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I've been playing around with CSS (cascading stylesheets) for my web page today, among other things getting something a little prettier than what I had last night. But in the process I made multiple stylesheets with the ability to swap them out by adding "css=name" to the URL.
So, for instance, this is this evening's result:
http://notanarchive.org/stories.php?tag=Fandom:Torchwood&css=site
Contrasted to the version from last night:
http://notanarchive.org/stories.php?tag=Fandom:Torchwood&css=ugly
Best of all, I can have it without CSS at all, which allows me to check what it would look like on a phone or other device that doesn't support CSS. Plain but useable:
http://notanarchive.org/stories.php?tag=Fandom:Torchwood&css=none
And, of course, if someone doesn't specify the CSS, it defaults to the site stylesheet:
http://notanarchive.org/stories.php?tag=Fandom:Torchwood
CSS is good for more than just changing the colors of things, however. Here's a very minor change (three lines in the stylesheet) to move the fandom list from the left side of the story list to the right:
http://notanarchive.org/stories.php?tag=Fandom:Torchwood&css=right
All this is done with about six lines of PHP to swap out the CSS files, not difficult at all. Nothing changes between the versions here except in the stylesheet. If you were to "view source" in any of those page versions, you would see the exact same HTML.
And everything should be easy to navigate even with a screen reader for the visually impaired, too (uh, if I'm wrong about this, please tell me!).
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I have the bare bones of a new fan fiction web page up and ready for myself, though the aesthetics are still pretty ugly. You can see what I have here. What's interesting and fun about this page is that it contains no stories, only links to LJ and all the other places that hold my stories. So instead of making a copy of all my Yuletide stories, for instance, I just link to them.
And best of all, the links are actually in a Delicious account, so adding a story to my page is a matter of clicking my "Save to Delicious" button, adding some tags and a description, an there it is up on my page. I have 26 different fandoms listed (I know, I know), and clicking on any one of them will bring up a list of all stories, including crossovers, that include that fandom. Since so many of my stories are lit-fic, I also have them tagged by canon author, so clicking on Jane Austen brings up both my Mansfield Park and my Persuasion stories.
The next step is to specify the Delicious account name in the URL, so anyone could use this same page by creating their own Delicious account, tagging their stories, and then adding their account name to the URL. Hence the "Not An Archive" domain name. I'm not going to do that until I have caching worked out, because Delicious will shut me down if I create too much traffic.
Unfortunately I've run into a bit of a snag, though I have ideas on how to work it out. Delicious will only allow me to retrieve 100 bookmarks for a given user. This works fine for me, since I only have 65 stories (or essays), but for someone more prolific this isn't going to work. There are ways around the problem, but it's going to take some time and thinking.
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(stolen from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) marginaliana) When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
***
"As a zombie invasion it was remarkably peaceful."
***
Allowing himself the smallest touch of spite, he turned the coffee grinder on just as she opened her mouth to reply.
***
Jack shuffled to another piece of paper. "Ianto Jones. Died 16 March, 2006. Hit by a lorry while bicycling to work. The real Ianto Jones was dead three months before Canary Wharf."
***
Jack was looming again, but it was silly, almost laughable. "Suzie did not recruit me," Ianto said carefully. "I did not approach her before you hired me. Before I showed up for work that first morning I did not meet, know, speak to, write to, phone, fax, email, or leave coded messages hanging in gorse bushes for Suzie Costello or any other member of Torchwood Three besides yourself!" And this was when Jack would shoot him.
"You forgot smoke signals and morse code," Jack said evenly.
"Them either. Neither. Whatever."
***
"Cap'n Jack!" she greeted him cheerfully and familiarly.
"Esmeralda, my flower of delight! How are you this beautiful afternoon?" Jack said, confirming Ianto's suspicion that he would flirt with anything, even possibly-alien bag ladies.
"All the better for seeing you, Cap'n." Her eyes widened as Ianto came up behind Jack. "And you brought Mr. Turner!"
"Jones, actually," Ianto demurred.
Jack winked at the woman. "Incognito."
***
"Bright pink light showed up on the gallops in Newmarket, flicked around the horses there, settled on this one and transformed it into a statue," the field agent--Matt?--continued. "Stable wants the horse back muy pronto. Rider to if you can manage it."
***
Susan snorted. "Ah. A hero type." She shook her head. "Always so nice, so understanding. So helpful. Always there with what you need." Her voice was rising, "Always has time for the little details!"
Angua cocked her head. After three gin and tonics in quick succession the world was feeling rather looser. "Are we still talking about Carrot here?"
***
"Mrs. Smith," Rajesh said precisely, "is not saying anything that others are not thinking."
***
"I don't remember yesterday." The words were said on impulse, but I didn't regret them. He had always been a bit of a fool, but I had known Bingo since boyhood, his and mine, and I needed to talk to someone. "I don't remember the last seven years, in fact."
Bingo gave me an appalled stare as he stumbled backwards into a chair, changing slowly to sympathy, even a touch of respect. "Who is she?" he asked at last.
In case you failed to notice, the question made no sense. "Who is who?"
Bingo gave an impatient wave of the hand. "The girl you're trying to get out of marrying, of course." He shook his head sadly. "Real tartar, is she? Or is she one of those dreadfully soppy sorts?" I had forgotten just how annoying his laughter could be. "Never mind, Jeeves'll set you right. One of his fruitier schemes, I must say."
***
"You will oblige me, Roger, by not testing this device--or any other!--on your sister. I am certain Eric or I can accomodate you as necessary."
***
The trail took them past Longbottom Farm, abandoned to the winter weeks before. He detoured to its almost exhausted woodpile to snatch up an axe, heavy and comforting in his hands. He almost laughed to see Legolas take up the sturdy pole Magnolia Proudfoot used in gentler times to prop up her wash line. He had seen Legolas fight with knife and sword and bow, and even on one memorable occasion with dwarven axe, but never with clothes pole.
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Bizarre cat situation today. Not bad, I'll say immediately, just bizarre.
About an hour ago, one of our neighbors, F, called because she saw (she said) someone kidnap her--F's--cat from our front porch. The cat, Cleo, AKA "Miss Mooch," comes over to our house to get fed the good catfood, unlike the kibble at home. This is the cat who had a stroke a year ago and recuperated at our house because F was sick at the time, so the cat thinks she's entitled.
F is...um...her vision isn't the best and she tends sometimes to put creative interpretations on what she's seen, like mistaking the meter reader for a burgler in broad daylight, me putting up new storm windows for someone breaking into our house, and fat brown tabbies for missing thin black cats. So my first thought when she called was to see if a package had been delivered to the front door, since that's the usual reason for someone to go to our front porch but not knock. But no, no package or advert on the doorknob, and no cat either.
I went outside and called for Cleo, no result. I talked to a couple of neighbors and got nothing but a report that she'd been seen earlier in the afternoon mooching off a different neighbor--and did so regularly. Sigh, some cats think that three homes are better than one, apparently, or at least that three food bowls are better than one. Still no cat, but I wasn't terribly worried, because who kidnaps a cat off someone's front porch in the middle of a Saturday afternoon? I came back inside and decided to wait and see if she turns up for dinner, wondering vaguely what F had seen that she'd interpreted as a catnapping.
A few minutes before I started typing this, an obviously stoned young man came to the front door and explained--sort of--that he'd kidnapped a cat from our front porch. *grin* He thought it was his neighbor's cat, so he picked Cleo up and took her down to their house on the corner and left her on their front porch. He wasn't sure where she was now, but he was really, really sorry, and he'd keep looking for her.
Meanwhile, F has called to say that Cleo is home, though I don't know whether the stoner brought her or she walked the whole half block on her own.
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Just finished watching the first episode after downloading the first and second. I think my jaw is somewhere on the floor, must look for it. I'm impressed!
It even kept me fooled about a plot twist that I'm usually better at spotting well in advance.
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The last few days I've been working on a project on the roof and in the attic, installing a vent pipe for the drains in the new bathroom. This evening I finished the last of it, went to close the attic trapdoor, and broke the ladder/stair thing in half. Crunch!
Folding the ladder up is--or rather was--rather tricky, requiring lifting and balancing it with a broom. It slipped and the ladder swung down at full velocity, pulling the hinges apart. Fortunately I was standing well out the way--why I was doing this with a ten-foot pole broom in the first place--so I wasn't hit by it as it fell.
But, as I said, I had just finished absolutely everything I needed to do in the attic. So, yay? (Alas, I know who's going to have to install the replacement. But it doesn't have to be immediately.)
In related news, working on a roof is surprisingly tiring.
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Got a call a few minutes ago from someone asking for "Mr. R" (where R is my last name). This always puts me on my guard, because the only Mr R who has ever lived in this house was Mr. Tantras R., who is 1) deceased, and 2) of the feline persuasion. So I asked who was calling, and was informed that the NRA wished to talk to Mr. R. Who, I suppose, could also have been my father, terminally opposed to firearms. Or, as I said, my cat who lacked opposable thumbs--in addition to the being dead thing.
Of the two Ms. Rs in the house, one had the second lowest score in her Coast Guard academy training class, narrowly beating out the guy who refused to fire the thing at all. The other is me. I'm a good shot, actually, and enjoy recreational shooting in a firing range, but this does not prevent me from thinking that we need more gun control rather than less. I will never have a gun in the house (or my car or any other property of mine). Because the NRA is almost right: Guns don't kill people; two-year-olds with guns kill people. As do drunks, bad shots, short-tempered people, clumsy people, and even older children. Not to mention people without enough physics knowledge to know that what goes up must come down.
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I ordered a book on Tuesday from Amazon, which they said wouldn't be delivered until Monday. Which was fine. It was delivered today instead, but covered--and I do mean covered--in motor oil. The FedEx driver came to the door with the box in a plastic bag and said "I think you're going to want to refuse this." Another package had leaked over a dozen or so packages and made a mess. He let me open the package before accepting or refusing it, and the oil had gotten to the cover and some interior pages, so I regretfully agreed that I was refusing it.
The thing is, Amazon will replace the book, no problem, and will probably have the replacement to me by the original Monday delivery date. And I was fine about the original delivery date. But I had the book IN MY HANDS and now I don't get to read it until Monday, and that is majorly annoying.
I should mention that the FedEx driver was really good about the whole thing (he's delivered to here before) and they're not responsible for whoever thought that shipping motor oil in a leaky package was a good idea. Nor is Amazon responsible, of course.
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Miss Tiggs is feeling much better, thank you. She's still an old cat, but she's up, drinking, and being her usual loving yet grouchy self.
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I just did my part for the economic stimulus, spending rather a lot of money at the computer store. I now have a printer that works--or I assume it will work once I unbox it--with wireless connectivity and all that jazz. It's a three-in-one, so I also have a scanner and copy machine, and I think can do faxes as well. The other thing is a cooling pad for my laptop, which was running seriously hot.
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As soon as I can get an appointment, I'm off to the doctor to point to my arm and ask "Is that skin cancer?" I'm pretty certain the answer is yes. I first noticed the spot about two weeks ago, and it shows no inclination to go away. It seems to match most of the characteristics of the non-melanoma type things, plus my mother, who had one removed a couple of years ago, says it looks a lot like hers did. So, family history and personal identification rolled into one.
Anyone know of a website of pictures for "Llama, llama, llama, not a llama, llama" for skin cancer?
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I'm seriously thinking of buying a Kindle DX when they're available again. I'm not primarily buying it to read published books, but rather things like fan fiction, technical documents, and the NY Times, things that I currently read on my laptop sitting at my desk. Because I want to be able to read in bed again, not to mention outside. (I'm getting the DX for the larger screen and the native support for PDF, which so many of the tech documents I need to read are in. Also because I have a sudden cash infusion coming and want to celebrate.)
But one thing that caught my eye was the capacity, "3500 books." I don't know about you folks, but I don't count books. I measure them in running feet for bookcases. So I read that and went "How many? Let's see, 15 books per foot...233.3 feet of shelving. 8 feet per shelf...29 shelves?! Whoa!" For comparison purposes, this house currently has 144 feet of paperbacks and 100 feet of hard-covers, for a total of approximately 3660 books.
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I hope this is just something temporary, but our seventeen-year-old cat is...not well. She seems to have aged about five years in the last week, and while I hope this is just a tummy bug that she'll get over, I'm worried. Yesterday and today I found her sleeping in the basement, where she normally only goes to use the litterbox or if Rita is doing laundry. Just now I brought her up and put her on the couch with Rita (her person) but instead she wandered off again. She seems to want to be alone, which is worrisome in a sick cat her age.
And for the first time she smells like an old cat.
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First of all, a disclaimer: This is not about the issue of warnings, which I'm not following except for random friends-list posts, but something that I've been thinking about for quite some time.1
Having said that--
One of the things that is often assumed and sometimes explicitly said is that "Fandom is a safe space," with the implication that we should be more careful than the rest of the world to protect the feelings and psychological scars of our fellow members of fandom. It's...an interesting idea. Might be nice if it were true, but in reality fandom is the least safe space I voluntarily enter.
( Read more... )
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A sign in front of a auto repair shop:
"We not only stand behind our brakes, we'll stand in front of them!"
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When your accounting system doesn't agree with itself, you have problems.
I called an automated billing system to see how much I owed, and got told...rather a larger number than I expected. So I used the same automated system to get a summary of my account. It gave me all of the charges, all of the payments received (showing my last payment not yet credited), and the total amount due. Which was about half of the larger number. Adding in my last payment, made but not yet credited, I should have showed a small positive balance, which is what I expected.
So I chose the option to talk to a real person on the matter. After being on hold for fifteen minutes and getting to know the Blue Danube Waltz rather better than I wanted, I got someone, explained my question, got transferred twice, and then talked to someone who was obviously tired, overworked, and testy.
"I used your automated system and asked for full amount due and it told me (Large Number)," I explained. "I then asked for the account summary and it gave me the charges, payments, and a balance of (Small Number)."
"The system shows you owe (Large Number)," she said in the voice of someone who's dealt with fifty people today who were certain they didn't owe that much.
"The account summary..."
"Okay--" Nearly inaudible sigh. "The charges are X, Y, and Z, which add up to (Very Large Number). We received payments of A, B, C, and D. If you subtract those--" Long pause. In a completely different tone, "You get (Small Number). Uh, can you hold please?"
More Blue Danube.
"Okay," she said when she returned. "The total charges are (Very Large Number). Total payments are (Another Very Large Number). If we subtract those we get...(Number that isn't either Large Number or Small Number). Uh..."
Eventually she gave me another number to call tomorrow.
The whole thing reminds me of an old joke where a mother asks her son if he's done his math homework and whether he checked his answers. "I checked them three times and here are the three answers I got!"
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Woke up a little too early for a Saturday morning and started barbecuing chicken for the homeless shelter. I'm sure whatever of our neighbors who were awake and smelling it were going "Who the fuck barbecues at eight o'clock in the morning?"
At some point one or the other of us looked up at the roof and realized my cat Tessa was staring down at us. How she got on the roof is anyone's guess--most likely options are small spindly tree or low-hanging porch eave, but I won't rule out teleportation or levitation. She was not at all distressed to be up there, and gave serious thought to jumping from the porch roof, which is only about seven feet high. I could almost touch her by reaching up, but all she did was bat at my fingers, thinking this a very good game.
In the process of reaching up, I noticed that the gutter needed cleaning, so decided to climb up on a bench and clean out a section, meanwhile seeing if the cat wanted to be rescued. The bench proved rather less stable than I thought, and I went whump into the dirt. The cat peered down under the eaves to see if this was a new game and if she wanted to play. I swore a little bit, but got up basically unharmed. Except for the mud puddle I landed in. *grin* But one shower and a change of clothes later, I was basically unharmed.
While I was in showering, the cat decided that it was no fun being on the roof without an audience and got down, I have no idea how.
After delivering the chicken to the homeless shelter, we loaded up the bikes onto the car and drove most of the way to Yellow Springs, parking a couple of miles out and biking in to the big street festival. Much fun was had.
Best part of the street fair was a guy who sells stone carving supplies, who had hammers, chisels, eye-protection, and a couple of pieces of alabaster for people to play with. I got to carve a groove in the stone, which proved to be reasonably easy. He gives classes and I have his business card. Like I need another hobby.
We rode back to the car, loaded Rita's bike onto it, and then she drove home while I biked. The first wildlife adventure on the way back was finding a four-foot long snake basking in the middle of the bike trail.
Another cyclist had stopped to look at it, and we decided that a close encounter of the fatal sort with a bicycle tire was not in its best interest, so we decided to remove it from the path. Not knowing its species or disposition, the key word was "cautiously." I took my bike bag, which has a long strap, and dangled it in front of the snake, eventually bopping it on the nose. It was...not grateful for this intervention, but eventually we persuaded it that the bike trail was not a peaceful place to bask, and it slithered off. From googling, my best guess is a relatively young Black Rat Snake. It could eventually reach eight feet long! Despite the name, this specimen had faint brown and black diamond markings on its sides. Rather pretty.
The second, less exciting wildlife encounter was a deer--a doe--standing in the middle of the side trail up to Beavercreek, calm and brazen as could be. She looked at me for a long moment, and after decided I wasn't worth arguing with she ambled out of the way.
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So today I went to the junkyard. Or, well, two junkyards, but one of them was "nice" with a paved parking lot, an office with a computerized inventory,and stuff like that. The other was a real junkyard--a bit of land next to a swamp wetlands, with cars dropped higgly-piggly into the mud and a dirt driveway with potholes big enough to swallow any extra cars they had handy.
Rita and I had been driving in Rita's car when the annoying tricky-to-operate broken power window switch became the impossible-to-operate switch--with the driver's side door stuck halfway down. She had previously been quoted about $100 to replace the switch, so let's just say that fixing it had not been a high priority up till now. I had a switch assembly on my side of the car, so I started poking at it to see how it came out. Turns out the whole assembly is just held in by friction, gravity, and a tight fit, so I popped it out by prying with one of my keys.
"Up for an adventure?" I asked, and off we went to the "nice" junkyard to see if they had a replacement. They told us what the damn thing was called but said they'd just sold the only one they had on hand. They directed us to a junkyard in Springfield--twenty, thirty miles away--but said they were already closed for the day. We went to the other junkyard instead, one that we knew about because the bike trail passed by its fence.
We asked one of the employees there--at least I think he was an employee, they're often difficult to distinguish from random hangers-on--but he didn't think they had an Escort with power windows. But he checked the inventory system--a guy named Bob, as I recall--who told him there was a Topaz that might work. So he headed back into the yard, and I asked if it was okay for me to go back with him. (Some junkyards worry about liability insurance, but most don't.)
He gave me a look that pretty much said "But you're a girl" but made no overt objection other than pointing out the depth of the mud puddles. And the mud puddles were deep, but I skirted the edges of them just like he did. We found the Topaz, I confirmed that it was the assembly we were looking for and popped it out of its holder with my key like I had the one in Rita's car.
I installed the new assembly in Rita's car and had her test it before we left the junkyard, because the general rule is that if you take something off a car you've bought it unless is just plain doesn't work. Even then refunds are a bitch for small bits and bobs. Large things like engines and transmissions you get a receipt for and something of a guarantee, but small parts of caveat emptor all the way--only without the Latin.
Pricing was pretty casual:
"Fifteen okay with you?"
"Sounds good to me, but it's not my car." *nod to Rita* "She's paying, I'm installing."
*turns to Rita* "Fifteen?"
"Good enough. You got change for a twenty?"
The switch assembly was $15 and the whole process took about an hour, what with visiting both junkyards. Sure beats $100 for a new switch from the dealership. Rita's comment when we drove off was "Why did we wait this long to fix it?"
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Today was the Gay Pride parade in Dayton. Biked down there, fourteen miles, biked home--almost--eleven miles. Wussed out at the start of the final three-mile uphill home and had Rita come get me. Met up with netmouse at the start of the parade, having told her to look for the church banner. Saw some good drag performances. Saw some not so good drag performances. Rode the bike home, almost, as I said before. Took a shower, went out for sushi, am going to bed now.
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If I have a single piece of advice for newly minted high school graduates--and of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this--it is get the fuck out of your home town. It is tempting to go to a local college; it's cheaper to live at home and infinitely less scary to stay in the place you know, with the people you know.
But if you don't leave now, when will you?
It’s expensive to go away to college; the economy is bad and money is tight. But money will still be tight when you graduate and get your first job with, I’m sure, a less-than-stellar starting salary. How much easier it will be when struggling with your first job and your first paycheck to do so in the comforting confines of the town you know, with the close support of your parents. Once you’re established, of course, you’re not going to want to uproot yourself, throwing away a good job here for an uncertain job hunt in a strange city, with attendant moving expenses. So you stay. And you stay.
And you stay.
All this comes to mind because I just got back from my godsister’s high school graduation. This is the same high school that my mother graduated from forty-six years ago. She left after graduation to go to a university half-way across the state. Then she moved to another state. Eventually she moved to another country. Later, a second foreign country. I think this was the first time she’d been back to the high school since she graduated.
My godsister’s grandmother was one of the twenty-seven other graduates of my mother’s class. She is still in the same town, never having moved more than ten miles from her parents’ home. One of the graduation speakers was another classmate of my mother’s, who went on to become a teacher and then principal of the same school he graduated from. Five of my six aunts and uncles, also graduates of the school, are still within the same state, four within ten miles.
Most of them complain bitterly about the town, the area, its economy, the school, and yet it has never occurred to them to leave, to see if pastures are greener in another state, if maybe people do something different there. They worry about the local economy--as well they should since the dying auto industry rules the area to the exclusion of all else--but it never occurs to them even to suggest that their children leave. Eight of my eleven cousins have never lived outside of the county.
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content
accomplished
contemplative
impressed
tired
annoyed
optimistic
calm
worried
amused