It’s been awhile since I worked on this blog at any great length and as I look back over it I see that I have made the forthcoming promise to ‘pick it up again’ more than once - one might say more often than not! That being the case, I’m finally starting to feel like I have got it to a point where I can stand to look at the thing and that’s a large part of the battle for someone like me. I have a theme that is tweaked enough that I feel I can claim some small amount of credit for the aesthetic, but not so much that it’s breaking on every new page view. There is still some progress to be made - for instance, regularizing the sidebar. It pains me to look at all those horizontal lines somehow not lining up! I’ll probably also have to explore getting some of those excessive links onto a new page so the main page is less cluttered. Then there are the categories and tags and getting Markdown to work as well as figuring out a consistent posting schedule… but i digress. I’ll leave you with a couple of typographic symbols that I learned about as I was wasting time surfing the web doing research. The first is called an asterism and is used to call attention to a passage or separate subchapters in a book. It looks like three asterisks set in a triangle as such:
⁂
The second is called a tombstone which signifies the end of a proof and looks like a filled square as such:
∎
And with that, I’ll solemnly swear (up and down and with a flourish!) to pick this blogging thing up again for 2009. See you soon. ∎
I could really use this pasted over my computer monitor at work… especially the first item. man, if I could master THAT one… woohoo baby! That would be money.
Nice visual cue added to the iPhone’s podcasts… Now, if you subscribe to a cast that publishes both audio and video, you can tell which is which. Very useful when trying to choose something to LISTEN to on the train or while walking.
This is a test post from the wordpress for iPhone app… So good!
…at least for today. so, as you can see in my sidebar (at the bottom) i do a little running for my regular exercise. i try to keep it consistent at least and there are a few things i use to help entice me to keep going (aside from the guilt that comes from sitting at a desk all day at work and most of the time i’m at home surfing the web and furiously watching every episode of lost - currently starting season 4 - on abc.com or netflix) one of which is a nice little website called, simply, RunLog. it’s being developed by Takashi Okamoto, an amazing designer who i unknowingly became a fan of when i first saw 2x4’s website which he designed (check out the source for an easter egg). runlog is affiliated with the physical language workshop at MIT and is an extremely simple calendar of my jogging history. the point of this site is to encourage you to run, not fiddle with customizing a website about running and it does a very good job at that. it also looks nice and works well, so that helps make me think less about trying make it my own. anyway, it has a top 10 list too (of course!) and because there aren’t that many people using the site, there was always the possibility that my meager running history would make it to the front page as it were. well, that day finally came as you can see below! (don’t ruin my glory by explaining that some algorithm pushes you off the list if you haven’t run in the last week - i realize this and i still celebrate dammit)
i also use the Nike+ iPod Nano thingy for calculating the distance and blah blah blah from my runs… it works pretty well and automates a lot of the process which is really nice. there’s a wordpress plugin which is what i have running in the sidebar - so good of Nike to have an API for this kind of stuff. :)
cascading style that would be. you’ll notice that i’ve been tweaking the blog a little lately. ( nothing like a little yak shaving to get me motivated ) anyway, there are fun things in the sidebar now so you can see my latest jogging stats and some selected links from delicious and google reader and you can buy some books that i’ll get a small percentage on… also, i’ve started tinkering with the CSS files as well. and thanks to CSSEdit i can actually make sense of them. this is the greatest tool for visualizing what’s going on in those horrifying wordpress theme cascading style sheet files. i’m not saying you should judge it’s usefulness based on my webdesign skills, but i was actually able to make some changes ( for the better i think ) so that’s that. i’m sure there are going to be some lingering issues with my modifications and i’d be much obliged if you sent me a little note or left a comment when you come across something. cheers.
aside from the music ( which, oddly, makes me feel like i’m watching lee majors or something ) this is one of the most unique and amazing robot videos i’ve ever seen!
(youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T62E-_pQt3c)
via: hackaday
yes, i am actually not studying at this particular moment… but my diversion is related. as i’ve been reading through the wonderfully engaging ALS book Structural Technologies 2 for my test tomorrow!! i came across a ‘Notable Engineer’ by the name of John Roebling which stood out immediately since i have enjoyed eating at the Roebling Tea Room and often drive down Roebling Street in Williamsburg on my way to dinner or the grocery store. however, i was not aware that he ( and his son Washington ) were responsible for the design and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. apparently i am learning. incidentally, in my initial link search for confirmation, i discovered that Emily Roebling ( daughter to John Roebling ) was “…considered to be the person in charge of the day to day construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.”
i guess lead a bit of a sheltered existence by not having a tv, but this is sort of frightening.
whoopi goldberg: “Is the world flat?” sherri shepherd: “Is the world flat?” whoopi goldberg: “Yes.” sherri shepherd: “I don’t know.”
watch the video clip here: click for video via The Beast