Just an FYI, I’ll be out of town until August 1 for a family trip to the beach. So, if you need to reach me quickly, call me (my landline always forwards to my cellphone when I’m away for extended periods). Catch y’all later!

EDIT: I’m back

In the area I live in, the weather this time of year is best described as “oppressive”. Temperatures in the 90s (fahrenheit), humidity 90% or higher, and lots of direct sunlight, a combination that makes it impossible to do anything outside and enjoy it (for me, anyway). So, when we get a day with temperatures in the 70s and unusually low humidity, I try to take the opportunity to get out and enjoy the nearby wilderness I love so dearly. And today was just such a day, and a complete surprise to me.

My original plan was to go swimming at a lake I like, since I figured it would be nearly deserted on a Thursday morning (I don’t like swimming around people, especially when I go alone). Unfortunately, the place was as crowded as any urban oceanfront, so that idea was out. I started driving aimlessly for awhile, when I realized I was halfway to one of my favourite spots in West Virginia, Seneca Rocks. So, my plans for the day turned into impromptu hiking.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Seneca Rocks features a very intense hiking trail leading to an observation platform. The trail rises almost 900 feet in less than two miles (I can’t find exact numbers on the length of the trail). So, for someone like me who works from home and doesn’t get out much, ascending the full length of the trail is a major accomplishment. But, I did it, and got some great photos along the way. I even got to take a picture of an elderly couple posing in front of the rocks, and I lined it up very nicely. Hope they approve!

On the way out there, I also found a beautiful scenic overlook that I never really knew existed. I need to drive out there more often.

Here are the photos I took on this trip (click the thumbnails for full albums):

After avoiding it for years, I’ve finally decided to modify all applications that are part of Lupinia (Gallery and Wordpress, mostly) to respond to the same colour scheme settings as the rest of the site. This might not sound like a big deal, but both applications are very difficult to perform this modification on, and both of them have highly complicated CSS. But, with a few days of work, I’ve performed the modification on both of them, and everything works fine. I also adjusted the appearance of both applications (mostly the gallery) to make them match the layout of the rest of Lupinia.

I also had to make a modification to Wordpress so it would work correctly with a multiple-domain site, which was far more complicated that it needed to be. It was easy to solve the problem, just a two-line fix, but finding where to insert those two lines took over two hours.

My next project involves some XML (first time ), followed by a module for my front page, and then I’ll be ready to unveil the new-and-improved Lupinia Studios

[ Click for Story ]

There’s a community nearby with a lot of rich people living in overpriced houses. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, in what used to be lush forests and fertile farmland. In other words, a typical rich development in this area. However, this particular one is built around/next to popular fishing lake. It’s quite beautiful, actually.

However, this particular lake has some issues with sedimentation and excess nutrients, for reasons that are beyond my understanding. After all, I’m no expert in environmental science. However, I know enough to know that water-dwelling plants are important for water quality, and if there are no plants, you end up with problems like sedimentation and excess nutrients (which causes algae). Anyone who’s had a fishtank knows this, it’s not that hard to understand.

So, the environmental experts at the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries have proposed turning parts of the lake into wetlands. No big deal, right? Plant a bunch of plants that would probably be living there naturally if the lake wasn’t used so heavily, and let them stabilize the lake ecosystem. There’s a complication, though; the Lake Shenandoah Preservation Association, which is basically a homeowners’ association to preserve their picturesque lake view. In other words, a bunch of stay-at-home moms with nothing better to do who don’t know dick about environmental science. This group opposes the creation of wetlands in the lake because “it’s not what the community wants”. They don’t care about the lake ecosystem (their sole concern is the algae being an eyesore), or even the health of the fish that live in it. They care about property values, and despite having less combined environmental science knowledge than someone who couldn’t even get a merit badge for it in scouts (ie, me), they’re convinced that creating wetland areas is not the only solution.

Hey morons, guess what? These people are experts in the field, and you’re not. Besides, they’re not turning the entire lake into a marsh, they just want to put some extra plants around the edges, and the back portion of the lake that no one uses. Extra plants are not going to block your precious view, or make your house any more overpriced than it already is, especially if those plants get rid of the algae. And, going on TV to tell the area that you’re concerned about the property values and your precious view accomplishes nothing, except to make the rest of us hate you for being such whiners.

Hi everyone! A friend of mine has launched a new forum for all you furs with military backgrounds, Military Furries. So, if you’re currently in the military (in any country), or used to be, join up to meet your fellow servicefurs!

This site is proudly hosted by the Lupinia Hosting Community, and I personally had a lot of fun setting this one up. So, enjoy!

…I just set Firefox as my default browser.

For those who are just tuning in, I’ve been avoiding using Firefox for a very long time now, and I’ve always preferred IE 6 as my primary browser. This was due to several reasons:

1. The fanboy-factor and zealotry surrounding FF was, and still is, a massive turn-off. It’s just a browser, you fuckwits, shut up about it already.
2. I loathe tabbed interfaces. My taskbar is 1920px wide for a reason.
3. Firefox has a very slow initial start time compared to IE6, even with no extensions
4. Firefox has a few irritating rendering bugs, which I mostly had to deal with while designing.
5. I don’t jump on new technology simply because it’s new; I prefer to adopt new software/devices only if they’re a genuine upgrade/improvement to my existing ways of doing things.

With version 3 of Firefox, item #4 has been resolved, and in my boredom last night, I researched some settings and tweaks to resolve #3 (which was one of the biggest things keeping me from using FF more often) and #2.

Combined with the fact that large Javascript-intensive sites I use regularly, like MyFursona and DeviantArt, are starting to actively say “fuck you” to IE 6 users (a design philosphy I view as lazy, offensive, and premature, since IE6 still has more usage than Opera or Safari), it seemed logical to at least explore the option of switching. I started using FF as a secondary browser a couple weeks ago, in addition to my use of it for web design purposes, and using two browsers side-by-side started to seem a bit silly.

I’ve spent most of the day tweaking settings to my liking (I spent many years learning IE customization, so getting something else to feel less alien is a major endeavour), as well as some minor interface adjustments (why the hell does the Bookmarks menu have so much extra crap?). And, after doing all that work, FF is finally starting to feel comfortable for me and my apparently unusual usage style.

So, yeah. The long-time Firefox hater uses Firefox now. Laugh it up, or whatever. I still intend to continue strong support for IE6 in all my website designs, because designs that work natively in IE6 and adhere to all standards tend to work well in all other major browsers, in my experience.

About Extensions
Extensions are an interesting concept, but certainly not a new one. IE4 even had them, they’re called ActiveX controls (it just didn’t get a handy interface to manage them until IE6sp2). This is not a revolutionary concept, Firefox just has a larger and less malicious developer base for them.

Personally, I feel that a browser should be a single-purpose tool for reading and navigating web-based documents/media. And, I strongly value efficiency and low resource usage. So, I have just four extensions (two that are closely linked, one other major one, and a very small one), with a very small selection of search engines, and I plan to keep it that way. Therefore, if you’re going to recommend your favourite extensions to me, here’s what I’m going to ask:

1. Does it have anything to do with tabs?
2. Does it do something/add a feature that isn’t directly related to viewing/navigating websites?
3. Does it make a primarily cosmetic change?
4. Does it increase the initial load time or overall memory/processor usage of the application?

If the answer to any of those is “yes”, I’m not interested. Thanks.

=================

Note: I drafted this awhile ago, and while re-reading it just now, I realize I probably come across as a bit of an asshole. Well, tough cookies, I’m not changing it, and here’s why. For years, ever since Firefox came out, I’ve had to listen to the entire internet and all my RL friends talk endlessly about how FF is the most awesome browser ever, and only lobotomized orangutans use IE, and so forth. The elitism of Firefox fans is everywhere (even on every page of the admin console of my Wordpress journal), and combined with my inherent repulsion at being constantly told that my way of doing things is wrong when it’s not, the whole subject has stayed very bitter for me.

My response to this, for years, has been “I’ll find a new browser when I’m ready, leave me the f*** alone until then”. So, now I’m ready, and I’ve switched. But, you know what? I still loathe the elitism surrouding Firefox. I don’t want to hear it. And I fear that, now that I’m “one of the club” to those who enjoy that sort of thing, I’m going to hear even more of it.

So, I guess the point of this post is that you people no longer need to try to convert me, I’m already here. But I don’t want to hear the verbal high-fiving that surrounds this particular browser, either. Just let me surf in peace, please. Thanks.

======================

Edit: Relating to my comment about AdBlock below, does anyone know how to prevent FF from displaying “Failed to Connect” errors when ads are blocked? They’re not particularly irritating, but they’re more intrusive in FF than in IE. Google has not been able to help me :-\

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m getting really, REALLY fucking tired of hearing “I have new art/photos/writings/whatevers to show off, but FA is down, so I can’t”. I see this on LJ, on forums (including one with an integrated image gallery o.O), on IRC, and in IM conversations. I can’t turn around without hearing someone whine about FA being down, and claiming that they can’t share media on the internet without it.

Here’s a bit of a newsflash, people: This is the internet! It was built for exactly this purpose! There are literally thousands of websites out there designed solely to help you share your media, whatever format it happens to be in. Some of them have communities surrounding them, some of them don’t. Some of them like furries, some of them don’t. Some of them have as piss-poor reliability as FA, but the vast majority are more stable. But, they’re out there, and the selection is overwhelming.

Plus, if you can’t find a site out there to your liking, you can even make your own! It’s easy, really, and there’s no complicated licensing or anything. Just decide whether you want to pay for this or not, find a host that doesn’t suck (hint: if it’s not AOL, Geocities, Tripod, or Freewebs, it probably doesn’t suck), and throw together a basic website in the application of your choice. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can build a website; it might not be the greatest, but it’s better than whining about FA and doing nothing.

Or, if you must have social networking feedback on your media, there’s plenty of those sites too! And almost all of them have ways of sharing text, images, and audio. They come in many flavours, with varying degrees of suck, but they’re out there and easy to find.

Even LJ (where you’re probably reading this) has a rudimentary, poorly-designed gallery that, while difficult for random people to navigate, will allow you insert your images into LJ posts.

In any case, there are infinite solutions to this problem that are more productive than whining about FA. So, find one you like, use it, and stop whining! You can always go back to FA if/when it comes back; this is the internet, it’s not like you need a passport to go from one site to another. But in the meantime, if you do something productive, you’ll still be able to share your work (or your commissions; I should clarify that most of the people I hear this bullshit from are not artists themselves), and your internet life will continue. And, who knows, you might even find a new social group to interact with, or you might find that you really like running your own website. Just stop whining about it, ok?

I finally saw Wall-E, and all I can say is that it was one of the sweetest love stories I’ve seen in a long time. Perhaps because the main characters communicated with only pantomime and saying each other’s names, but something about it just felt more real than most love stories with human characters.

I totally cried at the end, too.

===================================

Also, a fun anecdote from the job interview day. If you’re unaware, I drive a black Crown Victoria that used to be a police cruiser. I had just washed it the night before, so it was nice and shiny that day. And, I was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie (think “Men In Black” suit), with mirrored sunglasses, and my hair tied back quite tightly. As much as I hate getting dressed up like that, I really like that suit

So, after my interview, I went to the gas station a couple buildings away. This particular station is at the corner of a busy intersection, so I chose a pump with a good view of the street to people-watch (making sure the front of my car faced the street). I stood there with my best emotionless expression, and pumped my gas, while random people stared like crazy. It was awesome

At one point, a rather broken-looking van pulled up to the pump diagonally across from me. The motion caught my eye, so I turned to watch, keeping my poker-face the whole time. The van had no front license plate (meaning it’s from out of state), and both visible occupants appeared to be hispanic. They stopped at the pump, and the driver started to get out, but his passenger stopped him by tapping his shoulder and casually gesturing in my direction (thanks to the sunglasses, it didn’t look like I was looking at them). The driver looked at me, his eyes widened, and he put the van in reverse to leave the gas station.

That alone had me laughing like crazy on the inside, but this little scene kept going. This particular gas station has a large, usually empty parking lot next to it, with some sparse bushes between the two, and it’s possible to drive into the other lot without entering the road. So, at this point I had turned my head to look like I was watching them, and the driver backed the van all the way into this other parking lot. He didn’t stop until the big bush at the end of the row was between us, at which point he made an abrupt U-turn and quickly pulled in with the flow of traffic. Thanks to his elaborate actions, I never caught a clear view of his license plates, except to see that the van was from Texas.

On the one hand, I kinda wonder if I should’ve called him in, he was obviously going to great lengths to hide something. But on the other hand, I’m not sure I would’ve wanted to explain his reaction to a police dispatcher without something tangible to follow up on; half the cops in this town already think I’m an impersonator simply because I drive a Police Interceptor, I really don’t want to be seen driving it in an official-looking suit more than I have to. Looking like a gay hippy has been my main logical argument against anyone who thinks I could have a chance of pulling anyone over, regardless of what I’m driving.

This was posted by maikujaku, and I’m reposting it because, not only do I really hate FA for precisely these reasons, but someone sang it in our room one night at AC and I’ve been trying to find some evidence of the song since

Sung to the tune of “Still Alive” from Portal.

===================

This was a failure
I’m making a note here EPIC CRASH
It’s hard to keep the servers up and running
Amateur Coders
The searches are down because we suck
Donations you sent to us We don’t know where they have gone.
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake
Fur Affinity’s searching Has turned out to be fake.
And you gave us a ton
So our systems all could run
But the searches were all Just a lie

I bet you’re all angry,
Cause everything’s 404 not found
It’s visitors not DOS attacks That killed me
My website’s in pieces
The servers all run like they’re on fire
As you wait it hurts because We don’t know what we can do
We just made a website Without planning it well
We had no idea we’d be going through hell
So we asked for your cash to buy servers that would crash
Seems donations were all just a lie

So how long is ’shortly’?
Been looking at this dumb fox for days
Maybe you’ll find someone else to host you
Maybe FURNATION
That was a joke HA HA Don’t leave
Hardware in a cardboard box Was just a figure of speech
Look at me still singing while the site is offline
Maybe all the donations Should buy bandwidth next time
But I got a new car And some drinks down at the bar
While the servers are all still offline
FurNations running and We are offline
And so is VCL but We’re offline
We’ll be back shortly but now We’re offline
We’re up an hour but now We’re offline
We should all give up and just Stay offline
We’re online! Back offline!

The Site Is A Lie (c) Joey Porter/Corsi Mousehold

Arf! Here’s the art I got from Anthrocon, enjoy!

(more…)