Recently in Technical stuff Category

Millions of poor souls are glued to the displays of their mobile telephones. Such unfortunate folks who cannot live a single minute of their lives without seeking refuge by staring into that small flat screen in search of who knows what.

Some of the younger victims are even worse off though they do not seem to realize it. They become entwined to these modern gadgets with thumbs nimbly tapping the minuscule keyboard, searching for answers, hoping to receive some meaningful reaction, new ways of reorganizing and improving their lives.

This all reminds me of nervousness all around, no one can look you straight in the eyes anymore, insecure aversion to glance back down at the display where all is neatly defined and safe again.

Some people brave the day by putting these gadgets in a pocket or purse or some other place of safe keeping. Until the ringing starts, first softly and then getting louder and louder. They cannot find the ringing gadget quickly enough, it's pure panic, groping around and hoping to answer before it is too late.

That's a good reason why I turn off my mobile phone in order to enjoy life as it was really meant to b e.

I thought I was wrong but I wasn't. That's a good feeling and makes me feel like making it happen no matter what.

Everyone is staring intently at the little display (4x3 cms) trying to make sense of things with squinting eyes that cannot quite understand what is happening, thumbs and fingers groping the buttons in order to cause interesting things to happen or not to happen, that tiny screen reacting to our deepest impulses (or not).

At least the human mind had never evolved in the first place with the idea that this is how things would be in the long run.

As mobile technology evolves with things advancing in quantum leaps every two years or so, human evolution which is based on centuries if not millenia have to turn sharp corners and adapt accordingly.

Curious what will happen in the long run.

This is a view from below or whatever. What I tend to stare at while waiting for the next train to arrive so that I can continue with whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing in the first place.

Rotate it around in your mind to get a better impression of how things really are.

Wow, I can really dig this new digital camera of mine! According to the instruction book, it can do just about anything one would ever wish a camera to do. Hopefully within the not so distant future I can figure out how it works.

People should always discuss things in detail before taking an action that will affect them all as well as the people around them.

However, this is never an easy task.

A discussion can go on and on endlessly causing unnecessary delays and eventually resulting in complete failure because of hesitations and indecision. Let's all sink in the quicksand, alright...

On the other hand, rushing into things head-on because it should have been done yesterday may bring seemingly quick results, which in the long-run fall apart completely because of incoherency. Watch out for the bottomless pit, oops...

A combination of the two could perhaps be a better plan of approach.

This is my new PDA.

Right when I finally almost made it home in the car after a two hour drive back from Helmond, that is when I was struck by yet another amazing coincidence.

You see, the last turn-off is afrit 11. Can you believe that? In the Netherlands, all afritten are numbered which makes it much easier to give directions. Afrit means exit and afritten is the plural form.

Just go south on highway A12 and take afrit 11.

My favorite number is and always has been number 11, in case you were wondering. That was the day of the month I was born, the number on my baseball jersey, one half of the day Maarten was born, ad infinitum.

Funny how I have lived in Gouda now for more than ten years and only now do I realize that it is afrit 11.

Life is filled with these amazing coincidences, and by not paying attention we are missing out on daily miracles, amazing coincidences, and other near misses.

Pay better attention, will you?!

It never ceases to amaze me when I keep hearing how nanotechnology has taken off. Folks used to consider it a worthless pursuit, but as of lately there have been many useful achievements. Development of this fine art is taking quantum leaps and who can even begin to imagine where it will lead to.

You might want to check out the New Scientist article titled Nanoparticles to pinpoint viruses in body scans to find out more.

In order to learn even more about the ins and outs of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), I purchased a great book Eric Meyer On CSS, part of the New Riders series called Mastering the Language of Web Design. I already know alot about CSS, but a good overview like this never hurts. In fact, you even pick up a couple jewels of information here and there.

Imagine the huge difference a one line change in the style sheet can make, and you will be happy beyond belief. At least that is my experience. Take my GishTeq web site for example. I admit that it looked pretty filled and the text was crammed together.

div#content p {
    text-align: justify;
    margin-top: 0px;
    line-height: 1.33em; /* I added this line */
}

All I did was change the line height, e.g. so that one-third of the current font size opens up between the lines. The added white space between the lines makes the act of reading easier and more enjoyable. The user's experience is improved, making my web site contents more accessible in the process.

So, you are asking yourself, how can this small change make so much difference? I will attempt to illustrate the effect by comparing two layouts.

Here is a paragraph with the default line-height equal to 1.0em:	Here is a paragraph with the new-and-improved line-height equal to 1.33em:
Here is a bunch of text which is pretty much readable you could say but also at the same time gives the impression of being crammed up together and perhaps more difficult to peruse than should be absolutely necessary.	This is an example of a bunch of text which is a bit more readable because I have increased the white space appearing between the lines freeing up the text slightly thereby making the process of reading easier and more enjoyable.

Can you see the difference? Sometimes a very little bit makes all the difference in the world.