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050830 00:12 Web development : CSS

Weirdest and most hillarious IE bug ever (here's the article in german). Using tags as an id attribute crashes IE when trying to print.

050829 23:52 Web development : Standards

Standard-ists are getting organised - geographically. There's the BritPack, the Happy Clogs and now there's the Webkrauts [de]. Can't beat that catchy strapline: Proud to be a Webkraut :)

050829 11:59 Geeks

When do you start work? (/. poll)

I had this discussion with my aunt yesterday about the crazy work ethics here in Germany, of which getting up at ungodly hours is a major part, even more so in the old east where i currently live. I said that at least in some parts of the world they have started acknowledging that people have different bio-rhythms and that you find a lot of late night workers in the IT business. But mostly you still look like a dodgy weirdo to most people.

050828 22:53 Web development

The evolution continues: Evolt.org and A List Apart relaunch.

050825 00:28 Google

With Google slowly but surely taking over the internet, a deep frown appears on many a geek's forhead. Is Google turning to the dark side?

Google has already added free e-mail, mapping, news aggregation and digital-photo management to its offerings, bringing it into competition in each case with two or more rivals. On Wednesday, it will announce plans for an instant-messaging system. And its plans for a new stock issue are fueling speculation that it is preparing to enter any number of other markets, from services for mobile phone users to an online payment service that would compete with PayPal.

Add to that list an Internet-based phone system and several products that would be directly aimed at Microsoft, including a Google browser and a software offering that would compete with Microsoft Office.

[...] Microsoft, of course, has its hold on the Windows world - and a market capitalization almost four times Google's. By contrast, switching to a new search engine is as easy as calling up another Web page - if a new company is able to do to Google what Google did to some of the earliest leaders of search, including AltaVista and Excite.

050820 10:12 Web development

David Shea on the use of design templates. He's worried that templating will take the soul out of design.

[...] there's something lost when dissociating content from any context.

[...] if content is this ethereal and interchangeable, what's the designer's role? An answer was briefly touched on with the mention of Apple's Widgets: styling, but not defining.

[...] How many of us are noticing an increase in requests to design 'templates' for general content, but not custom-design specific content? I sure have. A lot of requested work these days assumes this as a baseline; when dealing with a CMS or a dynamic application, you don't get the content in advance (if it even exists yet), so it's ultimately irrelevant to the design. The goal ends up being the creation of a flexible, one-size-fits-all construction.

It is hard to template, to come up with some designs if you've been given very little information about content and structure of the site - or not even a company logo to devise a colour scheme from. I just had such a case. I have the logo now. And now I can start all over again and this time build them a unique site, not one from a template. That's the only way it works.

050812 20:48 Geeks

Here's an interesting Slashdot poll again. Not so much the results as the options.

050806 18:06 Science Fiction

Science fiction is booming...

That alone is excellent news.

...and the British writers are leading the pack.

...reports the BBC.

For the first time in its 63-year history, all the writers nominated for the prestigious Hugo award for the best novel are British.

And my favourite british SF writer, Iain M. Banks, is among them.

[Update 050809 19:21] And the winner is...

050804 22:54 Economy

Finally one company gets it right. American Airlines, close to bankruptcy 2 years ago, managed to pull back from the abyss with an employee-based turnaround plan. And they really seem to mean it when they say 'employee-based'.

...when American's management intensified its cost-saving efforts, it didn't turn to high-priced outside consultants. Rather, it asked its employees, since they do their jobs day in and out and know them probably better than anyone else.

Not only that, it seems they also stopped top management creaming off profits and managed to cut costs by not outsourcing.

050804 22:36 Internet

The hacker ethic is thriving. Here we have an example of the reputation system and here's a prediction about free collaborative content.

050804 01:22 Literature

The winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2005 have been announced, an international literary parody contest where entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.

Grand Panjandrum's Special Award

India, which hangs like a wet washcloth from the towel rack of Asia, presented itself to Tex as he landed in Delhi (or was it Bombay?), as if it mattered because Tex finally had an idea to make his mark and fortune and that idea was a chain of steak houses to serve the millions and he wondered, as he deplaned down the steep, shiny, steel steps, why no one had thought of it before.

Winner: Historical Fiction

Sphincter, the gladiator, girded his loins in preparation for today's games, glad to be part of the season opener since he hadn't been sure until yesterday that his contract would be renewed, given his slump during the Germans-versus-lions series but he knew that swatting Germans into the lion's pit was trickier than it looked and he told the officials that they should look at his other stats, not just Huns batted in.

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