Special Blog Post:
Blog Work in Progress, Update
The task is finished. In the sidebar, you'll see a section where you may choose between the default color scheme, Midnight Embers, and the alternate color scheme, Afternoon AshFire, for this blog. Your choice will be set as a cookie in your computer so that, when you return, your chosen color scheme will load automatically. You may change your choice at any time. The cookie with a given choice will expire in 999 days, at which time the default theme will again load. You may at that time, of course, re-select the alternate theme.
At some time in the future, a third alternative might be offered. Considering how much effort it took this time to create a perfectly parallel but separate theme, that next offering will happen at about the same time donkeys fly: in other words, it will happen at about the same time the asses who are the current occupants of the White House are lifted up in Rapture and whisked away to their Eternal Reward.
The Dark Wraith is now officially one flogged coder.
Original Post:
Over the next several hours, strange things will be happening to this blog.
It could get ugly. In fact, it will get ugly.
The glad news is that the original colors and theme will return by the end of the evening. The bizarreness is to the end of creating an entire, alternate color theme that users can select. Once in place, a sidebar button will allow users to have a cookie set that will load the alternate theme on each visit. The button will be put in place tomorrow. For a while this afternoon and this evening, though, your host must ensure that all of the backgrounds, fonts, and graphics appear in the alternate theme properly and in visually appealing ways.
Do not panic. What you'll be seeing does not mean the Dark Wraith has suddenly become a sunny fellow who likes all things bright and shiney. It just means some people don't care much for the night-time look of the default theme, and their preferences should be accommodated.
The Dark Wraith will complete this upgrade come Hell or high water.
Published 2/15/2006 03:51:00 PM
<< 65 Comments Total
Don't worry, it's all quail ends that ends quail, at least from 30 yards out.
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
I don't see anything...................different.
Good evening, Trailer Trash.
You missed the first round of the fireworks: the blog had a spell of maybe two hours when you would have thought you were in the wrong place.
There will be another round later tonight; then there will be the finishing touches tomorrow morning. After that, I should be able to put in the user selection frame so people can select either Midnight Embers (the current theme) or the alternative, Afternoon AshFire.
It's mostly at this point just ensuring that graphics don't look weird in one or the other theme. I am having a little bit of a problem trying to figure out how to get blogScream to look okay in the alternate theme, since the one here is the core feed for all blogScream screens, and this one is natively in a black background.
I'm sure I'll figure something out. That, of course, is one of the benefits of having an obsessive/compulsive personality.
The Dark Wraith should probably go make himself another grog of coffee.
Just don't have a beer while your doing it..well, maybe one
Good evening, Buckshot.
If you ask me, a guy should use firearms appropriate to the task: Republicans merit elephant guns.
Bird shot, indeed.
That old coot could have saved himself getting shot in the face if he'd just had enough sense to walk backward toward Cheney: the Vice President would have seen his ass and thought it was the President showing up to join the hunt.
The Dark Wraith wonders if there's actually a bag limit on jokes about this whole fiasco.
I thought hell had already come.... Shrub is the president, right?
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
Your quote:
The jokes about that feller came quick.
Some of 'em were downright mean and sick.
If you were th' guy,
Now tell me no lie,
How would you like to get sprayed by Dick?
Icky pooy, Gahh! That last line of thought is totally uncalled for! :)
Yes, MOST uncalled for.
I steadfastly refuse to participate in your double entendre!
Good luck with tweaking.
Good morning, Old White Lady.
Yes, that was rather offensive, wasn't it?
The Dark Wraith is not proud of the quote o' the day.
Good morning, Lily.
The art of the double entendre is being lost. My love of all writings Chaucer has inspired me, although my limerick is most decidedly not up to Chaucerian quality. My only defense is that it was late, and I had just about toasted my higher cognitive skills trying to perfect that alternate scheme for this blog.
What's interesting is that there was not one, single, solitary comment registered while that alternate theme was running yesterday afternoon and last night. I'm wondering if visitors came to the blog and freaked when they saw the bright background and all the different colors for fonts.
The one good thing about this project is that I was able to see (once again) small flaws in the mathematical architecture of the cascading style sheet I've been using and building for so long. One of the errors has been there for at least eight or nine months, but the black background hid the mistake.
I know I'm stepping into religion when I say things like this, but I also had yet another opportunity to have a nearly out-of-body experience losing my cool with Mozilla-based browsers. On the other hand, I actually saw the relatively unknown browser Gecko do its little trick where it's the only browser that reads a certain declaration exactly the right way. I also had a chance to appreciate a very neat little thing that Opera does that other browsers really should do but don't.
It drives me mad that there is a whole sea of knowledge underneath this DOM, CSS2, XHTML, and other stuff of which I am only dimly aware. Reading the tech stuff sometimes makes me feel like Grandma the first time she hears her new computer say, "You've got mail!"
All in all, I'm beginning to realize that drifting into old age is not permitting me to stop learning at a rather aggressive pace. I was kind of looking forward to my Vegetable Years (as opposed to my earlier Salad Days); but, alas, it's not happening.
Stupid high-tech culture.
The Dark Wraith just hopes there will be plenty of Asian kids to pick up the slack later in the century.
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
I did visit yesterday while the upgrade was happening, but was temporarily blinded by all that white. It looks very nice now. The ability to choose a theme sounds pretty nifty; I'm interested to see what it looks like.
All in all, I'm beginning to realize that drifting into old age is not permitting me to stop learning at a rather aggressive pace.
Learning is what keeps you from becoming a vegetable. Even late in his life Sir John Gielgud was memorizing Shakespeare. My 76 year old dad was forced into retirement last summer, but had been working full time and was still fully engaged in his elec. engineering/IT work. I'm not sure what will happen now. He's not going mentally inactive, and so far the lifestyle change seems to be going ok, but even so.....
- oddjob
Good morning, Karen M.
I'm hoping to have the selector in place in the sidebar by this afternoon. One thing I would strongly recommend for anyone who would like to try this feature on her or his own blog is that it be done early on, before the template is in any way customized.
In fact, if someone were just starting a blog, this whole trick could be used to simply list as a sidebar selector all templates of the same type: any user could then select any one of the pre-designed templates, and that user would then see that template scheme on every visit to the blog.
As it is with this blog, though, because it's such a custom job, every alternative theme has to be built color by color and font by font. The real difficulty was the graphics, since most of them had been created as PNG files with black as the transparenct color. Going back through all of those to make them either non-transparent or reversed in transparency was quite a trip down memory lane. Some of them couldn't be reversed, so you'll see those as framed graphics to provide a better aesthetic transition from the black to the background.
One way or the other, I really need to write another issue of "The Code Hacker's Corner." It seems like graphics is a big issue, and it doesn't take much to elegantly integrate nice images into a blog, both in the sidebar and in the posts.
That's yet one more project on the agenda; but first I need to do some other posts on economics.
The Dark Wraith toils away.
[Thank Heavens coffee is still affordable in my budget.]
Good morning, OddJob.
That's something of concern to many offspring of ageing parents: retirement can be such a harsh transition that it leads to a kind of creeping depression that looks to outsiders like sloth. It really isn't, but a person trying to find motivation after having defined himself or herself in terms of the workplace can be awfully hard. I've seen a variation on this in the people to whom I'm supposed to give "re-education" training after they've been laid off jobs. In many cases, these people had worked at the factory for years, sometimes decades. I'll get enrollment sheets with dozens and dozens of names, but only maybe half ever show up. The ones who do once in a while say something like, "Oh, he ain't comin'; he's just sittin' on his fat ass feelin' sorry for hisself." Although that's easy enough to say, it's useless in dealing with the problem of becoming paralyzed to action when the workplace that was your home away from home for so many years is suddenly and irretrievably taken out of your life.
It's sort of like a death of someone close: the person will never return, and memories of the person are the trigger points for agonizing grief, the kind that removes the will to move on.
Forgive the ramble. If your dad wants something to do, tell him to come to The Dark Wraith Forums. Even if he's a Right-wing codger, we'll welcome him.
The Dark Wraith sometimes, however, regrets inviting some people to dinner.
Fortunately he has online interests already. Between that and my mother insisting that he volunteer outside the house (for her sanity since this is a big adujstment for her, too; she's gotten quite used to having the house to herself) he seems to be adjusting well enough.
I know what you mean about the job-related depression, however. I've encountered that myself now & again.
- oddjob
(And he's not exactly a classic right-wing codger although he's traffcked in such circles before. He voted for Shrub, but just last Christmas when he was perusing the copy of 1776 which was my present for him, he observed as how it was interesting that the founding fathers had had to contend so with King George, and now we seem to have another King George.....
:-))
Periwinkle blue???
- oddjob
Patience, OddJob!
For God's sake, I'm trying to find the aesthetic, here.
The Dark Wraith reaches for visual perfection in the daylight to which he's not accustomed.
Speaking of learning and old age this kind of sucks...Alzheimer's disease progresses more rapidly in highly educated people, research suggests.
Actually, it might not really suck. What sucks is getting it, but having watched my grandmother slowly yet steadily decline from about 1975 to 1984 (& then finally die in 1993), I think I'd rather it went swiftly.
- oddjob
Alzheimer's just scares me silly. If I was ever diagnosed with it then I'd be tempted to place a gun against my temple. If my brain function has to be impaired then I'd rather have a stiff drink and a 45 do the work.
I'm anxious to see this new, alternative, color scheme, DW. It will indeed be strange to see these halls brightly illuminated. I'll need to remember to shave and put on a clean shirt the next time I visit.
My thoughts exactly Mr. Shakes. I've had several discussions with my better half about that exact topic. I've thought about writing myself a letter that says something to the effect If you are reading this your brain is really f'cked up...to be given to me by my spouse when things get shitty as my cue that it's time to move on.
I don't like the idea of the 45. Too messy for the poor folks who have to clean up. I'd rather drift off in a deep sleep. Problem is though, I might forget to take my pills.
Hey, Goat. Yes, a 45 would be messy, but it does have the advantage of being very thorough. I can't imagine anything worse than failing.
Anyway, that's enough of that. DW is working on adding a newer, brighter color scheme to his blog and here we are discussing hari kari.
>>Mr. Shakes scuttles back into his darkened corner<<
Putting the pistol to your head is the easy part. Pulling the trigger is the hardest thing imaginable. And the temple is not where you point the business end of the weapon: in the mouth is preferable. Head shots are notorious for leaving people alive, especially when that last split second is attended by squeezing the trigger at the same instant you lose your will to do so. The round ends up entering toward the front or the top, leaving autonomous neural activity centers relatively undamaged. Bad scene all the way around.
As far as progressive dementia is concerned, I suppose that if it were to happen to me I could run for President on the Republican ticket. Heck, I might be called The Great Communicator II.
As an alternative, I could turn my writing skills to promoting Intelligent Design as an important addition to the science curriculum in elementary and high school education in America.
Or I could just end it all by donating a pile of money to the Republican National Committee so I'd get invited on a quail hunting trip.
That last option seems a bit rash to me. There's gotta be someone who'd want less than a grand to blast me with a shotgun.
The Dark Wraith wings his way into the night.
OT: Pissed Off Patricia (formerly of Blondsense) has opened her own shop, and you may wish to check out her new digs.
- oddjob
Towards the end of the novel "The Floating Opera" by John Barth, the main character, who had decided at the beginning of the story to commit suicide, comes to the conclusion that because he cannot find a good reason for living, it logically follows that he also cannot find a good reason for dying, thereby changing his mind.
"Suicide is the ultimate form of self-denial".
Or I could just end it all by donating a pile of money to the Republican National Committee so I'd get invited on a quail hunting trip.
That last option seems a bit rash to me. There's gotta be someone who'd want less than a grand to blast me with a shotgun.
That seemed awfully punny!
As for putting a gun to the temple, yeah, it can cause harm, and leave one still living. My sis and I knew a guy who was blind because of trying to commit suicide. A couple years later, though, he tried again, and succeeded.
Hey DW,
Wow, I really did think I was in other place.
So do I keep checking back and it will change?
This background color (some mixture of beige and peach?) is a good one, I think, although I will opt for the original when the choice is presented.
- oddjob
Good Evening, Dark Wraith.
Wow.
>>puts on shades<<
Splendiferous. The title banner looks especially good in this palette. I figured I'd probably end up wanting to stick with the traditional black, but this is very nice.
Are you going to go three column format as many people are these days or stay with the two column format?
I tried to impliment the three column format on my blog without having to completely revamp the site but it would not load properly on windows 2000 and windows ME. (older versions of IE?)
Good Evening Dark Wraith,
This is a very interesting color scheme. It matches my day pretty well.
...although I will opt for the original when the choice is presented.
Me too - it just isn't wraithly enough! :)
Many thanks for the choice to change from your original scheme to this Afternoon Ashfire. Reading the white over black was enough of a challenge for my eyes that I found myself not visiting as frequently as I liked. There's enough less contrast that reading is much less work.
Fwiw, this background on Afternoon Ashfire is exactly the same color & tone as the paint I used in our bedroom & enlarged den. Its "fashion" name is Fawn.
Btw, I think your quote is just spewtiful.
Ah, teensy technical problem: the links for the two different color schemes don't appear until I move my mouse pointer accross them. I'm running the latest version of IE.
Might just be me, my computer does shit like that from time to time but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.
Good evening, Mr. Shakes.
Thank you for letting me know about the "initial blanking" issue. There are a couple of possible reasons that's happening: it could be on your end, or it could be on mine.
First of all, is the BlogRing section appearing properly? The two DIVs are supposed to be identical. I'll check to ensure that they are. If not, I could have a slight error in "paddings" in the Themes section.
On your end, your video driver might not be able to resolve the objects until an "event" triggers the recognition. (The event would be the mouseover.) Even if this is the case, I should write the code to take into account older drivers and video hardware.
If anyone else is experiencing that initial blanking phenomenon, please let me know. I'll work on it at my end, anyway, but I'd appreciate knowing if it's a pervasive issue.
And by the way, as an off-topic point, I left a comment over at your better half's blog concerning the Dick Cheney shooting accident. The blogger NYBri has tossed into the Blogosphere an intriguing if quite speculative alternative for what happened on that ill-fated hunting trip.
The possibility is so delicious it should be in a candy wrapper.
The Dark Wraith needed something like that to make his day brighter.
Good evening, ROF.
"Fawn," you say? And someone had already thought of it, no less.
Well, heck. I worked quite a while to find something that looked aesthetically pleasing to me.
Oh, well. At least you have good taste. This blog will go well with the den.
And the alternate theme was created precisely because I knew there were more than a few people who liked the content here but had problems with the black background. I'd seen comments on other blogs to that effect on a number of occasions. Some folks like the dark theme, but others have real, physical difficulties with it.
Now, at least, I won't be chasing people away just because the place is a little on the somber side. Then again, given that I publish articles here about economics, the content is going to have to remain rather on the dark side, despite the visual option to the contrary.
There's probably a good reason why the Dark Wraith specialized in a discipline known as "the dismal science."
Good evening, PoliShifter.
Although the three-column blogs are definitely gaining adherents, I won't go to that format, myself. The math of the blog looks so obvious at first blush, but the real hoot comes when you decide to start playing with the columns to accommodate particularly wide objects. Things get ugly very quickly; and even if you have an outstanding grasp of how margins and paddings work, an unnoticed little mistake can turn a slight tweaking of the blog into a running battle that lasts for days trying to fix.
More importantly, though, the three-column blog is something of a declaration that the 800x600 resolution readers are going to see something not particularly appealing. What happens usually is that the two sidebar columns are the ones of fixed width, and it's the main column that's supposed to flex with higher and lower resolutions on an end user's monitor. Those two side columns take up a minimum of 150 pixels each, and usually more than that. Add in some margins, and that main column can end up on an 800 pixel width monitor getting no more than 350 pixels. That means the column where all the important stuff is happening ends up looking like a narrow band. Worse is that some templates I've seen try to prevent that from occurring, and you get all kinds of weird, unintended effects.
Even I have given up on accommodating the rare 640x480 visitor, now; but there are far too many 800x600 viewers still out there. Many of them are still at that resolution because of the old idea that higher resolution is "hard on the monitor," but convincing them that this just isn't the case anymore is not within my scope of abilities. In fact, one of the colleges at which I teach has every computer on campus set at 800x600 monitor resolution despite having machines that are state-of-the-art. The IT department is run by an old guy who still uses Novell DOS on one of his personal PCs.
That having been said, there are many, many users around the world who really don't have the most modern computer equipment, and for them the lower resolution really is appropriate. That, for me, is sufficient reason to continue this blog in a configuration that makes what they see the same as what someone would see with more powerful, modern machinery.
It really is a trade-off, though. I will, eventually, go to the more professionally modern look of some blog architectures, but I don't think I'll ever be going to the three-column arrangement.
Life is short, my friend, and there are plenty of opportunities to do math without having to spend several days doing it to figure out why your blog looks like a mess just because of one little alteration you made that didn't work quite the way you thought it would.
That's the Dark Wraith's opinion on the matter, anyway.
Hiya Dark Wraith.
I checked out the other theme. It's terrific, but your default theme is, too. Why couldn't you have chosen some yucky color scheme?
Now, wait a minute, before you throw those coffee grounds. I'm kidding you... It's nice to have the option of change, should we want to.
Cool how it changes with the click of the mouse without have to reload. Looks like you've earned yourself a whole can of Spam and a fresh pot of coffee.
As an aside, have you thought about offering little orange quail magnets (with a few fake pellet holes) as a featured bumbersticker?
Actually, Old White Lady, I swore when I started this project that I'd set up that theme and then just ignore it, but now that it's up and running, I've flipped over to it a couple of times, myself.
It's a bit sunny for my tastes, but it did turn out more appealing to me than I thought it would.
The Dark Wraith can't let his reputation get tarnished, however.
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
Okay, you've just handed me on a silver platter a great idea. And just when I'd thought I was finished with graphics for a while.
By the way, that rapid switch time was one of the rather interesting little tricks: the alternate theme loads most of its components when the default loads, and then it just waits for the call. The same is true the opposite way, as well.
I'll still have to go back into the code to see if there's anything else I can do to thwart some of the cacheing some browsers do. I'm not sure that's going to be any worse of a problem now than it has been all along, but it concerns me. I guess there's only so much that can be done at the Webmaster's end, but it's still one of those annoyances we face when we know people are visiting, but their browsers are showing them stuff that's days old and not the revised content or graphics.
Oh, well, I should probably lay off tweaking the blog. I have a bumpersticker to make.
The Dark Wraith sees all kinds of ways that little graphic could be rendered.
Good evening, once again, Mr. Shakes.
You saw that oddity in the AshFire theme, didn't you? I thought you were seeing it in the Midnight Embers theme, so I went through that style sheet with a fine tooth comb and found nothing wrong with the link font setup. Then I thought to have a look at the AshFire style sheet and, sure enough, there I found (after about 20 minutes) what might have been the problem. It wasn't an error in the code; it was just something that's not a good idea to do: I had set fonts related to links at a heavier weight than all other fonts, and this causes initial blankings and "sheet jumps" to happen with some video cards.
That's one problem solved. I notice, however, that I've done something in the default style sheet that's causing a slight "chunking" to happen during scrolling. I think I know what it is, but I'll wait until tomorrow to fix it, since it's probably a graphical background image that's slightly too large.
Geez, I must be getting old: I can actually walk away from a coding glitch for a few hours.
The Dark Wraith is worried about his mental health, now.
Almost you sound like that math professor you once spoke of, the one who, in the middle of a proof demonstration to grad. students (a thorny proof that wasn't his particular specialty anyway), lost his way and finally quit in a harrumph of disgust about why it was even necessary to demonstrate the damn thing at all.....
- oddjob
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
Yes, that's right: it was while I was viewing the blog in AshFire that the glitch occurred. I am glad that you were able to fix the problem, and relieved that I didn't send you on some damned wild goose chase. My graphics card is a creaky old number, and it does give me problems from time to time, like when I'm playing Call of Duty online, and the damn thing freezes or jerks me around just as I'm taking a carefully aimed shot at my unsuspecting buddy's head...
AHEM.
NYBri's theory is certainly interesting, but it's difficult for me to get my head around the possibility that Roboveep is capable of romantic love. Or even, come to that, plain old fucking. Though I suppose it might explain why he had such an extensive medical team on hand - ready to rush in, charge up the defibrillator and empty his colostomy bag the moment that coitus is achieved.
She's one lucky lady.
Good morning, Mr. Shakes.
I do appreciate a visually graphic description to get my morning started right. I'm just glad I read your speculative narrative after I'd finished my first class of the day; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to do the word problem involving finding the optimal food combinations given specified nutritional requirements.
The Dark Wraith can drink ultra-strong coffee in the morning, but some things do nonetheless turn the ol' stomach.
Good morning, OddJob.
It's beginning to disturb me that I have done that same thing in classes recently. Not often, mind you, but there are some mathematical proofs that simply defy my earnest desire to make it to the end without losing my way.
One of these days, I'm going to get so sidetracked on a proof that I'll actually end up discovering a result never before seen.
The Dark Wraith is probably not the most exemplary teacher of mathematics.
lol, sorry about that, old boy. I do get carried away at times.
thanks Dark Wraith for that explanation. I feel better about my decision now to leave my blogs as is rather than try to doll them up.
And since my desktop at home is windows me and my computer at work is windows 2000, the poor shlub confused by what he may see on my blogs would be me.
That empty his colostomy bag... comment was, unfortunately, pretty vivid, as well as factually incorrect. With Cheney they don't actually empty the bag, as that would cause hypotension, leaving nothing behind but a wrinkled prepuce.
I like the Midnight....can't imagine this blog withour the black...the darkness and gold.
Thanks for the mentions. Others have blogged about the theory...fun, I must say.
NYBri
It's worse than you think, Goat. They do in fact empty the bag, but they pour the contents straight into his open mouth, so that he can recycle the super-secret DNA altering virus that keeps his emaciated spirit anchored firmly to the material plane.
Sorry, guys: long week.
I like the new afternoon ashfire myself.
I had a harder time reading the black and gold.
The afternoon ashfire makes me think of the Dark Wraith sitting by a nice warm fire as hell freezes over.
OT - What a quail looks like after being shot at 30 yards
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
Inspired by that image, I have posted a little graphic over at Night Bird's Fountain.
The Dark Wraith probably shouldn't be taking so much advantage of this near tragedy.
Good evening, PoliShifter.
Funny you should think of that. I had a somewhat similar thought upon looking at it the first time in its completed form: it seemed a rather pleasant landscape from which to bask in the afternoon glow of the fire into which the neo-cons will be cast (as they inevitably are) when the people finally come out of their coma long enough to see the damage that's been wrought.
Let's just hope those voters stay awake long enough to ensure that something more competent is put in the halls of power to replace the imbeciles.
The Dark Wraith is not, however, keeping his fingers crossed on that last hope.
DW,
Interesting change just felt the need to change the brightness some for Ashfires.
as for pet goat and mr shakes:
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!
Hey, elf! You're back!
Well, yes, the change will be welcome for some people. As far as I can tell, almost everyone who's been here over the past 24 hours or so has checked out Afternoon AshFire. About half have stayed with it. Interestingly, there have been several dozen who have switched back and forth. I am surmising that they're trying to decide which is preferable, and the choice isn't as obvious to them as it is to most. Either that or they're just interested in the trick, itself, of the theme switcher. (I have that habit myself with mechanical things I can make do something with a switch.)
And, yes, things did get a bit on the gross side for a while. It's a kind of catharsis. We who reside on the bottom level of the high-rise outhouse tend to turn to scatology from time to time as a grim reminder of the quality and content of this Administration's policies and results.
As you can tell, Mr. Bush has a lot of fans around here hailing his success. Mr. Bush has served us well in his role as captain of the ship of state. One day, however, the ship's really going to hit the fans, and then all hail's gonna break loose.
The Dark Wraith just pulled a one-two pun, cha-cha-cha.
Your blog is looking great and some pretty vivd comments mean that I will be cocktailing on maalox for a couple of hours...( and such good visitors- trailer trash and my pet goat all in one sitting, and sharing of spam reciepes...)
Cheney's colostomy bag needs to spring a leak...a nice slow leak that will slowly drain his brain...(BTW it should not take long...)
what ever colors you pick our cones and rods will be singing- go for it...
good morning DW, and nicely done, mr. maniac coder. you are a glutton for computer punishment. i myself prefer the original dark scheme, but i applaud your effort to make it easier for everyone. and wow! it is impressive.
i'm not touching that cheney bag thing. i do, however, relish the thought of rumors of infidelity, unbelievable as it may be that he is actually human.
Good afternoon, Dread Pirate Roberts.
I doubt if there is anyone who would want to touch Cheney's colostomy Hefty Trash Can Liner.
As far as the blog work is concerned, I really appreciate the comments on it. As I'm working on a new article to post, I'm taking breaks to go back and make the last adjustments to the style sheets. The additions are pretty subtle, now, and I'm wondering if anyone will even notice them on a conscious level. They are, however, important since leaving them undone will drive me up a wall until I put them into place. It sort of amazes me that, no matter how much I do in this new age of CSS, I still catch new tricks all the time.
In fact, just last night I saw something that rather amazed me. Usually, it's the case that Internet Explorer is very forgiving with coding; Firefox, on the other hand, is like a strict school marm with everything being taken completely literally, even though the number of tricks that can be pulled in Firefox is somewhat narrower than the features available in IE. Last night, however, I realized that Firefox was rendering something differently from how Internet Explorer was doing it, and Firefox was doing it the way I wanted it to be done, but Internet Explorer wasn't.
That shouldn't happen. Firefox is the taskmaster. It should be the one that doesn't do something because I've written the code incorrectly, but Internet Explorer understands what I was wanting to do. But there it was: Firefox was showing what I wanted, and Internet Explorer wasn't.
I've been staring at the relevant declarations, and now I'm almost sure that, because I'm separating two specifications for a font on two, separate lines, Firefox knows what I'm after, but Internet Explorer misunderstands it. When I put the two declarations together, both browsers show the same thing, and it's not what I want, but now that I think about it, it's what should have happened all along.
So in other words, by writing the two declarations as a single statement, both browsers render the result correctly (even though it's not what I ever had in mind); but by writing the two declarations separately, Firefox renders the result incorrectly, but as I want it, and Internet Explorer renders the result incorrectly, too, but not as I want it!
Did that make any sense at all to anyone on Earth besides me?
Didn't think so.
The Dark Wraith is definitely drifting perilously close to the precipice of dementia.
It's too bad Condi Rice or Ann Coulter weren't in the hunting party. It would've been so great to speculate about them being Dick's possible sex interest. I could see either one of those doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Good golly, I would have spread the rumor and embellished it with no qualms.
It sounds like the coding is going along well. If Internet Explorer is rendering the result (with the two declarations separately) not as you wanted, you would have thought it would be rendering it correctly, since it did when they were, together, in the single statement........... or something like that:)
Good Evening Dark Wraith,
Did that make any sense at all to anyone on Earth besides me?
I get the feeling that most of us who hang out here have coded in some language. I understood what you meant perfectly - ... I think.
Good Evening, DW --
Back again w/ a minor observation. I've returned maybe three times since first seeing your new "look." The "cookie thingy" that's supposed(?) to tell my browser to see this in Afternoon AshFire doesn't work. I don't mind clicking to change it, but I thought you might want to know.
Particulars: I'm on an IMac G5, OS X.4.5 using Safari 2.0.3. I've restarted at least once after loading up some software updates. I have not dumped the cookies as yet; preferring to keep some site recognitions from having to be re-entered if possible. I just dumped cache before returning once again as I write this.
I know I can download Firefox again, but that was a slow load for everything the first time I tried it. And, I will never use IE again unless the temperature falls to 0 Kelvin. As I said, I don't mind a click here & there.
DW - GLAD to be back and your comment to mine was a most enjoyable laugh..
on to the tango it is then!
make my way up from the basement of the high rise outhouse
gotta love it!
Mr. Cheney would have learned proper firearms procedures had he not been a draft dodger during the Vietnam War; it is therefore quite likely that Mr. Whittington would not have been his shooting victim had the Vice President honored his obligation long ago to serve the country he now expects everyone else not even to question.
Thank you! That's exactly what I was thinking. I think people need to push this idea, too. How many soldiers have died in their Iraqi advienture? Isn't the death toll over 2400, the injured over 10,000? Perhaps more of their families will start getting upset that these troops were sent over by draft dodgers. I remember the hoopla about Bill Clinton being a draft dodger... I remember it was Republican based...hmmm.. it seems they can shift their beliefs in a wink of an eye.
Nice template trick!
Usually, it's the case that Internet Explorer is very forgiving with coding; Firefox, on the other hand, is like a strict school marm with everything being taken completely literally
I take it you're a fan of IE's style rather than Firefox? Funny, the reasons you list are exactly why I prefer Firefox over IE.
Also, it makes it easier for new browers to gain market penetration if they don't have to recode all of IE's quirks. People end up mistakenly thinking that the new browser is the problem, when in fact its the gigabytes of poorly written HTML that should've never passed in the first place.
Mr. Shakes, that was ... awful.