I can never quite get used to reading “justified” text on the web, especially within the typically narrow columns used in most weblogs. It looks better, but doesn’t read as easily. I’ve changed this text to ragged right (left-justified) and even though it looks messier, I believe it’s easier to read.
[Update]: According to WDG), “Although justified text may look pretty, human factors analysis shows that ragged right is actually easier to read and understand.” At least I’m not alone.
I had always considered John Gruber’s Markdown an also-ran, with Textile from Dean Allen the clear winner. It’s no longer that clear. While textile can do nearly anything, Markdown only does the essentials. The reason I’ve switched the default text processor of this here blog is because of the following from Gruber’s site…
The idea is not to create a syntax that makes it easier to insert HTML tags. In my opinion, HTML tags are already easy to insert. The idea for Markdown is to make it easy to read, write, and edit prose. HTML is a publishing format; Markdown is a writing format. Thus, Markdowns formatting syntax only addresses issues that can be conveyed in plain text.
Blog entries are almost always very simple bits of text with only basic markup needs. With Markdown, I can write as if I’m composing a (plain-text) email and have it render out in valid XHTML. Smart.
Today, Switchtower) became the preferred method of deployment for Rails apps. Why? Because when a new version of an application needs to be pushed to production, I can now type “rake deploy” on my development machine and it’s done. With judicious use of switchtower recipes, all of the little things that typically need to be done when updating a web app are handled automatically. And what’s more, if something goes wrong I can simply run “rake rollback” and the old version gets put back automatically. Isn’t that just neato?
Here’s a summary of what happens when I use Switchtower to deploy the site I’m working on…
Checks out the latest version of the site from Subversion to a new directory in “releases/”
Creates a symlink pointing “current” to the new release
Creates a symlink for shared resources not in Subversion (e.g. /images/products) to a shared location
Changes appropriate web server file permissions so ownership and rights are correct
Runs a custom script which restarts the web server (lighttpd)
Viola! The latest code is running on the production server. I’m still new to this whole idea, but I can already see that it will become an indispensable part of my workflow.
A judge in Dover, PA (God love him) rules in favor of reality by making it illegal to teach “Intelligent Design” in classrooms. Our kids may have a chance after all.
“To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect,” Judge Jones wrote. “However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.”
And further…
“It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”
Thank you, Judge Jones, from the children.
Ara Paparo writes a very insightful post) on why Blink.com failed and perhaps why del.ico.us didn’t. Main point that I took away: Don’t try so damn hard right out of the gate.
The engineering team went to work, building a complex algorithm for evaluating the groupings of sites within folders (damn folders!) and finding other sites that had been grouped similarly. It was pretty sophisticated stuff. Sophisticated enough that it couldn’t run in real-time and often had a several day processing backlog to overcome.
Oh, and the other important point - use Tags for everything.
For those times when ”callipygian” just isn’t the right word, there’s always ”ba-donka-donk”
“Those dusky Afro-Scandinavian buttocks, which combine the callipygian rondure observed among the races of the Dark Continent with the taut and noble musculature of sturdy Olaf, our blond Northern cousin.” -Thomas Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow
Eric Meyer finds yet another reason to love Adium
Seriously. The entirety of an Adium chat window is an XHTML document that’s being dynamically updated via DOM scripting–all of it pumped through WebKit, of course. In creating a message theme, you define what markup will be used, and write CSS to style it. You can even define variants on your theme by writing additional style sheets.
A nifty Flash app which helps reveal the before and after of fashion publications photo retouching. Personally, I think she looked better before.
Microsoft finally end-of-lifes IE on the Mac. Can we all officially stop supporting it now? Please?
Wow)
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