Todd Stadler's blog

Netscape 4.x - the x is for "xtra crappy"

Normally, I'm not one to make fun of people's choice of web browser. Recently, though, I have come to loathe Netscape 4 and its friends.

That's because it's a browser that claims to support style sheets, but largely fails to do so. Clearly, this is wrong.

It would be one thing if it simply ignored the style sheets altogether. Then, as I noted, the XHTML would just be displayed without any fancy decoration, and things would be okay.

But Netscape 4-something goes the extra step and manages to completely bungle whatever the style sheet tells it to do, resulting in a big mess. Like trying to photocopy a bowl of vanilla pudding. Yes, using the automatic feeder tray. Don't question my metaphors.

Accordingly, I decided to serve up old-school, tables-based HTML to anyone browsing with a Netscape 4.x browser. It seemed like the nice thing to do, what with ten percent of Cock-a-hoop readers still using that browser.

However, doing this required that I code up a completely separate page just for that browser. That means that I had to do almost twice as much work as I would have had if I had ignored ten percent of the people.

As if it weren't enough having to develop completely different pages for this browser, it had to keep crashing on me every so often. Not just mangling the web page. I mean the stupid browser died. I am not alone in observing this.

Now you tell me - does a browser that crashes when it processes perfectly legitimate code sound like a good browser to you? It just says, "Whoa, I don't know about that, I think I'll die" and then lays down. Is that a feature you want?

I can only imagine not. Fortunately, the solution to the problem that is Netscape 4.x is relatively simple - upgrade to one of many current browsers that aren't so crappy.

On my machine right now, I have Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 6.2, and Opera 6, all of which are available for free (although I liked Opera so much I actually paid to register it).

My point is, if you are viewing this with Netscape 4.x and are able and allowed to download a new browser on your computer, I suggest you do so. Unless you just cherish obsolescence.

Because I don't feel it's worth my time to continue updating Cock-a-hoop for both Netscape 4.x and all more recent browsers. In fact, some changes I made in redesigning Cock-a-hoop didn't get included in the Netscape 4.x version of this page.

Maybe because I was tired, maybe because I was tired of that browser crashing.

Either way, you've been informed.

xhtml to pay

You might be wondering why I decided to use style sheets and XHTML for the redesigned Cock-a-hoop.

Of course, I know you're actually not wondering that, but you might be, and that's what keeps me typing away here, so please don't say anything until I'm done.

You're very polite. Thank you.

Anyhow, the big reason behind XHTML is simple - it's just like HTML, only it has rules.

Really, that's it. You might think HTML has rules, but only in the same way that English spelling has rules. Sometimes you can do things several ways, sometimes not, and people generally know what you're talking about and let it slide.

The nice folks at the New York Public Libraries have a very nice style guide that explains the why and how of XHTML, should you want to know more.

Of course, the stricter rules of XHTML don't allow for much in the way of attractive presentation, so it was necessary to use style sheets to purtify things.

But style sheets do more than simply make a page look pretty. They make it possible to separate content from presentation.

Now, maybe that ranks right up there with the ability to eat sand for you, but I (and the zealots I've been listening to) find that important because you never know what'll be looking at your web page these days.

It could be a normal web browser, a text web browser, a cell phone, a printer, an evil robot bent on destruction, a browser for the blind, or something that I'm not yet aware of.

It'd be really annoying to code up a different page for every one of these browsers. With CSS, I don't have to. I just code the XHTML, and then make a style sheet for different browsers.

Even if a particular browser can't read style sheets, at least they have the relatively clean XHTML to read, so the content isn't obscured by how it's displayed.

(Ah, ah - wait! You're still not allowed to complain yet. But I'm almost done with this article. Again, thank you for being so considerate.)

It also means I don't have to waste my time making tables to exacting proportions and stuffing the table cells with images and data to get the site to look just so.

You see, HTML tables were originally created to display - surprise! - tabular data, like in a spreadsheet. But every designer in the late 1990's latched on to their power to align. And in the process produced pages that were slow for browsers to render and slow to download, because the table code was often so very long.

For instance, the calendar somewhere on this page used to be rendered with tables. Now - poof! - it's done using good ol' XHTML/CSS. Which, while far more jargonly gibberishy, makes it a lot faster to download and render. Yay me, yay standards, yay us.

The one big exception to this whole standards-based lovefest is if you're viewing these pages using Netscape 4.x. If you are, then you may notice that you get served up different HTML than everyone else. You get tables.

You also get a rant, below.

pardon my dust

Phew! I'm now done with the Cock-a-hoop redesign.

Fine, I still need to fix the webcam page, but that only affects a small number of you, so I'm going ahead with putting this beast out there. Sorry, webcam viewers!

After all, I couldn't risk disappointing all the other Cock-a-hoop readers who were awaiting the new design, or were perhaps thinking that I had finally succumbed to the terrorists (or, worse yet, the recession).

That's right, I'm talking about you. You, dear Cock-a-hoop reader, are the reason I've been staying up into the wee college hours. You are the reason I listened to the entire They Might Be Giants catalog (well, most of it), in reverse order from Mink Car to They Might Be Giants. And a whole lot of other music I can't remember because sleep loss wreaks heck on short-term memory.

But don't worry. Because the above paragraph is a lie. I'm just grumpy from the lost sleep. I'll take a nap tomorrow.

You see, nobody really knows why I decided to up and redesign Cock-a-hoop. It certainly wasn't an overpowering clamoring from the masses. Nor do I imagine it had much to do with a desire to make Cock-a-hoop appeal to a broader audience.

Indeed, of those select few who were part of my test audience - namely, because they have browsers I don't have installed, or because they're my girlfriend - there seems to be no consensus as to whether the new color is better than the previous electric blue.

There isn't even a consensus as to what to call the color, although "peach" seems somewhat popular.

I will say, however, that the color choice was not influenced by any other weblog that happens to have been redesigned in recent days. Although the coincidence disturbs me.

Look, my point is that the fourth paragraph up is also a lie. I redesigned Cock-a-hoop because I wanted to make it more standards-compliant, and to do that by designing it with XHTML and cascading style sheets (CSS). But nobody wants to hear that. It's so very not rock 'n' roll.

And once I had gotten around to completely replacing the old tables-based code, I decided I might as well try for a new look. I attempted to make a design that is easier to read and use, as well as one I find more attractive.

But once I got started on all that, I couldn't stop changing things. I noticed that a lot of the journal entry files from months past were kind of poorly written, from an HTML perspective. So I set about changing them to be more standards-compliant, too.

It's quite possible that the only thing I didn't change in all this coding frenzy was my pants, because I'm a grimy unemployed computer person.

All that, and what do you, the end user, notice? "Um, it's less blue." Great.

Of course, you may also notice some things you don't like, layout problems, or even bugs. If so, please feel free to tell me about them. Really, let me know what you think, even if it's good.

And I'll really try not to write so much about this site from now on. Oh, except in the next two entries. Sorry about that.

burning for you

Okay, that wasn't my real question for Valentine's day.

My real question is this: why do people buy heart-shaped candles? Really.

Neighbor Gerry brought over some heart-shaped candles left behind by a former female roommate of his. I think they were given to her by would-be suitors.

And while it might seem romantic to have red heart-shaped wax hanging around your room, eventually you have to come to grips with the fact that candles are meant to be burned.

And if the candle symbolizes love, then I want to know what the burning of it represents.

Is it to demonstrate the ephemeral nature of romance? This is, after all, no eternal flame.

I mean, just look at the photos below and tell me if romance is the first thing you think of.

v.d.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I have a question.

First off, I happened across a story on CNN the other day that said that a quarter of sexually active young folks are having unsafe sex while drunk or high.

Which doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is the choice of advertisement that was served up with this article when I read it. My question is thus: was the computer that served me this advertisement also drunk or high?

karaoke lesson 1

If a discussion on the nature of repitition in popular music is too much for you, then perhaps you can at least wrap your mind around a discussion on how to pick the right karaoke song to please the crowd.

This is not, as one would assume, a trivial matter.

Okay, maybe it is, but the fact that a group of us went out to karaoke for my birthday means I'm going to write about it, importance be danged!

The first thing you might think in trying to pick a song to sing is to pick a tune you like. And this is certainly something to consider. But more importantly, you must pick a song you know really well.

It's all good and well to really love how the chorus does that one thing or whatever, but the fact is that unless you're really sure how the verse and bridge go, you probably shouldn't sing it. There's nothing like karaoke in front of a bunch of strangers to demonstrate that you really aren't sure how the melody goes in that one part. Doofus.

Having narrowed the list down to songs you know quite well, you might think that it would be time to pick the songs you like. Once again, you are being too hasty, and I would advise you to wait until you have read the whole column.

Because, you see, karaoke isn't just about you, no matter what you've been told. You've got a crowd out there, and they'll get irritated if you pick a song they don't know. Oh, I know, it smacks of pandering and selling out, but welcome to the music industry, karaoke division.

I learned this lesson the hard way when I found a bar that had a karaoke version (RealAudio format) of Ben Folds Five's "Army" (RealAudio format). This is one of my favorite songs. I'd never seen it anywhere in a karaoke bar. Apparently the KJ (that's karaoke hipster talk for the karaoke hostess) was really into Ben Folds Five.

Well, I got up there on stage and noticed two things while singing "Army": first, no one else in the bar really cared about this song, and second, you'd be surprised how un-rocking the karaoke version was. Nothing takes the wind out of a potentially awe-inspiring performance quite like feeling garfunkelish.

Yes, it's true. You may remember the awesome video where the band is totally rocking or otherwise being entertaining, but those visual effects won't be with you on stage. In fact, if my experiences are any indication, the karaoke video will have some of the cheesiest, cheapest production you've ever seen. And I've seen some pretty awful crap.

Faced with these conditions, I find that the only reasonable reaction is to throw sincerity out the window and shoot for good ol' Gen-X-brand irony. Let's face it, friends - sincerity is not entertaining.

That said, I find that you cannot go wrong with hard rock or ballads. In the former, you pretend you are a macho man, while in the latter, you pretend you are sensitive, even though you are actually just a doofus.

So you've picked a song. Now all you have to do is sing it, right?

No, the lesson's not over yet!

The best kept secret of karaoke is that nobody wants you to get up there and just sing. Oh, sure, there will be a few people at every karaoke joint that sing amazingly well. You might think that they can get away without entertaining you. But you, and they, are wrong.

I base this on empirical evidence - at the aforementioned birthday karaoke, I sang Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer". A fine choice. I did not sing so well, as whisky and coke had damaged what was left of my voice from an hour's worth of singing along boisterously. Or maybe the song was just too high for me.

Regardless, I put my all into it, leaning macho-like on the mic stand, leaning my head back dramatically whenever I said "ooh", and punctuating the words "we'll give it a shot" with a swift kick to the air.

And at the end of the song, no one seemed to care how well I sang. Only that I picked a great tune and I did some kicks.

How do I know they liked me? The staff bought me a free drink. Can your lofty karaoke methods get you a free drink?

Upon reflection, this story isn't about the proper karaoke experience at all. I just wanted to tell you the part about the free drink. I'm not sure if my methods are useful at all. Sorry, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

punk vs. daft punk

Christy's question about "working mode" music got me thinking about the nature of listening to music, which in turn reminded me of my theory of rock vs. techno.

And since you can't stop me, I will now recount that theory. Because there is a small chance I haven't already told it to you.

First, I will acknowledge that "rock" and "techno" are not really perfect terms. However, I can't think of any other words that would be as understood while remaining so short, so rock and techno it is. Feel free to mentally substitute your own preferred nomenclature.

It is fairly obvious that both rock and techno have a great deal of repetition in them. Indeed, I can think of no music genre that does not repeat in some way. For repetition is how our mind understands music. Indeed, it is probably how our mind understands everything.

A song that doesn't repeat is like a road without an end - it just keeps going, and eventually we get tired and stop travelling down it.

But when there is repitition, we not only find a way to break down a song so as to understand it, we find a shorthand for describing the song.

After all, I'm fairly certain that more people would respond to "da da da dum" than a question about Beethoven's fifth symphony. And, indeed, that simple phrase is the cornerstone upon which the first movement is built.

But what interests me more is the repetition found in rock and techno. Both are forms of popular music (as opposed to the intellectualized - or so they are often perceived - realms of "classical" music or jazz), and yet, how they repeat is rather different.

For example, rock music usually divides a song into three parts - the verse, the chorus, and the bridge. At a high level view, the music mostly alternates between verse and chorus, over and over, with the bridge thrown in to add variety. After that, the chorus is often repeated until the end of the song.

So clearly, the repetition occurs at this high level view. The verse and chorus do not necessarily repeat within themselves. Another way to put it is that rock music repeats every minute or so, but varies from second to second.

In contrast, techno repeats from second to second, but varies every minute or so.

At a low level view, techno seems to be the same measure over and over. This is why some people think that all techno sounds the same (of course, such an attitude more often betrays a lack of familiarity with a genre, but that's a diatribe for another day).

But when viewed at a higher level, techno music can be seen to change gradually from one part to another.

When one considers that techno is at least historically tied to dancing, this pattern of repetition makes sense. Not only do dancers need a very predictable beat from second to second, but their physical activity distracts them from the details of the music. As such, a song that changes slowly is a good thing.

I, for one, find it difficult to sit down with a techno CD and concentrate forcefully on the music contained therein. My mind simply starts to wander. This is why I like to play techno when I'm working. It doesn't distract me so much with constant changes.

Rock, on the other hand, changes so much from second to second that it is captivating enough to stand on its own. Thus, I have no problem going to a rock concert and not dancing. But going to a techno club and not dancing is downright dull.

And there you have it. Not only my treatise on rock vs. techno, but a relatively concise summary of why I don't write more analytical pieces, as evidenced by the sweeping generalizations, shallow arguments, and a general abuse of "transition words".

But hey, I don't have a comments section, so if you don't like it, I guess you'll have to cry yourself to sleep again tonight.

and scooby-doo on channel two

Today I celebrate twenty-seven years of living outside the uterus. While for some this might be reason to celebrate, for me, it is a time of self-reckoning.

What have I done in these past twenty-seven years? Did I make the right choices?

In particular, what about this whole move out of the uterus? Was that the best decision, given the information I had then? Given the information I have now?

In order to answer these questions, I will resort to one of the lower forms of humor, the bulleted list.

Let's compare my digs now with my living situation twenty-seven years and a few months ago.

• Uterus: dark, full of liquid.
• Portland: rather rainy, and the skies are often overcast.
• Uterus: lease stipulates automatic eviction after nine months.
• Portland: meritocratic lease ensures housing as long as bills are paid.
• Uterus: steady thump-thump of mother's heart is comforting.
• Portland: steady thump-thump from Beeman's stereo is sometimes annoying.
• Uterus: communication with other humans largely limited to kicking, passing waste through umbilical cord.
• Portland: Samsung cell phone allows me to call anyone on the planet from most major US cities.
• Uterus: not a whole lot to do for fun.
• Portland: plenty of potentially fun activities, but as I am poor, web pages it is.
• Uterus: no alcohol allowed.
• Portland: plenty of beer, but still not so much money. Yet more web pages.
• Uterus: lots of uninterrupted time to plan for the future, make diabolical schemes.
• Portland: diabolical scheming is limited by need to find job, write pithy web humor.

Hmm. I can't say I see a real winner here.

Except, of course, you, the reader of this fine web site. With humor like this, there's no way you could lose.

fly high away

My friends in The Tritium Miracle are playing a show tonight - their first Saturday night show! - so in honor of them, I'd like to talk about myself.

More specifically, I'd like to bask in the glory that will undoubtedly be bestowed upon them (as it is upon all rock musicians) by mentioning what I did to help.

I was called upon to create a stir in the music community - a buzz, if you will - by announcing to all in Portland that my friends would be gracing this town with their sweet melodies. In other words, I made the street flyers. Again.

This time, I decided to have some fun and make a flyer that appeared to have been created by an obsessed mental case. Although that does not make it unique among the pieces of paper on Portland's telephone poles, it does make it interesting, I think. And it wasn't much of a stretch for me ha ha.

I got the idea after I realized that I tend to enjoy the rantings of loons more than I do the typical music poster with some band names and a nice image. Maybe it's just me.

So I sat down at my wonderful typewriter and banged out some incoherent paranoid message. Just like the pros do! Old school!

And then I made up a fake newspaper article, replete with a picture of Bush speaking at "Masoncon '02". Other flyers had pictures of Kofi Annan speaking at the same event. Of course.

Sure, I realize that the flyer doesn't make it completely obvious what is going on. That wasn't the point. Most people aren't likely to go to a show of a band they've never heard of. So I just tried to make their name better known in the most entertaining way.

And in the end, it's not facts that are important - it's entertainment.

pictures from the past

Speaking of items from the past, my roommate Natalie recently bought a used art book that had lots of old newspaper clippings left in it.

They all appear to come from The Daily Record, an Ohio newspaper, from the early 1960's. Most of the captions mention people with the same last name, so presumably these clippings were just of family members.

But I found them interesting because they offered such a distinct point of view. Small-town Ohioans thought differently forty years ago than do urban Portlanders in present day.

For instance, the front page of the newspaper gave as much prominence to a Girl Scout festival as to world events. There was also a picture of some students delivering a check for $27.50 to the local heart fund, whatever that is.

One thing I found amusing was on the back of an article about a missionary family. It was an ad for a steak sale of some sort. Of course, the ad is oddly clipped since it was the missionary story that was cut out, so it reads mostly like "full cut bone in ... STEAK ... fully trimmed ... STEAK ... Boneless Rump or (None Priced Higher)". But I had to chuckle when I saw the error in the ad, seen, in part, in the image above right.

But my favorite clipping, below, defies explanation. Unless you consider "small towns are just odd" an explanation.

It has everything you could want from a small town photo: mockery of pop culture, old men, captions that feature curious nicknames, and unnecessary use of scare quotes. But that doesn't mean I understand it.

But hey, what good is the past if we can't laugh at it awkwardly?

Poetry from the past

I was digging through some old papers recently and found some haiku I had written a while back.

They were written on a piece of paper in the pleatherbound folder I use to carry around my resumes. You know, so I look professional and all.

The last time I had used this folder was my last year in college, when I was going through the job hunt that eventually brought me to Portland to work for Intel.

It was interesting to see all my thoughts from that time, expressed through poorly-drawn cartoons and meaningless scribbles made while waiting for interviews.

The haiku, however, seem to have been written while I was travelling to interview with AMD. Apparently, the company had paid for me to fly first class, which would have been a first for me at that time.

And while they offer me very little insight into how to find a job in today's economy, I still find them mildly amusing:

I'm in an airport
and yet I'm also in Hell.
"Now boarding the plane."

Oh, poor businessman,
try hanging up your cell phone
and let your mind breathe

I wish I could sleep
aboard this stupid airplane;
I'd kill for a bed.

Riding in first class
isn't really all that great.
Hey ... fancy crackers!

The flight attendants
give me special attention.
"Would you like a drink?"

The people in coach
see me eating brie, and scowl.
"But I'm one of you!"

But when the plane lands,
we all arrive at the same time.
First class — who needs it?