I got this post card in the mail from the Alumni Association and was amazed at the latest stunt that SCAD pulled with its offering of personalized Georgia License Plates featuring the school.
What will they think of next? (Now that it’s got its own official day in the State of Georgia, a radio station, a TV station… among others)
I listened to part of this radio program in the car today with Grace. I was so fascinated by it that I came home and found the entire program and listened to the rest of it. And since I’ve sent enough emails and IMs to some friends to urge them to listen to it, I might as well post it for all to see. The first two stories were what really fascinated me. The third story reminded me of David’s passing and how this family coped with death in a more creative manner.
Great show. It will be worth your time.
It’s been a while since I last blogged about social and political stuff… So here’s the latest scoop on that front…
Jason semi-made me watch Zeitgeist the Movie a few days ago. And everything that I suspected was wrong but couldn’t link them together now all made sense… Thanks, Jason… Now I am officially a coo coo head.
Basically the movie covers three major, separate but interlinked, sections:
1. Religion (specifically Christianity) and what it really IS
2. Tracing the cause of major wars and American involvements in the past 60 years, including the latest 911-related ones
3. The “real” beginning of the Federal Reserve Bank and why the Founding Fathers actually opposed such institution
I did some fact checking on some of the points made in the film (specifically on #3) since I know something about the history of Federal Reserve from my economics classes. And just prior to watching the film, I also got a chance to listen to a fascinating radio program on Alexander Hamilton and how he was a champion of having an institution like the Federal Reserve/Central Bank (which was one reason why Thomas Jefferson hated his guts; the movie did also mention Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed to such institution). And it turns out that many of the points made in the movie are quite accurate… Or maybe they seem accurate because my mind was slanted towards that way anyway.
In any case, I agree with Jason that you should arrive at your own conclusion and do your own fact checking after seeing the movie. But it does present some compelling arguments for the points it presented.
Developing web applications can be a frustrating job solely because so many people still use various versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer — possibly some of the worst browsers compared to most of the other modern browsers in terms of adherence to web standards. But I can’t just not test my applications against them simply because I hate them… So the war continues…
One of the problems of testing web apps under Parallels with IE is, instead of testing development URLs such as
1 | http://localhost/ |
, usually IP addresses have to be used, like such
1 | http://192.168.0.100 |
, to reach OSX’s localhost server (because
1 | localhost |
on Windows would entail having an actual web server running under Windows). The problem with that is that some applications such as WordPress need to have a full absolute path in order for it to work properly (especially when dealing with themes). I’ve tried a couple of workarounds, but nothing is as simple as using Apple’s own Bonjour technology.
I found a post that explains how to set it all up. Even though his example deals with running Ruby on Rails, the idea is exactly the same for other development environments such as PHP and Java (enable port 80, 443… etc). Now I am a happy camper…
via [the naked brain]
Mike Neely sent me this poster.
Cool!
Bryan loves playing with water (as do most other toddlers)! So when it’s really hot out, we let him get a little wet in our front yard… Nothing is more fun than watching your child’s face filled with joy and excitement.
Recently I’ve been looking into ways to make my code more maintainable after having to support an old site I did and some Actionscript code from someone else. One of the things I found and REALLY liked was the idea of using Javascripts in an “unobtrusive” manner. Basically all it means is to take out those Javascript event calls like
1 | onClick |
,
1 | onMouseOver |
and such from the presentation layer (CSS style sheets and HTML tags), and use other means to achieve the same effects.
What I’ve found useful and have been using ever since are these classes:
1. Prototype
2. script.aculo.us
3. Behaviour
There are tons of extensions and subclasses written for them, making them super useful when you want something done quickly and effectively. I especially like Behaviour for its simplicity and the ability it affords me to completely separate Javascripting from tangling with my HTML codes (hard coded, dynamically generated or otherwise).
There are other useful ones such as jQuery and moo.fx, but I’ve been pretty happy with those other three core packages so far.
Incidentally, Apple’s revamped site also has a lot of new Javascript-driven effects that are pretty interesting to look at and experiment with. Another really clean and simple site I like is Panic’s Coda product site. Really very effective use of Javascripts in presentation.
There’s always so much to learn with so little time… What to do!!
I guess only geeks can truly appreciate the humor in The Simpsons. Even though I don’t really like Fox as a channel (especially its news reporting), I do like The Simpsons and Futurama. Fox’s latest public stunt is to rebrand a series of Seven Eleven Stores in the United States into Kwik-e-Marts. They also carry limited supply of merchandise and food found only in the cartoon. Unfortunately all the good stuff were all sold out when we visited this past week. But the store was packed with geeks, some of whom were there to stock up on those nuclear-looking pink dough nuts.
I finally got a chance to process some pictures I have stashed away for a couple of months with Apple’s Aperture. And as proposed, I also posted some images I took of New York when I visited on my Flickr account. It was interesting going back to Manhattan with a fresh pair of eyes after having been away for a few years.
Alicia and Jason came by yesterday for a little while to hang out. Bryan was very excited to see them again. He gave Jason a special nickname: “Uncle B.” Unfortunately his desire for a good nap won over his excitement, and he had to take a break.
When Bryan woke up, Jason and Alicia had already left. But from the living room, I could hear when Bryan woke up, his first words were: “Ah-yi, un, un, Uncle B!” (Ah-yi is an endeared name for “aunt” in Mandarin). He was sooooo disappointed that he missed seeing them!
Sometimes it’s interesting to observe little children’s emotions and reactions towards certain situations. In Bryan’s case, he was utterly shocked that Jason and Alicia disappeared! It was unfathomable to his little mind. His face looked as if he was saying: “Get out! What do you mean they’d gone home? There were just here!”