shared it for all to hear. The following is the text of the greeting that I requested:

Good day, I am Carl Kasell and you have reached the mailbox for Linh Pham. Linh is probably too busy geeking out or is out somewhere making a fool of himself. Just joking, okay maybe not. Please leave a message after the beep.

Simple and reflects my quirky and ackward mannerisms :)

Thank you, Carl, for recording the greeting!

Wait Wait Stats Updates: 1998

I just wanted to give all of you “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” fans an update on the statistics page. I am in the process of adding the panelist and guest information for 1998. Scores will be added once the panelists and guests have been entered in, along with show descriptions.

Whether I can maintain a decent pace will have to depend on the amount of spare time I will have in the following four or five days. I hope to get a good portion of the 1999 data added during the month of June. I hope to complete a year of stats each month until I have caught up.

During that time, I will try to work on a way to note where each show is recorded, be it in studio, at Chase Auditorium, or on the road. Here’s to hoping that I can find enough spare time to get the page completed ;)