January 29, 2003
Crook chook

HTML's time is over: Ultimately, I don't see a long term future for HTML as an application development solution. It is a misapplied tool that was never meant to be used for anything other than distributed publishing.

I don't remember much of yesterday. After a night haunted by fever, I woke up around 10, and managed to haul myself to the doctor by 11:30. I don't understand why they have to make you wait for doctors when you are obviously on the brink of collapse.

The doctor asked the usual kind of questions, stuck a thermometer under my tongue, and said, "38.5 degrees. Oh, you have a fever right now."

Why did he sound so surprised? Didn't I look half-concious or at least half-drugged? Or maybe I looked in need of drugs, because he prescribed me antibiotics which appeared to be worth more than $7 each.

Bronchitis. To be followed by a few days in Toronto. Be back soon. Be good and stay crazy. Lovey'all.

Posted by sniffles at 11:07 PM | Comments (4)

January 27, 2003
Slurp

Karl tossed me the link to this article published by CBS New York which began with the following paragraph:

Drive to Paris? Montreal is called "The Paris of the Americas". Highways 87 from Albany or 91 from Boston will take you to this very sophisticated, very French city.

I am not sure what the basis of this is - the article loosely talks about festivals (of which Montreal has many), food, shopping and nightlife, skimping on any kind of detail. It made me wonder if the writer truly has been to Paris, Montreal, or god-forbid - both? Or maybe whoever cared to write "very French city" were simply overwhelmed by signage and conversations in French? (Incidentally, there are some English advertising in Paris, whereas there is next- to-none in Montreal unless a French version exists alongside.)

Funnily enough, if you google for "Paris of the Americas", you get references to New Orleans and Buenos Aires. It seems to make little sense to compare cities in such a manner - where's the "London of North America", or "Rio de Janeiro of Asia"? In any case, the writing does justice to neither Paris nor Montreal, both beautiful and very different cities with personalities of their own.

Posted by sniffles at 02:40 PM | Comments (7)

January 25, 2003
What happened

MS SQL Server Worm Wreaking Havoc (thanks, Romain).

Posted by sniffles at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

Electric heaven

We serve a post-midnight snack of antipasto: Hard-boiled wonderland.

Posted by sniffles at 02:00 AM | Comments (1)

January 24, 2003
Web Accessibility Myths

Via a mailing-list, I noticed that another compilation of accessibility myths is in the works so I was wondering how many such articles are already in existence. So, here is a list just from scouting around Google, please drop me a line if you know of others, and I'll keep this list up to date:

• Common Myths About Web Accessibility - AWARE Center (Kynn Bartlett), also published here, here and here
• Accessibility Myths (Liam Quinn)
• Myths of Accessibility (Andrew Pearce)
• Why Bother? (Accessibility Myths) (Joe Clark)
• Myths of Web Accessibility (Martin Webster) incorporates Mark Pilgrim's words on the same topic.
• Accessible Design - Myths Exploded (Digital Media Access Group)
• Common Myths About Web Accessibility (Ron Jones)
• Debunking myths about web access
• The myths of Section 508 accessibility (Beth Archibald Tang)
• Myths about Web Accessibility (Paul Nozicka) [PDF]- combination of existing myths
• Common Accessibility Myths (Stanley & Milford for Multimedia Victoria)
• Online Learning Accessibility - Facts and Myths (Leonard R. Kasday) - in frames?!
• Access and Accessibility (Jamal Le Blanc & Rachel Anderson)
• Debunking Myths from Understanding Web Accessibility (Shawn Lawton Henry)

One would note that there are some overlaps between myths. I've tried to cover those which are different in content and explanations, and left out "rehashes" which I have come across.

On a related note, Andrew Arch gave a paper titled Dispelling Myths - Accessibility is for All at AusWeb 2002, which discusses the WCAG 1.0 in the context of Web usability.

Posted by sniffles at 06:59 PM | Comments (2)

January 22, 2003
Beauty and brains

Martine posted today about the face of a geek girl used in the promotion of the upcoming LinuxWorld Conference which has also been used by Microsoft since February last year.

What I wanted to know is - what's the deal with geek girls having glasses, no make-up and straight hair? A bit stereotypical, innit? I mean, I know the idea of with being "geeky" is that you're not supposed to be overtly fussed about your appearance, but perhaps we get a little too carried away with the idea?

This conversation happened to me today:
me: why am i not a geek?
dude: cause your sexy
me: hey, geeks can be sexy.
(a little later ...)
me: what are you currently reading?
dude: I dont think you will understand what I am reading, its technical
me: really? tell me what it is.
dude: its a Installation procedure for a CDMA network
me: *baits* is it a complex process to put in a CDMA network?
dude: yes
me: *swinging the fishhook* more complex than ?
dude: its very complicated
me: *really swinging it* supposing it would be completely beyond my understanding?
dude: its very complicated

Geeks can't be sexy? If I am beautiful, then I can't have a brain?

Posted by sniffles at 10:26 PM | Comments (6)

January 21, 2003
Dear Miss Maiden

We just served fresh antipasto: Dear Benjamin.

Posted by sniffles at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)

Barbeque prawn, not shrimp

Fellow Aussies, I'd been trying to look for that ad that'd been on TV - you know the one which goes "I believe that it's a prawn, not a shrimp!" and so forth ... and I have only vague recollections about what the ad was for (guess the patriotic marketing didn't work on me) - it was a beer thing, right?

Anyway, in my search for "prawn, not shrimp" (or approximately that), I found an open letter to the USA by Christine Kenneally on behalf of all Australians, buried in a collection of letters to Timonthy McSweeney's Unreserved Embrace (do a find on 'Open Letter' and you'll get straight there) regarding the Outback Steakhouse advertising, in a vain effort to clarify some of the stereotypes:

--Yes, it is a barbie. No, they are not shrimp. We call the big ones prawns. Shrimps are small, hardly worth the chewing. We barbeque our prawns on television more often than anywhere else. We generally prefer snags (sausages) with tomato sauce (ketchup) and white bread (white bread).

This appears to be a transcript of the ad with additional wisecracks (and also a mention of the Canadian version).

(All this because someone stooped to temptation and threw the "barbeque shrimp" quip at me :P)

*Later ...
I noticed there's a reply to the above 'open letter' by a disgruntled American (look for 'Feed the World' under the same link), and sayeth he:

... Obviously, Ms. Kenneally fears that if we absorb these cultural commodities into our nation, her exclusive Australian identity will cease to be so...exclusive. Well, I got news for you, toots: Just 'cause you live there doesn't mean you're the only one who knows what a Down-under Dinnie is all about. We Americans are ready, and tough enough for your rugged Outback lifestyle. Oh Sure, the Outback Steakhouse isn't the "real" Australia. But you're actually trying to tell me that Australians don't "put another shrimp on the barbie, mate"? Come on! I saw that on TV, like, ten years ago! Next you'll be telling me that Foster's isn't "Australian for beeeah, mate,"; or that Australians don't drive Subaru Outbacks like Crocodile Dundee does. Look, get over yourself. If I want to walkabout to the Out' 'house for some Kanga-stew that's my damn business. Keep your elitist, separatist agenda "out back" where it belongs. "Back out," as it were. We Americans have given the world our McDonald's; isn't it time for you to open the doors to the Outback Steakhouse you've been treasuring - hording - so long?

Ahh, children. No, that wasn't me sneering.

Posted by sniffles at 11:21 PM | Comments (3)

Hear the jangle

A few things which have caught my attention the past couple of days, which for one reason or another, I didn't get around to blogging:

The United States of America has gone mad. (Ta to the one whose star-sign is cow ascending camembert.)

This breathing cat is for you if you'd been considering about a purring pet but aren't sure about putting up with the fluff ... (*muah* dunstan baby.)

Posted by sniffles at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2003
Iced water

Occasionally, I find it difficult to speak. The world can be distilled into logical maps or causality clauses and occasionally, I find contradictory models simultaneously in my head. It is then difficult to express because clear, sensible speech allows one mode of logic at a time - trying to incorporate the whole into a single expression seems a futile exercise - with each word that drops out of my mouth, I exclude an idea.

It thus suits well that I am having a sore throat, perhaps the overture to a flu, a persistent reminder that I am human and that I exist.

Posted by sniffles at 11:49 PM | Comments (7)

January 16, 2003
No snow on the handrail

"I hear you are a writer," said Makimura.

"Not a real writer," I said. "I produce fill on demand. Negligible stuff, based on how many words they need. Somebody's got to do it, and I figure it might as well be me. I'll spare you my spiel about shoveling snow.

--- Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami

The sun is pretty but I feel as if I have had no sleep.

Posted by sniffles at 09:46 AM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2003
Pas de deux

"Don't you like your work?"

"Nah. What's to enjoy? It's all pretty meaningless. I find a good restaurant. I write it up for a magazine. Go here, try this. Why bother? Why shouldn't people just go where they feel like and order what they want? Why do they need someone to tell them? What's a menu for? And then, after I write the place up, the place gets famous and the cooking and the service go to hell. It always happens. Supply and demand gets all screwed up. And it was me who screwed it up. I do it one by one, nice and neat. I find what's pure and clean and see that it gets all mucked up. But that's what people call information. And when you dredge up every bit of dirt from every corner of the living environment, that's what you call enhanced information. It kind of gets to you, but that's what I do."

She eyed me from across the table, as if she were looking at some rare species in the zoo.

--- Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami

Posted by sniffles at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

Spotlight

Ian Hickson puts XHTML2 into perspective with a very good summary of highlights, features and myths.

Posted by sniffles at 11:34 AM | Comments (1)

January 13, 2003
Fade out

The snow piles on the handrail. Night lets its curtains fall and soon begins the long dark tea-time of the soul ...

Outside the window the blue sky turns a little towards orange, perhaps a little more towards dusk. I never remember words spoken - they slip past, leaving mere shadows in their wake, but I remember their essence. I remember the light and the voice and the smile behind the eyes. The waitress was lovely and so was the woman with red hair like fire, seated a few tables behind us. She could have been an 18th-century muse who had just walked out of a painting half an hour ago.

Who are you, or what are you? And what do you want? The world which filters in through these five senses or six, divided into four elements or five. Who am I, what am I, and what do I want? I promise to accept you for who you are, and I would like that you accept me for who I am. There is no need to tell me who I am but I would like that you question me for who I am, just as I will question you for who you are. I would rather that you have arrived with me than blindly followed my steps.

The coffee tastes like coloured water. My tastebuds have been spoiled by good French allongé. The cake was too sweet and not bitter enough. The jazz was good jazz.

We sit and form opinions in the froth of hot milk, of what the world is and what our worlds are whilst elsewhere wars are brewing and being fought - worlds are being fought. We, like thousands of others before us, and thousands that will come after us, unless it all ends tomorrow. I want to be happy when it ends tomorrow. Every day ends with a little death.

The snow piles on the handrail - a little more, a little less than yesterday. Cold-flushed cheeks and kiss-orphaned lips. Night lets its curtains fall.

Posted by sniffles at 10:28 PM | Comments (1)

January 12, 2003
Spaced out

cadet

\Ca*det"\, n. 1. In New Zealand, a young gentleman learning sheep farming at a station; also, any young man attached to a sheep station.

2. A young man who makes a business of ruining girls to put them in brothels. [Slang, U. S.]

Posted by sniffles at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2003
Electrical storm

The joy of more sex:

There is no instinctual force which keeps couples together for a lifetime; "till death us do part" is more often than not a hope beyond hope, a tradition which from an evolutionary perspective has little relevance to the realities of human relationships. It seems that while we're socially monogamous, the truth is, by nature, we're sexually polygynous.

English-learning craze in Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Olympics.

Posted by sniffles at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

Blink

Martine wants to know where you are blogging from. (This is me!)

Groggy-headed. Listening to Vincent Delerm. Writing sporadically. Eating tomatoes.

Posted by sniffles at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)

How many Stephs does it take ...

I needed to buy a lightbulb - the one in the bedroom had blown just before I'd left for Europe and I'd conveniently forgotten about it until it got dark.

I was skipping down the stairs into the subway as the doors on the train were beeping closed, but suddenly they stopped dead with a clunk, and opened again. I hurried on in and the doors shut just behind me, breathless in a kind of disbelief - I haven't had a train driver stop a train for me before.

As I got out of the carriage onto the platform, I turned around and tried to say thanks, but I couldn't quite see the driver hidden in his narrow compartment. He must have seen me looking for him because he then leaned out of his tiny window, and gave me a smile and a wave.

Montreal, where the train drivers are kind.

When I got to the shop, looking at all manner of bulby glass things and marvelling at all these clever devices that mankind has invented, I realised that there wasn't any point in buying one because I didn't know which screw type the lightbulb in question ought to have. And for the moment, I can't reach the light fitting even if I stood on a chair ... Hm.

Posted by sniffles at 05:13 PM | Comments (1)

January 08, 2003
Link drop

Usability Testing: Myths, Misconceptions and Misuses (from DURN).

Posted by sniffles at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 07, 2003
Hello. Goodbye.

These few days I have a cotton wool brain, unlike Bill's Giant Brain. A phenomenon otherwise known as jetlag. Mmm.

It's interesting to note, that if you are thinking of applying for migration into Australia, under the family migration category there is a visa for interdependent relationships, which has this clarification: Interdependent relationships include, but are not restricted to, same sex couples.

I wasn't aware of this before - I like it.

There was a queue at the post office stretching from the sign on a pole which said "Please wait here" right up to the door. I stood, numb-brained, struggling with two bags of shopping and read over the shelf of greeting cards on display.

To My Dearest Father. From the Both of Us. To the Two of You. Happy New Year, My Love. From all of us! My Darling Wife ... My Dearest Love. To our Son. Our Deepest Sympathy. It's a Boy!

And then I looked at the coloured category tags.

Father. Husband. Son. Mother. Wife. Daughter. Sister. Brother. Grandmother. Grandfather. Happy Birthday. Love. Friend. Farewell. Sympathy. Congratulations. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Hello.

So I wonder - since when did expressions of our feelings for people we love and like become categorised and labelled like this? It is awfully plastic, with bad poetry embossed in gold or silver with cursive fonts and manufactured images.

It occurred to me that I have not bought a card like these for years - at some point I'd always bought blanks if I didn't have the time to make a card. It seems unnatural to me that someone else has the right words to say to my sister, my aunt or my friends when they don't even know who the people I love are.

So often, we place labels on relationships - he's not my husband and he's not my boyfriend but he's my lover, he's my husband and she's my lover, they are gay, she's a lesbian. She's my mother - and immediately upon hearing that we think of all these things relating to mothers which may or may not be in fact applicable to my mother. I am a wife, and therefore there are a set of expectations tagged to the label I have been given.

I've just never found it personally beneficial having my relationships with others clearly defined - it seems to serve very little true purpose.

Posted by sniffles at 11:36 AM | Comments (5)

January 05, 2003
Flight

Montreal, Canada.

Slipping through early evening silenced by snow, the taxi driver cheerfully tells me he was from Santiago and that he much prefers the cold. He works around twelve to fourteen hours every day.

"Except days like today," he says. "With the snow, it gets too difficult."

He seems a happy and contented man.

Back in Montreal, and the cold seeps through the pores in your coat and caresses your skin. The air is tender, butterfly breaths of steam emerge in front of flushed faces. I feel I ought to be able to breathe again - this city carries a kind of lightness that London doesn't have. This city which neither stifles you nor tries to swallow you in its shadows, this place which does not close you in and shrivel your spirit with its burdens. But I am not yet able to breathe - the muscles around my chest remain habitually tight, eventhough this habit itself is only very new.

The wing of the plane had a bleeping light. It was difficult to tell whether it was yellow or green. Perhaps it was something in between, but everytime it gave a flash, horizontal streaks of snow appeared for a split second, then they would vanish for a time until the light bleeped on again. At forty thousand feet, I read the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Flight to Arras (Pilote de guerre) as he flew at thirty-three thousand feet on a reconnaissance mission that was doomed to fail, and pondered about war:

Looking down on the blackened highways that I can see already, I understand what peace is. In time of peace all is safely gathered within itself. The villagers return at nightfall to their village homes. The grain is secure in its barns, the linen folded away in its cupboards. In time of peace everything has its place, and its place is known. We know where to find each friend, and where we will lay our head to sleep. But peace dies when the structure crumbles, when our place in the world is gone, when the loved one is out of reach, when the husband has not come home from the sea.

Peace is in our recognition of a face seen through the surface of things, when things are in their place and have their meaning. When they are part of a greater whole, as the diverse elements in the earth are gathered to form the tree.

But this is war.

I recognise buildings, the shape of houses and living places. The invitation of slender staircases to their front doors, the tease of balconies, a sight which I have missed. In places where houses have flat walls with only rectangular allowances for windows, one gets the feeling that their inhabitants close themselves in against the world as soon as they are able escape inside.

"My favourite street," I speak under my breath. Which means we are not too far from home.

Posted by sniffles at 10:14 PM | Comments (1)