You've gotta be kidding me! Some kid made a song about AIM!? And it's...corny. Eh...she's an alright singer, but it feels like someone just dropped a bunch of chat terms into a song and figured they could make a buck off of it.
February 2002 Archives
I've been resisting doing this, but I've found some sweet sites lately that definitely need to be linked up.
serpentinity: well I linked her after my last entry, but since I figure no one actually read through all of that *cough*, I'm just giving her another plug. To see my original description, scroll to the bottom of my last entry. Yeah, I'm being lazy.
riddle: Is it grunge? Is it tech? Who cares...don't try to box this site into one of the dominant styles that float around the internet like flotsam in a sea of creative emptiness (hehe...try deciphering that ugly metaphor!). Lovely site.
unfit: personal site of a 17-year old. For some reason, I find it refreshing that he has no bio and no "newsfeed"...all of the emphasis is on his works. Sort of feels like he's stepped back and let his work speak for him.
version three: sweet, minimal design, with Flash nicely integrated, and even a frames-based layout that doesn't end up being annoying. Whole lotta stuff on the front page, but if you wade in it, you can find some really good content. His work shows a deliberate thoughtfulness that a lot of other sites seem to lack. Probably because he's an engineer. =)
budugllydesign: another spoof of bad websites. This one is interesting though, in that it's more of a spoof on bad design than it is on websites that are simply ugly.
I'm worried about my family.
none of the American news media is carrying the story, but the BBC is closely following the deteriorating situation in my home country, Madagascar. In a Dec. 16 presidential election, most independent sources seemed to award the victory to Marc Ravalomanana, the mayor of Antananarivo (the capital of Madagascar), in spite of widespread voting fraud that favored the incumbent president, Marxist dictator Didier Ratsiraka. However, Ratsiraka declared a draw and called for a second election. Ravalomanana cried foul, and his supporters have been peacefully protesting in the streets of the capital ever since. The number of protesters has varied from several hundred thousand to as many as 1.5 million people, but Ratsiraka hasn't backed down. Ravalomanana announced several days ago that he would declare himself president today, and in response, Ratsiraka recalled Ravalomanana's military escort and mobilized the army (there's already been one rumored assassination attempt on Ravalomanana).
Ravalomanana declared himself president today in a carnival-like ceremony attended by several hundred thousand people. Ratsiraka has declared a "state of emergency," which gives him power to make laws by decree and allow mass arrests. The last time a large number of people questioned Ratsiraka's legitimacy, he sent helicopters to drop grenades on them.
So now, everything is up in the air and very tense. Ratsiraka has the support of the European Union (especially the French). Ravalomanana is supported by all the major churches in Madagascar, the Presbyterian Churches of the US, and nominally by the World Bank and IMF. The United States has yet to declare a position either way. Though I'm probably not in the position to take sides in this, my impression is that Ravalomanana is the "good guy" here.
Needless to say, I'm worried about my family, especially those living in the capital.
Also through the BBC, I've learned that Sudanese government gunships killed 17 unarmed civilians at a World Food Program distribution center, not far from where one of my aunt's is working with the WFP to make food drops. She just called to say she's alright, which is at least a little reassurance in a suddenly insecure world.
Addendum: I feel kind of bad burying this link all the way down here, but the preceding entry is obviously of some significant meaning to me, so I want to keep it up top for a while.
Signed up for blogdex today, and was surprised to find they had an archived link to my site already, and tracing it back to the source, I was pleasantly surprised by serpentinity. Lovely site, with multiple quality skins. The quality of writing in her blog is also a welcome break from a lot of sites that I've run into lately.
I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Ranger Bard
Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.
Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan!
You, Aliotsy, are a nerd.
chem is...easy for me? O_o
linear algebra worries me.
discrete math is fun for me.
the library reserves desk annoys me.
Morten Lauridsen awes me.
girls confuse me. a lot.
Went through my search engine referrals and found some, erm, interesting searches that led people to my site. I left out some of the more scandalous ones because they kinda made me go "Huh? What does my site have to do with that?"
"guy-to-guy"
"paintshop for me girls"
"stalls guys"
"davis toad tunnel"
"trendy crystals" (Note: at least 4 times)
"hippie lifestyle new zealand"
Who are you people? Hehe...
Checking my stats, I've had about a half trillion visitors come here searching google for "trendy crystals." If y'all wanna a tutorial, gimme a holla.
So I started a rant on Greymatter about those annoying e- words, which developed into a somewhat incomprehensible rant, which I've placed into the vignettes section under the title I've had E-nough. Writing it was good, though, because I think I'm now finally able to define what the Web really should be. Now if I could only communicate that to other people.
Found in Jennie's profile:
"thespacebar on thiscomputer is annoying."
Note: I added the emphases. Was this a witty play on text by Jennie, or a humorous accident? Does it matter? Either way, it's pretty funny.
You may have noticed that I'm not updating around here too much. It's mostly because this little thing called "college education" keeps getting in the way, as well as another one called "social life."
"Ha!" you cry. "You're trying to be a computer scientist and you're telling me you have a social life? How absurd!"
But I do. Honest.
Happy Valentine's Day!
If you haven't noticed, I've changed my splash page. Thanks to Jennie for the link up!
Had a number of interesting conversations today...
DZ: hot date tonight?
CE: um, if by date you mean piles of homework, then yes!
DZ: me too
DZ: hot date
CE: the real version
CE: or the simulated
DZ: with Chemistr E. Book
CE: hehe
CE: i heard she's hot
---
Following a polite, perfectly innocent exchange with a female acquaintance that AG and I ran into
AA: What's that look for?
AG: *silent smile*
AA: Dude, what's that smile for?
AG: You know.
AA: No I don't.
AG: Oh yes you do.
AA: Honest, I don't.
AG: Then you have much to learn.
AA: What are you talking about?!
AG: Good vibes.
AA: Huh?
AG: Good vibes.
AA: Okay, you're talking in riddles.
AG: I know. It's fun.
AA: Don't pull a Yoda on me.
AG: Good vibes.
AA: Wait...you don't think...she...I mean...
AG: *nods expectantly*
AA: ...Likes me?
AG: See? You're learning.
AA: Dude, I was just being nice. I'm like that with everyone.
AG: It wasn't what you were doing. It was what she was doing.
AA: Oh, please. Whatever.
AG: *laughs*
I have a couple rants I want to get out, but they'll have to wait. Let me just say I don't like it when people disrespect my mother.
Alive but studying. Look for a possible Val Day update.
Note: I edited this entry from the one I posted this morning. Scroll down for more goodies.
What are you doing here? sarah's updated her site, and it looks sweet. The new design has the feel and sentimentality of a Hallmark card, without the superficiality. Go go go! Warning: If you listen to the "You and Me Song" on her site, you will have it stuck in your head all day and will get laughed at by co-workers when you start going "ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba" without noticing it.
In fact, today must be new layout day. Jennie's is simple and elegant. Liz is experimenting with design more and makes me wish it were summer already. *sigh*
*RANT WARNING*
Ok...I'm not actually angry or anything...maybe a tad frustrated. But I feel like writing this.
Something nice about UC Davis is that instructors actually go out of their way meet with students, typically through office hours.
Unfortunately, whoever designed Engineering Unit II (EUII for all you savvy engineering types) seemed to have the sole intent of making sure students never actually made it to office hours. You cannot find anything in that labrythine building without a full disaster search-and-rescue squad at your side, complete with dogs and a helicopter.
I tried to find my TA's office tonight. Now EUII has the advantage over older buildings on campus in that it looks awfully pretty from the outside. Unfortunately, this is just to hide the fact that there's no discernible logic behind the placement of rooms, hallways, and doors. I have seen a door that opens to nothing. Literally. It's just a drop off, with a guard rail to ensure that some poor schmuck wouldn't plummet to certain death.
In taking the stairwell to the third floor, I found out that there's a SECRET floor. I'm not kidding. I entered the stairwell on the second floor. I went up one flight of stairs to an unmarked door. I went in, and there was a hallway and some rooms. All the room numbers began with "2" though. I went back to the stairwell and went up to the next door. It was marked "3". So there's a floor between the second floor and the third floor? What would that be, the second and a half floor?
Finding the right floor is only the beginning. Once on the third floor, I still had to find the right office. There are a number of signs posted at random corners that helpfully point you in the wrong direction. The numbering of rooms follows no logical order, either, so I had to wander aimlessly for five minutes, as I followed halls that looped back to where I began.
Eventually, I found my TA's office. It's stuck around the corner in a hallway that goes nowhere; it just sort of ends suddenly. What is the point of a hallway that goes nowhere? I suppose that the architect is allowed his or her artistic license. Perhaps he or she is trying to say that in the hallway of life, we can meet the end that is death unexpectedly. Which is all nice and good, but as a student, I don't particularily care for metaphysical allusions in architecture. I'm just looking for extra help.
I'm registering for classes this Friday?
Wow...they've got cheerleaders replicating over at halfproject faster than you can say "pom poms."
At work, I've recently had to worry about Section 508. In a nutshell, Section 508 is the federal regulation that offers guidelines on making websites accessible to people with disabilities. All government websites are required to comply with the regulation, and since I'm building a government website, our site is required to comply as well (though there seems to be some sort of gray area since it's a local government office in Sacramento). Anyways, a quick check on the official Section 508 website will show that it isn't Section 508 compliant. Now isn't that ironic? In fact, the site isn't very accessible at all.
I've been messing around with bookmarklets lately. A bookmarklet is a little Javascript program that you add to your bookmarks. When you visit a page, clicking a bookmarklet will perform some sort of action on the page you are viewing. The three that I've found most useful are show divs from webgraphics, show tables from sam-i-am, and LinksTo from glish. To add them to your bookmarks, simply right-click on a link and select Add to Favorites... from the menu that pops up. The first two are useful for revealing the underlying structure of a page: for an example, try clicking show divs to see the structure of my page (since I don't use tables...aw yeah!). Using show tables on Jennie's page reveals the intricacy of her design and gives an idea of the amount of work she put in (am I alluding to my recent post about not biting? You bet I am!). Links to is really nifty...it does a search through google of all the pages that link to the page that you're on.
Incidentally, if you don't wanna mess around with a bookmarklet to find out how many people link to your page, simply copy and paste the following address into your browser, and append your URL to the end of the address.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=30&q=link:
Ok, here's that long-promised link up:
13thparallel: This is a sweet resource for cutting edge DHTML. The site has a nice clean design that pulls off some tricks that used to be reserved for Flash. Coolest thing: a column script that automatically overflows text into columns.
lost.ro: This site will set itself to fullscreen, so look out. I usually don't like sites that do this (I find it very arrogant), but I'll make an exception for this site. In fact, there's a lot about this site that I don't like: cryptic navigation, choppy transitions between sections, and their belief that God is dead. I generally don't like dark, melancholy sites, either. But...this site's imagery is absolutely stunning, the music loops are excellent, and there's a much needed breath of originality sadly missing from much of the web design scene. If anything, the melancholy tone is a poignant, honest illustration of human existence away from God.
Lynx Viewer: Excellent utility for seeing how any given site looks in a text-only browser. I used it to rearrange the code of my site so that navigation is available immediately to people browsing with disabilities.
The-Mount.net: This is one to keep your eye on. It's basically a place where people can post illustrations that represent their interpretation of passages in Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Truly original concept with an interesting response.
adactio: Jeremy Keith is a designer who seems to recognize the true potential of web standards, specifically, Cascading Stylesheets. Used properly, CSS allows complete separation of structure and content. What does this mean? Check out his "Choose a theme..." drop down menu. Different themes present different layouts, but the content remains the same. And it all looks good, too. Hopefully, Jeremy represents a wave of web designers moving away from the old way of doing things.
jackson pritt: This guy draws one of the funnier strips in the California Aggie, the UCD daily. I found his site completely randomly after entering "Davis California blog" into Yahoo. Kinda scary. The site really reflects the humor in his strip and (I'm guessing) his own character. And I mean that in the best way possible. Honest.
launchform: Last, but definitely not least, ben from launchform is publishing a series of sketches on his site that follow the adventures of a young boy named Leaf. He publishes almost daily, so be sure to check it out.
introversion v. 3 is coming. I can't wait!
Took longer than I thought, but I've finally compiled a history of the versions of this site I've built over the past couple of years. Kind of interesting to watch the development of my abilities. It will be permanently linked from the +site info section of this site.
Someone broke into my blogger account and posted three entries. Fortunately, I don't use it anymore, but it's still kind of annoying. I'm hoping it was just my brother messing around or something.
The Mother of all Finals. This had me cracking up. I've got a bunch of link ups to make, but for now, I'm getting to bed.
two midterms. done. positive outlook. weekend. oh yeah.
Two midterms today. Feel fairly confident about the first one, not too sure yet about the second. Still, at 6:30 am, I probably should be studying instead of updating this site. *sigh*
Apparently Angela and Jennie have been up late studying, too.
Some things on the agenda (after I finish the midterms): I have a special Link Up folder in my Favorites with sites that I want to link...it's chock full of good stuff (dating from before the redesign went up), so I gotta get around to those.
I'm also considering putting up a brief history of the sites I've designed since I got into this whole web thing, more for myself than anyone else really. This would involve digging up unscripted v.2 (which I never finished and rarely updated) and v.3 (which I never finished and never even put up). I guess I should look for electron dreams, the very first site I ever uploaded.
Finally, I'm tinkering with equations that will eventually become a series of Flash experiments with a projected launch date of February 14. Hmmm...
