Messing around
I've been tinkering around with this new template periodically for about 5 months. There are some things about a Blogger template that you can't (read: I can't) check without running it live. I'm doing that now and will probably be tinkering with it in this form on and off for the next few days. REMAIN CALM.
This template may go away. It may stay. Either way, posting will continue to be what I like to call "light to no posting" until I'm done writing the thesis.
Read more...
P.S. The cryptic little icons in the right-hand margin are not ads. They represent a new feature, courtesy of the new template. This feature doesn't really work right now--the icons go to placeholder links. But what's going to happen eventually is that each of those pictures will link to a "sticky" post somewhere at this site (it doesn't matter where since you can always find them through their pictures).
Actually, the wingnut picture sort-of does this already. It goes to an old post that I update periodically when I find new citations for forms of the word "wingnut." Since this post is buried in the archive, nobody but me knows when it's updated unless I make a big deal about it. Now it will always have a little picture linking to it somewhere on the main page. And fans of wingnutology will always have a place to share new citations with me (comments on that post) and can check back now and then to see if there are any new additions.
The other icons will do the same sort of thing: link to "ongoing" posts acting as image galleries, themed archives, themed (permanent) open theads, etc. My plan is to keep adding these pages--running links to them down that right-hand column forever. Until there are so many that they're all be meaningless.
This template may go away. It may stay. Either way, posting will continue to be what I like to call "light to no posting" until I'm done writing the thesis.
Read more...
P.S. The cryptic little icons in the right-hand margin are not ads. They represent a new feature, courtesy of the new template. This feature doesn't really work right now--the icons go to placeholder links. But what's going to happen eventually is that each of those pictures will link to a "sticky" post somewhere at this site (it doesn't matter where since you can always find them through their pictures).
Actually, the wingnut picture sort-of does this already. It goes to an old post that I update periodically when I find new citations for forms of the word "wingnut." Since this post is buried in the archive, nobody but me knows when it's updated unless I make a big deal about it. Now it will always have a little picture linking to it somewhere on the main page. And fans of wingnutology will always have a place to share new citations with me (comments on that post) and can check back now and then to see if there are any new additions.
The other icons will do the same sort of thing: link to "ongoing" posts acting as image galleries, themed archives, themed (permanent) open theads, etc. My plan is to keep adding these pages--running links to them down that right-hand column forever. Until there are so many that they're all be meaningless.
11 Comments:
I only use Firefox. (Except sometimes when I need to see one of those shitty pages that doesn't work except with Internet Explorer.) So the (potentially) new template has only really been checked out for Firefox.
I know it's slightly broken with IE: (1) the hidden links in the yellow sidebar don't appear; (2) annoying, horizontal lines sometimes run across the window. As for (1), that's just a shame for IE users. But (2) is a problem that I don't understand at all and wish I could fix. It's got something to do with how I've structured the "liquid" layout of the center corumn. I can sometimes make the horizontal lines go away by resizing the IE window a bit. But "equally sometimes" this doesn't work. Anyone who happens to see this page before I take down the (potentially) new template--advice about the horizontal IE lines would be sweet.
Also, if anyone happens to use the following browsers: Safari, Opera, Netscape, Anything Else I Don't Know About... If you look around and find any hideous ugliness, would you please leave a comment here (or anywhere) letting me know the gist of the problem? Thanks.
Admire the new template, though I liked the old one pretty well too--there was something understated and cool and readable about that cornflower yellow/white scheme. Did the old one have the blue Blogger bar on it? Not a big fan of that, and if I knew anything about real html'ing, I would find a way to get rid of it on Cartel. In fact, if I knew how to do it (or had the time), I'd trash Cartel's whole template and start again (I'm sick of that brown "Scribe" theme).
Those right-margin widgets are exceptionally cool. Precisely the kind of thing that Cartel's "Memory Hole" was shooting for, but didn't really achieve very well. The links are cool too--I'd never seen the Perrspective site before. A grumble about World Wind: doesn't work on a Mac, alas. But I'll take that up with NASA. And kudos for flying yr geek-flag so fiercely w/the D&D link. Lordy, I remember when Lake Geneva, WI, home of GenCon and the one they called Gygax, seemed as a mythic place of wonder and nerdvana to this NJ-suburbs-bound boy. Here's a quiz for you. Can't vouch for its reliability, though, since it claims I'm a d6, which seems wrong somehow. I'd always imagined myself more dodecahedral than cubular.
And, as per your survey request, I'm viewing this through Safari on a Mac OSX 10.3.9 system. All seems shipshape.
Also, been meaning to ask you (in fact, maybe i already did ask you but forgot yr answer): Does that mangled-hand graphic come from anywhere specific? When I saw Gang of 4 some months back, one of the dudes had that image on his t-shirt.
Erratum: Cornflowers are blue, not yellow, aren't they? Anyhow, whatever that mild and eye-soothing yellow color the old template had, I liked it. Is it the same yellow the new one has? Possibly it is, and it just looks different and darker surrounded by the contrasting blue frame.
Nice to see you stop by, wg. And on my birthday, no less. [Insert reference to "plate of shrimp" here.]
It says I am also a d6. Gotta say I'm a bit disappointed at that, but at least I ended up one of the Platonic solids. These quizzes are never wrong, so I accept the results.
Aside. As a fellow d6, you may be find this random fact about cubes to be of some use: the minimum requirements for cubic symmetry are four, three-fold rotational axes. Cubeness is not about having six sides, square sides, etc. It's about having lines (four of them) through which you you can rotate an object three times (i.e. 120° per rotation) without changing the outward appearance of the object.
On a d6, the four rotational axes are the lines joining opposite corners through the center of the die ("the body diagonals"). To see that each of these axes is three-fold, pinch a d6 by opposite corners, remember how the die looks, then rotate about the pinched axis until it looks the same. (Ignore the marks on the die--they mess up all symmetry). You'll be able to rotate the die three times about each body diagonal.
Nested aside. This means a d4 also has cubic symmetry. I know--this blew my mind when I first learned about crystallography, but it's true. The heart of every d6 is a d4.
End of aside.
About the template. I love that deep blue color, but it does kinda busy the place up visually. I will consider changing it back to white (or to something else--it's easy to change). I also changed the color of the link/followed-link text and I'm still not satisfied with my choices. The links are busy and hard to read.
The yellow is the same yellow it always was. But next to the blue, it does look different: more like dehydrated piss than a sunny Saturday. I'll keep tweaking the colors as time permits. And when time finally permits the complete restoration of my online self, I volunteer to make the Cartel template look the way you envision it (either by doing it myself, by talking you through it, or both).
Further notes in no particular order (writing the dissertation has really turned me on to this business of numbering everything... and of writing like a passive-voiced, windy sonofabitch):
1. The Memory Hole trick of using secondary blogspot blogs to store the Hole's content is more elegant than my modified timestamp nonsense. I may eventually go that route.
2. I'll come right out and say it: NASA hates your freedom. But they are scheming up a Mac version of World Wind for the not-too-distant future. If it ever happens, I'll put up an announcement or otherwise pass on the info to you.
2. Yeah, I'm a big geek. Though I haven't written anything about D&D for sasetc yet, it will happen. And when it does, watch out. I love the game for the stories, the adventure and all that other squishy "imagination stuff"--and the childhood memories of saving up forever to go buy my very own copy of the PH. Haven't made it to GenCon (yet). But what really sings to me about D&D these days is how the dice, randomness, and the "D&D matrix" all work together to approximate reality. Seriously geeky stuff. When I get around to writing about it, I promise to be gentle. Briefly: playing dice with the universe works pretty well. Or, to paraphrase Dear Leader, "If this was a dungeon, it would be a heckuva lot easier--just so long as I get to be dungeon master."
3. Thank you for the Safari note. I tried the site out on Holly's Mac laptop and it all took forever to load. I probably need to shrink the images or something. Work in progress...
4. The gears mangling the hand is a standard "entanglement hazard" warning sign. I scanned the picture from the manual for that machine at the lab that I use to test my samples. I think it's in there because of the drive belt on the hydraulic pump (the test machine itself has no belts or gears). It's the most gruesome warning sign I've ever seen. Flammable? Corrosive? Employees must wash hands? These are all good signs, but they don't really freak me out the way a proper warning sign should. Those gears mangling the hand? I'm not going anywhere near that sucker.
Oh--on last night's Simpsons, Homer went through the gears in a mill. It looked like the animators based their drawings on this sign. When the episode comes out on DVD (in 12 years or so), I'll be sure to listen to the commentary to confirm/deny my suspicions.
I originally put the sign on the website because I wanted a square placeholder graphic. Then Holly saw it and convinced me it should stay. I keep meaning to print the image onto a t-shirt (H's mom gave me some fancy deskjet t-shirt maker printer paper stuff at x-mas for just this purpose, but I still haven't gotten around to making the shirt.) Nice to know Gang of 4 likes the image, too.
5. Cornflowers (centaurea cyanus prettius flowerus) are blue. They're also Holly's favorite flower and, as I learned last month, something they don't generally stock at our neighborhood flower shop.
Back to work.
Erratum: The old template also had the Blogger bar. I think part of the deal with Blogger is that unless you buy a url and move your blogspot site off-world, they want you to keep the bar as consideration for the service they provide.
That said, I get the impression that they don't enforce this rule--if it even exists--too strictly. If they were serious about it, my guess is that Digby or Atrios would be among the first to get nailed for a violation.
&y was cool. &y
went to school. &y
stress metal. &y
science nettle settle. &y
start to write. &y
drop from site. &y
writing Dune? &y
done soon?
Thanks for the kind words Cap'n. Soon. Very soon.
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I messed with the template again. It looks better without all the unnecessary vertical lines. And by getting rid of them without changing anything else, I gain some friendly white space.
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Reviews of the latest dissertation draft:
"Comprehensive... authoritative."
-- Advisor
"[The] figures are superb..."
-- Advisor
"Good scientific writing..."
-- Advisor
"These chapters make me hungry for more."
-- Advisor
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Welcome back, spambot! I could use a degree in two weeks--but I'm almost there on my own. So, thanks and no thanks.
In other news, I took wg's advice and got rid of the busy blue background. What you're seeing now is probably going to be the permanent template for this site. I'm still not happy with the colors of the links and with a few other things. But they're all minor.
Come back, spambot! I want a "PHD."
FWIW, SASE no longer takes forever to load on Safari.
Very nice site! » » »
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Speaking as a scientist, etc.