CSS is Good Masochism.

We are masochist if we enjoy making CSS based web sites! The proportion of time I spent designing this last iteration of my site versus the time working on CSS coding issues must be something like 1 to 10, this is completely ludicrous.

Part of the problem was of course that I wanted a mixed fixed and flex multicolumn layout a thorny issue in CSS design, add to that, the usual browser issues and the whole experience was quite painful. I even walked away from my initial design requirement of having all the margins and gutters fixed width because we could not figure out an elegant way to get a fixed width gutter between the two flex width columns.

Another painful thing is getting control over floated elements. On the positive side, things like fine-tuning the design are much easier with CSS positioning.

Now that I have built a few CSS based sites of varying shapes and sizes I am disappointed that we seem to have traded in one series of hurdles and restrictions for another. Yes the designers net benefit are in the CSS camp but it is still just a step up in purgatory.

filed in: Web Design - 29 Nov 2003 20:42 - #

Bush's Flash Visit to Iraq

Anyone else a little worried that the Bush's visit to Iraq stinks of photo-op-pr-stunt. I mean flying around half the planet in a 747 to have a two hour diner with the troops. Sure the troops deserve thanks but why not then visit the troops that are hospitalized in the US, it would be a lot cheaper and they are certainly not less deserving of thanks. Actually, I can't recall the president ever making a single visit to the wounded soldiers since the beginning of the war, of course that might ruin the illusion that this war is going without a hitch.

One could also say that the trip is meant as a symbolic show of force towards the enemies, Then again, I am quite sure it will backfire. First of all the short time and secrecy does not really demonstrate confidence and then the fact that bush did not meet any Iraqis is not going to go down well on location.

One good thing did come out of this: the US media stooped talking about Michael Jackson for two and half hours.

filed in: World - 27 Nov 2003 21:32 - #

Votes and punitive trade sanction

Threatening to hit marginal states with sanctions to unseat Bush in the next elections is plain stupid and will only help Bush.

The reason is the targeted voters will never understand the legal quidproquo and will see it as a foreign attack on their interests, and if they see it as foreign attack they will vote for Bush and his proven record of bashing the foreigners. So in my opinion this would just backfire and help Bush win the election.

filed in: Politics, World - 19 Nov 2003 12:17 - #

Spam

filed in: Internet, Politics - 16 Nov 2003 20:11 - #