some interesting stuff from the /. discussion on browsers:
i just wanted to mention that my columnar css-only design preceded the browser upgrade campaign by about 3 months. waaay ahead of the zeitgeist. (but, as you will notice, with my friday night post, i am also without a life). for those just starting on css design, the css.nu pointers page is a good start.
the ala article has some neat workarounds for non-compliant browsers (the @import and css2 selectors are nice hacks - wait, didn't they say they were gonna stop doing that?), but those looking for a better explanation of using floats to create columns, there's a webreference tutorial on it.
while on the issue, i guess i've sorta figured out my apprehension at the whole upgrade campaign dealio. yes it's a good thing, but the javascript forewarding is moronic. 1) 20%+ people have javascript disabled, 2)many of the people you're targeting won't have javascript anyway. the top of the page css-hidden warning is much better. i use a server-side one. oh, and for people who get stupid user-agent redirects, try proxomitron, a great tool.
um yeah, summarizing:
separating presentation from content == good
javascript auto-forwarding == really really moronic.
proving once again that nsi is slime, they're selling prepackaged whois data to marketers. so if you've ever registered a domain name, prepare to receive even more spam. grr.
rambus gets busted. again. someone put em outta their misery.
colorvision monitor spyder for $224. looks like a neat tool for easy color calibration.
noticed that the latest issue of the la weekly has a cover story on the ca power problem (that took a bit a searching to find the permanent location... grr, bad design). it's a better look than cnn's rather superficial "in-depth special" (this took a while to find too. i saw it before but it didn't show up in the searches...)
the online version of the la weekly is much less messy on the fingers (smudgy newsprint and all that).
catherine brewster not only got front row seats, but she took some great photos of u2 @ astoria.
wasp's new browser upgrade campaign has a laudable goal. they don't mention mozilla (not the same as ns6) or lynx (html 4.0 compatible), which is a huge disservice. the former because ns6 sucks, and the second because disregarding lynx rendering means disregarding accessibility. if it renders in lynx, it means it should display in html2/3 browsers, and it'll work for disabled (blind, etc) people.
but you know, this is the kinda thing content/display separation and server-side template generation was supposed to solve.
if knownow makes it big, i can just see it bringing down apache 1.x servers to their knees (so many child processes, the horror, the horror). um 2.x would do better. and aolserver would do better too. actually, i'm sure that that's the least of knownow's worries once you take the riaa, the mpaa, and gov't goons into account.
apologies for anyone who reads this blog for insight on internet trends and commentary: i believe i am out of the loop now. i don't go through my daily net reading list regularly anymore (no time), and i'm not going to any of those swanky events (no money). not like the good old days ;P
u2log has a link to a neat david holmes remix of beautiful day. it's a very stripped down garage band mix, all dissonant guitar fuzz and bass line. sooper cool. sounds almost like a demo tape.
man, tech report's comments on hardware prices is dead on hilarious. of course, none of this applies to apple people. ;P
that ms vs open source /. article is up to 1150 comments. still around the same number of 3+ posts though (some really good ones, say: #506, #39, #40, #49, #68, #193, #203, #530, #735, #262), heh. reminds me of all those comp.os.advocacy flamefests. man, reading those things wasted a ton of time.
gateway's selling a system w/ a 41.3ghz processor at a song.
in case you missed it, mozilla 0.8 is out. oh, be sure to take a look at this bug. i think it's interesting to note that recently, builds have been shrinking. daily builds of win32 mozilla got as big as 14-15mb for a while, but now (along w/ 0.8) are hovering around the 10mb size.
looks good, is pretty stable, still has the bookmark sidebar rightclick bug (won't be fixed until 0.9, but i was hoping...) ... context menus are good. if you could use a context menu to switch image blocking (off and on), animated gif, popup, and js options, life would be sweet.
on a totally different note, there's a thread on sijun's digital art forums that points to older threads of advice. sorta one band aid way of dealing with management of data... big concern of mine for the past while. of course, i've been really lagging in my implementation of my junk organizer tool. i should really create a project plan for that... hmm. i've said this before.
nothing like ms vs open source to draw the /. crowd outta the woodwork. most messages i've seen in a looong time. haven't seen overload mode in a while either...
man i love the quote from jim allchin (microsoft windoze honcho):
I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.
time for some hearings to drive out the pinkos! lol.
that's a good question. why does the razorfish redesign resemble the marchfirst design so much? (well, we probably already know the answer to that, don't we?) the mefi thread turns into funny bitchslap commentary about half-way through. reads like the vault. ;)
even a year later, sapient's site is still one of the best web/creative consulting firm websites i've seen. love 37signals' site still as well.
since i'm constantly going back and searching for it: [H]ard|Forum - Keyboard Mod - Part 2 - this is the link to the lit neon blue keyboard. it's really cool, and if i had the money i'd go to streetglow.com and pick up some hotwirez. the site also has expensive looms and ties.
staples mailed me two pens in a 13x10x4" box.
actually, this whole USGS Visual Identity Project History and Design Issues site is great. tons of really good articles. plus, the home page links to other stuff, like stock photography online and all that jazz.
Grids: Their meaning and use for federal designers - (Based on a presentation to the Second Studio Seminar for Federal Graphic Designers, November 10, 1976)
holy shiznit. crucial 256mb pc133 cl2 sdram is going for $90.94 a pop now. that's so ridiculous.
wow, huge ass crystals.
so, in my drawing class, my professor mentioned the recent news about muon business, and this girl started talking about how everything could be logically understood (and would be, presumably, by people) and how everything had a cause and effect. now, i mentioned bell's theorem and his experiments on non-causality (i originally got interested in this because of it's implications on free will.
here's another page on bell's theorem that breaks it down really well. here, there's a quote attributed to Stapp stating Bell's Theorem as "the most profound discovery of science." (which the author agrees with).
also, at the bottom of the page, there's a quick mention about gödel's theorem, which of course can be used to challenge the imo silly assumption that the universe would ever be logically understood (that of course is based on the assumption that the universe is rational at all). big word translation: rational epistemology, rational ontology.
anyway, although godel's theorem has often been used fallaciously, i believe that it wouldn't be incorrect to say that godel's theorem does say that the universe can not be explained at the very least, by any deductive rational framework. and, if the very substrate of our existence is a formal system, then it can not be defined except on some higher order. so, whether that implies some true ontology, we could never know, right?
incidentally, john bell runs an annual practical reasoning and rationality workshop. there are proceedings for some of 'em. look neat, but it'll be a while before i ever get the time to read them. also, the applied logic colloquium looks cool too.
might as well list all the other cool stuff i found:
1.4ghz tbird v 1.725ghz p4 - final score, 115.61 to 102.54, tbird kicks the snot out of p4.
hmm, maybe working for ibm isn't such a great idea, considering their history... (cue ominous music)
good info on software / hardware rebates and what to do if they're getting rejected.
walter |2| costinak finally updated his 2 design site. it's pretty nice, and shows off all the great work he's done over the years. i even sat through the intro.
Powerbook G4 Diary seems to be ongoing. unfortunately, it loks like macworld's cms has every day as a separate page w/o really stringing em together very well...