silveradept | Stymied! - 24 March 2007

Took a swing at AJAX today, and finally managed to get one thing working properly. Another thing almost works properly. Tried something else and things went asplodey. Rather than merrily propagating the things that did work, I zipped an e-mail off to the instructors asking them if there was a way that I could invoke the partials I already have in service of the AJAX rather than having to build completely new partials. And if one aspect only works a particular way, some of my nice code is going to get fractured into even more partials. I don’t like fragmenting my code like that without a good reason. I also have to figure out a snazzy way of getting my navigation to work properly, since it hinges on whether or not a person has authenticated to the system. With the current authentication system that I have, trying to code for the general public returns errors. There’s got to be a way to pull it off, I just haven’t thought of it yet. Before I’m totally done, I may be doing more monkeying about with user-defined methods just so that I can get everything to do what I want it to and have the code up to the human readability standards that the instructors like. That said, while this is semi-frustrating, it still is of the school of “write once, copy many”, so once the first one works correctly, the others will fall into place.

This would not be as big of a problem as it is, except I’m hitting a brick wall on a different paper, and haven’t heard back from a partner on one other project. My duty sense is clawing at me and telling me to get something done, time’s wasting, and all that. But after the first week in April, basically, all those other projects and papers fade out, and I get to concentrate on applying for jobs and putting down the semi-unified CSS layout for the project. Assuming that everything has gone well with the AJAX and the rest, of course.It should, I’m just trying to work myself into a stress-filled tizzy because I’m not spending every waking moment of my day advancing my cause in some realm. It’s a very bad habit, and I need not to feed it in any shape or fashion. I’m confident enough in my graduation that I’ve bought the clothes (which reminds me to think about whether a) I’m supposed to wear the mortarboard with the hood, and b) what to decorate this one with. It’s less than a month, now, I think, until it’s all done.

Also, some part of today was spent drowning ants - they apparently very much like my humidifier. I wonder if there’s something I could put in the water that would kill them but not hurt me if it were spread about the room in vapour.

As it is, the links tonight start with Music Furthest from the Sea. A pretty good album, as I listened to it today while staring at a blinking cursor.

Retro gaming is on the rise, d00ds. And why not? Most of them are simple, entertaining, easy to pick up and play, and can keep going for hours on end without being boring or requiring a level up grind. And they’ve managed to stick around long enough to catch on with a new generation of gamers as well as being available for the old farts who want to relive their coin-op days. And there might even be a few games simple enough for the parents to play, because they don’t require you to run and jump at the same time.

Pro-life advocates are persistent, most certainly. However, some of the lengths that they go to in aim of getting their point across are ridiculously backward. Take a bill in South Carolina that would require a woman to get an ultrasound before being able to perform an abortion, along with legislation that wants to add “a child in utero” to the definition of a person. Texas it turning things up a notch by proposing a bill that would pay a woman $500 wh oput her child up for adoption rather than aborting it. And specifically mentions that the act that prohibits the buying and selling of children will not apply to this incentive. Once again, we mention that there are probably more than enough children already in adoption systems in several states. If one is adamant about the value of life, then there should be many fewer children in foster care, and there should be waiting lists of pro-life parents who want to adopt and keep adopting to ensure every child in the system gets a home where they can have good pro-life values taught to them. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but the point is that until we can guarantee that those put up for adoption will find a kind and loving home, we shouldn’t be necessarily encouraging people to put more strain on the system. And that this sounds much like trafficking in humans.

Starbucks’s quest to become ubiquitous in all walks, blocks, and hours of life continues, with the unveiling of a hot beverage vending machine. Now, hot beverage vending machines are nothing new, but this is Starbucks material. I suppose we can take some comfort in that eventually Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Wal-Mart will have to have a clash of the titans to see who will remain standing as the world’s sole retail superpower. (If you’re humming along to the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny right now, you’ve got the right idea.)

A billionaire has decided to give some back to his community by allowing needy families in Hawai'i to live in some of his mansions rent-free. Such a decision was greeted with tears by those who were on the receiving end, but significantly more mixed reactions by the neighbors. It’s almost like there’s a thinly-veiled threat with people clucking their tongues and saying “There goes the neighborhood. They let this trash in, who knows what will happen next?” Officially, though, it’s a worry that the new tenants, being of lower incomes, won’t be able to maintain the property sufficiently and keep the neighborhood beautiful. If it’s that much of a concern, rather than “watching them like a hawk”, why not make friends with the neighbors and offer to help them keep the grounds well-maintained?

In a kinda-but-not-really related set of stories, artificial daffodils have appeared in a town famous for inspiring Wordsworth. Why? Because the real ones have wilted prematurely, it being a warmer season than usual, and are not doing well. To several people, the fake flower planting seems to be a denial of the reality of climate change, couched as a way of making sure the tourists (and their important money) aren’t disappointed when they don’t see any flowers. Instead of fake flowers, maybe real trees would be of help?

The government of France, not fearing too much, has recently put more than 100,000 documents on UFO and other unexplained phenomena on the Internet. Why not? If they aren’t real, they’re good for people to look through as stories. If one turns out to be worth study, then it should be studied. The site is available at http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/, but it’s not functional as of this posting - perhaps from plenty of users that want to poke around and see what’s inside.

jokermage links to an explanation of skepticism that takes an analogy put forth by a defender of psychic phenomenon and turns it into a pretty good analogy for skepticism in How do you Prove Photography to a Blind Man? When put that way, a lot of beliefs that we have are silly. We have them nonetheless, of course, and many of us are hoping that somewhere down the line, one of them actually gets proven to be true. Some of us are accelerating the finding-out processes on those, of course, but we’ll not mention names.

One of Those Horrible Moms has a credible and potentially rage-inducing story from the American Girl Place, where a hair stylist refused to style an imitation doll's hair. Refused the $20 that the store stood to have made because the doll wasn’t genuine. Sounds kind of like they were taking a page from Microsoft there. Anyway, the mom rightly realizes that she’s going to have to do some explaining to her little girl about what just happened, and what some of the other mothers in line said in regard to it. I’m pretty sure in that little vignette, there are more lessons about brand clannishness and what life will be like in middle and high school for that girl. So kudos to the American Girl Place for helping another girl get a head start on the most frustrating years of her life.

Moving into the realms of the triple-X, the far left and the religious right both oppose the creation of a .xxx top-level domain. For different reasons, of course, and some of the reasoning is suspect and sketchy, like “having .com and .xxx will double the amount of porn on the Internet, because a company will have both names link to their site”, but there is an alliance, of sorts, against .xxx. In other matters, that will likely set the allies against each other, a federal court struck down the Child On-line Protection Act (COPA), claiming that its provisions were infringing on free speech. The judge noted that he was for restricting minor access to porn, but that the statute currently in force was not the way to do it. More than likely, a new law will appear and be signed (and possibly challenged) soon. But for now, unless further appeals reverse or new law supercedes, the COPA is no more. (My inner librarian breakdanceth.)

My inner book geek, however, thanks MonkeyFilter for providing images and galleries of hand binding throughout the ages, including embroidered bookbindings, edge decorations, primarily fore-edge painting. Some examples of this beautiful technique include planes taking off, a waterfront with ships in the harbor (put on one of Longefellow’s works - wrapping full circle here, right?), a frame from The Lady of the Lake, a locomotive with cars, found on the record of a meeting discussing erecting a monument to James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, and many, many more works. There was even a bit about the various methods of binding Chinese books. Some of those techniques, while not possibly the ones we’d be familiar with today, look like they could be put to use for people who were just writing on paper or wanted to handcraft their own books together. Might be an interesting thing to learn for binding one’s memoirs together.

A solider with two tours of duty in Iraq posts on his blog why he believes that those advocating for the return of troops from Iraq are insulting to him, his profession, and his compatriots. He’s in to win, and he says that everyone who joins up is aware of the risks inherent in the military. He, probably rightly, accuses the civilian populace’s aversion to violence and death as the weak point of the operation and the reason why surrender and defeat will likely happen. The Wall Street Journal has a derisive opinion of the recent spending bill passed by the house that puts a timetable for withdrawal in with spending. The President has promised to veto the bill, and the Journal applauds him, saying “By bowing to their antiwar left, Democrats are once again showing that they can’t be trusted on national security. The President should drive that message home until Congress gives him a clean war bill that gives our troops the money to fight our enemies without having to take orders from MoveOn.org.” Perhaps I am naive (and for whatever reason, I’m imagining that being said in Starfire’s voice (from Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans)) but that’s a pretty bold claim being made there. That kind of rhetoric seems to be more from the realms of the beginning of the war, where the President could Do No Wrong and was The Decider. I guess what I’m missing out of all this rhetorical dance is where the desire for the military personnel of the United States to be safe, coupled with a belief that the current conflict is being fought on illegal and immoral pretenses, amounts to something that is denouncable on such a scale. Of course, many of us wish for the sadly-gone pipe dream that either the war had not been started, or it had gone according to the Republican fantasy and that we were welcomed as liberators. It seems extraordinarily short-sighted to promise a one-year war without planning for a forty-year war. I suspect a lot more people would be less against the war if it had been planned and executed with the mindset that the military understood they would be staying for many generations.

Ultimately, though, the Journal seems to be condemning the very things that start and continue things the way they are - political decisions. That the decisions are not being made by the Journal’s favored party doesn’t give them license to make what could amount to libelous statements. (Although, you have to prove that it’s factually wrong and damaging for it to be considered libel, right?) And if there is a Liberal Agenda, as the Journal insinuates, could someone e-mail me a copy of it again? I think I gave the library my copy when theirs was stolen for the seventh time this month. I’ll need all the appendixes, too - the Homosexual Agenda, the Video Gamer Agenda, the Abortion Agenda, the Satanic Rock Music Addendum, and especially the Baby Sacrificing to Satan and Eating Guide. Ah, yes, and the Kama Sutra. I always forget that addition because it’s published separately.

The last for tonight is Accelerating Future's Top Ten Cybernetic Upgrades Everyone Will Want. Looking down the list, I can say that I’d like to have each one of those, yes, and within my own lifetime if possible.

So that’s it for tonight. Maybe tomorrow, progress will be made. Maybe not.