Drew Yates

Imagine stepping into the hazy sunlight, the tinge of acrid smoke quickly whisked away by a brisk wind over rolling fields. To the distance, a quaint wooden village beckons. You pause a moment to relish the sure astonishment of these hapless indigenous people. How will they know this knight in plastic armor?

You chuckle to yourself and imagine their awestruck questions. Yes… that would be a clever metaphor. You grin —and then pause. They will fear you. But, someone will see how clever you are. After all, you were pretty clever to travel back all this way with your fancy toys and crazy ideas. Omnipotent. Omniscient. You’re going to save the world. You have to.

And if they fight you? Well, you’ll know better. You had better. Have.

Yes, surely no blatant injustice can fester under the brilliant luminance that is the consciousness of modern man.

It’s a shame these days are too mundane for super heroes.

This must not be your era.

No words can describe how much I hate Internet Explorer 6. No number can quantify the number of hours I’ve wasted fighting with Internet Explorer to do even the most mundane CSS tasks… unless that number is “one hundred bazillion.”

You can’t tell me that the IE team doesn’t do this on purpose. What better way to retard the web platform just enough to set a slow, controllable pace, but not piss off enough people to be abandoned than by sprinkling your software full of obnoxious, complex, and obscure bugs? I don’t believe for a moment that Microsoft can’t design good software. And it’s a fact that a (pretty) good browser can be written; Firefox has very few CSS bugs that actually surface in development. No, somebody is intentionally keeping the browser down.

Paranoid? Then why did Microsoft spend so much effort and money to win the browser wars? So that you can enjoy Internet Explorer for free? Out of the goodness of Microsoft’s heart? No, idiot. Because by monopolizing the web browser, Microsoft bought itself the ability pace web development. Not stop it, slow it. Control it.

Just today, I had to squash two obscure IE CSS bugs. In the layout for this page, the widths compute differently in IE. No reason. No explanation. No box model nonsense. I’m using XHTML strict. Nope, IE just decides to throw in a couple pixels in the wrong place, throwing off the entire layout. It took me at least an hour to track the bug down and make a patch for it.

And again today, I’m working on a simple list menu. No problem, right? Nope, Internet Explorer randomly decides that the UL tag actually spans the entire parent element. No reason. The Strict XHTML validates. So does the CSS. Firefox renders everything fine. So I start ripping backwards and, without ever actually fixing anything logical, eventually some magical incantation of CSS kills the bug. Or did it?

Oh, now there is a NEW bug. Some stupid spacing problem in the list. No logical reason. Works fine in Firefox. Everything validates.

After hours of digging, I find a similar solution on the web that works. The difference? If you add a bottom border to LI tags in a floated parent, it fixes this seemingly unrelated “magic” vertical margin spacing bug between the list items. No logic. Just hackery.

This is every fucking day I design with CSS. Every day.

Thanks to Internet Explorer, trivial layout programming becomes day long hacking marathons that only the most patient experts can stand to slog through. Nothing of substance is learned when you fix bugs like this. Writing CSS code may as well be memorizing tax law.

I hate Internet Explorer, and if I had my way, I would ban all Internet Explorer browsers from my sites if that didn’t mean losing so much traffic. I think that I will add a script that adds an obnoxious message about Firefox for IE users, though. Yes… that sounds reasonable.

If I ever run my own office, I’m going to fire anyone who uses IE as their primary web browser. No explanations. I’ll just have my system admin write a script that watches for people who seem to use IE too much. And then they’ll just get a notice of termination in their email. Good bye. Get the fuck out of my office. You’re ruining the Internet! I don’t want your tard ass fumbling my important work, anyways.

The worst part about Internet Explorer is that to common user, most of this means nothing. That’s why IE is still so popular. It doesn’t piss off the right people. Bonus points for strategy for Microsoft, but

FUCK YOU INTERNET EXPLORER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yah, Merry Christmas.

From the WP spam filter (links removed):

I have been interested in this theme for a long time and it was insulting for me that during development of technologies, I still search for the information offline. With the advent of your site I have plunged with all my soul into Internet.

Somehow, the idea of a machine screening machines that claim to have souls is… unsettling. —Especially for spam.

A friend sent me this.

Here is a screen of my favorite scene:

I didn’t. I just started writing them down. Here is what you do:

1) Make a habit of always keeping a pocket-sized notebook and a pen in your front pocket. Eventually, carrying these things will feel like carrying your wallet.

2) When you meet somebody, ask them what their name is somewhere in the conversation.

3) If that person is a business-y contact, ask for their card. If they are an informal contact, skip to step 5.

4a) If that person has a card, then do not put it away immediately, that is rude. Keep it in your hand a while. You can put it in your wallet later.
4b) If that person does NOT have a card, then they will probably be a little embarrassed. Not a problem! Save the moment by tearing them out a sheet of paper of your mini notebook and ask them to write their contact info.

5) After the conversation, write the name of the person and some notable detail about them in your notebook.

Ta da! Now you have a chronological list of the names of people you have met. Even the act of knowing that you will have to write their name will help force you to better remember names. Your notebook will never break, can be used for sketches, and can be torn-up and passed around for people to write in… unlike a digital PDA. However, later you should file your contacts electronically for easier reference.

In conclusion, if you’re not good at remembering names, instead of being embarrassed or socially hampered by it, do something about it that works.

All foreign people are smarter and more disciplined than you, but they don’t matter, so you’re still better

Your university has to import people from other countries because not enough smart, hardworking, and poor people live in the United States to fill teaching assistant positions. That’s OK, though. It’s not like cultural and linguistic fluency is a necessary for effective communication, and it’s not like effective communication is necessary for effective teaching. Besides, have you seen the American enrollment rates for engineering and science lately?

…Wait, I know! Let’s celebrate being lazy and stupid. Then, we can “be cool” by simply changing the rules to fit however we happen to behave —regardless of the cultural consciousness! Now, we can not teach, and it doesn’t matter because learning isn’t “important” anymore! Plus, we can indefinitely disenfranchise all those smart, hard working “foreigners,” since they obviously don’t deserve the same “right to success” that we do. Cause, you know, they’re stealing our jobs. Let’s just subtly change “educated and motivated” to “certification of 18 year compliance,” and then demand that to participate in our economy. Awesome!

Go team!

If You’re Being Tolerated, Then Learn Pride Instead

Oops! You weren’t suppose to read that. Here, have a cultural learning center.

Yellow fever

You are attracted to somebody with vague ethnic roots from an area of about 1/3 of the world’s landmass and about 2/3 the world’s population. You have the Yellow Fever. You fetishist.

Bonus! Let everyone know how cultured you are by broadcasting that you have an “Asian” friend.

Every religion, culture, and political ideology is exactly equally correct

Sure, perhaps you might think that, rationally, there is no way that every ideology can be equally correct. That’s because you’re a bigot and a racist. Actually, this doesn’t mean that everyone is right all the time… Haha, no. I hope you enjoy your lucrative career at your university student union (or anthropology graduate studies).

Let me be more specific. I mean, exactly equally “not you.” Thankfully, as a young, white, Christian, American- Midwestern suburbanite, you are in the strangely convenient and entirely un-ironic position to validate everyone else. That’s called tolerance, and you can (will) write that on your resume.

What about your religion, culture, and political ideas? They are very bad, but you know better —because you know better. Other people like you think know better, but really, they don’t better. They make you look bad. Make sure to talk about how evil capitalism is, how Christian fanatics are ruining the Republican party, and the tragic decline of the American family. Then, drive to the strip-mall Target (that’s “Tar-zhay”) for your family Christmas shopping obligations.

Bonus! Join a club about another world culture/religion while maintaining your own, explicitly contradictory culture/religion. You win tolerance.

Black people are African American

Do you get your own euphemism? No? That’s because you’re just regular American. Nevermind that millions of people of hundreds of cultures live in Africa, and that only some of them have black skin. Nevermind that most black families in the United States have probably lived here longer than your family, especially if you have a Polish, Irish, or Eastern European background. “American American” is, in fact, a term of equality and respect, much like “customer service representative” or “information systems technology expert.” You should both celebrate and appreciate such an identity of distinction. To suggest that such a euphemistic title is demeaning or absurd is not only disrespectful (of whom?), but racist.

White professionals get to be “John” or “John.” African Americans professionals get to be “an African American doctor” or “an African American lawyer.” Make sure you let them know how proud you are of them.

If you aren’t white, male, and rich, then you get special treatment

…From white, rich males. Ever wonder why CEOs don’t have an “employee of the month” program? Who signs your “certificate of achievement?”

Bonus: complain about how unfair “the system is” because “minorities” get “special treatment.” Hm, yes they do.

Prototype is the Ruby-like Javascript library that is best known as a part of the Ruby on Rails infrastructure. I was going to write about how awesome it is, but instead, I’m just going to link you the appropriate resources. If this is for you, then you’ll recognize the awesome. If not, then not.

Prototype Home (note: no documentation. Too bad)
Prototype Object / Function list
Sitepoint introduction to Prototype Javascript
Blog entry about Prototype Hashes / Enumerations
Particle Tree: Quick Guide to Prototype

Would have saved me a week of writing…

I thought we were going to discuss Animal Rights, but instead you’ve blown up this “debate” into this absurd quagmire of politics, religion, public opinion! I’m so lost that I’d hardly remember what we were even debating if not for the constant barrage of empty emotional rhetoric. I don’t think you care if you convince us of anything, I think you’re just trying to exhaust, sedate, and confuse us! You don’t care what we think, because we’re not! Yet, you’ve so effectively enthralled me that I doubt I could even wrench my attention away from this crap even if I really wanted to… but, I don’t even know what I really want anymore.

Shhhh… The news is back on.

EDIT: Yah, I probably should have thought about this:

The satirical intent of A Modest Proposal was misunderstood by many of Swift’s peers, and he was harshly criticized for writing prose in such exceptionally “bad taste.” He came close to losing his patronage because of this essay.