Seven reasons why stretchy web site layouts are dead (in the manner of a del.icio.us post):
1. Although designed for the increasing plethora of screen sizes, few people open their browser fullscreen on a massive display, so you don't need to design for that variety.
2. Most stretchy design templates behave in unpredictable ways for some content, making them look ugly.
3. Most stretchy designs allow for text that is unreadably long.
4. They are a way to show off technology (CSS) rather than make things ergonomic.
5. If something is right with a certain layout - stick to your convictions and make that option the default, thats what Apple do.
6. Imagine flexible layouts in famous paintings. Would Da Vinci have used fuzzy felts?
7. The Etsy guys recommend not to use them.
Oh My God, Please Stop This Fucking War
Ty and Renee Ziegel's Wedding
Ty and Renee before Ty's accident. via Kottke
There are currently 34,000 news articles in Google News warning of Global Warming, but Matt Drudge has found the one that doesn't.
"Climatologist Calls Global Warming Fears 'Greatest Deception in the History of Science'..."
That's all fair enough, except that the article doesn't seem to warrant the front page of one of the most widely read news sources in the US. It is written by Tim Ball, a former Geography professor who works for an anti-global warming consultancy that refuses to deny that it is funded by energy companies.
I have no problem with people denying Global Warming - I don't believe in censorship and think that freedom of speech gives a greater chance of the truth. However, Tim Ball does believe in censorship, or he would reveal the source of his backers.
My main problem, however, is Drudge, who through ultra selective reporting also believes in censorship. Reporters in the US have to be very professional and fact check almost everything they write. Aggregators like Drudge don't have such restrictions, if Drudge were a real journalist, he would be out of a job.
The Boston Tee-Hee Party
The Mooninite bombscare gets more and more surreal by the minute. It's rather like someone had decided that traffic lights look like bombs, in the manner that one of Oliver Sacks patients famously mistook his wife for a hat, but because bombs are more serious than hats we have to take it all seriously.
Yes all bomb scares have to be taken seriously, but everything does not seriously constitute a bomb scare, or we would have no resourses to deal with bomb scares. Mad people are always warning about bombs and the end of the world and imaginary demons, part of the role of authorities is to filter out mad people that think everything is suspicious.
Things that do not constitute suspicious devices, include traffic lights, lamp posts, blinking movie signs and the same blinking street art that has been in NYC for more than a month before someone in the Boston mistook his wife for a hat.
Equally weird is the way the 'must treat anything that has invoked the word terrorism seriously, however spuriously' meme spreads into other aspects of the story, such as the po-facedness of the reaction to the bird flip, which is blurred out on TV coverage, lest it offend the people who couldn't be exposed to Elvis' pelvic wiggle.
To illustrate this stupidity, I've created a side by side comparison of the Mooninite figure as compared to a religious icon holding up a cross. If anything the Mooninite is a much more convincing cross bearer than bird flipper. I doubt we would censor the cross, even although it ironically represents a genuine instrument of Roman terrorism, rather than a naughty gesture.
