Category: Uncategorized

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Disable Login Language Selector on WordPress 5.9

With the release of WordPress 5.9 comes a new dropdown language selector on the Login screen for WordPress that lets users switch to any language that has been installed on the website. As long as there is more than one active language on the site then this dropdown selector will be visible and is a great feature for multi-lingual sites.

If, like me however, you develop a website which already has a language switcher in place, either via your own code or another plugin then you may not want the new language selector to appear. Thankfully WordPress 5.9 also comes with a filter that you can use to disable the selector, so you can use this simple line of code in the ‘functions.php’ file in your theme to do so:

add_filter( 'login_display_language_dropdown', '__return_false' );

Whilst it is fairly simple to add this to your theme for some people it may not be possible to edit your theme files and such it’s much easier to install a plugin, so I’ve made a simple plugin which is now live in the WordPress plugin directory. The “Disable Login Language Selector” plugin provides a quick and easy way to remove the Language selector that appears on the login screen in WordPress 5.9.

Disable Login Language Selector

(Note that my other WordPress plugins have also been tested in WordPress 5.9 too so will happily work with the new release.)

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Atari XP collection – never-released and rare Atari games from the 1970s and 1980s

Atari XP are releasing some actual cartridges for games that were never actually released back in 1970’s / 80’s.

They describe it as “Never-before released Atari® 2600 game cartridges. Available for the first time”. The games are described as:

Games that were completed but never received an official release, or were only released in very limited quantities. 

Games for which physical media has become extremely rare, and therefore hard to find.

A wide variety of classic games that would benefit from small improvements to graphic rendering on modern devices and the smoothness and accuracy of controls. These games will be carefully ‘reconditioned’ and then re-released.

The first three games they are releasing are “Yars’ Return“, “Saboteur” and “Aquaventure“.

Unfortunately they are only for sale in the United States at the moment but hopefully will become available elsewhere in future. But it’s pretty cool that I could possibly buy new cartridges for my own Atari 2600 console! :)

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“The Gaze” – by Barry Jenkins

I came across this on Kottke.org, I’ve been planning on watching Amazon’s new “The Underground Railroad” series so it caught my eye. It’s effectively an unplanned side-project they made whilst filming the actual series, it portrays an array of actors standing before the camera:

I don’t remember when we began making the piece you see here. Which is not and should not be considered an episode of The Underground Railroad. It exists apart from that, outside it. Early in production, there was a moment where I looked across the set and what I saw settled me: our background actors, in working with folks like Ms. Wendy and Mr. and Mrs. King – styled and dressed and made up by Caroline, by Lawrence and Donnie – I looked across the set and realized I was looking at my ancestors, a group of people whose images have been largely lost to the historical record. Without thinking, we paused production on the The Underground Railroad and instead harnessed our tools to capture portraits of… them.

(I’ve also been replaying “Red Dead Redemption II” which has an incredible level of detail of late 1800’s America and the scenery and costumes of the video above reminded me of some of the areas of the RDII environment. RDII is actually set in 1899, so almost 50 years after the time of The Underground Railroad series, it kind of blew my mind that the house I own here in Scotland was built in 1899!)

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“Future Library” / “Framtidsbiblioteket”

I just came across this pretty incredible project called “Future Library” or “Framtidsbiblioteket”:

https://www.futurelibrary.no

Basically the plan is for one writer per year to write a book for 100 years, at the same time a purposefully-planted forest grows to maturity. After 100 years the trees will be harvested and then the still-unseen / unread books will be printed using the wood from the trees.

One thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, a forest just outside Oslo, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until the year 2114. Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the one hundred year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.

https://www.futurelibrary.no/#/the-artwork

It’s by a Scottish artist Katie Pierson who has also done some other interesting projects.

It’s an interesting idea to consider that these books might only be read by at least grandchildren if not great-grandchildren of any of us alive just now. It’s also made me ponder how the website for this project will be viewed in 100 years time – how well will this digital media stand the test of time?