Month: November 2005

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Today’s Piece of Science

Collective synchronisation:

Collective synchronisation occurs in nature when crickets start chirping in unison. In some parts of the world, fireflies blink on and off in perfect synchrony like a Christmas tree. The monthly cycles of women living together have also been known to synchronize.

I worked at an office staffed mostly by women and there was a particular time each month that simply behooved having a ready supply of chocolate. When Sarah gets a little older the boys and I are going to have to have a monthly camping trip. But anyhow, the article is about bridges.

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Programming Constants

Two constants in the world of programming: "Two weeks" and "Close of business"

From the client’s perspective both of these mean "I have a commitment and I will take great pleasure in demeaning you when you miss them. I will dangle your check above you and belittle you."
From the programmer’s perspective it means "shutup. I’m trying to work."

Of course I’m not being serious. When I say two weeks or cob I mean it.

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Future headlines we might see in Denver’s paper.

Funny things that we might see in Denver‘s future headlines:

  • "We had a great school system and then the parents started forgetting to bring their kids to school."
  • "Violent crime waaay down man"
  • "Horticulturally related enterprises up"
  • "Homeland Security Investigates Sudden Rise of Fertilizer Sales in Colorado"
  • "Denver population increases from 554636 to ‘most of the US’ overnight"
  • "Denver tax revenues increase exponentially for some unknown reason"
  • "Denver tires of the Mile ‘High’ City joke"
  • "In today’s irony: Denver paper shortage prompts legalization of large hemp crops"
  • "Jay Leno fails to deliver coherent monologue because he was laughing so hysterically"
  • "Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett jointly open The 420 Karoke Bar and tell Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis ‘[they] can have the planet. We’ve got Denver!’"
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World Usability Day

Today is World Usability Day

World Usability Day was created to help everyone know more about the ways to help create a better user experience of our world.
…
we have collected stories about "everyday usability" – examples of the simple ways that technology is Making It Easy in this world.

If you have ever come across a product that was confusing or just did not work as expected, you can print a usability violation form and let the manufacturer, software developer, or other business know.

Thanks to Terreus for the link!
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Frustrating to Tears

Apparently <iframe><iframe></iframe></iframe> doesn’t work particularly when the iframes are named the same. Basically the source of the iframe was dynamically including itself.. Come on Homer! Say "Doh!"

I am trying to implement an IFRAME but with some content the iframe is showing the scrollbar full as if there is no content below the fold. The iframe is defined as:

<iframe src="<?php echo $contentfile; ?>"
    name="viewportname"
    width="<?php echo $_SESSION['userwidth']-2; ?>"
    height="<?php echo $_SESSION['userheight']-201; /* 131 */ ?>"
    align="top"
    marginwidth="0"
    marginheight="0"
    scrolling="auto">
    <h2>Content requires iframe compatible browser</h2>
</iframe>

For presentation purposes it sits in this structure:

<html>
...
   <body>
      <div>
      </div>
      <div>
         ...iframe here...
      </div>
      <div>
      </div>
   </body>
</html>

Anyone see anything glaringly wrong?