Author: jae

jae lethe (he/she/they) is a blogger, musician, artist, poet, web developer/designer, armchair philosophizer, teller of tales, and gadabout. Also, something he calls a "behavioral artist." (Not sure.) She has plans. BIG plans.

Among the things that he has done for a laugh are minor fractures, cuts, scrapes, and various scabs. Though she's quick to point out that they're no imbecile, we're fairly certain that he thinks the word means some kind of medieval pharmacist.

This is her latest home on teh internets - where jae stores their swear words, when they're not hurling them at the sun in vain.

Categories
web design

Coming up, a redesign

I’m gearing up for a redesign. Sometimes too many bells and whistles is a bad, bad thing. I’m going simple and clean next.

I expect to base it off of the current theme, just because i already hacked it up for the style switcher. This time, no extraneous code. This time, things will be clean. My plan is to AJAXify the sidebars so all the other crap is still there, just not there all the time. Go figure – JavaScript wound up becoming useful for something after all!

Suggestions welcome, as always.web

Categories
uncategorized

Coming up, a redesign

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m gearing up for a redesign. Sometimes too many bells and whistles is a bad, bad thing. I’m going simple and clean next.

I expect to base it off of the current theme, just because i already hacked it up for the style switcher. This time, no extraneous code. This time, things will be clean. My plan is to AJAXify the sidebars so all the other crap is still there, just not there all the time. Go figure – JavaScript wound up becoming useful for something after all!

Suggestions welcome, as always.web

Categories
current events uncategorized

The Daily Show on Republican hypocrisy

Categories
uncategorized

The Daily Show on Republican hypocrisy

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

Categories
creative web design

Fun & stupid things to do with PHP and CSS

Over on the recently-relaunched Technothrope: A better PHP random background-color generator.

Also in the garage: the latest version of the random bg generator, plus a weird little experiment with fixed backgrounds that i was considering using for something before i decided it was too noisy.

Coming up at some point: something Holly called me the other day has inspired me to make my next project, the Argument Machine.

Categories
uncategorized

Fun & stupid things to do with PHP and CSS

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

Over on the recently-relaunched Technothrope: A better PHP random background-color generator.

Also in the garage: the latest version of the random bg generator, plus a weird little experiment with fixed backgrounds that i was considering using for something before i decided it was too noisy.

Coming up at some point: something Holly called me the other day has inspired me to make my next project, the Argument Machine.

Categories
internets uncategorized web design

Google Chrome obeys alternate CSS

NOTE: this post is ancient, but still gets a good bit of traffic, so i need to let readers know:

This issue was fixed long ago.

So Google Chrome is out. That’s great! It’s really a cool, fast, secure browser.

Unfortunately, it appears to break sites in one very important way: it obeys alternate stylesheets, just as if they were normal, active stylesheets. This breaks sites who print their alternate CSS links after active ones (like mine – for now).

I’ve sent this in as a bug to Google, and i’d recommend that others do the same (select “report bug or broken website” from the page icon to the upper right).

At the moment, the only thing to do is to list alternate stylesheets before active ones, or exclude alternate links altogether.

However, there are (naturally!) problems with each method…

Listing alternate CSS (which would still be obeyed) could still cause style conflicts, if there are any rules which are not contradicted (read: overwritten) by later stylesheets below the alternate ones.

On the other hand, not listing alternate stylesheets disables additional functionality in user agents such as Opera, which allows users to select from a menu what style they’d prefer to view a site in – which is arguably the best, most accessible method of switching stylesheets (if you’re using one of those user agents, that is).

For my money, i believe the former is the best option. This means i may have to do some code “cleaning,” which i should have done anyway. In fact, rather than removing extraneous CSS rules, i’ll be adding rules which do not exist in, say, X.css to Y.css, in order to counteract any style collisions by overwriting them with alternate rules.

Btw, for those who need it, here’s the User Agent string i captured:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13

[UPDATE] Matt Wilcox helpfully pointed out that this isn’t exactly a Chrome bug, but a leftover Safari one which has apparently been around for years, according to a decently shrewd Google search. Lesson: test in Safari, even if you think it’s a Practically Perfect Browser.

I have fixed it locally but am waiting for at least a few more hours in order to use this site as an example. Hey, it beats making a quick mock-up. Sort of. (My teachers always thought i was most useful as an example to warn others – well, i do what i can!)

And a big thanks to the great Jeffrey Zeldman for helping get the word out to designers about this. Of course, 99% of people making web sites won’t be affected, but for those of us using alternate styling, it’s a nasty thing to have happen.

[UPDATE 2] To clarify, Safari and Chrome both use the Webkit rendering engine, as well as parts of the Mozilla FIrefox codebase. Not to point fingers or anything. I’m just sayin’ is all.

[UPDATE 3] I couldn’t take it anymore. I fixed things here so there shouldn’t be any issues. I use a browser sniffer to detect the user agent and deliver either modern CSS or a crappy facsimile thereof for older, less standards-compliant user agents. As long as i keep up to date, no problem… of course, the drawback is obvious. I must keep up to date. Anyway, i’ve completely eliminated the alternate styles for both Chrome & Safari, at least until this bug is fixed in the Webkit renderer. In the meantime, i’ll put together a tester page and link it here.

Categories
uncategorized

Google Chrome obeys alternate CSS

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

So Google Chrome is out. That’s great! It’s really a cool, fast, secure browser.

Unfortunately, it appears to break sites in one very important way: it obeys alternate stylesheets, just as if they were normal, active stylesheets. This breaks sites who print their alternate CSS links after active ones (like mine – for now).

I’ve sent this in as a bug to Google, and i’d recommend that others do the same (select “report bug or broken website” from the page icon to the upper right).

At the moment, the only thing to do is to list alternate stylesheets before active ones, or exclude alternate links altogether.

However, there are (naturally!) problems with each method…

Listing alternate CSS (which would still be obeyed) could still cause style conflicts, if there are any rules which are not contradicted (read: overwritten) by later stylesheets below the alternate ones.

On the other hand, not listing alternate stylesheets disables additional functionality in user agents such as Opera, which allows users to select from a menu what style they’d prefer to view a site in – which is arguably the best, most accessible method of switching stylesheets (if you’re using one of those user agents, that is).

For my money, i believe the former is the best option. This means i may have to do some code “cleaning,” which i should have done anyway. In fact, rather than removing extraneous CSS rules, i’ll be adding rules which do not exist in, say, X.css to Y.css, in order to counteract any style collisions by overwriting them with alternate rules.

Btw, for those who need it, here’s the User Agent string i captured:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13

[UPDATE] Matt Wilcox helpfully pointed out that this isn’t exactly a Chrome bug, but a leftover Safari one which has apparently been around for years, according to a decently shrewd Google search. Lesson: test in Safari, even if you think it’s a Practically Perfect Browser.

I have fixed it locally but am waiting for at least a few more hours in order to use this site as an example. Hey, it beats making a quick mock-up. Sort of. (My teachers always thought i was most useful as an example to warn others – well, i do what i can!)

And a big thanks to the great Jeffrey Zeldman for helping get the word out to designers about this. Of course, 99% of people making web sites won’t be affected, but for those of us using alternate styling, it’s a nasty thing to have happen.

[UPDATE 2] To clarify, Safari and Chrome both use the Webkit rendering engine, as well as parts of the Mozilla FIrefox codebase. Not to point fingers or anything. I’m just sayin’ is all.

[UPDATE 3] I couldn’t take it anymore. I fixed things here so there shouldn’t be any issues. I use a browser sniffer to detect the user agent and deliver either modern CSS or a crappy facsimile thereof for older, less standards-compliant user agents. As long as i keep up to date, no problem… of course, the drawback is obvious. I must keep up to date. Anyway, i’ve completely eliminated the alternate styles for both Chrome & Safari, at least until this bug is fixed in the Webkit renderer. In the meantime, i’ll put together a tester page and link it here.

Categories
current events life local memories work

Open letter to Dayton defenders

Homeless.
Homeless.

Here is the text of an e-mail i never sent to the editors of the Dayton Daily News and some other locals. For whatever reason, it was abandoned. This was concerning a recent Forbes article asserting Dayton, among several other Ohio cities, was among the top ten fastest dying cities in America. Our local media, far from investigating the underlying reasons why we should be so included, instead insisted on defending our [un]fair city, claiming that Dayton wasn’t really dying – just changing.

You know what else is a change? Death.

(Note: this is not very well written and equally badly edited. As i’ve said, it never got beyond an early stage.)

Continue reading “Open letter to Dayton defenders”
Categories
current events local uncategorized

John McCain announces VP in Dayton

John McCain wants to eat you.
John McCain wants to eat you.

So today at the Wright State University‘s Nutter Center, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain announced his running mate. This, in Dayton, Ohio, the worst, dyingest city on the face of the earth.

His running mate? Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The one who hates women, the environment, and gay rights (but loves guns and death)? Yes, that one.

So, to recap: he’s chosen Dayton, Ohio – the new Flint, Michigan – to announce his female running mate.

Well played, sir. Well played. The worst thing is that he’s actually got me a little shaken, and i’d bet a lot of other Democrats are similarly rattled. Never mind that we’ll get over it by the end of the weekend and continue to fight, harder than ever, against this debased, America world-hating pair of depraved sickos.

Look, the facts are in. McCain not only admitted on national television that he doesn’t understand economics, but he doesn’t even know how to count (for the record, Mr. McCain, we lost count of your houses too). He believes that you’re still “middle class” until you’ve hit five million dollars. He’s missed many votes while a Senator during his campaign. Numbers is not this guy’s strong suit. And you know what? I want a president who can count. It is certain that the job of President of the United States of America requires this particular skill.

He thinks Iraq is safe now. Uh… yeah. Not really.

Much of his top campaign staff were lobbyists, which kind of defeats the whole reform thing.

Need one more nail? How’s this one… you could pierce hardened steel with it in one lethargic, half-assed whack.

As for Palin… well, she wants kids to be taught that Dinosaurs and Jesus were contemporaries, and she fired a guy because he wouldn’t fire a guy who was divorcing her sister. Alaska was one of the first states in the union to ban same-sex marriage, ten years ago (before her governorship – but she supported it). Her husband works for BP. And she wants Alaska drilled… so… hard. I think these things speak for themselves.

So if you’re on the line about who to vote for, think about these things, then think a little bit more about them. Then do the right thing and vote who you believe has the better chance of not running our nation into the ground with endless, zillion-dollar wars and imprudent corporate kickbacks, who probably won’t be shipping our entire economy, including our very jobs, wholesale, overseas, and who probably has a better-rounded and fresher, more insightful view of the world around him. And who, in merely becoming our next President of the United States of America, will change the world we live in, in meaningful and positive ways.

Categories
uncategorized web design

hello, again

Thanks to ScareCrowe @ htmlforums.com, i finally got my theme working. Mostly.

I know it still looks like crap on IE. That will be fixed. And none of my plugins are enabled or updated yet.

I still have plans on releasing this theme into the wild, but i have a ways to go before it is up to snuff. Some of the backend is still kind of messy.

Btw, over at technothrope i plan on doing a tutorial on upgrading WordPress for people who are very far behind.

Categories
life uncategorized web design

Why I have been away

It has been awhile since i have been able to blog here. It turns out that, back in the spring, my host upgraded from PHP4 to PHP5 (finally). Unfortunately, this broke my theme, for reasons still unknown to me. Also, i had gotten lazy (boo!) and had not upgraded my WordPress since 2.0.7 (we’re now on 2.6.1).

In the process of trying to fix it, i broke it terribly.

I have finally been able to rebuild the thing in its entirety and have uploaded the result. What you are looking at is not my original blog, but a duplicate, a clone, much like an entangled photon can cause spooky action at a distance.

Unfortunately, my theme is still busted, and i still can not figure out why.

Wow, it feels good to be back.

Categories
life local uncategorized

Smith’s Automotive

Smith’s Automotive at 400 E. 3rd St. in Dayton, Ohio (next to Wympee’s) is awesome. Daniel the proprietor is such a really nice guy. He even offered me water and gave me a camping chair to sit on while i was outside smoking. Lightning fast. He drove the car with me before and after the repair, and charged me very little. I just can’t say enough about this guy.

If your car needs help, you seriously can not do any better than to have him on your side.

Categories
uncategorized

amateur vs. professional

The difference between an amateur and a professional is that the amateur knows exactly what they are doing, while the professional is just making stuff up as they go along.

Think on this.

Peace out.

Categories
uncategorized

deleted

I’ve deleted my entire friends list. Nothing against anyone. There are quite a few people on LJ who i really, really like a whole lot.

If you earnestly want to deal with my bullshit, let me know. But i don’t think anyone should have to.

I don’t plan on updating much anymore, and i’m considering a full-on journal deletion, if i can figure out how to archive absolutely everything. Thus, like life, the whole thing may just be in vain anyway.

Categories
uncategorized

Good riddance

Former NC Senator Jesse Helms returns to hell

Categories
life uncategorized

When i am dead

When i am dead, i wish to be burned to a crisp, and have my dirty ashes scattered by close friends wherever they please.

It is my wish that whatever organs are desperately, vitally needed by someone else in their direst hour be given to them, free of charge, with the condition that such license to use and/or modify shall be taken up by them also, and that no derivative works shall result in profit. After all, i am an open source, Creative Commons person.

My stuff shall be dispersed however my few close friends see fit, with the understanding that of course my dear love Holly should have pretty well everything to start with, shared mainly with anything my dad & uncle  might want (so you better ask them all real nice if you want my Cure CDs). However, Tony D. is not to have anything until he sobers the hell up. There’s no point in giving anything to a man who’s only going to exchange it for crappy booze or some other escapist bullshit. On the other hand, his wonderful daughter Abby is welcome to just about anything she chooses.

I want my unfinished work to be wrapped up somehow. I don’t care how, so long as i become extremely famous and fabulously wealthy after death. Just don’t screw it up like you do everything else. This is Important Shit.

A grave marker will be permitted if anyone wants to bury my ashes, as long as the epitaph is funny as hell. My suggestions:

  • “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
  • “Whew! Good thing that’s over.”
  • “Oops!”
  • “Not here, and not there either.”
  • “Thankfully gone, decidedly forgotten.”

If you have something better, go for it.

No serious religion shall stake a claim on any part of my death, including but not limited to any services performed to mark my exit. No rites or stupid ceremonies are to be performed, with the lone exception being that my homies will be permitted to spill some on the curb for me. No spiritual messages are to be given, and no priest of any faith shall officiate. It is to be wholly remembered that i was a devout agnostic, who leaned heavily toward atheism. Anyone caught claiming that i somehow had a soul that lived on after death shall be haunted by my fictitious ghost forever, or until they come to the conclusion that i am not haunting them at all, whichever comes first. I lived through enough horse shit; i don’t need to deal with more of it once i am dead and gone forever. My passing should be viewed as permanent. There is to be no prayer of any kind, except in jest. Silent meditation is permitted, but please: no god shit, and no afterlife crap.

Two religions which are permitted practices and/or short rites are the Church of the SubGenius and the P.O.E.E. (disciples of Eris, goddess of confusion – i think), and they should mock the whole goddamn thing, if they even bother to show up. I also do not mind Buddhism all that much.

No flowers, please. Take your money and donate it to a non-religious charity that does work with AIDS patients or research, breast cancer (again, patients or research), homelessness, runaways, asthma, the environment, civil and/or human rights, putting an end to consumerism, humanitarian efforts, nuclear disarmament, or anything related to promoting atheism or agnosticism or the like.

On the other hand, any services performed to mark my escape from this terrible veil of lies should have a darkly humorous bent, and anyone eulogizing me must include at least one tasteless joke at my expense, or (more preferably) the expense of others. Weirdness should be encouraged at any cost. Attempts should be made at gallows humor. Thou shalt have joy, and laughter, damn it. Death is nothing serious. Be wholly glad i am gone!

Categories
uncategorized

When i am dead

Originally published at jeremyjarratt.com. You can comment here or there.

When i am dead, i wish to be burned to a crisp, and have my dirty ashes scattered by close friends wherever they please.

It is my wish that whatever organs are desperately, vitally needed by someone else in their direst hour be given to them, free of charge, with the condition that such license to use and/or modify shall be taken up by them also, and that no derivative works shall result in profit. After all, i am an open source, Creative Commons person.

My stuff shall be dispersed however my few close friends see fit, with the understanding that of course my dear love Holly should have pretty well everything to start with, shared mainly with anything my dad & uncle might want (so you better ask them all real nice if you want my Cure CDs). However, Tony D. is not to have anything until he sobers the hell up. There’s no point in giving anything to a man who’s only going to exchange it for crappy booze or some other escapist bullshit. On the other hand, his wonderful daughter Abby is welcome to just about anything she chooses.

I want my unfinished work to be wrapped up somehow. I don’t care how, so long as i become extremely famous and fabulously wealthy after death. Just don’t screw it up like you do everything else. This is Important Shit.

A grave marker will be permitted if anyone wants to bury my ashes, as long as the epitaph is funny as hell. My suggestions:

  • “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

  • “Whew! Good thing that’s over.”

  • “Oops!”

  • “Not here, and not there either.”

  • “Thankfully gone, decidedly forgotten.”

If you have something better, go for it.

No serious religion shall stake a claim on any part of my death, including but not limited to any services performed to mark my exit. No rites or stupid ceremonies are to be performed, with the lone exception being that my homies will be permitted to spill some on the curb for me. No spiritual messages are to be given, and no priest of any faith shall officiate. It is to be wholly remembered that i was a devout agnostic, who leaned heavily toward atheism. Anyone caught claiming that i somehow had a soul that lived on after death shall be haunted by my fictitious ghost forever, or until they come to the conclusion that i am not haunting them at all, whichever comes first. I lived through enough horse shit; i don’t need to deal with more of it once i am dead and gone forever. My passing should be viewed as permanent. There is to be no prayer of any kind, except in jest. Silent meditation is permitted, but please: no god shit, and no afterlife crap.

Two religions which are permitted practices and/or short rites are the Church of the SubGenius and the P.O.E.E. (disciples of Eris, goddess of confusion – i think), and they should mock the whole goddamn thing, if they even bother to show up. I also do not mind Buddhism all that much.

No flowers, please. Take your money and donate it to a non-religious charity that does work with AIDS patients or research, breast cancer (again, patients or research), homelessness, runaways, asthma, the environment, civil and/or human rights, putting an end to consumerism, humanitarian efforts, nuclear disarmament, or anything related to promoting atheism or agnosticism or the like.

On the other hand, any services performed to mark my escape from this terrible veil of lies should have a darkly humorous bent, and anyone eulogizing me must include at least one tasteless joke at my expense, or (more preferably) the expense of others. Weirdness should be encouraged at any cost. Attempts should be made at gallows humor. Thou shalt have joy, and laughter, damn it. Death is nothing serious. Be wholly glad i am gone!

Categories
creative internets uncategorized web design

back to the drawing board!

I’m working on a project for a friend right now involving WordPress, which has got me excited enough to go ahead and overhaul this site once again.

So i will FINALLY be upgrading my WP installation and fixing my ACTUAL theme once and for all! I hope to have this completed by the end of the summer.

I promise to make it a whole lot cleaner, too, in layout if not in language.

That is all.

Categories
uncategorized

“God hates fags” movies

OMFG why didn’t anyone tell me about this!? Westboro Baptist Church apparently has its very own movies site! It’s hilarious and sad at the exact same time. The music videos are priceless! Why on earth do people like Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedys get shot while Fred Phelps is still walking???