Believe me it's not all porn sites and such that dish out the spyware.
I've cleaned it off machines that got infected because a 12year old Wrastling fan VISITED some 'fan' site.
I watched the re-infection try to happen, his mom had heard the same story it was all from porn sites and figured her son had hit 'that age' (peuberty to ten minutes after death for most of us:) ).
To prove to his mom that's not what he was doing he showed us each of the sites he went to. When he hit this fan site the blocker I was using at the time went nuts with about 8 attempts to infect, two of them would have worked without any further action than simply viewing the site in pre-sp2 xp.
These days it's more often the aforementioned smilies and cursors and some simular crap.
errr. your kidding right? please tell me your kidding.
Eigther that or to young to remember pre-gui computers. Trust me, the 'under the hood stuff' is usually needed BEFORE the gui is needed. You know like the graphics drivers so you can even see that nice pretty gui. Or perhaps the keyboard interface or mouse routines so you can use the gui. Or the filesystem so you can load the gui.
As much as I consider a good gui for almost everything critical to mass acceptance for an OS (as opposed to the cli and config file mess some think is perfectly fine to foist on joe user), It's still NOT what makes an os work.
If your astigmatism(sp?) is sufficiently bad your choices in contacts reduce and price goes up rapidly.
Last time I looked into it conatacts would have cost me over $150 per eye.
For those who don't know what it is, astigmatism is when the eye is off-round such that a perfect circle when seen uncorrected apears as an elipse.
The problem this causes is that if a corrective lense is not aligned properly it can exagerate or complicate the distortion rather than correct it. Now for glasses this correction is easy to align as everything involved is relatively fixed. Contacts however just sit in the fluid covering the eye, so steps have to be taken to keep them oriented properly on the eye for astigmatics.
So if your astigmatism is as bad as mine you have to pay through the nose for contacts.
Replace *best* with best reasonable and it does exist, it's the person viewing the web-page.
But html and the web was NOT intended to be the best possible layout, but rather always useable. Current tendencies to lock things down or use non-portable/absolute value layouts work against that.
And that is my point. Fixed layout elements and the like should almost never be used as opposed to the almost always used situation we have now.
There is an inherent difference between hard copy and the web, bad web-design sometimes comes from not noticing that the web-page will NOT display the same everywhere, all design work trying to enforce such nonsense just makes the problem worse by not allowing the end user to effectively tweak the defaults so he can read it at HIS end.
The phrase 'Once you start employing design elements to improve usability, they start degrading on different output devices.' is a contradictory statement. 'Design elements that improve useability' are things that enable you to use something with greater ease as I read it, and if an element reduces the set of potential users it by definition reduces useability.
One element of the idea behind the web is device independence on output, trying to foolishly lock away this key element only degrades the useability of a site and is NOT necessary to achieve the goals of most websites.
I've seen websites that work and look good despite resizing fonts or the browser's window and so on. The myth that locking down elements to exact sizes or placing is somehow needed or usefull is false to fact.
The other idea that seems to be in confusion is 'autolayout'. That implies to me that the webdesigner has no controll and neigther does the viewer, this is not what I'm talking about.
The real designers take into account the fact that thier site will NOT look the same everywhere, and will not use elements or depend on settings that cause thier site to fail if changed.
Good web design involves looking at how the page changes as the viewers preferences and/or environment changes and designing it to work with the change, not try and lock it out.
The scary thing is as more tools are developed that should make it easier for designers to build sites that adapt more intelligently than raw browser interpretation (style sheets, java, javascript, and so on) the more they tend to use them to do just the oposite, and lock in thier specific 'view' of the site irrespective of the reality at the end users monitor (or other device for some).
I'm not arguing against desingers making choices about thier site's layout, far from it. I'm arguing against thier making assumptions about the end viewers software, hardware, eyesight, tastes, etc. and trying to lock in those assumptions. Layout design should be robust which means non-absolute. Dependence on pixel or inch/cm based placing (as opposed to relative based) is almost always going to be bad design and break on some subset of output devices.
That's one of the possibilities I had in my head. But I couldn't understand why it so seldom gets caught, at least you'd expect someone somewhere to say "hey Bob you screwed the page up, it looks like sh*t" the first time someone at the company looked at it in a different resolution or font size. I WOULD expect the web designers superior to notice, someone somewhere should have caught it.
It'd be like hiring a math major to do banking sofware and no-one noticing the software always printing everything including checks out to 7 decimal places, or even the more subtle problem off rounding everything down.
Now for small mom and pop setups that hire Joe the sophmore art major next door to put up a webpage about thier handcrafted furniture or some such, shure this sort of thing happening isn't such a suprise. But when a major news source, or worse a tech site, not only makes these mistakes but keeps making them, it baffles the mind.
WYSWIG tools shouldn't default to fixing sizes and such without the user haveing to specifiy it directly and giving warning (CAUTION fixed sizes are not recomended and may not render as intended in all browsers or at all resolutions/screen sizes). Last time I used a wyswig editor was a long time ago and fixing sizes like I see now wasn't even an option unless you hand coded it (even then I think it was very limited in how you could, just tables IIRC) but that was 6-9 years ago.
Of course it says something about those that hire someone for x when who is only trained in y.
But that's a personal preference, which should be set at the VIEWERS discression, not the web designers.
I find narrow collums anoying as hell, you have to scroll down and down and down just to get one paragraph read. Jumping lines every third word is anoying to me and makes the text seem disjointed and poorly formated, especially when there are 3 collums (One just for adds usually) and enough blank space to the right for 1 to 2 more at thier tiny widths. Allowing text to go the width of the browser makes it EASIER for me to read rather than have to scroll down 5 to ten screens then hit next page and so on just to get one page worth of info.
All that I'd still rather scroll down than sideways most of the time, which is what really anoys about some sites that assume thier defaults is what your using. Then lines scroll off the edges and you have to scroll back and forth for each line(like/.).
Perhaps this is because I grew up reading full sized books that didn't try and fit whole ideas into the textual equivalent of a sound-bite.
But at any rate the web designer should leave it up to ME or YOU or whom ever is reading the site, unless he deliberately desires to anoy readers.
I'm not shure, but it looks like your arguing for the fixed sizes for everything sites on the theory they look better.
Problem is that theory assumes your using the EXACT same setup as the designer.
The truth is that if sites that allow the browser to display according the readers preferences looks like crap, then the fixed ones look even worse 90% of the time because the reader isn't using xywebdesign pro's preview feature at 800x600 on a 21" lcd.
I'll take your 'crappy looking' sites over 'unreadble and very crappy looking' that you get most of the time with fixed sizing of fonts and collums and such.
And frankly I've seen sights that do look good, not crappy, that are properly desinged so that changing the browsers resolution or font sizes or other elements works just fine without destroying site readability or useability.
The excuse that locking things down is needed to maintain asthetic merit is simply false. I've seen to many counter examples. I'm not saying that it's easy to correctly design a web page, but it is possible.
I suppose if a particular artistic statement IS the reason for a site then it could be o.k. to lock things down.
But there is NO need on most sites such as news sites (one of the worst for microtype that's locked down) or tech sites (micro collums that are locked down) and some of the others out there that have nothing to do with art.
Of course it's possible I've missed what you were trying to say. If so I appologize for the vitriol, but I really am sick of dealing with bad web design and the stupid justifications therefore. And by bad I mean won't display reasonably except at the specific resolution on the specific monitor size the idiot designed it on.
Nor even if you meant there was some justification for the crap I'm venting against should you consider the vitriol aimed specifically at you, more at your argument (IF I did indeed interpret it correctly) and the web designers that buy it.
Because maybee he expect a site to render properly without having to guess at what software and hardware and settings the so called designer happened to be using at the time. That is supposed to be how it works. It used to be coding in assumptions about the viewers display setup (including browser and monitor size/resolution) was not only harder, but discouraged as bad practice (it's still bad practice, just not as discouraged these days).
This is what I don't understand. WHY is it even possible to use absolute sizing. At most it should be a recomendation with relative sizes also specified.
I get sick of sites the fall apart the minute I dissagree with thier so-called designers idea proper font size (3pt) or collum widths (3 collums, each 1/7th the width of my screen, or 7-8 characters at 12pt or 15pt).
One of the original points of html and such was to have sites that were NOT dependant on knowing or otherwise making assumptions about the viewers display.
There may be a few legitimate uses for fixed sizing, but a web designers fickle whim is NOT one.
A web designer should do his best to build a site without absolute sizes.
I dunno, from here it looks like alot of designers have problems designing a site that will render if you don't use the exact software and monitor and settings they used.
I've seen sites that can't even survive re-sizeing the font. Slashdot won't for example fit width wise when the font is enlarged (at least not under FF.8 through 1.0). And many sites lock the font size under IE and the collum widths are fixed by pixel count or inches or some other stupid absolute measurement without any need, usually such that the sum of the collum widths is NOT a typical monitor width (I've seen sites that are to wide for 800x600 and too narrow for 1024x768?!?!?).
I really wish people would stop over fixing the layout of thier sites so they could be view without exactly matching the designers preferences, and wierd ideas of proper page width (I'm assuming whatever fits inside the toolbars of his design tool).
Used to be web pages were viewable because almost all markup was proportional, not absolute, and it didn't matter that much what browser you were using or resolution.
I've always felt the ability to set max and min sizes in absolute terms is a bad thing in web-design.
The abuses of it occure so often compared to the rare occasion when it makes sense.
On your listed page for example I get the left 2/3 of the page used and the rest wasted. Not that bad in this case, just looks a little odd.
But I've seen far worse, places where the whole web page is about 1/3-1/2 the width of my monitor (a normal 19" flat crt) and scroll for about two screens. The text is set to about 6 pt. At best and when I force the size large enough to read I get about 15 char a line.
I could go on for some time about the things I see on websights that only make sense if the 'designer' assumed everyone would view it in exactly the same resolution and setting and browser as he used. I'm just curious as to WHY that assumption (or any asumption that leads to fixed sized elements) gets made.
Perhaps it's inherent in how web pages are designed these days (eighter the most common tools, or the languages themselves. I dunno just asking because the results sure are anoying and do make most web-designers look eigther self centered or stupid these days. I do remember at first almost any page you hit would render reasonably at any resolution I tried on eigther netscape or IE.
If at all times the money you actually had in the bank was greater than the amounts withdrawn (was that $60 cash or a check? could be important) then they can't charge you for overdraft because it NEVER HAPPENED.
IANAL, but I'm pretty shure deliberately failing to count a deposit when the funds were there (eigther imediately for cash, or as soon as the check clears for checks in most cases, check banking regs and/or a lawyer in the field for exact details) so they can then charge you shure looks like theft or fraud to me.
Also if they showed you a statement showing all the deposits and withdraws and still having a positive ballance then they go back re-do it to charge you I would expect that to be wrong as well.
I'd definately contact the governing body in your state and file a detailed complaint as well as climb as high up the chain of command with US Bank as you can, since they operate in multiple states I doubt they're doing that in many if any other branches and likely someone there is playing games (s)he can and would get fired for.
I once had a rent check bounce despite the banks own statement they issued me showing that I would have had $5.50 left after the check cleared, when I confronted them with that they could appologize fast enough and paid ALL the resulting fee's and wrote the management company I paid rent to a very sincere letter taking all the blame.
Banks are highly regulated and are not allowed to just willy nilly re-order the timing of deposits and withdraws to your detriment. Walk in and tell them you want it fixed post haste, do NOT show any doubt that you are in the right and make shure they know you know who to report thier misdeeds to.
You can try this page:<url:http://www.usbank.com/personal/sub_globa l/personal_cu.html> for contacts at US Bank. and try these for Kentucky's banking regulators:
Commissioner Department of Financial Institutions 1025 Capitol Center Dr. Suite 200 Frankfort KY 40601 502-573-3390 Toll free: 1-800-223-2579 Fax: 502-573-8787 Web site: www.dfi.state.ky.us
I suspect someone at that bank is telling you one thing and his out of town bosses another and pocketing the difference, or some other game that smells like embezzling. Just a hunch with no data other than what you've posted on moderngeek, but that is so screwed up I'd find gross incompetence the only other possible explanation.
Again if you confront them again be dead certain in your attitude, don't raise your voice, don't use fould language, just calmly and with total certaintity tell them they need to undoo all the innaproriate charges on your acount or you will have to notify thier superiors and the state banking regulators and possibly the federal athourities as you suspect a criminal activity.
The Answers.com site also refers to Jerry build, meaning poorly or shoddily built.
It's probably all a tangled mess involving the English use of 'jerry' to refer to germans and and fixing jurries in currupt trials and multiple versions of the 'english' language in use.
The reason Microsoft gets so much more scrutiny and leagle flack on the bundling issue is because they have been found (leagly) to be a monopoly. This changes the rules for them so as to prevent them from locking out any future competition or taking over related/inlinked markets by virtue of thier having a near captive audience.
Apple with it's small slice of the market is very unlikely to say put opera out of bussiness by shipping thier own browser for free with thier operating system like Microsoft did to Netscape(I know that's a simplification of ie/netscape history, but it serves to illistrate my point I hope).
In short Microsoft is a victim of thier own success here.
I can't speak athouratatively (IANAL, etc.), and most certainly not about non-US laws, but as I understand it monopolies are allowed (in some cases at least), they just fall under much tighter rules and such when they occure.
Microsoft didn't get in trouble for being a monopoly, but doing illeagle things with thier monopoly derived powers.
Plus I don't think this is a monopoly situation in any case, it's more of a standard format that everyone can compete under. For example no-one seriously complains about the keyboard monopoly, yet 'multi-media' buttons aside most keyboards follow the same general qwerty layout with the row of function keys at the top, the arrow keys in the lower right and the numpad in the far right and so on.
They only way this could be a monopoly is if only ONE source to aquire the disk's and players existed.
Even if I got my history mixed up (likely, been a while) the point is that as intended the electors would be free to debate and discuss merits of a candidate, rather than be the mouthpieces of the popular vote (wich at times equate to mob rule) filter through the odd distortion of the winner take all system in most states.
It's thier job is to act as a buffer against mob rule and ignorance.
At least that's what the design intention is. I'm not saying the current system is absolutely wrong, but it certainly has oddities that seem potentially problematic to me.
Actualy I distrust it because it mangles a safeguard in the system, a safeguard designed to prevent such things as what happened in Germany in the late thirties.
Also I'm not shure what you meant by reducing the odds of rendering the electors irrelevant, since the winner talk all system doese exactly that, makes the electors little more than a strange way to report tallies rather than actual electors.
Winner take all neigther serves to accurately reflect the will of the people nor to safeguard against a momentary passion of the peole from electing a charismatic madman. At best it serves s a mechanism to re-inforce the near duoppoly of the current parties.
Actually I don't like eigther major party, but that is only tangential to my distrust over a kludge.
I don't mind the amendments that adjust the electoral system, that's what the amendment process is for. What I distrust is the winner take all format adopted by 48 of the 50 states.
It is of course possible to not have a majority in the case of the electoral college. And I'm shure the electors will have political opinions.
The real question is whether the system our founding fathers set up, or what it has been changed into, is the better system.
The current system is more prone to 'the passion of the moment' than the electoral system, though there is no guarantee that an electoral college would be immune. I do find that the smaller the mob the less likely mob rule will take over.
And frankly if none of the candidates can get a majority then we're in a situation that bears greater attention and scrutiny.
LOL thanks for sticking up for me, but the saner mods prevailed.
The newly converted to ANYTHING are much more enthusiasticly shure it's the latest greatest best version there is than lifetime supporters. This goes for religeon, text editors, programming languages, carbonated beverages, video games, etc.
I have a friend who's in a perpetual state of being a 'new convert' with video games. He gets one, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread for a month or six, then he's quite for about 1 to 4 weeks, then it's actually a crappy game because he just found wonder game that's oh so much better. Lather Rinse Repeate (and he's just turned 30, not 14!). We kid him about it from time to time, so he's aware he does it, even laughs at it himself, but he still does it.
The point is it's human nature, by the time you 'convert' to something you usually have a lot of time and emotional energy invested relative to the 'belief' concerned and tend to try and bolster that investment by converting others, or at least getting them to support your emotional investment by affirming your investment.
I wasn't making any value judgements on any specific religeon, just pointing out human nature.
I don't have any problem with abandonware on emulation/simulation myself. I figure if thier done with it it's public domain.
At least that's the INTENT of the copyright clause in the constitution. For the public to benifit from the enrichment of the public domain once the authors have recieved a reward for thier creation.
The fact that they no longer actively do anything with the software they own says "we're done, we got all the value we want out of it". As far as I'm concerned they lack the moral or ethical right to just SIT on it for such a long time and forbid anyone else from using it.
Actually that sounds normal, the newly converted have a tendency to greater fanaticism than those who have grown up accepting thier brand of 'the one truth'.
I had herd that the cronicles had some relation to his religeous beliefs and conversion back and forth, just didn't remember the details.
Slashdot Mirror
Believe me it's not all porn sites and such that dish out the spyware. :) ).
I've cleaned it off machines that got infected because a 12year old Wrastling fan VISITED some 'fan' site.
I watched the re-infection try to happen, his mom had heard the same story it was all from porn sites and figured her son had hit 'that age' (peuberty to ten minutes after death for most of us
To prove to his mom that's not what he was doing he showed us each of the sites he went to. When he hit this fan site the blocker I was using at the time went nuts with about 8 attempts to infect, two of them would have worked without any further action than simply viewing the site in pre-sp2 xp.
These days it's more often the aforementioned smilies and cursors and some simular crap.
Mycroft
errr. your kidding right?
please tell me your kidding.
Eigther that or to young to remember pre-gui computers. Trust me, the 'under the hood stuff' is usually needed BEFORE the gui is needed. You know like the graphics drivers so you can even see that nice pretty gui. Or perhaps the keyboard interface or mouse routines so you can use the gui. Or the filesystem so you can load the gui.
As much as I consider a good gui for almost everything critical to mass acceptance for an OS (as opposed to the cli and config file mess some think is perfectly fine to foist on joe user), It's still NOT what makes an os work.
Mycroft
If your astigmatism(sp?) is sufficiently bad your choices in contacts reduce and price goes up rapidly.
Last time I looked into it conatacts would have cost me over $150 per eye.
For those who don't know what it is, astigmatism is when the eye is off-round such that a perfect circle when seen uncorrected apears as an elipse.
The problem this causes is that if a corrective lense is not aligned properly it can exagerate or complicate the distortion rather than correct it. Now for glasses this correction is easy to align as everything involved is relatively fixed. Contacts however just sit in the fluid covering the eye, so steps have to be taken to keep them oriented properly on the eye for astigmatics.
So if your astigmatism is as bad as mine you have to pay through the nose for contacts.
Mycroft
Replace *best* with best reasonable and it does exist, it's the person viewing the web-page.
But html and the web was NOT intended to be the best possible layout, but rather always useable. Current tendencies to lock things down or use non-portable/absolute value layouts work against that.
And that is my point. Fixed layout elements and the like should almost never be used as opposed to the almost always used situation we have now.
Mycroft
There is an inherent difference between hard copy and the web, bad web-design sometimes comes from not noticing that the web-page will NOT display the same everywhere, all design work trying to enforce such nonsense just makes the problem worse by not allowing the end user to effectively tweak the defaults so he can read it at HIS end.
The phrase 'Once you start employing design elements to improve usability, they start degrading on different output devices.' is a contradictory statement. 'Design elements that improve useability' are things that enable you to use something with greater ease as I read it, and if an element reduces the set of potential users it by definition reduces useability.
One element of the idea behind the web is device independence on output, trying to foolishly lock away this key element only degrades the useability of a site and is NOT necessary to achieve the goals of most websites.
I've seen websites that work and look good despite resizing fonts or the browser's window and so on. The myth that locking down elements to exact sizes or placing is somehow needed or usefull is false to fact.
The other idea that seems to be in confusion is 'autolayout'. That implies to me that the webdesigner has no controll and neigther does the viewer, this is not what I'm talking about.
The real designers take into account the fact that thier site will NOT look the same everywhere, and will not use elements or depend on settings that cause thier site to fail if changed.
Good web design involves looking at how the page changes as the viewers preferences and/or environment changes and designing it to work with the change, not try and lock it out.
The scary thing is as more tools are developed that should make it easier for designers to build sites that adapt more intelligently than raw browser interpretation (style sheets, java, javascript, and so on) the more they tend to use them to do just the oposite, and lock in thier specific 'view' of the site irrespective of the reality at the end users monitor (or other device for some).
I'm not arguing against desingers making choices about thier site's layout, far from it. I'm arguing against thier making assumptions about the end viewers software, hardware, eyesight, tastes, etc. and trying to lock in those assumptions. Layout design should be robust which means non-absolute. Dependence on pixel or inch/cm based placing (as opposed to relative based) is almost always going to be bad design and break on some subset of output devices.
Mycroft
That's one of the possibilities I had in my head. But I couldn't understand why it so seldom gets caught, at least you'd expect someone somewhere to say "hey Bob you screwed the page up, it looks like sh*t" the first time someone at the company looked at it in a different resolution or font size. I WOULD expect the web designers superior to notice, someone somewhere should have caught it.
It'd be like hiring a math major to do banking sofware and no-one noticing the software always printing everything including checks out to 7 decimal places, or even the more subtle problem off rounding everything down.
Now for small mom and pop setups that hire Joe the sophmore art major next door to put up a webpage about thier handcrafted furniture or some such, shure this sort of thing happening isn't such a suprise. But when a major news source, or worse a tech site, not only makes these mistakes but keeps making them, it baffles the mind.
WYSWIG tools shouldn't default to fixing sizes and such without the user haveing to specifiy it directly and giving warning (CAUTION fixed sizes are not recomended and may not render as intended in all browsers or at all resolutions/screen sizes). Last time I used a wyswig editor was a long time ago and fixing sizes like I see now wasn't even an option unless you hand coded it (even then I think it was very limited in how you could, just tables IIRC) but that was 6-9 years ago.
Of course it says something about those that hire someone for x when who is only trained in y.
Mycroft
But that's a personal preference, which should be set at the VIEWERS discression, not the web designers. /.).
I find narrow collums anoying as hell, you have to scroll down and down and down just to get one paragraph read. Jumping lines every third word is anoying to me and makes the text seem disjointed and poorly formated, especially when there are 3 collums (One just for adds usually) and enough blank space to the right for 1 to 2 more at thier tiny widths. Allowing text to go the width of the browser makes it EASIER for me to read rather than have to scroll down 5 to ten screens then hit next page and so on just to get one page worth of info.
All that I'd still rather scroll down than sideways most of the time, which is what really anoys about some sites that assume thier defaults is what your using. Then lines scroll off the edges and you have to scroll back and forth for each line(like
Perhaps this is because I grew up reading full sized books that didn't try and fit whole ideas into the textual equivalent of a sound-bite.
But at any rate the web designer should leave it up to ME or YOU or whom ever is reading the site, unless he deliberately desires to anoy readers.
Mycroft
I'm not shure, but it looks like your arguing for the fixed sizes for everything sites on the theory they look better.
Problem is that theory assumes your using the EXACT same setup as the designer.
The truth is that if sites that allow the browser to display according the readers preferences looks like crap, then the fixed ones look even worse 90% of the time because the reader isn't using xywebdesign pro's preview feature at 800x600 on a 21" lcd.
I'll take your 'crappy looking' sites over 'unreadble and very crappy looking' that you get most of the time with fixed sizing of fonts and collums and such.
And frankly I've seen sights that do look good, not crappy, that are properly desinged so that changing the browsers resolution or font sizes or other elements works just fine without destroying site readability or useability.
The excuse that locking things down is needed to maintain asthetic merit is simply false. I've seen to many counter examples. I'm not saying that it's easy to correctly design a web page, but it is possible.
I suppose if a particular artistic statement IS the reason for a site then it could be o.k. to lock things down.
But there is NO need on most sites such as news sites (one of the worst for microtype that's locked down) or tech sites (micro collums that are locked down) and some of the others out there that have nothing to do with art.
Of course it's possible I've missed what you were trying to say. If so I appologize for the vitriol, but I really am sick of dealing with bad web design and the stupid justifications therefore. And by bad I mean won't display reasonably except at the specific resolution on the specific monitor size the idiot designed it on.
Nor even if you meant there was some justification for the crap I'm venting against should you consider the vitriol aimed specifically at you, more at your argument (IF I did indeed interpret it correctly) and the web designers that buy it.
Mycroft
Agreed, unfortunately I've already posted in this thread and can't mod it. However there is always Meta Mod.
Mycroft
Because maybee he expect a site to render properly without having to guess at what software and hardware and settings the so called designer happened to be using at the time. That is supposed to be how it works. It used to be coding in assumptions about the viewers display setup (including browser and monitor size/resolution) was not only harder, but discouraged as bad practice (it's still bad practice, just not as discouraged these days).
Mycroft
This is what I don't understand. WHY is it even possible to use absolute sizing. At most it should be a recomendation with relative sizes also specified.
I get sick of sites the fall apart the minute I dissagree with thier so-called designers idea proper font size (3pt) or collum widths (3 collums, each 1/7th the width of my screen, or 7-8 characters at 12pt or 15pt).
One of the original points of html and such was to have sites that were NOT dependant on knowing or otherwise making assumptions about the viewers display.
There may be a few legitimate uses for fixed sizing, but a web designers fickle whim is NOT one.
A web designer should do his best to build a site without absolute sizes.
Mycroft
I dunno, from here it looks like alot of designers have problems designing a site that will render if you don't use the exact software and monitor and settings they used. .8 through 1.0). And many sites lock the font size under IE and the collum widths are fixed by pixel count or inches or some other stupid absolute measurement without any need, usually such that the sum of the collum widths is NOT a typical monitor width (I've seen sites that are to wide for 800x600 and too narrow for 1024x768?!?!?).
I've seen sites that can't even survive re-sizeing the font. Slashdot won't for example fit width wise when the font is enlarged (at least not under FF
I really wish people would stop over fixing the layout of thier sites so they could be view without exactly matching the designers preferences, and wierd ideas of proper page width (I'm assuming whatever fits inside the toolbars of his design tool).
Used to be web pages were viewable because almost all markup was proportional, not absolute, and it didn't matter that much what browser you were using or resolution.
Mycroft
I've always felt the ability to set max and min sizes in absolute terms is a bad thing in web-design.
The abuses of it occure so often compared to the rare occasion when it makes sense.
On your listed page for example I get the left 2/3 of the page used and the rest wasted. Not that bad in this case, just looks a little odd.
But I've seen far worse, places where the whole web page is about 1/3-1/2 the width of my monitor (a normal 19" flat crt) and scroll for about two screens. The text is set to about 6 pt. At best and when I force the size large enough to read I get about 15 char a line.
I could go on for some time about the things I see on websights that only make sense if the 'designer' assumed everyone would view it in exactly the same resolution and setting and browser as he used. I'm just curious as to WHY that assumption (or any asumption that leads to fixed sized elements) gets made.
Perhaps it's inherent in how web pages are designed these days (eighter the most common tools, or the languages themselves. I dunno just asking because the results sure are anoying and do make most web-designers look eigther self centered or stupid these days. I do remember at first almost any page you hit would render reasonably at any resolution I tried on eigther netscape or IE.
Mycroft
If at all times the money you actually had in the bank was greater than the amounts withdrawn (was that $60 cash or a check? could be important) then they can't charge you for overdraft because it NEVER HAPPENED.a l/personal_cu.html> for contacts at US Bank. and try these for Kentucky's banking regulators:
IANAL, but I'm pretty shure deliberately failing to count a deposit when the funds were there (eigther imediately for cash, or as soon as the check clears for checks in most cases, check banking regs and/or a lawyer in the field for exact details) so they can then charge you shure looks like theft or fraud to me.
Also if they showed you a statement showing all the deposits and withdraws and still having a positive ballance then they go back re-do it to charge you I would expect that to be wrong as well.
I'd definately contact the governing body in your state and file a detailed complaint as well as climb as high up the chain of command with US Bank as you can, since they operate in multiple states I doubt they're doing that in many if any other branches and likely someone there is playing games (s)he can and would get fired for.
I once had a rent check bounce despite the banks own statement they issued me showing that I would have had $5.50 left after the check cleared, when I confronted them with that they could appologize fast enough and paid ALL the resulting fee's and wrote the management company I paid rent to a very sincere letter taking all the blame.
Banks are highly regulated and are not allowed to just willy nilly re-order the timing of deposits and withdraws to your detriment. Walk in and tell them you want it fixed post haste, do NOT show any doubt that you are in the right and make shure they know you know who to report thier misdeeds to.
You can try this page:<url:http://www.usbank.com/personal/sub_glob
Commissioner
Department of Financial Institutions
1025 Capitol Center Dr.
Suite 200
Frankfort KY 40601
502-573-3390
Toll free: 1-800-223-2579
Fax: 502-573-8787
Web site: www.dfi.state.ky.us
I suspect someone at that bank is telling you one thing and his out of town bosses another and pocketing the difference, or some other game that smells like embezzling. Just a hunch with no data other than what you've posted on moderngeek, but that is so screwed up I'd find gross incompetence the only other possible explanation.
Again if you confront them again be dead certain in your attitude, don't raise your voice, don't use fould language, just calmly and with total certaintity tell them they need to undoo all the innaproriate charges on your acount or you will have to notify thier superiors and the state banking regulators and possibly the federal athourities as you suspect a criminal activity.
Mycroft
The Answers.com site also refers to Jerry build, meaning poorly or shoddily built.
It's probably all a tangled mess involving the English use of 'jerry' to refer to germans and and fixing jurries in currupt trials and multiple versions of the 'english' language in use.
Mycroft
The reason Microsoft gets so much more scrutiny and leagle flack on the bundling issue is because they have been found (leagly) to be a monopoly. This changes the rules for them so as to prevent them from locking out any future competition or taking over related/inlinked markets by virtue of thier having a near captive audience.
Apple with it's small slice of the market is very unlikely to say put opera out of bussiness by shipping thier own browser for free with thier operating system like Microsoft did to Netscape(I know that's a simplification of ie/netscape history, but it serves to illistrate my point I hope).
In short Microsoft is a victim of thier own success here.
Mycroft
I can't speak athouratatively (IANAL, etc.), and most certainly not about non-US laws, but as I understand it monopolies are allowed (in some cases at least), they just fall under much tighter rules and such when they occure.
Microsoft didn't get in trouble for being a monopoly, but doing illeagle things with thier monopoly derived powers.
Plus I don't think this is a monopoly situation in any case, it's more of a standard format that everyone can compete under. For example no-one seriously complains about the keyboard monopoly, yet 'multi-media' buttons aside most keyboards follow the same general qwerty layout with the row of function keys at the top, the arrow keys in the lower right and the numpad in the far right and so on.
They only way this could be a monopoly is if only ONE source to aquire the disk's and players existed.
Mycroft
Even if I got my history mixed up (likely, been a while) the point is that as intended the electors would be free to debate and discuss merits of a candidate, rather than be the mouthpieces of the popular vote (wich at times equate to mob rule) filter through the odd distortion of the winner take all system in most states.
It's thier job is to act as a buffer against mob rule and ignorance.
At least that's what the design intention is. I'm not saying the current system is absolutely wrong, but it certainly has oddities that seem potentially problematic to me.
Mycroft
Actualy I distrust it because it mangles a safeguard in the system, a safeguard designed to prevent such things as what happened in Germany in the late thirties.
Also I'm not shure what you meant by reducing the odds of rendering the electors irrelevant, since the winner talk all system doese exactly that, makes the electors little more than a strange way to report tallies rather than actual electors.
Winner take all neigther serves to accurately reflect the will of the people nor to safeguard against a momentary passion of the peole from electing a charismatic madman. At best it serves s a mechanism to re-inforce the near duoppoly of the current parties.
Mycroft
Actually I don't like eigther major party, but that is only tangential to my distrust over a kludge.
I don't mind the amendments that adjust the electoral system, that's what the amendment process is for. What I distrust is the winner take all format adopted by 48 of the 50 states.
Mycroft
It is of course possible to not have a majority in the case of the electoral college. And I'm shure the electors will have political opinions.
The real question is whether the system our founding fathers set up, or what it has been changed into, is the better system.
The current system is more prone to 'the passion of the moment' than the electoral system, though there is no guarantee that an electoral college would be immune. I do find that the smaller the mob the less likely mob rule will take over.
And frankly if none of the candidates can get a majority then we're in a situation that bears greater attention and scrutiny.
Mycroft
Troll?
"You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means."--The Princess Bride
Mycroft
LOL thanks for sticking up for me, but the saner mods prevailed.
The newly converted to ANYTHING are much more enthusiasticly shure it's the latest greatest best version there is than lifetime supporters. This goes for religeon, text editors, programming languages, carbonated beverages, video games, etc.
I have a friend who's in a perpetual state of being a 'new convert' with video games. He gets one, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread for a month or six, then he's quite for about 1 to 4 weeks, then it's actually a crappy game because he just found wonder game that's oh so much better. Lather Rinse Repeate (and he's just turned 30, not 14!). We kid him about it from time to time, so he's aware he does it, even laughs at it himself, but he still does it.
The point is it's human nature, by the time you 'convert' to something you usually have a lot of time and emotional energy invested relative to the 'belief' concerned and tend to try and bolster that investment by converting others, or at least getting them to support your emotional investment by affirming your investment.
I wasn't making any value judgements on any specific religeon, just pointing out human nature.
Mycroft
I don't have any problem with abandonware on emulation/simulation myself. I figure if thier done with it it's public domain.
At least that's the INTENT of the copyright clause in the constitution. For the public to benifit from the enrichment of the public domain once the authors have recieved a reward for thier creation.
The fact that they no longer actively do anything with the software they own says "we're done, we got all the value we want out of it".
As far as I'm concerned they lack the moral or ethical right to just SIT on it for such a long time and forbid anyone else from using it.
Mycroft
Actually that sounds normal, the newly converted have a tendency to greater fanaticism than those who have grown up accepting thier brand of 'the one truth'.
I had herd that the cronicles had some relation to his religeous beliefs and conversion back and forth, just didn't remember the details.
Mycroft