From the Orient

Not Rocket Science

bq. The problem is specifically that Microsoft Internet Explorer is a mouldering, out-of-date, amateurish, out-of-date pile of dung. Did I say it’s out-of-date? As in past its sell-by, seen better days, mutton dressed as lamb, superannuated, time-worn. It’s so, like, you know, so twentieth-century.

The problem with CSS isn’t that it is difficult, it’s that its difficult to work around all the bugs in the browsers. You end up with as many hacks as if you were using tables.

??Simon Willison’s?? “CSS Tutorial”:http://simon.incutio.com/categories/csstutorial/ does a great job, but when it came to redesigning Scripting News fell into a big bug fixing hole. The same hole Dave Winer fell into. Sadly, Dave seemed to blame CSS instead of the browser bugs.

Myself, I steer away from CSS hacks at the expense of a better design. I’m not a designer, so it isn’t worth it.

Aquarion “talks a lot of sense”:http://www.aquarionics.com/article/name/XML_is_the_new_black whilst highlighting a problem with CSS (CSS isn’t a bottom feeder).

bq. The future is not XML for presentation, the future is - or should be - XML for storage, and appropriate formats for presentation.

In Hackers and Painters ??Paul Graham?? states :-

bq. I think the answer to this problem, in the case of software, is a concept known to nearly all makers: the day job.

This is something that is a key part of my future plans. It is clear that hacking doesn’t pay the bills unless you are good already. And seen as I’m not, I’ll need to keep the day job.

Paul talks about this in relation to open source projects :-

bq. When I say that the answer is for hackers to have day jobs, and work on beautiful software on the side, I’m not proposing this as a new idea. This is what open-source hacking is all about. What I’m saying is that open-source is probably the right model, because it has been independently confirmed by all the other makers.

What I need to do is just learn, or start the process down this road. The key problem is time. There are many other pressures on my non-working time; the wife, the children, the house, the garden. This is all before certain key necessities such as relaxation (watching TV, being entertained, playing games, going down the pub for a drink) which is vital to my well-being.

Then there are other creative ideas that I’d like to do as well as learning to program. I’d love to write, take up photography as a hobby, draw, paint, learn a foreign language or learn “something useful like plumbing”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3011439.stm.

One solution is to sleep less. Unfortunately, I think the physical exertion of being a father of two has worn me down and I’m currently finding I have to sleep more than I used to.

Another solution would be to be more efficient at planning. Become organised. Less lazy.

That could be one bridge too far. I guess I’ll have to keep my day job.

The Rise Readers Top 100 Books

bq. Forget popular “nation’s favourite” smiley happy lists containing too many children’s books. I propose that we dictate a list of books that, if you haven’t read them, you can consider yourself a lesser person.

Read the comments for a list of some great books. I can’t really add to the list as most of the books I like are already on the list.

I’m the sort of person who only things “Oh, now that’s a great book” when someone else mentions it. I don’t think you can say any book is the best book ever, but there are a selection of good/great books and have you read “book a”?

Oh, and read the comments in reverse order (start at the bottom). Makes more sense that way.

I’ve read a miserably low 35 of the Top 100 Books. Although I’ve another 15 on the bookshelf as yet unread (will I ever read Gormeghast? You need not comment Stuart).

Maybe it was because there were so few Sci-Fi books in there, not that I’d expect there to be. I was suprised by the inclusion of Magician by Raymond E Feist. Seemed oddly out of place. It’s okay, and I’m sure people like it, but the best book ever?

‘Rod Of Iron’ - NME.COM [via "Hydragenic":http://hydragenic.com/archives/000923.shtml#000923]

Wooooph! The Sound of Young Doncaster, eh?

Meanwhile, I’ve got a ticket to see Blur, White Stripes on the Saturday at Reading Festival. Cool, shades of the best tent experience (Reading Festival 94). And (maybe) a ticket to see Radiohead in November. Never seen them before.

I got home last night to see a spanking new fence put up by our next door neighbours.

As you can see it is rather large.

Previously, there was a broken old wire fence and some firs, so on the one hand we are pleased that there is a fence there. But as per usual, they didn’t talk to us about it, and just stuck it up there.

Did it have to be so fucking high?

Tt stops them seeing into our front room, I was seeing them walk past out of the corner of my eye; “catching their eye” which wasn’t a pleasant experience. And they park their van up the drive and it is very annoying.

It is just under the legal height limit for fences in a front garden. Curses.

We were going to put a fence up ourselves, but we wouldn’t have done one quite so high, and we’d have make a nicer looking fence.

We’ll use it to our benefit though, paint it green, climb honeysuckle up it, use it as a backdrop for some quality plants and flowers. Fuck the neighbours, we won’t speak to them either. We have a history that I’ve not spoken about here. One day, when I’ve time …