Nice lecture. Isn't the usual "use tables for layout stupid" and "Structure should be seperated from content" rant. This site actually shows you how to break an existing webpage down to its basic structure and built it back up with CSS, DIVs, and more.

I've been working today on using some Javascript to make the Recommendation page have more, but hidden, options. Inserting this into a page that uses tables for layouts is a bitch.

-Memestreams includes CSS defined inline with each page.
-Memestreams uses Tables instead of DIVs for layout. The main page is over 30k, most of it table formatting. I know Tom has a good Co-Lo deal, but the bandwidth savings here will help Memestreams users.

[ I only wish he had said : "The only problem with CSS is that all browser manufactuers are FUCKING ASSHOLES and don't properly support the spec. You'll spend more time dealing with silly goddamn tricks than laying out your page."

Fuck IE. Fuck Firefox, Mozzilla, Safari, and every browser on the planet. There's a spec. If you're gonna call it a standard, then bloody fucking comply with it.

I dare you to try and align a div with the BOTTOM of the screen. Check it out, it's awesome! -k]

Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered

The PN9 site is up and available for your perusal. Dates, hotel info, and mailing list signup info, among other things. Pass it 'round.

PhreakNIC 9 Site Available

] But there must be something different in the way that the
] Democrats are blocking Bush's nominees, right? The
] Republicans say that Democrats are doing is
] "unprecedented."
]
]
] Oh, yes they do. Just the other day on Fox News, Utah
] Sen. Orrin Hatch, the former chairman of the Senate
] Judiciary Committee, proclaimed: "We've never had a
] filibuster of judges in the history of this country." In
] a myth vs. fact sheet, the Republican National Committee
] says that "having to overcome a filibuster (or obtaining
] 60 votes) on judicial nominees is unprecedented."
]
]
] But that's not a fact. In 1968, Republicans led a
] filibuster against Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Abe
] Fortas as chief justice. And that isn't the only
] Republican attempt to filibuster a judicial nominee in
] recent history. During the Clinton years, the
] Congressional Research Service says, Democrats were
] forced to bring cloture motions on six judicial nominees.
] While the existence of a cloture motion doesn't always
] mean that a filibuster is in effect, in at least some
] instances it has meant just that: In 2000, Frist himself
] voted to support a filibuster against Richard Paez,
] Clinton's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
] Ninth Circuit.

This article presents a very good assessment of just what can and can't happen along the lines of the "Nuclear Option." It's not as cut and dry as many would think.

Everything you wanted to know about the Nuclear Option

] Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software,
] primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use
] software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink
] you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes,
] buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective
] tutorial for your users.

Wink - [Homepage]

] Year after year, Wal-Mart's low pay and meager
] employee benefits force hundreds of thousands of
] employees to resort to Medicaid, food stamps, and public
] housing. Call it the Wal-Mart Tax. And it
] costs you $1.5 billion in federal tax dollars every year.

They had a full-page ad in the Times today.

Welcome to the new WalmartWatch.com

Now this is just plain ________.

a. cool
b. freaky
c. playing God
d. all of the above

17MB, so don't bother unless you're on a decent connection. Very interesting video, though.

-Dolemite

Movie of NASA's Socially Interactive Robot

] "This is R Peed Robbert, McNicoll and Don Mills
] bus-shelter."
]
] "That's nice. This is Detective Icaza de Arana-Goldberg,
] three blocks east of you on Picola. Proceed to my
] location at once, priority urgent, no sirens."
]
] "Acknowledged. It is my pleasure to do you a service,
] Detective."
]
] "Shut up," he said, and hung up the phone. The R Peed
] - Robot, Police Department - robots were the
] worst, programmed to be friendly to a fault, even as they
] surveilled and snitched out every person who walked past
] their eternally vigilant, ever-remembering electrical
] eyes and brains.
]
] The R Peeds could outrun a police car on open ground on
] highway. He'd barely had time to untwist his clenched
] hands from the steering wheel when R Peed Robbert was at
] his window, politely rapping on the smoked glass. He
] didn't want to roll down the window. Didn't want to smell
] the dry, machine-oil smell of a robot. He phoned it
] instead.

Cory Doctorow is writing short stories again, but with a vengeance. This is his latest whereby he writes of the future where patents have limited creativity and there is only one kind of robot left in the world. He also called it "I, Robot" as part of his new effort to write new stories with the same title as a famous story by another author. It's a bit of a protest of all the bitching about Michael Moore using "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a title since it is so close to "Fahrenheit 451".

Anyway, enjoy.

Dolemite

Cory Doctorow | I, Robot

] Separated for several months, boredom and chance briefly
] re-united Bakr Melhem and his wife Sanaa in an Internet
] chat room, the official Petra news agency said.
]
]
] Bakr, who passed himself off as Adnan, fell head over
] heels for Sanaa, who signed off as Jamila (beautiful) and
] described herself as a cultured, unmarried woman -- a
] devout Muslim whose hobby was reading, Petra said.
]
]
] Cyber love blossomed between the pair for three months
] and soon they were making wedding plans. To pledge their
] troth in person, they agreed to meet in the flesh near a
] bus depot in the town of Zarqa, northeast of Amman.

That's got to be the funniest story I've heard yet about online dating.

Dolemite

Budding Jordan cyber love ends in divorce

] But from what I can tell, the penalties laid out for
] downloading one season of a TV show with BitTorrent are
] much harsher than if you actually stole a DVD set of the
] same show from a government store. I lay out a practical
] example in detail below, but to cut to the chase: For
] stealing the DVD you could face no more than up to 1 year
] imprisonment and up to a $100,000 fine; for downloading
] the same material you could face statutory damages of up
] to $3,300,000, costs and attorney's fees (ie: the other
] guy's attorneys), as well as up to 1 year imprisonment,
] and up to a $100,000 fine.

An interesting analysis of the punishments set forth for shoplifting a physical item versus downloading a tv show off of bit torrent. I like the summary at the bottom, where Winona Ryder's shoplifting experience is used as an example.

Dolemite

Off The Shelf - Stealing is cheaper than downloading

] He's just beginning his teens, but I've been house
] sitting long enough to watch him go from Harry Potter
] toys to Lego Mindstorms and Playstation 2. So on Saturday
] night when I arrived to the empty house, I got a beer and
] went into his bedroom to check out his toys. There were
] immediate telltale signs of "young man" everywhere... but
] there were some Legos left around on his toy chest. I
] looked once and was on my way out, but then noticed the
] configuration of the Lego assembly. It was a compound.
] And in the back, was a child's version of Abu Ghraib.
] Stunned, I took photos.

You have to wonder what made the kid decide to recreate this area. What kids (early teens) watch enough news for this to be ingrained in his mind as something to admire? Maybe it's a way of understanding what happened? I can only hope that it's not because a mentor has idolized what has happened there.

Dolemite

Lego Abu Ghraib