Chawlk

1. Drawar
2. Fenxy
3. Decaflon
4. Two Credits
5. Wriging
6. Loose Suits
7. Chixe
8. Dud3s
9. Wing Colors

 

Take the next few sentences as a disclaimer and a fair warning: I may call out individuals by name. It's almost inevitable, but invariably it has to be done in order to get some things off of my chest. Absolutely none of this is meant to crush anyone's spirit, destroy anyone's will to succeed or furthermore humiliate anyone to the point of losing their personal character. I am publishing this note in the hopes that you'll see things from a different point of view, become more open minded and perhaps treat others with a little more civility. That said, if I offend you, please send me a PM about it, and don't start a flame-war in a vainglorious effort to justify your own argument that I am for some reason 'wrong'. This is an rant based on observations and opinions, I am not pawning this off as fact for you to accept it into your lives without choice or whim. It is a series of postulates and theories and complaints that I'm having. That said, let us discuss.

People don't like other people. This is to be expected in the course of man, and under no duress are individuals who serve as the pristine counterpoint to their peers to remain in association. Sometimes someone will see something they disagree with be it for personal belief, characterized ideals, or simply knowing otherwise. However, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." That is to say, you can certainly hear someone say something, and if you disagree, you may mentally ruminate on it, think about it but it is certainly your choice to accept it as a universal truth or dismiss it as a sophomoric fallacy. You have that choice, and it should be a joyous feeling to have that capability.

However once an individual gets to the point of dissent (which I believe to be the result of ambiguous terms and a misunderstanding of rhetoric; the both being the two ultimate means of uneducated men) the concept of choosing what you believe should be the choice you deliver unto your own being. The founding fathers of America understood that liberty is the universal truth, and no man is in any sort of position to challenge that, not even a government. These men understood that ultimately, the individuals who decide whether a nation survives are the people, and that if the government does not perform it's duty to protect the public order, to establish the foundation for security that the people of a nation have their God-given rights to destroy, abolish and establish a form of government that is able to do these things.

There are individuals among us who do not appreciate these ideals outlined above. There are some who are passionate about a topic, and will defend it with such righteous indignation as blunt insults. Such zeal for your values is to be applauded, but never should it be used as a sword to cut down and destroy what others believe, and I see this to be an increasingly large problem at 9Rules.com. I have made some less than respectable moves and for those I utter forth an apology. Never is it my aim to put another individual down; people who associate with me will be the first to testify: "Dave is a hardass, but he's always trying to make sure you know what's what. He's always got your back".

Sadly, there are people here who are incredibly rude that do not appear to share this same mentality. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps you're just as I am. But there have been moments where I come along and make a post when someone asks a legitimate question that I wish to contribute to, only for Oli (see, I told you I'd mention names) to come along and for whatsuch reasons he may have, completely come along and point out-in particularly bombastic-fashions what I said that was wrong. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong, sometimes we're both right or both wrong. Whatever the relative case may be, that irks me to no end. On times I have given in to the lesser side of my character and returned evil for evil.

There have been cases where RightOn has come along and completely decimated an argument to point out the fallacy within, and in time, the Note has declined into a nasty exchange of rhetoric. Othertimes, Rich does the same.

Ultimately, 9Rules, I issue this challenge to us all (and because some of you are experts at deciphering context, I've used "us" because I know this applies to myself perhaps to a greater extent because I pull no punches): Let's try an examine things for what they truly are, not what we see them to be. Let's be educated in our comments to a higher extent than the superficial explications of what we think, and why such things matter. Let's try to be more civil, levelheaded and lets be friendly.

I think the one reason I dislike Facebook Applications is that it requres me to add the application to my page, in order to cause havoc on someone elses. For example, this "Honesty Box" which I really don't need to explain.

I've got 5 friends who have changed their status "John Doe is wondering when people are going to use his honesty box".

Well, John, you're a decidedly vain individual, and the fact of it is, I'm not going to add this application just so I can tell you that. Now for the part of this note in which everyone is going to disagree: It's things like this that are turning FaceBook into MySpace.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?

I said it. I fucking said it. MySpace isn't a popularity contest anymore than it is a struggle between friends to control other friends. "Comment my picture" "Repost my bulletin" "Leave me a profile comment" "Do you like my song?". Well, that's now transcended to Facebook with the response of the end-users. Users are now expecting people to use the applications on their page so people will come in and see 'hey, I have an active social life on Facebook, but the fact is, I'm too vain to really make any reflections on my actual life'.

Personally, I've only got three applications: the audio application (where I haven't even changed my song in 3 weeks) the "Where Have I been" application, a map that you can click on to highlight the states and countries you've visited and lived in, and the fortune cookie simply because there's the hope that someone will write something witty every now and then. I don't see a point in anything else.

That's all I have to say about that.

Epic.

That is all.

Every night at 2:00AM EST. Be there or not, don't make excuses.

Add imdook if you don't already have me.

in ONE sentence as if you were reading it from a dictionary, though in your own words.

Whoever the bloke was that made the article about innovation in CSS was on to something. I forget the exact context, but it had to do with back in the early days of the CSS revolution, people were finding new things and sharing them. That was certainly true, and we embraced them because they made design easier, cleaner and more productive in the development phase.

Now, it seems as if some bastard in his 'studio' (read: best friend's basement) is trying to do the same thing, but it's not working for some reason.

The newest thing that we're seeing in the industry, and that personally I'm actually really tired of is this whole concept ofgrid based CSS. Don't hurt yourself, those were three separate links. Let me be one to state an opinion here.

Grid-based design can be extraordinarily useful in creating sites that are predictable, easily navigated, and visually appealing.

That right there is a load of shit and I think ALA knows it. It's not a load because it's false. Sure, for what is worth looking at, a site that aesthetically LOOKS like a bunch of blocks is going to be easy to navigate for the simple fact that when we were 2, we figured out square shaped blocks go into square shaped holes. We recognize squares, they are familiar to us.

However, perhaps more fundamental to the somewhat improvised point I'm trying to make here, unless your website looks like this, and I don't mean the metaphor behind the image, I mean if that is how your website looks with image-maps and hidden links, it is not going to be hard to find the navigation.

It seems to me that lots of people now are jumping on board A List Apart express to share with us how to design web pages. It's not preaching to the choir, trust me. It's something more horrendously tragic. My premise is simply put this: if I can put a webpage up that looks clean and works, I probably didn't use a grid. More or less, some XHTML was slapped down so content could look good even without CSS, and I built everything else around it.

Is it a grid? Quite possibly. Is it a can of Chef Boyardee? That's more realistic because inside every can of Chef Boyardee is one universal truth: ravioli is fucking awesome even if they look like squares that were probably cut out from a giant grid of pasta.