| 01:19 | <BenMillard> | jgraham, yes I do have offset hours. I'm still in UK. Had breakfast a couple of hours ago. :) |
| 01:23 | <rubys1> | Hixie: the Atom working group was created without either myself (or, I think, Tim Bray) ever attending a meeting or paying a dime. |
| 01:28 | BenMillard | thinks rubys can read logs faster than he does. |
| 01:29 | <BenMillard> | accessibility also fits this description: "Where technologies really struggle is with their adoption by mainstream users [..]" (Re: http://alistapart.com/comments/semanticsinhtml5?page=7#65) |
| 01:32 | <BenMillard> | "[...] an enormous amount of energy and resources and have still not addressed significant shortcomings in HTML." The data table headers stuff has probably cost humanity a 5-figure amount in US dollars but has addressed several shortcomings in the HTML5 of 2007. |
| 01:35 | <BenMillard> | (on class, id and rel) "[...] any semantics we layer on top of these attributes is really by tenuous convention." That is exactly the goal of distributed extensibility, isn't it? You make stuff up without spending n years going through a standards track? |
| 01:43 | <BenMillard> | (Shelley Powers on supporting IE6) "But what you’re saying is most designers won’t even take the chance. Wow, must be safe to be them." It's been a non-negotiable contractual obligation in every web project I've worked on since 2005. |
| 01:47 | <Hixie> | rubys1: oh, cool, that's encouraging |
| 01:48 | <Hixie> | BenMillard: tell her, not us :-) |
| 01:48 | <BenMillard> | Hixie, if more people discuss it here today I'll add another link to here from the ALA comments. |
| 01:48 | <BenMillard> | s/another/a/ |
| 05:17 | <BenMillard> | IE8 UA string update: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/01/09/the-internet-explorer-8-user-agent-string-updated-edition.aspx |
| 05:25 | <BenMillard> | "We have also encountered some websites that do not function if the user-agent string is unusually long (for instance, over 128 characters)." |
| 05:25 | <BenMillard> | for Firefox 2, mine is 92 characters long: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.20) Gecko/20081217 Firefox/2.0.0.20 |
| 13:08 | <hsivonen> | Looks like Microsoft is behaving as if BitTorrent hadn't been invented when it comes to distributing Windows 7 beta. |
| 13:13 | <Philip`> | Maybe they're behaving as if a large number of people don't have a BitTorrent client and don't want to have to find and install and learn how to use one, and they don't want to unfairly make the beta available only to the people who already understand BitTorrent |
| 13:14 | <hsivonen> | If downloading Windows 7 beta were a killer application of BitTorrent, people would install a BitTorrent client. |
| 13:15 | <hsivonen> | One would think that the kind of people who'd install an OS beta would be able to deal with BitTorrent. |
| 13:15 | <Philip`> | Then those people will realise a week from now that they've been uploading at full speed for the past week and their ISP throttles them, and they blame Microsoft |
| 13:16 | <Philip`> | People who would install an OS beta and already know about BitTorrent would just go to http://thepiratebay.org/search/windows%207/0/7/0 |
| 13:17 | <hsivonen> | in that case MS should at least publicize a cryptographic hash for a legitimate iso image |
| 13:19 | <hsivonen> | btw, is the EULA of the beta reasonable--particularly for people who might work on something that competes with an MS product? |
| 13:19 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: The issue seems to be giving out product keys — not the downloading. |
| 13:20 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: The ISOs are still available, and always came down at a sane speed |
| 13:20 | <Philip`> | http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa497440.aspx quotes http://twitter.com/Ekus/statuses/1108872611 which is the same MD5 as the torrent, so at least the checksum is (temporarily) mentioned on a Microsoft web site :-) |
| 13:20 | <Philip`> | (That twit also suggests that the ISOs aren't always available at a sane speed) |
| 13:21 | <gsnedders> | It never got below 100KB/s even when everything else had completely stopped. |
| 13:22 | <hsivonen> | gsnedders: where on an MS site are the isos still available? |
| 13:22 | <Philip`> | 100KB/s sounds incredibly slow :-p |
| 13:22 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: They aren't linked anywhere :P |
| 13:22 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: <http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO>; is the AMD64 English copy |
| 13:23 | <hsivonen> | thanks |
| 13:23 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: Look on engadget's comments and the like for more URLs |
| 13:23 | <Philip`> | http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.ISO must be the x86 version |
| 13:23 | <gsnedders> | obviously. |
| 13:25 | Philip` | decides that the only reason he'd want to test the latest version of Windows is to check application compatibility of stuff he's writing, and there's no point doing that now so he might as well wait a year until it's closer to release |
| 13:27 | <hsivonen> | I'm mainly interested in testing IE8 behavior on a non-XP system |
| 13:27 | <hsivonen> | but then I have no idea if it is worthwhile |
| 13:27 | <hsivonen> | perhaps the XP version behaves identically |
| 13:27 | <webben> | hsivonen: was it fine in parallels in the end? |
| 13:28 | webben | would like to see it running in a parallels or vmware cage ;) |
| 13:28 | <gsnedders> | It apparently runs fine in VMWare |
| 13:28 | <hsivonen> | webben: I haven't had a chance to try yet |
| 13:28 | <gsnedders> | I don't have enough RAM to run it in VMWare without quitting everything else :P |
| 13:29 | <hsivonen> | webben: but today's Parallels update lists Windows 7 compat as a new feature |
| 13:29 | <Philip`> | hsivonen: I imagine it might differ in cases where it relies on the OS's Unicode support, and things like that |
| 13:29 | gsnedders | needs more RAM |
| 13:29 | <hsivonen> | gsnedders: how much RAM do you have? |
| 13:29 | <gsnedders> | 2GB |
| 13:29 | <Philip`> | (but it probably ought to be the same on Win7 as on Vista) |
| 13:29 | <gsnedders> | I also tend to have a lot of things open at once. |
| 13:30 | gsnedders | currently has 40MB free RAM |
| 13:30 | <Philip`> | "free" is a bit meaningless if it doesn't include e.g. disk buffers |
| 13:31 | <Philip`> | and the amount used by applications is a bit meaningless anyway, because maybe half of it could easily be swapped out to disk and you wouldn't even notice |
| 13:32 | <Philip`> | so I suppose all you can really do is try running VMware and see how slow everything it goes, and if it's slow then buy more RAM, and if it's not then buy more RAM anyway because RAM is cheap :-) |
| 13:32 | <gsnedders> | The problem is OS X grinds to a halt when it starts swapping all too often :( |
| 13:32 | <gsnedders> | And RAM for the MBP really has got cheap now. £35.64 for 4GB. |
| 13:33 | Philip` | remembers the good old days when people said "wow, RAM is really cheap now at £1/GB!" |
| 13:33 | <Philip`> | Uh |
| 13:33 | <gsnedders> | :P |
| 13:33 | <Philip`> | £1/MB |
| 13:34 | <gsnedders> | Slight difference. |
| 13:34 | <Philip`> | Indeed :-) |
| 13:36 | <virtuelv> | whoah, the new google favicon is ugly |
| 13:43 | <Lachy> | virtuelv, woah. That's even worse than the last one with the blue g |
| 13:43 | <webben> | yikes |
| 13:43 | <Lachy> | I wonder if it's possible to set a custom favicon for a website |
| 13:43 | <virtuelv> | http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new-favicon.html |
| 13:44 | <webben> | I guess we'll get used to it. |
| 13:45 | <Lachy> | André Resende's original submission looks mildly better than the final icon, but still, it's not good |
| 13:46 | <hsivonen> | eww. |
| 13:47 | <hsivonen> | I agree that the original submission was better |
| 14:46 | <gsnedders> | Oh God. |
| 14:46 | <gsnedders> | I'm looking over the Higher computing marking scheme. |
| 14:46 | <gsnedders> | "The homepage contains the title “Mel’s Website”. The title is in bold and italics. Write the HTML code required for the title. " |
| 14:46 | <gsnedders> | Answer: |
| 14:46 | <gsnedders> | "<i><b>Mel’s Website</b></i></title> OR <title><i><strong>Mel’s Website</strong></i>" |
| 14:47 | <gsnedders> | "1 mark for correct use of <i> tag" |
| 14:47 | <gsnedders> | "1 mark for correct use of <b> or <strong> tag" |
| 14:47 | <gsnedders> | "1 mark for correct nesting of tags ie <i><b> </b></i>" |
| 14:47 | <gsnedders> | "Note: nesting might be different but valid ie <b><i>Mel’s Website</i></b>" |
| 14:47 | <gsnedders> | "Ignore any “outer” tags eg <title>,<head>,<h1> etc" |
| 14:49 | <Dashiva> | Google seems to have forgotten the "looks like a g even if you don't know it's supposed to be one" requirement for the favicon :) |
| 14:49 | <gsnedders> | http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/08miComputingH.pdf FWIW |
| 14:56 | <Philip`> | "Object oriented data storage is more efficient than bitmap storage." - huh? |
| 14:56 | <Philip`> | Seems a strange mix of terminology |
| 14:57 | <hsivonen> | gsnedders: that's really sad. do the students have any recourse to contest the bogus test |
| 14:57 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: nope |
| 14:58 | <hsivonen> | gsnedders: clearly, whoever came up with the test wasn't qualified to be a "Qualificaions Authority" |
| 14:58 | <gsnedders> | hsivonen: I think technically I could file a compliant, but it's hardly likely to make any diference |
| 14:58 | <gsnedders> | (needless to say, I still got an A, which is somewhat amazing with that marking scheme) |
| 14:59 | <hsivonen> | gsnedders: some reason in there, then |
| 14:59 | <gsnedders> | (There again, getting 28.5% (out of a possible 30% of the overall grade) in the coursework probably helped) |
| 15:13 | Philip` | buys a DVD which, instead of having one of those annoying anti-piracy adverts that tries hard to make you feel guilty even though you've just paid for the movie, has a leaflet saying "Nice One! Thanks for buying this genuine DVD. We hope you enjoy it. Obviously you're not a Knock-Off Nigel, but rather the kind of person who generally does the right thing." |
| 15:16 | <gsnedders> | Hixie: "2009-00-07" is not a date, yet is used in the annotations |
| 15:17 | <Dashiva> | Philip`: The torrent includes a scan of that leaflet |
| 18:02 | <Lachy> | Just watched the Colbert interview with Lessig. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/larry-lessig-colbert-report - I can't believe Colbert is such an idiot |
| 18:03 | <Philip`> | He's not, he just plays one on TV |
| 18:04 | <Lachy> | although I don't think Lessig managed to get his message across very well in the interview either, I blame Colbert for having no clue what he was talking about and not letting Lessig actually explain it clearly |
| 18:43 | gsnedders | wants a :first-word selector |
| 18:44 | <Philip`> | What's a word? |
| 18:45 | gsnedders | shrugs |
| 18:45 | gsnedders | notes CSS 2.1 has word-spacing |
| 18:47 | <Philip`> | What problem would :first-word solve, that <span class="first-word"> couldn't? |
| 18:47 | <gsnedders> | No span! :P |
| 18:47 | <Philip`> | What practical problem would :first-word solve, that <span class="first-word"> couldn't? |
| 18:48 | <gsnedders> | None |
| 18:48 | <gsnedders> | :) |
| 19:03 | <Dashiva> | gsnedders: Doesn't first-word already exist? |
| 19:03 | <Dashiva> | Ah, only first-letter and first-line |
| 20:31 | <gsnedders> | Anyone know anything about a11y of right-aligned ltr text? |
| 21:02 | <BenMillard> | Dashiva, it's also in the wrong case (the Google logo uses big G) |
| 21:03 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: See the final thing said before you joined |
| 21:03 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, in a sec |
| 21:04 | <BenMillard> | the Lucian E. Marin one looks excellent, to me: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/SWfBJtH93_I/AAAAAAAACOk/TSM_XMc3eoI/s1600-h/Favicon_Lucian.png |
| 21:06 | <Philip`> | BenMillard: The Google logo uses a little g too |
| 21:06 | <BenMillard> | Philip`, but not the initial G, afaict. |
| 21:07 | gsnedders | notes Philip` never said that the first letter wasn't uppercase |
| 21:08 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, depends how much you're aligning and how important it is. |
| 21:08 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, when attributing a big quote to a source, right-aligning the source is fine |
| 21:09 | <BenMillard> | but right-aligning your main content would be terrible as it is incompatible with F-shaped reading pattern |
| 21:09 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: Take a look at <http://secret.gsnedders.com/g6/home.html>; in a browser with good css3-selectors support |
| 21:09 | Philip` | wonders why Google still has fairly prominent links to http://www.google.com/intl/en/customlogos.html which is clearly ancient because the logos are incredibly ugly |
| 21:10 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: (i..e, a recent WebKit browser, or Opera 9.5+) |
| 21:10 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, using Opera 9.63 I see main content right-aligned, which is bad for sighted users. |
| 21:10 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: (where recent means the same as Saf3.2) |
| 21:10 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: My doubt was how much content is too much :) |
| 21:10 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, I'd say more than 1 line across the page is too much, as a general rule |
| 21:11 | <BenMillard> | because it's the ragged left position of wrapped lines which makes it hard to scan |
| 21:11 | <BenMillard> | it's especially fiddly for screen magnifier users, since they might be at 10x zoom or even more |
| 21:12 | <BenMillard> | possibly makes life harder for certain forms of dyslexia where gaps and patterns in the text cause severe distraction |
| 21:12 | <Philip`> | That font has no antialiasing :-( |
| 21:12 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: Any design suggestions for that which preserve the symmetry without making it annoying to read? |
| 21:13 | <Philip`> | gsnedders: Swap the left and right sides, since the current right only has very short paragraphs? |
| 21:14 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, unless you mirror the text on one side it's not symmetrical anyway. :) I'd say left-align both sides of content so people can read what you wrote. |
| 21:14 | <BenMillard> | I guess right-aligning poems is OK, since the lines are short and curious arrangement can be used for artistic expression |
| 21:16 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: Then the line line looks silly |
| 21:16 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: And justified text is equally problematic |
| 21:16 | <gsnedders> | BenMillard: What about the alignment of crazy modern poetry like http://pastebin.ca/1305375? |
| 21:17 | <BenMillard> | gsnedders, artistic license. |
| 21:17 | <gsnedders> | :) |
| 21:18 | <Philip`> | Then you have problems with needed fixed-width fonts, before worrying about alignment |
| 21:18 | <Philip`> | s/needed/needing/ |
| 21:19 | gsnedders | could also hide away all the introspection stuff and simplify everything |
| 21:19 | <BenMillard> | Philip`, in my experience old mobiles have no fixed-width fonts, but that's all. |
| 21:20 | <Philip`> | gsnedders: Or you could interleave everything, rather than putting them in separate columns |
| 21:20 | gsnedders | is trying to kill off all this introspection :P |
| 21:20 | <Philip`> | and maybe use some colour or offset or font or something to distinguish them |
| 21:20 | <BenMillard> | like footsteps down the page, perhaps |
