December 11th, 2006

Monday Blogwad

What’s a blogwad? Sounds like something you get during cold season! It’s not, it’s just kind of a literary brain dump of things I’d love to write about in more detail but can’t right now.

  • I know the site sidebar is borken in Internet Explorer on Windows. There's reasons for this (IE bugs!) and my workarounds aren't working around. Stuff like this drives me crazy! Tracking down CSS bugs is one reason I hate web development, it's insane. Works great in every other browser... use FireFox, people! =)
  • The Sony Bravia "Balls" ad - such a beautiful sight - has inspired some great spoof videos. See: Battlefield Balls, Tango.
  • Rant: I hate MySpace, in so many ways. Yes, I know you don't exist if you're in middle/high school unless you're Spacin', but I have to say it's just awful. It's an ugly, crude, mean-spirited place. I can't belive we let our youth hang out there. I want to think on this more, and articulate what it is I don't like about it.
  • I've been thinking about the 'Duties of Men' as it relates to raising boys. The whole James Kim episode has been discussed a lot in our house and got me to thinking about what our responsibilities as men are; one of those, I think, is to "Be Prepared" - for survival, for protection, for leadership. Kim's epic journey was very brave and it's given me a lot to think about.
  • I keep hearing, from various soldiers and supporters, the phrase: "You cannot support the soldiers without supporting their mission". I want to think about that phrase, both from the point of logic (is this statement logically true?) and from the point of American politics. Questions arise: isn't our Army under civilian leadership? Aren't we an all-volunteer army? Isn't the army a tool of policy, set by our leadership, who is in turn elected by us? This seems like some circular questions, but I want to get to the heart of it. What if we don't agree with our foreign policy, but love our troops (or are our troops or families)? Disclaimer: I'm an AF brat; my family has a long military history and I'm proud of it.

Posted in Life

Responses

While I’ve been unable to bear its auto-play audio and eye-gouging page layouts long enough to observe its mean-spiritedness, I fully agree: myspace is TEH LAME!!1!

On December 11th, 2006 at 10:47 pm, Lindsey said:

Myspace has given me a vehicle to reconnect with some folks I’d lost touch with. But keep ranting, perhaps you can affect a change.

On December 12th, 2006 at 09:52 am, Jason said:

Re: MySpace: I mean, I get that it’s all about the network. It’s just such an awful-looking and crude place; I can’t believe kids spend so much time there. t3h 1am0rZ!

I feel like such an old curmudgeon, but I just see it as a bad neighborhood where there are no rules.

Allan On December 12th, 2006 at 10:00 am, Allan said:

@J: yeah, it’s not networking and reconnecting that’s bad - that’s what’s great about the web! It’s the vessel for that that bugs me.

I think what’s also bugging me is the perceived behavior that goes on there. I’m worried about my kids being bullied online - or worse, being bullies themselves. I also don’t want them to be isolated dorks who are kept from relating to their friends.

Allan On December 12th, 2006 at 10:03 am, Allan said:

Hm. I have a myspace. I do understand what you are saying about it. I am on a lot, mostly at night, but I dont sit on it all the time. I would rather physically hang out with friends.
And I have mine set to private, so I cant be bullied...which is good. I dont know if a lot of people know about that option...but its a great one. I keep up with a lot of PUMPers that way.

Totally understand what you are saying, though and Im looking forward to the post where you explain it more.

On December 16th, 2006 at 09:15 pm, sarah said:

Sarah’s MySpace page was the first thing Kristi looked at when we were considering her for a PUMP Summer Program internship (needless to say, she got the gig). In fact, reviewing an applicant’s MySpace or FaceBook pages (and content) is policy now for new intern applications.

One can learn a lot about a person from what they write, how they write & think, and who they hang with online.

I’ll keep thinking about it - good points, Sarah (you’re always 133t r0x0rz to us! =). Part of it, as a web developer, I simply find the wild-willy-nilly ness of people’s messy, slow-loading, ugly pages offensive to my design sensibilities. Which, of course, is why many users love it.

I know I’m an old curmudgeon here. It’s probably a generational thing.

Allan On December 17th, 2006 at 12:20 am, Allan said:

Um, what is 133t r0x0rz????
LOL
P.S. I didnt even know my myspace got looked at before last summer. lol. fun times.

On December 17th, 2006 at 10:31 pm, sarah said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1337_speak

Allan On December 18th, 2006 at 09:01 am, Allan said:

The sidebar seems to work ok in Internet Explorer 7, tested at the in-laws house. I can’t tell if my tweaks to it have fixed it for other versions, or if it’s a bug that IE7 has fixed.

The fact that my father-in-law is now running IE7 gives me hope that people will be upgrading to it soon.

Allan On January 2nd, 2007 at 08:27 pm, Allan said:

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