Stoneship

[link] SlickMap CSS — A Visual Sitemapping Tool for Web Developers

2009-07-09T01:20:45-07:00

Uses CSS to style unordered lists in HTML to end up with a pretty sweet visual site map. Quite nicely done.

[link] An Unofficial Q&A about the Discontinuation of the XHTML2 WG

2009-07-07T02:25:25-07:00

This should hopefully clear up some of the confusion around HTML4, XHTML1, XHTML2, HTML5 and XHTML5.

Comments on Comments on Zeldman's XHTML WTF

2009-07-03T09:00:00-07:00

Here are a few interesting comments on Jeffrey Zeldman's XHTML WTF article:

I don’t understand why this is happening. Didn’t XHTML fix all the inconsistencies in HTML? HTML5 seems to bring back a lot of those inconsistencies from what I’ve seen so far. WTF indeed.

Because XHTML 1.0 is so much more consistent than HTML 4.01! #

So what happens now? Leave tags open? Validate code to what standard? Sigh, Googling HTML 5 resources..

Because HTML 5 is not, and never will be, a standard! #

There’s a long time to debate this, IE6 doesn’t support HTML5. IE8/FF/Safari have partial support. So we’re back to that again. We can’t actually use HTML 5 yet because we want to provide a good experience accross the range of browsers our visitors have. XHTML will remain the best way to do this for many years to come.

Because Internet Explorer totally supports XHTML! #

I just scratched the surface with my xhtml reading and im in love with it. HTML 5… not so much. Haven’t we been working to move away from pages filled with crap defining colors and towards pages containing useful info and tags to define who is what? This is moving backwards. Its a bad move.

Because in HTML 5 you have to use <FONT> for colors and <TABLE> for layout! #

Also, for the sake of chronicle, whenever I tried to parse XHTML as XML through ruby I failed miserably, falling back to hpricot, which treats everything as HTML, and works very well, so maybe some looseness isn’t that bad.

Because parsing XHTML as HTML is the way to go! #

And so on, and so on, and so on. Browse through the comments and see for yourself. I seriously had no idea that the number of ignorant web developers is so huge. People need to be educated, fast.

Game Review: Braid (2008)

2009-06-02T06:00:00-07:00

Braid is a stunningly pretty platform game with a serious twist.

Scratch that—Braid looks like a platform game, but it's not. Sure, the references to Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong are immediately apparent, but Braid is a whole different genre. Describing it as a puzzle game would be much more appropriate.

Tim, the protagonist in Braid, has the power to rewind time. Therefore, if Tim falls into a pit filled with spikes and dies, he can simply rewind time and avoid permanent death. Nothing too special… until he stumbles on items and enemies that are immune to rewinding time. And that's just the beginning…

Every puzzle in Braid is unique. Sometimes it'll take hours to find the solution—but the game never gets frustratingly hard. All puzzles, no matter how clever, still make sense and in the end you always get this warm feeling of accomplishment. Even if you can't solve a puzzle, you can always skip it and come back later.

Braid is not just good for its puzzles, though. The artwork is amazingly pretty—I don't know of any games with such high-quality 2D graphics. This, along with its haunting soundtrack, makes Braid into one of the highest-quality indie games out there.

The storyline doesn't disappoint either. A casual gamer likely won't pay much attention and see it as a simple "boy rescues princess"-story, but there's more to it. Throughout the game, Tim finds various books which each give fragments of a story that is much deeper than it would appear at first sight.

In short, Braid is a game that excels in every aspect. While not everyone will enjoy it as much as I did, anyone who enjoys puzzle games should definitely grab a copy and play.

Rating: ★★★★★

adsf

2009-05-29T02:00:00-07:00

I've grown terribly tired of using heel; it has grown bloated and now it's impossible to run it due to incompatibilities with recent libraries…

So I've written a replacement called adsf - A Dead Simple Fileserver. It works mostly like heel, but does not have that (sometimes annoying) browser-launching feature, (never really useful) directory listing support, and (always frustrating) syntax highlighting.

You can install adsf using RubyGems, like this:

> sudo gem install adsf

And using it is simple, too:

> adsf # launches with . as web root at port 3000
> adsf -r output # launches with ./output as web root
> adsf -H thin # launches with the Thin handler
> adsf -p 8080 # launches at port 8080 instead of 3000

It goes without saying that it is perfect in combination with nanoc. Enjoy!

[link] Mistabishi - Printer Jam

2009-05-08T14:30:10-07:00

Now I'm never going to be able to print documents without being reminded of this video again.

[link] Pony

2009-03-11T04:09:10-07:00

Ahh, finally a good Ruby e-mail sending library.

[link] Prettify*

2009-01-22T13:25:54-08:00

Very nice ever-growing collection of icons and desktop backgrounds.

Movie Review: Blue Velvet (1986)

2008-12-22T11:30:00-08:00

David Lynch's Blue Velvet has been slowly climbing up to be one of my all-time favourite movies. Its simple story and stunning imagery will keep on the edge of your seat.

Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is a young man living in an idyllic little town. One day, after discovering a severed human ear in a field, Jeffrey invokes the police, but they remain idle. He decides to investigate the case on his own, with the help of detective William's daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), only to be thrown into a dark underworld beneath their small village.

Blue Velvet's story is, in essence, quite straightforward. There are no supernatural demons, no dream worlds, and time linearly flows forward. The real beauty of this film is the strong imagery: colorful roses against an immaculate white fence, darkly lit corridors, unsettlingly tidy apartment rooms.

The actors' performances are all simply great. For example, MacLachlan's character is convincingly innocent—or maybe exactly the opposite. However, every single character is blown out of the water by Dennis Hopper, who plays a disturbingly psychotic and evil character—probably Hopper's all-time best role.

Blue Velvet contains quite a bit of music. Most noticeable is Bobby Vinton's song after which the film is named, but there is also Roy Orbison's In Dreams, used in a scene that won't get out of your head once you've seen it.

It is striking that some scenes have no music at all, leaving them open to interpretation. In scenes with music, the score, composed by Angelo Badalamenti, greatly contributes to the film's atmosphere. In other words, music is used carefully but effectively.

Blue Velvet is probably Lynch's masterpiece. This film will slowly drag you down, and won't release its grip until long after you've finished watching this movie. A must-see for everyone who likes psychological thrillers.

Rating: ★★★★★

[link] Planet Venus

2008-12-16T06:27:57-08:00

A good alternative to the Planet feed reader. Faster and less memory-hungry.