HTML Altimeter Bookmarklet

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I heard about this an intriguing HTML Altimeter bookmarklet via Asa (or “Topographic View”, as the author calls it). It’s a bit hard to describe, but it essentially reassigns the CSS background for each element on the current page to represent the number of nested elements at that point.

Level zero starts at black and each additional nested element gets closer to white (with 16 shades in total). To make use of the bookmarklet, visit the author’s page and drag the “Topographic view” link to your Personal Toolbar. Then, just click that link to see the effect applied to the current page.

As you might expect, well formed CSS-based sites barely get out of black, but table-based layouts can easily approach pink (the color designating nesting past 16). All the same, though this bookmarklet is good for an easy laugh at the expense of poorly built sites, I’m not sure if it has any practical development applications :-/.

Jason & Julie’s Wedding — Photos

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

It seems to be wedding-season here in blogger-land :). I went to Jason & Julie’s wedding at the end of March and I’m going to Bryan and Lyn’s wedding this Friday. Though Jason and Julie live in Colorado now, they had the wedding in Austin, at the Austin Children’s Museum.

I had a great time and I’m so happy for both of them. I remembered to take my camera along as well and I’ve finished processing the photos. In all, I took 44 photographs that evening and I’ve posted 8 in the gallery. Why so few? Well, the interior of the Children’s Museum — while charming and playful — was rather dark. And, with only a built-in flash, many of my shots didn’t come out.

As usual, all my photos are released under a Creative Commons license which roughly states that you’re free to “copy, distribute, display, and perform the work”. Also, I’ve resized all the images to 1024-width before uploading them as it can be a bit hard to get your head around a full 5 MP image. However, if you want the full-resolution version of any images, just ask.

Nikon D70 — New Cheap DSLR King?

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

I’m a member of the Dallas Camera Club and, even if I neglect to read up on the latest digital camera news, I generally hear about the latest cameras just from other members of the club. And, I learned of the Nikon D70 when the club's former president and his wife each bought one (though they’ve only received one so far since there’s a waiting list).

The D70 is Nikon’s foray into the sub-$1000 DSLR market. And, from reading over this D70 review at DPReview, it more than holds its own against its chief competitor, the Digital Rebel from Canon:

Nikon have achieved three major improvements with the D70 (compared to the competition / the D100): (1) They have improved the performance of the camera, with its instant on availability, very fast shutter release, superb continuous shooting and image processing speed and smart use of its buffer. (2) They have maintained build quality while still delivering a smaller and lighter camera, the D70 doesn't feel much less well built than the D100 but is lighter, it certainly feels much more like $1000 worth of camera than the EOS 300D could. (3) They have improved image sharpness and detail, while we could niggle about moiré the compromise between artifacts and sharpness is worth it, in many instances the D70 delivering more detail than our previous benchmark, the EOS 300D / EOS 10D CMOS sensor. […]

Though the review’s comparison section focuses primarily on the (Nikon) D100 and the (Canon) Digital Rebel, I was hoping for a comparison against Canon’s EOS-10D as well (which costs more, but the comparison would be interesting nonetheless).

In any case, I’m not particularly in the market for a new camera. I bought a Nikon Coolpix 5700 last spring and I’m still pleased with it. Granted, it doesn’t have through-the-lens metering which annoys me a bit and makes the camera less useful in low-light situations, but I think I can live without that for the time being.

Badger Badger Badger — In Real Life

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

You may already be familiar with the Badger Badger Badger Flash animation. In case not, it’s a silly animation consisting of a pack of cartoon badgers bouncing to a song whose lyrics consist primarily of “Badger, Badger, Badger” with occasional interjections of “Mushroom Mushroom” and “Snake!”. It can only be enjoyed in small doses ;).

In any case, I was reading a rather inane Slashdot parody about installling Linux on a badger and one of the comments pointed a group of knuckleheads (“badgerheads”?) who decided to act-out their own real-life rendition and videotape it (complete with mushroom & snake). There’s no need to bother with the Slashdot article but, if you liked the original Flash, you may appreciate the effort put into the enactment as well.

And, the best part is that this managed to somewhat derail the Slashdot discussion as some posters commented on the relative badger-badgering skill of the video participants:

Perhaps the saddest aspect of this video is the fact that most of them do the badger dance so… poorly. The tall one on the right has the right instincts for synching up the arm waving and knee bending, so I give him credit for that, but it&Rsquo;s not how the badgers actually do it. And the rest of them do very little to dispel certain stereotypes about the lack of rhythm in the heterosexual caucasian male. […]

PS I’m heading off to Pittsburgh for the weekend (leaving Thursday), so updates may be a bit sparse until I return Monday.

Man Cave

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I'm subscribed to The Word Spy’s mailing list — they feature new words and phrases used in print (though only those that can be substantiated across multiple sources). And I was amused by their recent entry for the “man cave”:

man cave
n. An area of a house, such as a basement, workshop, or garage, where a man can be alone with his power tools and projects.

Example Citation:

The basement or garage has become such a special place for special man-projects that DIY is even devoting special programming to it: “My Ultimate Workshop,” a one-hour special scheduled for May, looks at tricked-out garages and basements where guys hone their crafts, be it woodworking, car restoration, wine collecting or model-train building.

So how did the man cave make such a transformation? The experts said there are several factors at play: more disposable income, better gadgets on the market for trading up, keeping up with the Joneses and the post-9/11 cocooning factor.

— “Cave dwelling,” Chicago Tribune, March 23, 2004

I can really relate to the idea of a man cave. After all, with two geeks living here, just about our whole apartment is an extended man cave. Just last weekend, I transformed our living room into an impromptu computer assembly station — I built my new PC beside the sliding glass door there so that I could make use of the available light.