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The CSS inheritance model is nonsensical, I need a 2-page cheat-sheet to get the syntax right, its designer thinks declaring aliases are 'too complex' and it takes a bona fide css expert to get css positioning working across browsers with a design that survives user-preferred fonts.

As someone who has just recently switched from old fashioned (hand-written, of course) HTML to CSS+XHTML, I've loved all that the new standards has to offer. I used to loathe formatting with tables in HTML.. it always struck me as idiotic to have to do formatting with these complicated tables. Then, when I read up on CSS I realized what a fantastic idea the separation of content and styling is.

The problem, as Dvorak complains, is that the CSS model can get really complicated, really quickly, and can be a pain in the ass to figure out. I respect the power of the inheritance model, and, provided that it's used correctly, it can be great. However, take a look at real-world CSS used by someone like Amazon. Looking at the CSS on their main page I count five in-page

<style ..>

However, if I wanted to learn how to borrow some design element (e.g. the gradients) from the Amazon site.. imagine what a headache that would be, tracking first through the HTML, and then figure out all the levels of CSS inheritance in my head. It must be quite a headache for their own web designers to make minor adjustments. I think a lot of Dvorak's (and my) gripes with CSS would be assuaged with the availability of a 'CSS Debugger' that would let you, say, select a piece of the page, and show exactly which portions of CSS were controlling the layout of that piece. Like how Firefox lets you select text and "view selection source", except it would show you the CSS styling, including all the levels of inheritance.

I saw one of those for your keys at Sharper Image the other day.

You seem knowledgeable. Can you recommend a book? Reading a spec isn't easy. What about this one?

I should have also mentioned that Pro PHP Security is a good book on the subject of creating secure PHP code.

(What, you thought they think with their heads? Hah!)

I just went to Wal-Mart's main site to look at this train-wreck of a marketing idea myself, and I couldn't see how to get to it.

Oh, incidentally, Amazon called--they want their page layout back. Wal-Mart's gettin' it ugly.

It's not at thehub.com; that site looks almost cool from a business perspective. (Any meeting space that serves sandwiches gets a nod from me.)

Finally, I had to fall back on Google (!!!) to find what subdomain they tucked it into, and ...ack. Unlike most train-wrecks, I could take my eyes off of it. I suppose it's a mercy that the "Hub" is buried that way; it won't suck in the gullible and stupid.

Mind you, this has given me a wonderful idea...

...is the users. Not the ones searching but the ones creating the content.

Sure, the technical limitations of Joe Public might slow the growth of the Semantic Web on the whole, but what few people realize is that the Semantic Web has already existed for years in in-house or limited-audience networks. Just look at FOAFnaut (an update in a few weeks will return it to full usability) or the very much real-world examples in Geroimenko & Chen's Visualizing the Semantic Web (Springer, 2005).

... Better yet, on a moon mission.

I seem to recall that The Field mentioned experiences that Edgar Mitchell had while on the Apollo 14 mission (sorry, don't remember specifics). The astronaut later founded the Institute for Noetic Sciences, which studies metaphysical topics...

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Just want to get something out of the way... for the people who are saying "this is just as likely as believing in UFOs," you may be right on target: please distinguish Unidentified Flying Objects (which we know exist) from Alien Spacecraft (which we don't). Thankyouverymuch.

Anyhow, I recommend people check out Parapsychology: The Controversial Science by Richard S. Broughton, PhD. It gives a good overview of the current state of the field.

What seems to be true is that there is strong evidence to suggest parapsychological factors at work. Strong in that it's remarkably consistent, but it isn't a huge deviation from chance. So where chance would predict a given outcome (like a coin toss) at 50%, parapsychology tests have shown results of (fr'ex) 51 or 52%. So it's not a huge, obvious deviation, but it's consistent and certainly suggests that something is happening.

As to claims of falsification, most parapsychologists are well aware of the disdain with which they're viewed by most of the scientific community, so they're actually more careful and attentive than would be typical. There's less chance for error or falsification in most parapsych tests than in pretty much any other scientific discipline. A number of skeptics (notably James Randi and other members of CSICOP) have tried to demonstrate how some of these tests could have been falsified, but they usually involve gymnastic skill, intimate advanced knowledge of building layouts, and are often so convoluted that Occam's Razor would suggest the veracity of psychic phenomena. In fact, many parapsychologists are themselves "skeptics": "someone undecided as to what is true." They joined the field without a pre-existing belief in the paranormal and have discovered that there is, in fact, something at work.

The Wikipedia entry on Parapsychology, while a little sparse on references, does fair coverage of the subject.

You really should go back and re-read your copy of "In Search of Stupidity", your history is just a bit off.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590591046/sr=8-1 /qid=1153271698/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-7867599-4395955?i e=UTF8

You think there will ever be a new edition of this great book?

Just a quick plug for those who would like to study how compilers generate machine code so they can produce better (machine) code from their HLLs:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593270038/ref=pd _bxgy_img_b/104-8691495-4337534?ie=UTF8

Funny that you should say that about the Einstein icon. Einstein wrote the preface for Upton Sinclair's Mental Radio which was a book about remote viewing/telepathy.

How about Valis the Opera?

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Beginning GIMP. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Beginning GIMP. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

"FOWL!" is an investigative report into how dioxins, POPs and other environment chemicals are contributing to illness in migratory birds, chickens and humans by making them more susceptible to the effects of influenza viruses.

The avian flu scare is just the latest act in an ongoing world government drama. This book is a disclosure about betrayals on many levels. Here are a few of the truths that will be exposed: -Who wants the rural chickens dead? Who benefits from the destruction of the family farm, here and abroad? -What are the real reasons that domestic chickens and ducks are sick? -What is the connection between toxic environmental conditions and the death ofmigratory birds? -Why are human deaths associated with bird flu concentrated in Southeast Asia? -Who benefits from the manufacture of a 'pandemic vaccine'? What's in it? -Why vaccines are not the answer.

Yeah, actually, it will - as soon as the mercury clock becomes the master timekeeper for WWV.

If you're interested in this, I'd suggest reading Thomas Gold's, "The Deep Hot Biosphere." Good read.

Then again, Nintendo didn't do that with the old Wavebird.

If you want to read something entertaining and scary (if true, much of the content is credible), then check this book out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0955169704/sr=1-1 /qid=1153031958/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-1535891-8724921?i e=UTF8&s=books

Good idea: Playing catch with your grandfather.
Bad idea: Playing catch *with* your grandfather.

Speaking of which, have you seen?

Animaniacs DVD (Not a referral link.)

That's why anything you can grow yourself is better. Strawberries varieties are grown for shipping durability not taste.
But speaking of tomatoes have you heard this song?

Homegrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark

Chorus:

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown Tomatoes,
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.

1. There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un.
Plant 'em in the springtime eat 'em in the summer,
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer.
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un.

CHORUS

2.
You can go out and eat'em that's for sure,
But there's nothin a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put em in a salad, put em in a stew
You can make your own, your very own tomato juice
You can eat em with eggs, you can eat em with gravy
You can eat em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle

CHORUS

3.
If I could change this life I lead,
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs,
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin up those home grown tomatoes.

CHORUS

But I still think Fred Brooks's advice in The Mythical Man-Month is correct: plan to build the first version to throw away.

That advice was one of several recommendations that Brooks modified or abandoned in the 20th anniversary edition

Oversimplifying at bit, he now recommends an incremental, iterative approach to development where the design is modified by feedback from users.

He stands by his original insights that adding programmers to a project during development increases the time it takes and that there is no silver bullet to solve that problem. However, in the four new chapters added to the original edition, he acknowledges that a lot has been learned about software development in the last 20 years and as a result, it is much easier to get it right the first time.

Yes, for example, Amazon's hiring: http://www.amazon.com/jobs

Amazon is highly prejudiced towards hiring people with CS degrees.

ESPECIALLY at the local levels at which school district decisions are made.

And you explain the existance of a federal "Department of Education"... how, exactly? What about that monstrosity called, "No Child Left Behind"? How does that fit into your pretty little world view?

You, good sir, are confused. Very confused. Probably, no, certainly because you went to a government school.

Pick up a Gatto book, or find a copy of his "Seven Lesson Schoolteacher" essay. Confusion is, iirc, lesson #1. :) Then you can move on to his Underground History of American Education. Or, alternatively, John Holt's How Children Fail.

Yes, I'm stealing the title of Alan Cooper's book

You have to basically be two-faced about any development. Be gung-ho to management types, show them what they want to see, but once they are gone, do the development right. It can seem like a pirate-type undertaking sometimes. You have to sneak out and interview users while they are on break. Take up smoking. You'll gather the best information that way. Gather real usage details. People like to talk about their work, so this isn't really all that hard, but it seems non-productive to management types.

Okay, being a bit more serious, it's up to you as a programmer to decide how you want to approach any project. Never mind the micro-managing boss. He probably doesn't know what he's doing, either. Decide for yourself what effort needs to be done and if it makes you feel better laying down a decent foundation from the start, do it. If you've got crap to work with, refactor and repurpose.

Toolsets, in and of themselves, don't solve problems. The fundamentals of designing, and more importantly, not over-designing, your project does. Read Cooper's book. Seek out books by Raskin, Thomas, and Hunt. They all say the same thing, if in different ways. Doing the work right the first time will make you money in the long run. Actively fight back against management that keeps wanting to change the requirements and doesn't know what they are doing. Be passionate about what you do. And if you get fired, it will be for a damn good reason. Don't play their game, play yours. Most importantly, enjoy what you do. If you don't like it, go do something else.

If you want to understand the difference between elemental horror and the fun-house shocks of Doom there is no better place to begin than with H.P. Lovecraft: Tales, in The Library of America series.

Lovecraft's best effects are achieved through suggestion.

You never see anything clearly or fully but you are left with the conviction of having encountered something profoundly alien.

I had pretty much the same problem some time ago. I switched to using my left hand for the mouse, but even that hurt after a while. So I got a touchpad from cirque. They are about 40 bucks for the USB version (I don't recommend the older ps2/serial versions that I used earlier, unless you want to play around with getting the driver correctly installed). Also, I got a Comfort Keyboard (about $300), and I don't use my thumbs for the space bar, I use my index fingers. I found the book Repetitive Strain Injury to be very useful in general (for good posture, input habits and exercises for healing the tendons), though it didn't specifically address this problem.Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471595330.

Now I can use a regular mouse again, but I have meanwhile learned to use a trackpad with either hand, a mouse with either hand, and any weird keyboard :)

Hope that helps.

BTW: It is amazing how bad touch-typing is for your hands. I completely changed my typing habits, and as a result I don't type fast (while using lots of backspace). I think through what I want to write and then type it slowly but accurately. It has done wonders for my hands.

You're probably right, but I thought I'd mention that one of the author's names I recognized as a top-notch mathematician: Andrew M. Odlyzko. I read about him in a book about the race to prove the Riemann Hypothesis.

I'd say he's a pretty smart guy - I don't about practical or "street" smarts - but some smart people don't value money so highly.

He is for now, but Neal Armstrong is a meme, and memes can change depending on what records get preserved. Of all the media you mentioned, only the paper books (and under ideal circumstances, maybe the LP albums) have a chance of being readable after a few hundred years. It's because of those books that I worry less about Armstrong's legacy than about, say, history's view of the causes of the current Iraq war, because most of the documentation for the latter is probably not on paper.

We are idiots, setting ourselves up for an information disaster. Go read A Canticle for Leibowitz for a sobering take on the possible consequences of this.

My RSI once got so bad that I began to have real problems because of it - not being able to turn doorknobs, not being able to use my hands first thing in the morning because they were so numb. What helped me was this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572240393/sr=8-5 /qid=1152891127/ref=pd_bbs_5/103-2080030-5875051?i e=UTF8

Get her this book, and have the bosses allocate an hour a day - half in the morning and half in the afternoon - to doing the exercises. Have her take it slow and steady. I saw solid results in only a few days, and near-complete recovery in a few weeks. Of course, this is one of those things you must keep up, or the symptoms will come back.

RSI is a very, very complex issue - and the chances are that your co-worker's problems aren't caused by her hands or wrists at all. Much or most of what is called "RSI" is related to musculoskeletal/postural problems much higher up the body - usually around the shoulders, neck, and upper arm, where nerves and blood vessels pass from the trunk to the upper arm.

Most of the problems can be traced to postural issues, but they vary from person to person, so it's impossible to suggest a specific solution without a) being there and b) being a trained physio.

I'd suggest two things:

1) Get a physiotherapist with experience with RSI-type injuries (often called "work-related upper-limb disorders" in the profession these days) to see her and prescribe a course of exercise. Stretching and nerve-glide exercises can be of enormous help. The physio will also be able to give an informed idea as to what habits or postural issues are causing the problem.

2) Get a full ergonomic review of her workstation. Various people have already covered this. I know one person whose RSI was entirely cured by moving their monitor six inches right.

She might also find that a course on the Alexander Technique or Feldenkrais helps - or she might find it's as much use as a chocolate teapot. Mileage varies wildly with those techniques.

For more information on the subject, I'd heartily recommend "It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0965 510999?v=glance

Specifically, this one

I used to spend 8 hours a day sitting on my specially-ordered ergonomic chair, tapping away at my ergonomic keybaord, wearing wrist supports, popping pain killers, and contemplating quitting my job because I had RSI in both wrists so badly my hands actually burned with pain. I started the excercises listed for wrist pain in that book one weekend, and when I came back to work on Monday, I chucked my wrist supports into my desk drawer, along with my painkillers, and never used them again. The chair went back to the suppliers a few days later.

RSI is *not* caused by too much movement - the body exists for no other purpose than movement, and it was "designed" for a hell of a lot more movement than we give it by sitting in chairs all day. The cause of RSI is *bad* movement: Movement in a bad posture, using the wrong muscle groups, etc. A primary cause of my burning hands was that I typed with my hands bent back so the tendons in my forearm were scraping over the bones, rubbing them raw: sitting up straighter so my hands naturally bent forward/downward eliminated 90% of my pain overnight.

The problem is with the body, not the office equipment. So don't waste your money on a new mouse: Fix the real problem.

Standard Oil was not a monopoly. Rockefeller reduced prices for consumers for years and years and years. Before the government even had a chance to take SO apart, competition did. Check the facts.

Better yet, read up here:

The Gates-Rockefeller Myth:
The efficiencies of economies of scale and vertical integration caused the price of refined petroleum to fall from over 30 cents per gallon in 1869 to 10 cents by 1874, and to 5.9 cents in 1897. During the same period Rockefeller reduced his average costs from 3 cents to 0.29 cents per gallon.

This is bad? How? Because competition was too inept and inefficient to give consumers better prices and more product? Come on, bring some facts to the Standard Oil "monopoly" myth.

We also see here:

Privileged Producers:

The U.S. Supreme Court declared in its 1911 decision breaking up the company: "Much has been said in favor of the objects of the Standard Oil Trust, and what it has accomplished. It may be true that it has improved the quality and cheapened the costs of petroleum and its products to the consumer."

Standard Oil was finally broken apart in 1911. Mary Ruwart wrote a huge section of her book about the facts of the SO situation. In 1900, Standard Oil had a 90% share of the oil market based on being the most efficient and active producer. By 1911, Standard Oil had fallen to 65% because competitors found new oil wells in Texas and Oklahoma and were able to match Standard Oil's efficiencies in production and distribution. The anti-trust case hadn't even been settled by this point -- proof to me that the case wasn't needed.

Before the Standard Oil breakup, they were providing cheap oil to poor and sub-poor people who couldn't afford oil before SO was able to produce it so cheaply.

Every time I bring up examples of how monopolies just don't exist naturally (without government subsidies or preferential treatment), people bring up Standard Oil and only SO. They never bring up any other examples because there are none and the SO example is faulty -- they were not a monopoly, they were just efficient for a few decades.

My wife has the exact same problems -- she can spend about three hours a day on a notebook keyboard and touchpad, but cannot go for more than about 30 minutes on a regular keyboard and mouse.

All three of these products have a touchpad controller, and has notebook style keys.

It seems for people with pains in their arms/wrists, a full-stroke regular keyboard may be painful to type on.

Sony VAIO keyboard
IBM Keyboard with UltraNav
Adesso keyboard

My wife has the exact same problems -- she can spend about three hours a day on a notebook keyboard and touchpad, but cannot go for more than about 30 minutes on a regular keyboard and mouse.

All three of these products have a touchpad controller, and has notebook style keys.

It seems for people with pains in their arms/wrists, a full-stroke regular keyboard may be painful to type on.

Sony VAIO keyboard
IBM Keyboard with UltraNav
Adesso keyboard

My wife has the exact same problems -- she can spend about three hours a day on a notebook keyboard and touchpad, but cannot go for more than about 30 minutes on a regular keyboard and mouse.

All three of these products have a touchpad controller, and has notebook style keys.

It seems for people with pains in their arms/wrists, a full-stroke regular keyboard may be painful to type on.

Sony VAIO keyboard
IBM Keyboard with UltraNav
Adesso keyboard

Except the 5-button part. Generally they put those extra buttons on the side, which puts some limitation on the way you can cradle the mouse and move it without accidentally brushing one of those damn side-buttons. The extra buttons don't really serve any useful purpose anyway (unless you're gaming, but if you've got a stress injury, it's probably a good idea to find something else to do with your leisure time for a while).

Better to get just the basic Microsoft or Logitech optical wheel mouse. (something like this one) The contoured ones feel great in the store, but your real usage is at a different angle and the contours force into a particular way of holding it. I suggest optical because you can use it directly on the desk, eliminating the high-traction neoprene mouse pad and the inertia of the mouse ball will reduce the force needed for operation. Also you can easily switch between left-handed and right-handed operation without moving a bunch of needless auxiliary gear. On that note, a radio-mouse might be nice, if you can find one without all the bells and whistles.

If you haven't been switching mouse operation from hand to hand periodically, you probably should from time to time. Anyone can learn to mouse ambidextrously. It probably wouldn't hurt to learn keyboard shortcuts for things so you don't need the mouse as much. Whatever you do to vary your usage will cut down on the repetative part of repetetive stress.

They actually did make small touchpads that hooked up to the ps/2 port of a computer. I know because I had one for my IBM L40SX, which had no internal pointing device, being originally designed for DOS. They were designed to make people without touchpads on their laptops feel special, I think. Some companies still make them: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008XPAR/103-76 63121-8304644?v=glance&n=172282 They also make models with integrated keyboards: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool s/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1388856&Sku=A68-1016&SRCC ODE=PRICEGRABBER&CMP=OTC-PRICEGRABBER&ci_srccode=c ii_5784816&cpncode=08-10505924-2

It will make a good business, freezing people so their savings would grow and they could see the future.

Larry Niven, in his Gil Hamilton stories (collected in Flatlander ) figures that no future society would stand to let people remain in suspended animation and grow rich, but would most likely confiscate their investments and process them for organs.

Granted, recent improvements in alloplasty ("gadgets instead of organs") and the possibility of growing new organs from stem cells may result in a different future than Niven envisioned, but his points are worth examining.

I recently read a book* exploring the early origins of personal computing. Doug Engelbart, a researcher, envisioned computers augmenting the human mind (tools) rather than replacing it (i.e. articial intellgiences). This system sounds like a one more step in fufilling his vision.

This book here

... the fact that 17 men were recently arrested in possession of a large amount of high explosives they planned to use in Canada on Canadian targets. Many of them "homegrown" Canadians.

This isn't simply a matter of foreign policy we're talking about here. If more people actually listen to what the Jihadis have to say rather than attempt to understand them through traditional Western frames we might come to understand this.

This isn't simply about Israel. For Jihads - a very small portion of the Muslim population - this is a fight to the death along religious lines, regardless of where your foreign aid goes. Canada is not Islamic and is, therefore, the enemy to many. Perhaps not too high up on the priority list, but an enemy all the same.

I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of "Knowing the Enemy" by Mary Habeck. Published by Yale Press, it's hardly a neo-Con tract of any sort - it's an excellent look into the eyes of the enemy and - more importantly - helps identify friends in the Muslim world as well. Obviously, as with any serious study, this should just be a starting point.

I happen to agree with you; NPOV is a fiction. Still, I always wondered about this, as the idea struck me as very encyclopedic and similar to the world-view Alasdair MacIntyre described in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition.

Then, one day I was reading Jimbo Wales' Wiki bio. The concept of NPOV may be an application (or possibly a principle) of Objectivism.

In the crazy world we now inhabit, expect to see a lawsuit against the critics for restraint of trade.

Old news.

Oprah vs. Beef Industry

Relevent links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oprah_Winfrey_Sho w

Scroll down to 'Tuesdays With Dr Phil'

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859 -1&q=oprah+beef

Assorted related links via Google

Be thankfull meat processing isn't as bad now as it was in THE JUNGLE

'Uncut original' pay version on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1884365302/103-59 32692-9835849?v=glance&n=283155

Shouldn't this version be PD as well?

Anyone interested in just posting the 'uncut' portions somewhere so people can add it to their Project Gutenberg copies? If PG did it, they'd get into trouble for sure!

Slashdot CAPTCHA: calumny (old way to say 'defamation') coincidence?

Save yourself $7.64 by buying the book here: Ruby For Rails. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%! That's a total savings of $8.08, or 22.82%!

Save yourself $7.64 by buying the book here: Ruby For Rails. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%! That's a total savings of $8.08, or 22.82%!

For the first time reading a /. book review, I actually want to buy this book!

If you do, don't use the link in the article unless you want to be swindled. Once again, Slashdot links to B & N for kickbacks, when Amazon has it cheaper. I'm starting to wonder if they have any respect for their readership.

One thing to note about Einstein's relativity and the speed of light: Einstein's equations are completely generic to what the constant c actually is. The physics/mathematics works for any value that you put in. It just so happens that our observations give c a specific value. David Mermin's book has an interesting chapter where he looks at relativistic effects using the speed of light at a few m/s.

Open Office has worked okay for me. I do write occasionally, and I am usually impressed with some feature I find in bits of OOo, that handle the functionality that is expected (when exchanging digital documents).

I sure hope Microsoft makes it easy for others to exchange documents with me.

The government seems to have never placed much importance on computer security. I recently read Cliff Stoll's 1989 chronicle of a hacking, The Cuckoo's Egg . Back then the government was slow to respond and pretty unmotivated, and it seems like little has changed today. Yet, once they catch someone, they give him a draconian punishment that ruins his life, just look at Mitnick. The government can't seem to decide it's priorities. It'll punish you more for cracking than for murder, but at the same time it won't secure it's own systems and heed experts.