In Uncategorized on July 17, 2001
i’ve been trying to get my head round css (cascading style sheets) for ages. not just the simple stuff but the whole idea that the look and design of a web page should be totally separated from the content. i think this kind of orthogonality is a great thing to have. and also nothing could be worse than trying to lay pages out using tables. could it?
yup. the implementations of css in internet explorer 5 and netscape 6 are quite passable. but netscape 4 is proving to be a complete nightmare. yes, i know no one except me is using it anymore but i still hang onto my outmoded ideas that things ought to work on all browsers. however this is the problem that stylesheets are supposed to solve. the easiest way to make something written for stylesheets look good in netscape 4 is to just switch off the stylesheets and view the content. it’s a bit in the raw but it’s far more readable than the old table based layout version was.
i’m getting there though. i have a version of this page that is css layout only and i’m just polishing it off and sorting out the problems now. one of those problems is that netscape gets very picky about it’s tags being closed properly. who on earth closes p tags? aren’t missing p tags even part of the spec? anyways i will get it sorted and i will not succomb to one browser-one platform design.
there’s a curious difference between internet explorer and netscape in their interpretation of the background colours here. i reckon i can live with that though!
In Uncategorized on July 17, 2001
i like learning new words for things. i like getting stuff in my mailbox every morning telling me new things. yesterday the word of the day was louche: of questionable character; dubious; disreputable. there’s enough words i don’t know without being mailed more of them though. i was reading my book and realised i didn’t have the vaguest clue what anodyne meant. i know now.
In Uncategorized on July 16, 2001
amazon tell me that the catcher in the rye is 50 years old today. as a birthday celebration they are selling it for ‘the original 1951 price’. sounds like a good deal. the paperback today sells for $6. in 1951 it was selling for $3. i presume that must be a hardback price but is it not still a little expensive?
the hardcover today sells for $25, or about 4 times the price of the paperback. if that ratio was the same in 1951 then a paperback would have cost 75¢. i have paperback books i bought with my very own money getting on for 25 years ago and they only cost the equivalent of about 50¢ then.
either hardback books were even more of a ripoff in 1951 or books have got a lot more accessibly priced over the years. i expect both theories are true. anyway, just read it, it’s well worth it.
In Uncategorized on July 16, 2001
i was a lego kid and i’ve never even played with meccano. this article says:
the falling popularity of meccano and the rise of lego has been decried as a “disaster of modern life” that is inextricably linked to “the demise of british engineering” by one of the country’s most prestigious scientists.
“with meccano, you learn how structures stay together. you make shapes and some are rigid and some aren’t. meccano gives you a feel for materials. you have to tighten a screw enough to stop things falling apart but not so tightly you destroy the thread. lego is much more forgiving.”
the idea that the toys we play with shape our future careers is not a bad one. if you didn’t play with any construction toys as a child then you would have less chance to learn how much fun it was to build things. you learn what you do and don’t like by experimenting with different things. if you’re introduced to any random thing is a way that makes it fun then i think that fun aspect is more likely to stick with you through the boring bits. but i think laying the downfall of engineering in britain at the door of lego is a bit of a stretch all the same.
for myself, years of happy following of all the instructions for lego kits (how did i always manage to lose them all?) has left me with an undeniable sense of joy when faced with similar tasks as an adult. i once contemplated whether there was the seed of a business plan in putting together other people’s flat pack furniture. i’m as happy as larry with those boxes from ikea.
In Uncategorized on July 16, 2001
what’s the point in a survey that collects no useful data whatsoever? on friday night we ate at chiquito’s, a mexican restaurant conviniently located next to ikea where we’d been buying furniture that came in bigger boxes than my car. on our table was a survey to fill in, in return for our comments we’d get entered into a draw to win a free meal. not being in the habit of turning down a chance to win things we filled in the survey. presumably the restaurant makes this offer of free grub in return for opinions in order to obtain some useful information about what their customers think of the ‘dining experience’.
there was no way to respond to this survey that would let us tell them what we really thought. the four choices of response for each item on the list were ‘mexcellent’ (yes, really), great, good and ‘not hot’. that doesn’t give you a lot of leeway for saying that something was average or could’ve been better or that whilst the meal wasn’t expensive it wasn’t cheap either. i could complain about the categories too (under ’service’ what designation would you use to say that the bar service was abysmally slow, though the table waitress was pleasant but the food arrived at such a speed that you didn’t get a chance to breathe between courses?) but that would be a parenthetical rant. what mainly annoys me is that i suspect they take these surveys and go off and brag to the industry that ‘x% of our customers think our service is good’ and suchlike. when many of those customers will have filled in a box closer to the bottom of the scale than the top and expected it to mean ‘not as good as we’d hoped’ like it usually does.
we rated it pretty much ‘not hot’ on statistical principle, i still hope we win a free meal though!
In books read on July 15, 2001
Was there ever a more offputting title
for a book? I would never have picked this up
if it hadn't have been a group discussion
read. The title is wonderfully evocative after you've read the book, but beforehand I wondered if this was a story about a comedy duo or perhaps concerned some kind of obsession with posteriors.
Among readers whose opinions I trust this book is being hailed as the best thing since something very very very good was last published. I thought it was one of the better books I've read in recent times but it didn't grab me the way that other mysteries have. The narration was unusual, the story was excellent and it flowed past me very smoothly. But it did flow past me and not through me. It was very good, but I didn't find it excellent.
Purchased on 18th June 2001.
In Uncategorized on July 12, 2001
from dictionary.com:
- tautology is needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.
- oxymoron is conjoining contradictory terms.
just writing them down to try and prevent me forgetting and accusing darren of misusing tautological for the ten millionth time when he’s quite right….
In Uncategorized on July 12, 2001
for some reason when i started filling in this personality disorder test i thought it was going to be one of those amusing personality test type things. it’s a bit serious for that though. oh well, at least i’m not paranoid or dependent or anti social or borderline! imagine being borderline, thank heavens i don’t need to worry about that :-/
In books read on July 12, 2001
After hurling Mark Graham's book The Black Maria across the room (in an attempt to find something interesting to do with it as reading it was lulling me into a catatonic state) I wanted some confirmation that all historical mysteries weren't such unreadable garbage. Happily Linscott provided that confirmation.
The setting here is the general election called at the close of the first world war in 1918. This was the first British election in which women were eligible to vote and our protaganist Nell Bray, a suffragette who's pleased to have won that battle, is standing for Parliament as an independent candidate in the rural constituency of Duxbury. And this being a mystery she's doing a little detecting at the same time.
She's been invited to Duxbury by the widow of the former Conservative candidate who was blown up by a firework at the Armistice celebrations. Convinced that her husband was murdered by his replacement Conservative candidate the widow is willing to support Nell as an independent providing that she investigates the death.
Perhaps because I've plunged in at the eighth book in the series I found the characters very realistic people and I wasn't disappointed by the plot. Mainly though I was impressed that Linscott conjured up a picture of 1918 for me without drowning me in her research. I felt there was just enough detail to evoke the era.
I don't think historical fiction will ever be a favourite of mine but I was pleased to find that it can be written well after all.
Purchased on 28th February 2000.
In Uncategorized on July 11, 2001
hmmm, i can do game three with the wolf, the sheep and the cabbages no problemo. i keep getting my missonaries eaten my cannibals though. and i can’t get my family across the bridge whilst their lamp is alight. i love logic puzzles but i really wish i hated them sometimes.
update: i got my family across in one piece 
those pesky cannibals keep eating my missionaries though!
update 2: i got my missionaries over in one piece too am dead impressed with myself now! am back to liking logic problems now that they are all solved!
nocto
