Thoughts From Eric Archive

I decided to wait until day 2 of 2002 to post.  Mostly because I have a weird thing for numeric patterns, even ones that don’t make a lot of sense.  Every time my RSA SecurID widget gives me a token that features some sort of repetition or matched pairs, I get an obscure glow of pleasure.

Okay, so I’m strange.

The holidays came and went, and we’re all still here for now.  I scored high on the Swag Meter at Christmas, but I’d gladly give it all away for something completely outside my power to either give or receive.  Anyone know where I can purchase the remainder of a full life and have it gift-wrapped for a loved one?

• Wednesday, 2 January 2002 was published on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2002.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

Here’s something that made me cringe in fear: Microsoft top security officer expected to join U.S. cybersecurity team (ComputerWorld).  Oh boy, I can hardly wait for our national security policies to be as rigorous as those generally found in Microsoft products.

• Friday, 14 December 2001 was published on Friday, December 14th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the Tech category.
• There have been no replies.

This morning, I discovered (amongst all the other spam I receive) a message in my Inbox promising to “ADD INCHES TO YOUR PENIS!!!”  The very next message offered a way to “LOSE INCHES WHILE YOU SLEEP!!!”  Now I’m all confused.

• Saturday, 8 December 2001 was published on Saturday, December 8th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the Humor category.
• There have been no replies.

New to the site: Eric’s Presentations, which attempts to provide in an organized fashion slides and support files from various talk I give.  Newly added to the repository: my slideshows from Web Design World 2001.  The CSS files used in the “user stylesheet” presentation are still being polished and so aren’t available yet, but the core of every ones of them is in the slideshow.  Enjoy!

One point of some small note: the design for the “Presentations” page uses an h2 and a table, but the h2 is not inside the table.  Yet more visual sleight-of-hand… although I’m not sure it quite qualifies for css/edge, I was strangely proud of it nonetheless.

• Wednesday, 5 December 2001 was published on Wednesday, December 5th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the General category.
• There have been no replies.

John Allsopp wrote to me today: “Now you really can say ‘my middle name is Cascading Style Sheets.'”  I guess so.  Thanks, Amazon!

• Wednesday, 24 October 2001 was published on Wednesday, October 24th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the CSS and Humor categories.
• There have been no replies.

Not much has been going on of late, at least not much that’s worth writing about here.  I mean, I had fun going to a Cleveland Barons hockey game with a friend, but is an account of Eric watching hockey interesting?  Not likely.  (Though Mark and I did have fun playing “What’s That Music On The PA?”)

In the near future, though—that’s something else again.  I’ll be teaching another CSS class for the HWG/IWA.  This one will run a little longer than six weeks because Thanksgiving is right in the middle of the class.  The last session went rather well, I thought, and the next session ought to be even better now that I have a chance to tweak the material and avoid some missteps.  Also because I’ll have a teaching assistant for the first time.  Woohoo!  Now I can foist a portion of the grading on somebody else!

• Saturday, 20 October 2001 was published on Saturday, October 20th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the CSS and General categories.
• There have been no replies.

I was going to slow down posting anyway, and then my Linksys router got fried (thanks to a firmware update I got from Linksys, no less) so going online has been a lot more difficult of late.  Nonetheless, I had to put this link up for you: Freedoms Curtailed in the Defense of Liberty (The Onion).  The truly scary part is that the article isn’t much of an exaggeration over what I’ve been hearing both on the news and on the street.  As an example, someone said on a newsgroup recently about some peace protestors, “Now THOSE people scare me.  Really.”  American citizens peacefully exercising their freedom of speech to oppose violence in the world and support nonmilitary solutions is scary?

Scary.

• Wednesday, 11 October 2001 was published on Thursday, October 11th, 2001.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

I found this to be deeply thought-provoking, if sometimes clumsily written: There Is No Alternative to War (Salon.com).  From the same site, one of my favorite cartoons: This Modern World.  I’d tell you to enjoy them, but somehow that seems wholly inappropriate…

• Tuesday, 2 October 2001 was published on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2001.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.