Just an idea

by

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

by

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

by

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

by

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

by

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.

Democratic debate tomorrow night

by

New Mexico is going to host a “conversation” style debate among the nine contenders for the Democratic nomination tomorrow night, at the University of New Mexico, Albequerqe. Unfortunately, due to both my work schedule and my not having cable TV, I won’t be able to watch it, which is something of a bummer. Still, it should be interesting to see what comes of it. MSNBC political columnist Howard Fineman gives his ‘Debate Prescription for Dr. Dean:

CAMPAIGN 2004 already has been an amazing show, and it hasn’t even started. With shrewd management, high-tech savvy and an angry anti-Bush message, Dean—the one-time internist and former governor of Vermont—has surged to the lead in the race for the Democratic nomination. An obscurity a few months ago, he is the frontrunner now, and everyone knows it.

As a result, the dynamic in New Mexico (with its heavy Hispanic vote and pivotal early primary) will be Dean and anti-Dean. The storyline of the night—foreshadowing, perhaps, the fall season in its entirety—will focus on the question of how he responds to the inevitable attacks I expect to begin Thursday night. The sound bite that makes the TV news, and the lead that makes the New York Times, will be the one that features the sharpest, nastiest exchange between the good doctor and … whoever.

I’ll certainly be looking forward to reading the reports of this once it’s done.

The world's oldest profession

by

Okies, folks — Kirsten needs help!

In just a few weeks, I’m going to throw a shmantabulous bachelorette party for my best friend. The theme for this co-ed costume party is ‘Whores throughout History.’

Who are some of your favorite historical whores? How about slutty eras? Eras you wish were a little less prudish?

Someone already suggested Mary Magdeline, which was my first thought. I’ll see who else I can come up with, though — anyone else have some ideas? Kirsten would probably prefer if you commented on her site, but any comments left here will be sent her way too, I’ll make sure of it.

Diplomacy based on petulance

by

The Bush Administration continues to amaze me — they have an amazing ability to firmly put both feet in their mouth with their head up their ass.

From a press conference with Richard Boucher (I have no clue who he is, though):

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, do you have anything on the proposal for the creation of a European Union military headquarters in Brussels independent of NATO — something that have angered the United States, according to reports?

>

MR. BOUCHER: I’m not quite sure what proposal that is. You mean the one from the four countries that got together and had a little, bitty summit?

>

QUESTION: That’s exactly it — and Belgium insisting to this —

>

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, the chocolate makers.

>

(Laughter.)

What a wonderful little piece of diplomacy that is — deriding Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg as “chocolate makers” and mocking their “little, bitty summit.”

Gov. Dean has issued a statement condemning the administration’s “foreign policy based on petulance“, a wonderful choice of words.

Rule #1: Validate

by

Having problems with the design of your page? Things working in one browser, but not another? It happens to all of us, and it can be pretty frustrating when it does.

The number one way to fix issues like this is simply this: validate your code.

As Mark Pilgrim pointed out back in May…

Newbie Designer posts a link to a test page, asking for help because it doesn’t behave as expected in this or that browser. Guru Designer replies, telling Newbie Designer that their page doesn’t validate, and that they should go validate their page before asking such questions. There is no further discussion; no further replies are posted; no one else is willing to help.

Why does this happen? Why won’t we help you?

The short, smart-alec, Zen-like answer is that we are helping you, you just don’t realize it yet. The full answer goes like this:

  1. Validation may reveal your problem.
  2. Validation may solve your problem.
  3. Valid markup is hard enough to debug already.
  4. Validation is an indicator of cluefulness.

There’s even a new version of the validator that gives more helpful error messages and tips to get them fixed, though it’s still in beta right now.

Bottom line: valid markup is a Good Thing™. Sure, it’s a bit of a pain, and it can take a little time to get used to the conventions involved in writing valid code. The amount of time, effort, and anguish involved in solving niggling little browser issues that valid code saves, though, is more than worth it.

(Oh, and in case you were curious — yes, this page validates!)