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November 24, 2003

Experimenting with CSS

Having a little trouble with CSS and, frankly, don't have the time to muck with it as much as I'd like. Here's my problem:

I have an image that I'd like to place in a certain spot. Specifically, I want it 10 pixels from the top and 10 pixels from the right of the browser window. I want this laid over a black banner that slips under the image in a way that doesn't encompass the entire image (which makes placing one DIV within the other).

While I've had marginal success getting the picture exactly where I want it to be, I can't seem to get the other elements to fall under the image the way I want, nor can I get the lower elements to lay flush with the upper elements the way I want.

If you feel like taking a glance and telling me where I'm going wrong, please take a look at the test site. You're welcome to comment on whether you like the layout, too. It should be fairly obvious what it's for.

Posted by KinCross at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)

Furniture Factor

This week, I blew out over $1200. I'd been holding off and holding off and finally got to the point where I couldn't hold off any longer. I bought furniture. Specifically, I'm now the owner of a pair of chairs with a drafting table and a nice futon on the way.

After this, I'm pretty much done with equipping my new room, except for the possibility of another bookcase and/or dresser.

That said, "Hi! It's been awhile."

It's been a really busy time with work because we've been doing all sorts of weekend testing for disaster recovery stuff and a friend recently had a wedding (more on that some other time).

Life is good, though. I'm enjoying myself, if occasionally feeling vulnerable since I haven't cleared my 90-day probation yet. Soon, though. Soon. Like mid-December... right after the holiday party and the trip to Vegas with the colleagues.

In the meantime, I'll be updating the Thanksgiving list tonight, in anticipation of going out to Vegas to visit Sarah Bear and Chris Kindred for the T-day festivities.

In other news, I'm starting to explore a few things creatively outside of work, focusing mostly on illustration and some storywriting right now, but I'm having a little trouble staying structured. It's too easy to get distracted. I don't know how others manage to stay so focused.

And I'm shopping around for a domain name again... out of pure self-interest. I'm not trying to avoid spam or anything like that. Just looking to partition out some of my interests into another namespace. Did I lose a bunch of you on that one?

That's it. Gotta go to a meeting.

Posted by KinCross at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2003

Search Terms

Last month, I had nine hits for the search term "asian beaver." I just want to note that the person or persons that got to my site using that search term had to get through 76 pages of hits before they got to mine, the 763rd hit on the list.

Posted by KinCross at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2003

Integrity

When the world conspires to lift you up beyond what you right fully deserve, remember that integrity has to come from within.

Good show, I say, from the high school senior that is asking to have his final pass erased from the record books, which gave him the all-time state passing record, because he found out that the coaches had conspired rig the game so that he could attain it.

Posted by KinCross at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2003

Taking Us to School

Though it's only just hit mainstream media, there's been a furor over the past few weeks on Slashdot regarding Diebold and their voting machines. Wired has not posted an article about how Australia set up their electronic voting system, which seems to have gotten things right where the American voting machine manufacturers seem to be determined to get it wrong.

For a country that claims to be so strongly based on democracy and foists it on just about anyone it can, it's shockingly disappointing to sense the general apathy toward the infringement on the integrity of the voting process that these machines pose. Matt Quinn, lead engineer of the Australian system, probably says it best:

"The only possible motive I can see for disabling some of the security mechanisms and features in their system is to be able to rig elections. It is, at best, bad programming; at worst, the system has been designed to rig an election."
Actually, Quinn's got quite a few good things to say about voting and democracy in general. The cynical part of me rather liked this one, regarding the rest of the world being able to participate in US elections:
"After all, we've all got a stake in who's in the White House these days. I'm actually prone to think that the rest of the world should get a vote in your elections since, quite frankly, the U.S. policy affects the rest of the world so heavily."

Posted by KinCross at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)