has compiled an interesting page called Right Wing Myths Exposed. The best part is about the “Liberal Media” myth: “For conservatives of every persuasion, it is a self-evident truth that the mass media are liberally biased. As a proud liberal myself, I wish it was true: where are those liberal TV channels?” Check out the map at the top too.
Archives for February 2002
Glen Fleishman
has the story on the new Google Appliance: Google Goes Business Class. Having sat in interminable discussions about how to organize the shared folders in medium-to-large corporate networks, the Google thing is a godsend. They alone, from what I have seen, have the power under the hood to do away with pipedreams like trying to force everyone to place their files in a pre-baked taxonomy.
The question on the table
: Are tables really evil? Well, no they’re not. But they were never intended to be used to format web pages, and so now that there’s a better solution (CSS), they should no longer be used that way. Tables are still completely viable in HTML – but for displaying tabular data.
Why? Why, really, should anyone change? The best answer is this: for the same reason Userland developed Radio. Radio solves (as do other systems) a big problem: separating content from style. Trouble is, there are three variables, not just two.
Content – we know about that. Style – we know about that too. But there’s also structure to consider. Using CSS allows us to separate structure from style. This is as powerful, in its own way, as separating content from style, and just as important.
By using CSS to format my pages (though I do have one table still kicking around, unfortunately), I get to present items that any device can understand. If some bit of text is a very important heading on the page, I don’t obscure the fact by coding it with font tags and hiding it in a table that’s purely there to place it in a prominent position on the page. I call it what it is: h1. Simple, clean.
Most importantly, though, suddenly it no longer matters what device is trying to “display” or render my page. Anything at all will see that and display that bit of text as the most important thing on that page.
Why is that important? Well, because as Dave Winer says, the web should be a great writing environment – which implies that it should equally be a great reading environment. When I’m writing, I’m only concerned about me – my ability to write well and have it appear. To make it a great reading environment – and thus support the other side of the coin – I can’t just care about me, I have to care about everyone else as well. And the fewer assumptions I make about them the better. Who am I to insist that they use a certain device to look at my page? They read, their choice. Why should I make them track down an alternate version which may or may not work on their particular device?
If you want the web to be a great writing environment, you also want it to be a great reading environment. And that means using CSS to provide the style, HTML (or XHTML) deployed in templates to provide the structure, and a CMS to feed the content. It’s quite simple, actually.
Happy birthday to me
. This weblog – albeit in slightly different form – is two years old today! But the weblog format wasn’t my first incarnation on the web – this month also marks 6 years and 3 months since my first personal site went up. That original (ugly) site is available via the Wayback Machine.
Here we go
: Bush Decides to Oust Saddam Hussein. I don’t know how the US leadership thinks it can contravene international law, unilaterally, and simultaneously demand that others follow it to the letter. This fits in well with a thesis I’ve been working on (on and off) for some time. The US works very hard to develop new international treaties and regimes, but then steadfastly refuses to ratify or sign them, thus setting up a system whereby it has one set of rules (basically, ‘we do what we want’) and everyone else has another. American exceptionalism at its best. Trouble is, it plays right into “rogue” states’ hands. They are very happy to have well-documented evidence that the US is itself a lone wolf, willing and able to do what it wants in the world without concern for international rules and laws.
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