, , N-G-O!

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Mind your <b>‘s and <i>‘s. In a “semantic” frenzy, I once made the mistake of converting all my b and i tags to strong and em, even for non-emphasized words which should rather have been enclosed in dfn, cite, address, var, code, samp, kbd, or blockquote. That’s what the “semantic” is all about. Sure, it’s a few more tags to keep track of, but they’ll be directly related to the meaning of the tagged text, and can be styled accordingly.

blockquote is a bit confusing about that, as Andrei Herasimchuk rants. The blockquote tag is not a true block-level element on its own, but a container tag into which elements such as paragraphs (enclosed in p tags) should be inserted. MovableType (at least, the version that I’m using at this writing) is annoyingly quirky over that when in “Convert Line Breaks” mode, putting p tags around single-line blockquote tags. When incorporating blockquote into an entry, I need to turn off Text Formatting and do my paragraphs manually. I’m hoping the MT team can fix that in the upcoming 3.x version. (No, I’d rather not use a plugin.)

Martian Color

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Meanwhile, on Mars, the Opportunity rover has reached Endurance Crater after days of travelling across the sandy plains of an ancient seabed. NASA/JPL has been absolutely awesome about releasing downloaded mission images from Mars to the public, and I’ve been eagerly watching the latest Navcam and Pancam archives for new photos.

The rover’s Pancam (panoramic camera) uses filters for blue, green, red, and infrared wavelengths, so images taken with each filter can be spliced and combined right at home, with a channel-based imaging application such as Photoshop, to produce approximate true-color images like this beauty. It’s harder than simply cutting and pasting each B/W filtered image into the R, G, and B channels, however: as discussed here on the BABB (Badastronomy.com bulletin board), only the left camera uses visible light wavelengths, and exposure times vary for each image, which can throw off the “true” color of the combined channels. More technical info on the Pancam here.

Keith Laney, digital imaging specialist for the mission, explains color balancing methods in great detail, and offers up some beautiful color Martian landscapes from Spirit and Opportunity. (Lots of photos; have a fast connection.)

My New “Roommate”

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I guess it’s time I came clean on this: I’ve been living with someone, and we have shared a bed for over half a year now. She’s much younger than me — less than half my age, in fact — though far older in some ways, and I care for her like a daughter, providing her with the food and shelter she’d otherwise be unable to provide for herself. Her name’s Pandora.

She was one of two cats in Patrick’s care in Baltimore (same housemate who gave me the Admiral), Jasper and Pandora, who had formerly belonged to a neighbor in Little Italy. You’d never guess these two cats were from the same litter: Jasper is a short-haired gray and white tabby with golden eyes, while Pandora is a long-haired all-white Persian with one green and one blue eye. Mixed breed, yes, but pure cuddly snuggly affectionate ones, the two of them.

When I moved to DC, I told my housemate that if two cats ever became too much to handle, I’d gladly take Pandora off his hands, since my apartment allowed a cat per tenant. He kept me to that promise two months later. It was a Sunday morning, and as I was about to leave for choir practice and worship service, the phone rang.

“Do you still want the cat?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, I’m coming over.”

“Wait … now?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Ack! I’m going to church! Meet me this afternoon.”

And so, that afternoon, I had a new roommate. Her Friskies are by the microwave, her litter’s in the bathroom, she sleeps beside me at night (and in my reading chair in the daytime), and if I had collected her sheddings from the time she came in till now, the resulting hairball would have its own zip code.

Pandora

A Year

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Today marks a full year since the night Amy and I became each other’s significant other. I didn’t write about it much at the time because things were quite uncertain back then: I had just finished a year of graduate work, she was going home to New Jersey in a week, and I was thinking of moving back to Washington.

So far, things have turned out far, far better than we expected. For that, we give thanks. Happy anniversary, Amy, my love.

Growing a Green Thumb

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Norfolk Island PineI decided to start dabbling in plants while I was in Baltimore, when my housemate in Little Italy asked if I wanted to have a try at nursing his old, browning Norfolk Island Pine back to health. Regular misting and a bright place by the window did it well, along with pruning of old, dead branches and some extra plant food in the soil.

Shortly after, I bought a pot of 6″ Kalanchoes on sale at Whole Foods: flowering succulents with thin woody stems. The Kalanchoes turned out to be a fairly hardy shrub, shooting up to over a foot high after the flowers had dried out, and turning into a veritable forest of tangled stems and fragrant, fleshy leaves. Much later, I would move the Kalanchoes to a larger terra cotta vase, and prune cuttings from it to replant in a new pot with fresh soil. Today, the cuttings have shot up higher than their own parent, while the parent itself has been sitting out the winter in a dark closet in an as-yet-unsuccessful effort to bring it to bloom once again.

Two Kalanchoes and an African VioletAmy, herself possessed of a green thumb far surpassing mine, was also kind enough to give me a little African Violet, although I tarried on bringing it home for so long that the flower had withered away by the time it finally joined my garden. Still, I water it and feed it a few drops of African Violet Plant Food, and I hope to see a bloom in time.

I’ve named the plants and assigned them Navy ranks to assist their self-esteem. The Pine, having seniority, is designated “Admiral Norfolk.” The parent Kalanchoe is “Commander Kal,” while the pot of kalanchoe cuttings (which now is doing better than the Commander) is named “Lieutenant Cho.” The African Violet, being smallest and newest to the group, is “PrivateEnsign Jamal.”

Now, whenever I water or feed my plants, I can say I’m “supporting the troops.”

BASH Bible Bot Battle

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Funny chat transcript from a Christian IRC channel. (For those unfamiliar with IRC lingo, someone got the moderator bot to kick out the Bible bot by having it quote KJV Num 22:21 to the channel. Apparently “ass” is a kickable keyword.)