Noah asks: "Can our a/c stay broken forever?"
Blog
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Are you valid?
HTML is hypertext which is nonlinear navigation between related or unrelated documents, ie. links, and markup language with is symbols (in web speak, tags) to indicated to the printer (in web speak, browser) how the content should look and be presented.
The term markup is derived from the traditional publishing practice of “marking up” a manuscript, that is, adding symbolic printer’s instructions in the margins of a paper manuscript. For centuries, this task was done by specialists known as “markup men” and proofreaders who marked up text to indicate what typeface, style, and size should be applied to each part, and then handed off the manuscript to someone else for the tedious task of typesetting by hand. A familiar example of manual markup symbols still in use is proofreader’s marks, which are a subset of larger vocabularies of handwritten markup symbols. [Source]
As bloggers, we tend to write quickly and proof later (yes I generalize but you will see this post on my first draft). The array of blogging tools out there provide handy little WYSIWYG editors to help rush content out. Personally, I disable WordPress’s wysiwyg. These tools allow us to be sloppy and produce bad code/markup. The W3C is an international member organization with the mission of creating Web standards and guidelines. The W3C does not define the World Wide Web but because Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing the Word Wide Web in 1989 while working for CERN, also created the W3C, and so many industry experts are part of the consortium, W3C recommendations are highly regarded.
The W3C provides tools to validate your markup against the HTML specification. By making sure your website, and a blog is just a website that updates often, has valid HTML you can be assured that page will present its information in most any browser or news reader as you want the person reading it to see it. Non-valid markup can send a browser into quirks mode and the outcome may be unpredictable. Valid markup also lends to more favorable search engine placement. A blogger who takes the time to make sure their site template is valid HTML and that their regular posts are valid HTML making the entire site valid HTML may get higher placement in a search engine than a comparable blogger who does not validate.
That said, there is an argument that validation for bloggers may not be all that important. According to Bug Leak, all the blogs in Technorati’s Top 20 fail to validate.
This probably means that complying to the W3C standards is not a priority for the most popular content creators on the planet. [Source]
The article lists these 20 blogs and the number of validation failures. I was curious to find out what separates these great content creators from RealityMe (of course, I can guess that they have focused topics, thousands of links in, huge readership, more regular posting, etc.) so I added each to my feed reader to gander daily for a bit. I have saved the RSS links as OPML so that anyone can import the same 20 blogs into their readers. Bug Leak points to a great tool for WordPress users called XHTML Validator plugin. This plugin checks the content going into the database (not the actual template) to make sure that your posts are valid. How does one write valid code without knowing what constitutes valid HTML? Simply install the XHTML Validator plugin and begin posting. When it shows you errors, correct them and learn by doing!
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A nice relaxing Saturday in a hotel
Sleep in! Play racquetball! Run the treadmill Get food delivered to the room! Turn the a/c up as high as it goes! Ah, what fantasy!
Reality: Go to a 7am Scout leaders meeting. Rush home and clean the garage for the a/c repairman. Help a friend move. Shop for Tommy’s birthday party. Celebrate Tommy’s birthday. Catch up on two days missed work. Do other personal work, paperwork and financial stuff. Remember to eat. I’ve missed something.
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Steak tonight!
Thanks to Les Jones making me aware of the new cut of beef called a flat iron steak, we are trying this supposedly tender piece of meat tonight. I had seen this cut in the store, but prior to his review, had given it a jaded eye considering its lower price. Tonight we shall see!
Update: They lived up to Les’ report. Tender and tasty!
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Practicing what I preach
I have bemoaned that we could get the United States onto the metric system if we started using it. You know.. put up speed limit signs that show both metric and English measurements. Of course if both the metric and English measurement appeared on the same sign, people may continue to ignore the metric. What if the English measurement sign was a half a mile before the metric. Confusion? We don’t confuse a yield sign with a speed limit sign. I think this could be worked out. Make metric the prominent measurement on all things and the English measurement the smaller. Right now my speedometer shows English measurements very large and shows metric speeds in a smaller, darker print.
What can I do? I am going to commitment myself to using metric as often as possible. I will find a thermostat for the house that displays in centigrade. When I give distances to the Scouts, they will be stated metrically first. And so forth. I know I can do this! I already drink out of two liter bottles.
Update: What is a meter?
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Of Being Dad
Break my heart! Evan needs his afternoon naps! But when I put him into the crib and he protests it makes me cringe. Right now he is sweetly (with increase aggravation) crying out, "Daaaaa Daaaaa DAAAAA!" He wants me, the bad guy that caged him in the first place, to rescue him. You know, if it wasn’t 90°F in this house, he might just go to sleep.
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Protect the stores!
There are more than 30 events planned in Knoxville for a National Night Out against crime. [Source]
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From the mouths of babes
Tommy, exasperated, after playing all day in our heat: "My PS/2 is overheating!" Then stares at me like he wants me to do something…
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No A/C Stinks
I’ve been sweating so badly in this shirt that it has started to smell like a moldy tent.
The repair man’s supplier finally came through. We will be upgraded from a 10 SEER unit to a 13 SEER.
Today, it is rare to see systems rated below SEER 9 in the United States because aging, existing units are being replaced with new, higher efficiency units. The United States now requires that residential systems manufactured after 2005 have a minimum SEER rating of 13… [Source]
I rush the estimate to our very kind insurance agent who ala Brazil cannot find my record at first then finds it offering me a Coke and, along with his Oscar winning smile, utters, "uh oh. Bad news." Hold it! When a guy has been in deadly heat for over two weeks and you have just exclaimed, "you’ve been without air for two weeks!" do not follow it with "bad news." Turns out he wrote his last check yesterday. He thought he had another checkbook but said the local claims office will have to get in touch with me and that I should hear from them within the next 24 hours. Yes, story of my life! None-the-less, I am thrilled!
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August Happiness Challenge
Being a Boy Scout leader makes me happy. I enjoy helping some young men define their character and learn new skills. Tonight I demonstrated a Whisper Lite cooking stove and engaged the scouts in a discussion about backpack cooking. Two other leaders demonstrated different types of stoves. The boys mostly enjoyed seeing fire.
