Slide float

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Update: This entire entry is obsolete because I am now on Flickr.

New slide layout in the photos. I had originally wanted a right-floated caption to come first before the photo, similar to the structure of Matt Haughey’s 10Years photoblog. (Look at it without CSS in Lynx or Opera and note how the title and caption appear above the photo. Preferred semantics.) Turns out that blocks of text are fairly hard to consistently float around variable-width elements like photos; wider images get bumped down below the text, and using absolute positions — as Doug Bowman does in his excellent work on the 10Years CSS — involves more hacks than I’m willing to live with. (View the 10Years HTML source and you’ll see a couple of style attributes and inline CSS declarations needed for individual photos. Ack.)

After about a week of on-off CSS struggling, I settled for a compromise: the caption text comes after the image in the HTML, and CSS floats the image left, but a hidden (via “display: none”) navigator sits above the image for the benefit of non-CSS or Netscape 4.x users, so they don’t have to keep scrolling down for the PREV/NEXT links.

Oh, and since big white borders around photos seem to be the latest fashion (see these: 1, 2, 3), I have joined the trend. It’s a simple matter of img.photo { display: block; padding: 1em; background: white; } It doesn’t work in IE5.x, though; small loss.

The layout looks best in Safari, of course, but will display fine in all browsers, with just minor glitches across platforms.

Steal CSS code here. Enjoy.

Dialectical Materialism

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Faith Converter for OS X, kind of a babelfish for religion. I’m also looking forward to playing some iPong as I watch the latest movie trailers while being reminded of my mile-long to-do list.

(Link via church friend Rod, who really should get a blog as soon as he can. I know you’re reading this. You know you want to.)

My Feet Hurt

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It’s been busy in Brownpauland.

At work, a whole bunch of db-driven single-destination vacation sites are up, Cancun Vacations being the flagship example, with other destinations like Acapulco and Cozumel. Some other themed sites out as well: Vacations, Hotels.net, and Beach Vacations among them. (CSS layout, of course. Not my best markup work, but it makes the dough. Validation to follow in the future. Probably far future.) Many, many more websites are still in progress, and it will be a while before I have any time to work on personal projects.

On the homefront, my brother Francis has returned to Chicago after a weekend visit. Weather was perfect for long, tiring rambles around the National Mall, but with heavy tourist season drawing to a close, many of the usual DC-land attractions have been closed and shuttered for maintenance, security enhancement, and bronze-polishing. Ol’ Thom is locked behind wooden walls and metal scaffolding, the Gump Pool has been drained while the new eyesore is finished up, America on the Move remains in a renovatory standstill, and Rubens is hidden away within walled-up exhibition halls. Still, a fun time was had by all.

Oh, and for Hallowe’en, I dressed in my pambahay. (Tagalog for “house clothes.”) Next year, I promise I will be better prepared.

Galactic Wheel

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Detail from an astronomy exhibit on Doppler shift at the Air and Space Museum. Notice the directions by the handwheel. Wow!

Photo taken with a Palm Zire 71.

Not Even a Deep Red

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More solar storms. Looking at the Spaceweather aurora galleries, and seeing that there have been sightings as far south as Maryland, Tennessee, and Texas, one may wonder why we still haven’t been seeing anything from Washington, DC. Light pollution is one significant factor, as is the faintness of auroras at these lower latitudes — many of the aurora photos seem to be long or combined exposures, which pick up more light over a span of time. Unfiltered naked eye viewing from this brightly lit urban area is probably insufficient to glimpse the faint red auroras visible this far from the poles.

Anyway, the activity map shows that the auroras are retreating, so our northern neighbors will once again have the lion’s share of solar love, ‘ey? Related: Aurora Viewing Tips.

Ambassadorial Smorgasbord

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Kinko’s, 16th St and K St NW. My brother, freshly arrived from Chicago, is sending a quick fax. As he attends to the task, my cellphone rings.

“Paulo, this is your aunt. Where are you?”

“We’re at Kinko’s.”

“Good. Come over to the Embassy at 17th and Massachussets right now.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re at a book launching. Free dinner.”

We were there in five minutes. Mmmm, book launching.

Ang Pagbibisita ni Kuya

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Francis, previously seen here, will be visiting Washington DC from now until Tuesday. He just called from the airport in Chicago to say that he is about to board the plane, but forgot to bring extra money. So, what can a guy do in DC for five days with a budget of $4?