Ultranormal

  • Instiki Stylesheet Tweaks

    As you all know, I love Instiki. I saw a page on the site this morning for Stylesheet Tweaks and just had to share mine. I don’t like how narrow Instiki is by default, and I didn’t really like the font. So, I changed it. I’ve hacked a lot of the templates (to make the textarea larger, for example), but my stylesheet is still mostly default with some significant changes.\
    Your mileage may vary, especially on the edit page (where I did a good deal of hacking).\
    Go get it.

  • It Will Never End

    That’s probably true of a lot of things. In this case, I’m talking about the sad, sad, saga of my ankle (first post, second post). I went to the doctor this morning, and the news isn’t good. It’s not as bad as it could have been, but it’s bad enough that I’m not happy.\
    There’s nothing wrong with my foot (that the MRI showed) other than the nickel sized piece of bone. But, since the boot hasn’t been helping, Doctor Sam isn’t confident that surgery is going to help. So, my options boil down to the following:

    1. Do nothing, ever, and just live with the pain.
    2. Wear the boot 24 hours a day for four weeks and see if the pain’s better. If it is, then we can be reasonably confident that the surgery will work.
    3. Have a “more serious” surgery that involves fusing the bones in my foot. This means nothing more physical than walking for the rest of my life.\
      We’re going with number 2. Four more weeks in the boot, and now I have to sleep in it. Walking around in it is bad enough. I need ice cream, and right now. Oh wait, I have to lose weight too (as if I didn’t know).\
      It’s been a really shitty summer… that looks like it’s going to carry over into a blustery crappy fall. Sorry, everybody!

  • Earth To Wolf

    From this week’s Newsweek‘s quotes page, from the bearded one himself, Wolf Blitzer:\
    bq. That’s my job. I’m a newsman. That’s what I try to do, is make news. And you try to avoid news. That’s your job.\
    Wolf, you’re a newsman. Your job is not to make the news. Your job is to report the news. Where did you get the idea that you’re making the new? From Woodward and Bernstein, Rupert Murdoch, Lois Lane? No wonder no one in this country knows what’s going on, or what’s really important. You’re too busy making the news instead of telling us what the hell is really going on!\
    Oh yeah, and no wonder I don’t watch CNN anymore. It’s become one step removed from LA local news following car chases and calling it the news. CNN used to be something important. It used to be good. Now, it’s a bad imitation of Fox, which is a bad imitation of a news organization.\
    And people wonder why we get all our news online now. We don’t like the made up news, Wolf, with the exception of The Daily Show. At least Jon Stewart’s honest about it.

  • Whoops

    I need to write myself a to-do list when I do an upgrade of Movable Type. Since MT 3.2’s been in beta, I think this is the second time I’ve forgotten to rename the comments script. If you’ve tried to post comments the past couple days, I’m sorry!! It should be fixed now…\
    In other news, pain killers are good.

  • My Weekend Plans

    • Someone: What are you going to do this weekend?
    • Me: Go home, take some painkillers and watch nature documentaries. It’s gonna be a hell of a weekend\
      Oh yeah, and get a massage, and I might eat some ice cream too. My ankle’s good for all kinds of excuses to sit around with my foot up (and look at my extra ankle!). Vicodin’s an evil, evil drug, kids. Don’t take it unless someone gives it to you.\
      Have a good weekend, everybody!

  • Safari, Javascript and Large Numbers

    Let’s say you’re playing with a dashboard widget that deals with some large numbers you might want to compare. For some reason, you’re not getting the result that you thought you would. For some reason really large numbers are breaking your if statements. Well, if you wanted them not to, you might want to wrap those numbers in Number() in the comparison. That seemed to work for me (yes, I really hope you’ll get to see this widget soon – it’s fun).\
    UPDATE: Apparently, I’m on crack because the above bug I mentioned apparently doesn’t exist. I was trying to prove it with some test cases, and I can’t recreate it, even with REALLY large numbers expressed as strings. So… ummm… sorry.

  • Hidden Blessings

    One of the only good things about having a really slow metabolism is that pain killers stay in my system for a very long time. Ok, maybe that’s not a good thing. I’m feeling the pain, but I’m still loopy. Writing code while high may work for some folks, but it doesn’t work for me, especially with my constant interruptions (and they are constant – why do you think I’m a winner at AIM Fight).\
    The MRI went pretty well yesterday. I looked at the films and I can see the break, and nickel sized chunk of bone hanging out. Well, I could see it before through the skin (it looks like a second ankle down and forward from my “real” ankle). I have a lot of pain on the outside of the ankle, and I couldn’t see anything broken there, but what do I know? I’m no doctor (but I’ve seen enough of my own x-rays, and played enough games with Max to know what’s broken). Oh yeah, and I either have really flat feet, or the bones in my foot are seriously out of place now.\
    I can’t wait to see what the good doctor has to say on Monday (and I may try to scan in the best MRI shot so you can see the break before the doctor takes them away from me… it’s cool-lookin’).

  • The Danger Of A Better IE?

    Roger Johannson is asking questions about the danger of a better IE, and it’s an interesting question. I’ve got no love for Microsoft. I long ago gave up Windows as my platform of choice, and I’m no fan of IE 6 (in fact, I’ve never used it as my default browser – went right from Netscape 4.7 to Mozilla).\
    But, I’m a pragmatist. Today, IE 6 is holding me back. I can’t use all the cool CSS stuff I’d like to, because I work for a really big mainstream consumer service. I have to use hacks, kluges and sometimes (heaven forbid) extra markup to execute the designs I’m given to build.\
    Do I like it? No. I positively hate it. Since I’ve been a member of the CSS Working Group, I’ve grown even more impatient. I want everything now, even stuff we’ve just talked about and not actually put down in a spec. I want to be able to use 24-bit PNGs and multiple backgrounds for more than Dashboard widgets (I built my first one last week, you should see it soon). I want to be able to stop using huge nests of descendant selectors to style navigation lists. I want to be able to use child, sibling, CSS3 attribute selectors, and all the other cool stuff we’ve been waiting years for, and can play with in newer browsers like Firefox and Safari, but can’t use in “real” products because IE is where most of the users are.\
    In the end though, I’m a pragmatist. I have to support IE and Windows, and I hope that IE 7 is everything we hope it will be (and that everyone upgrades right away). I’m willing to give Redmond the benefit of the doubt, and even help them. I want IE 7 to fix all of their problems and add all of the things from CSS2, and the CR’ed CSS3 modules so the web can move on. Will it happen? I don’t know. Even if they just finish their CSS 2.1 support and fix the box model issues, I’ll be satisfied (but not thrilled… no clapping from me).\
    If they fix their issues (security, standards support, stability, etc), good for them. I’ll clap louder than anyone. But, I’ll still use Safari and Firefox. I’ll still preach standards. I’ll still build for every browser that I can (within reason).\
    No one should delude themselves: we’re stuck with IE 6 for a while (my guess is three to three and a half years). It’s going to take a long time for people to upgrade to IE 7, even if it’s the best browser ever to grace the Windows world. It took at least four years for IE 5.5 to go (mostly) away. It took longer than that for Netscape 4.x to go away. There’s a large percentage of the computing universe that either doesn’t know how, or refuses, to upgrade anything: their computers, their OS or their software. If Microsoft doesn’t change their minds about only releasing IE 7 for XP SP2, I could be wrong, and it will be 5-6 years before we can stop worrying about IE 6.\
    Let’s put our prejudices aside for a minute and hope (selfishly so for those of us who build web stuff) that IE 7 is great. Let’s hope that it supports all of the stuff we want, and beats back the spyware/virus/adware scourge. Let’s hope they get it right, because the alternative is much, much, much worse than a better IE.

  • I almost forgot!

    Eight years ago today, Kevin and I became engaged. Happy Engagement Day! Each year we celebrate it in some way. This year though, I didn’t even remember until 10:30 at night and I think Kevin still hasn’t remembered. I guess that is what happens after 8 years, 2 kids, dealing with a broken ankle, and sink full of dirty dishes.\
    Last year’s celebration wasn’t a success either. As we were getting ready to leave for a romantic date alone (Brian was only 3 months old and this was to be our first time out), my back went out in a very embarrassing and painful way. I did get to ride in a fancy ambulance, and the first set of paramedics had to call in extra reserves, so I felt super special. I spent the afternoon in the ER followed by 3 days of drugged up bliss. Every six hours I had to nurse Brian. Other than that, Kevin took 100% care of Brian including bottle feedings, diaper changes, rocking in the middle of the night. Honestly, it was the most rest I had gotten in the three months since Brian was born.\
    The past 8 years together have been great. We’ve had a lot of successes and very few failures (let’s keep that streak going, ok?) I love him more each day and I know that I absolutely cannot live without him. He is the best husband in the world, better than I thought possible (and I had high expectations) and better than I deserve. He has made all of my dreams come true and supports me wholeheartedly. Three cheers for Kev! And now, I am going to go tell him how much I love him.

  • Joss Whedon is Veronica fan too!

    I have gone on and on about Veronica Mars all summer, trying to get more people to watch it. Well, I am in some fabulous company because Joss Whedon loves it too. Here is an excerpt, in which he calls it the Best. Show. Ever:\
    bq. Joss Luvs Veronica.\
    bq. I just finished a crazed Veronica Marsathon, and I can no longer restrain myself. Best. Show. Ever. Seriously, I’ve never gotten more wrapped up in a show I wasn’t making, and maybe even more than those. Crazy crisp dialogue. Incredibly tight plotting. Big emotion, I mean BIG, and charsimatic actors and I was just DYING from the mystery and the relationships … laugh all you want, I had to share this. These guys know what they’re doing on a level that intimidates me.\
    This is what I have been saying too! And this from the man who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and is a god to many. So this is high praise indeed.\
    Don’t you want to watch Veronica Mars and see what all the talk is about? Now is the time to tune in to Veronica Mars. These last episodes set up everything to come and answer everything from before. Tune in Wednesdays at 9pm on UPN or check local listings for a weekend rereun.