Another idea

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Another possible redesign

Work continues on reworking the design of this place. I think I’ve finally come up with something that I like, too — miracles never cease!

This time, I took some time to bounce around some of the sites that have caught my eye the most. Generally, they tend to be the exact opposite of what I’ve had here for a long time. Where I’ve had some sort of compulsion to present everything possible at once, all on the front page, I’m far more drawn to very sparse, open, clean designs. Yet, for absolutely no reason that I can come up with, I’d never made an attempt at that style.

So, this is where I think I’m heading at the moment. The navigation bar at the top will take care of all the extraneous crap. ‘About’ will lead to my about page, which will absorb things like my music and reading lists. ‘Past’ takes care of my archives. ‘Comments’ will catch the last n comments made (I’m waffling on this one, actually — it seems a little silly to have a page just for that, but it’s also really nice to have a quick reference of when someone’s said hello). ‘Elsewhere’ will handle both the blogroll and the Destinations feed (just how, I’m not sure yet, but that will come). And lastly, ‘Feeds’ will hold my RSS feeds (which I plan on expanding to include an excerpts feed, a full post feed, and a comment feed).

At least, that’s the basic concept to start with. As always, questions, comments and words of wisdom are greatly appreciated!

Update: A quick list of inspirations, code examples, and other ideas as I work on this. Links may be added here as I go.

Pshaw. Rank amateur.

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I think I mentioned to Bob [Geldof] I could make love for eight hours. What I didn’t say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie.

— Sting, admitting to exaggerating his abilities in the past.

(via Go Fish)

Company on the way!

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I’m going to have company for about the next week, which should be fun (if, possibly, a teense bit crowded in my little studio apartment).

For the past two years, my brother’s fianceé Emily has been working with the Peace Corps in Ghana, teaching English to the children there. She and two friends are on their way back up to Alaska, and have about a week here in Seattle before heading up to Alaska. Seeing how it seems a little silly for her to spend the money on a hotel for a week when she has (almost) family here in town, I offered her a place to stay.

Emily just called a few minutes ago, and she and Amy will be over here in about an hour or so. Dawn shows up in a few days, and then they’ll all be leaving next Friday. A little crowded, but should be fun.

And yeah — for the next week, I’m living in a studio apartment with two or three girls. Gee, ain’t life tough? ;)

In the beginning…

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I first saw this years ago, and recently ran across it again thanks to Dave Caolo. It’s always made me laugh, hopefully you will too.

In the beginning, there was the computer…

In the beginning there was the computer. And God said

c:> Let there be light!

Enter user id.

c:> God

Enter password.

c:> Omniscient

Password incorrect. Try again.

c:> Omnipotent

Password incorrect. Try again.

c:> Technocrat

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.

c:> Let there be light!

Unrecognizable command. Try again.

c:> Create light

Done

c:> Run heaven and earth

And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Sunday, March 1.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Monday, March 2.

c:> Let there be firmament in the midst of water and light.

Unrecognizable command. Try again.

c:> Create firmament

Done.

c:> Run firmament

And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Monday, March 2.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.

c:> Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and

Too many characters in specification string. Try again.

c:> Create dry_land

Done.

c:> Run firmament

And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Tuesday, March 3.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.

c:> Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night

Unspecified type. Try again.

c:> Create sun_moon_stars

Done

c:> Run sun_moon_stars

And God separated the light from the darkness. The sun ruled over the day and the moon and stars ruled over the night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Wednesday, March 4.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.

c:> Create fish

Done

c:> Create fowl

Done

c:> Run fish, fowl

And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and every winged fowl after its kind. And God saw there were 0 errors.
And God logged off at 12:02:00 AM, Thursday, March 5.

And God logged on at 12:01:00 AM, Friday, March 6.

c:> Create cattle

Done

c:> Create creepy_things

Done

c:> Now let us make man in our image

Unspecified type. Try again.

c:> Create man

Done

c:> Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth

Too many command operands. Try again.

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 6 errors.

c:> Insert breath

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 5 errors.

c:> Move man to Garden of Eden

File Garden of Eden does not exist.

c:> Create Garden.edn

Done

c:> Move man to Garden.edn

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 4 errors.

c:> Copy woman from man

Done

c:> Run multiplication

Execution terminated. 2 errors.

c:> Create desire

Done

c:> Run multiplication

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Create freewill

Done

c:> Run freewill

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Undo desire

Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.

c:> Destroy freewill

Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Help

Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Create tree_of_knowledge

And God saw man and woman being fruitful and multiplying in Garden.edn
Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.

c:> Create good, evil

Done

c:> Activate evil

And God saw he had created shame.
Warning system error in sector E95.
Man and woman not in Garden.edn. 1 errors.

c:> Scan Garden.edn for man, woman

Search failed.

c:> Delete shame

Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.

c:> Destroy freewill

Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.

c:> Stop

Unrecognizable command. Try again

c:> Break
c:> Break
c:> Break

ATTENTION ALL USERS *** ATTENTION ALL USERS: COMPUTER GOING DOWN FOR REGULAR DAY OF MAINTENANCE AND REST IN FIVE MINUTES. PLEASE LOG OFF.

c:> Create new world

You have exceeded your allocated file space. You must destroy old files before new ones can be created.

c:> Destroy earth

Destroy earth: Please confirm.

c:> Destroy earth confirmed

COMPUTER DOWN *** COMPUTER DOWN. SERVICES WILL RESUME SUNDAY, MARCH 8 AT 6:00 AM. YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW.
And God logged off at 11:59:59 PM, Friday, March 6.

On March 8, God created the Macintosh.

Just an idea

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Possible design tweak

I’m tinkering with ideas for the design here — kind of fun to do, but it’s definitely not one of my strong points (something that’s driven home when I keep seeing people come up with designs like this). Part of what I’m working with is something to seperate out the sidebars a bit. As it is now, I feel like the three columns blend together a bit too much, there’s no real visual distinction. I don’t want to go back to the boxy-borders look I used to have to separate things out — while it’s extremely simple to do by adding borders in CSS, it’s not very visually interesting.

So this is one possible idea I was dinking with tonight. Not a major redesign, and it pulls the columns out on their own while still pulling the eye into the center where the main content is with the lighter color. I’m just not entirely sure I really like it. Too grey, maybe? Hrmpf.

Someday I’m actually going to come up with a good, clean, attractive design. Until then (and that day may be a long, long time coming), I’ll keep poking, prodding, and stumbling around.

Debate wrapups

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While I didn’t get to watch tonight’s Democratic debate, there’s a good wrap up from the New York Times, and some very interesting discussion in comment threads to posts on Daily Kos and Blog for America (in three seperate threads).

From the gist of what I’ve read so far, it seems that while Dean wasn’t at his best, he did hold his spot at the top of the pack, while Lieberman came off like a complete ass. Some of the most interesting comments are on the Blog for America threads — hardcore Dean supporters who realize that Dean wasn’t at his best, and rather than either despairing or blindly declaring him the ‘winner’, they’re offering lots of constructive criticism and ideas on how to approach later debates. Neat to see, it’s a much more real form of support that one usually sees in the political arena.

Meetings are the mind killer

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I must not attend meetings. Meetings are the mind killer. Meetings are the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my meeting. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the wasted time has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

— 0xDECAFBAD, via Will Parker

(Incidentally, Will looks to be right up my alley — Dean supporter, TypePad user, and not only a Mac user, but part of the Microsoft Office for Mac development team. He’s getting added to my reading list!)

Universal dropping CD prices

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It’s about damn time.

Battered by online piracy, the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, said yesterday that it would cut prices on compact discs by as much as 30 percent in an aggressive attempt to lure consumers back into record stores.

Under the new pricing scheme, Universal would lower its wholesale price on a CD to \$9.09 from \$12.02. The company said it expected retail stores to lower CD prices to \$12.98, from the \$16.98 to \$18.98 they now charge, and perhaps to as low as \$10. When CD’s first arrived on the market they cost \$15.98, and have climbed from there.

This has been far too long in coming — but at least it’s finally starting.

The blackboard jungle

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Damien pointed to an absolutely wonderful article today: Failing at Living: It’s a blackboard jungle out there: It’s bad enough when the students don’t want to learn, but when they can’t even spell dirty words correctly, can a teacher really expect them to grasp Stephen Sondheim? It’s a rather sad commentary on the state of many inner-city summer schools, and the challenges teachers face in trying to teach those students at the bottom end of the curve. However, at the same time, it is absolutely beautifully written, and gave me quite a few laughs while reading it.

…I glanced around at my remaining students (the ones I hadn’t thrown out of class) as they scribbled away on their final. After five weeks of hearing them tell me that reading “sucked,” I’d finally followed the dean’s sage advice: Let them watch movies. Since he did not say: Let them watch movies they like, I’d made them watch Stephen Sondheim’s thorny Broadway musical “Into the Woods.”

“You are really, really going to hate this,” I’d warned them. “Stephen Sondheim is all about words and they go really fast, and he doesn’t believe in happily ever after. But please hate it silently and take copious notes so that you can pass your final exam.”

Early on in my innocent phase, I would have asked for the context clues that helped us to know what copious meant. But such is the way of innocent phases. “Now, if for some reason you don’t hate this,” I said, “I beg you to keep the news to yourself. Your peers will never stop punishing you.”

There’s also a discussion of this article on MetaFilter that has some interesting points to it.