John Lindal’s Blog

HTML

I finally found a good analogy for describing to a programmer what a web developer does: They write assembly code.

Originally, back before CSS, it was raw hex. Once CSS was available, it was like graduating to assembly: Wow! Now I don’t have to adjust all my JMP offsets by hand every time I insert or remove an instruction! Cool!

Sounds pretty bad, right? It is

Yahoo’s new LSM guidelines, while a big improvement in the state-of-the-art, really only managed to bring some order to the chaos. It’s like having rules for when to use JMP vs. JSR.

What is really needed to take it to the next level is the ability to write semantic markup directly and then somehow compile it to raw markup/CSS which the browser can render. I say this with some confidence, because I’m working on such a beast right now…

7×77

If a car can have it as a bumper sticker without explanation, then I can use it as a blog post title with out explanation. If you’re curious, ask your local priest or pastor.

My Daughter, the Monkey

Tonight, we went to the last concert of the season at the local park. My daughter is 2 1/4 now, so she is no longer content with just sitting with us and listening to the music. She wants to explore. So we ended up in the playground section of the park. So what does she do? First, she heads straight for the section marked Ages 5 – 12. Then she finds the most insane way to climb up to the platform, the spiral ladder with rungs spaced apart by half her height, and proceeds to climb it fearlessly and unerringly. Of course I’m proud of her! But the deeper lesson is that, while any sane adult would have claimed it impossible for a two year old to climb such a contraption — you’d better believe I was hovering as close to her as possible — nobody had told her that, so she went ahead and did it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I finally got to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is no mean feat when one has a two year old attached at the hip, but grandparents do make good, if temporary, solvent

Considering the major faults of the previous movie, e.g., the overdone dragon chase which squeezed out so many other plot threads and the failed attempt to construct a scary labyrinth, I rather dreaded seeing this one, but I really needed a break after working several weekends straight!

I am delighted to be able to say that this movie far exceeded my admittedly lowered expectations. It captured the essence and highlights of the book very well. Granted, it has been a while since I read the book, so I don’t remember every nuance, but I cannot find anything to complain about other than the perfectly excusable fireworks when Dumbledore fought Tom Riddle. In the book, their fight was like an exquisite game of chess, which showed that they were in a completely different league from their troops, who fought aggressively and loudly. In the movie, however, this would surely have been a letdown for most audiences, so the director had to make it spectacular instead — and they did succeed!

Arm Length

Ever notice how the length of your upper arm (humerus) is just the right length so when you throw your arm in front of your face, your lower arm (radius/ulna) covers your eyes? This must be a survival trait, since a broken jaw, missing teeth, a broken nose, or a bruised forehead are all recoverable, while eye damage is permanent.