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tiddchristopheron Enter Darth Vader's Tie Fighter

It's a TIE Advanced x1. Although features developed for it were incorporated into the later TIE/IN Interceptor, the x1 had substantial differences, such as shielding and FTL capabilities. The mass-production craft resulting directly from the x series was the TIE/D Defender.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_Advanced_x1

tiddchristopheron Custom t-shirt site I've been working on the past few months.

To improve the preview for Windows and Linux users, why don't you use Typekit with Nimbus Sans (a rather accurate Helvetica clone)? Many designers and typophiles won't trust a service that doesn't accurately render the type on a typographic product. Also, I'd rather see the flat front of a shirt than the current view when previewing how the text will be set.

tiddchristopheron The Flat Design Era

I think you're looking at the wrong page. If you go to facebook.com while logged out, the "Log In" and "Sign Up" buttons use the technique described by the above poster.

tiddchristopheron 3Taps Files Countersuit, Says Craigslist Is Anticompetitive

Excellent points, especially regarding photographs. I was thinking of that case already, and hadn't considered the arrangement of facts within a post; what came to mind first was the collection of posts as their own arrangement of facts.

tiddchristopheron 3Taps Files Countersuit, Says Craigslist Is Anticompetitive

You're right about that, and I think that's going to make their claim a bit unsteady. But I see an argument they might make:

1. Classified ads are facts, with negligible creativity put into their composition. 2. Facts are not copyrightable. 3. Therefore, 3Taps can scrape the ads. 4. If any ad actually does have creativity / an applicable copyright, the copyright holder can contact 3taps with a complaint.

Basically a "safe harbor" take on the whole thing. What do you think?

tiddchristopheron 3Taps Files Countersuit, Says Craigslist Is Anticompetitive

It's not at all like that. The interesting thing seems to be the claim that Craigslist posts lack creativity, which Amazon reviews certainly do have. 3Taps is claiming the posts can't be protected by copyright, because you can't copyright facts. I think their case has merit.

tiddchristopheron Simple steps to better typography

This is an example I threw together to demonstrate:

http://i.imgur.com/0z73s.png

I hope it helps explain.

Also, lbotos posted an excellent example of hanging quotes and other non-bullet punctuation.

If you find yourself liking typographic details like these, consider checking out The Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst. Old editions are cheap, and it's the best book on typography I've come across.

tiddchristopheron Simple steps to better typography

Designer here. I recommend aligning your bullets with the paragraphs above and below for inline text, and hanging to reinforce the grid when you have blocks of content next to each other horizontally -- say, two paragraphs and a list.

I hope this makes sense.

tiddchristopheron Dotsies: Font using dots instead of letters - Optimized for reading, not writing

If you're honestly interested in knowing how I came to that conclusion, here's my proof:

Try telling apart "be" and "ad", with no nearby words. They are identical, because you don't know where the baseline is.

tiddchristopheron Dotsies: Font using dots instead of letters - Optimized for reading, not writing

Typographically, this has horrible legibility: the letters are difficult to distinguish and recognize on an individual basis. This contributes to poor readability when the letters are grouped to form passages of text. This seems much more about compacting information in a human-decipherable format than creating a more readable alphabet.

There are no ascenders or descenders in a traditional sense, no contours or apertures, and there is no stroke contrast. Also, the baseline is thrown off in many words. Put this all together, and you have text that's miserable to read.

This isn't even to mention the difficulty of getting readers to abandon tradition.

In all, I'd consider this an interesting experiment, but a practical failure.

tiddchristopheron tDCS: We Were Stupid

To clarify, we measured about 8000 Ohms of resistance through the head, using our electrodes. For some reason, our measurement was off. I'm assuming it's a problem with the electrodes. To fix this issue, we'd need constant monitoring and adjustable resistance. In no way was I planning on running 6mA through my brain.

tiddchristopheron Blackout your WordPress site on January 18th

Nice work, Chris! I particularly like your embedded calling functionality. Where did you get it from?

If anyone's looking something a bit more configurable, https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sopa-blackout-plugin/ is another option. Disclaimer: I was involved in the creation of this plugin, along with Site5 and Ten-321.

tiddchristopheron The $40 Standup Desk

I've been using precisely that solution for several months. It's perfect, and I have absolutely no worries about weight, because there are several screws along the length of each bar. My laptop and monitor go on one rack, and my keyboard and mouse are on another, about a foot beneath the first.

tiddchristopheron Resources to Hack Design

These are all great resources, but remember:

The most important part of design is sitting back and thinking about the impact your choices will make. What will a given element say about your product? How will it affect functionality? If you can ask these questions, you can achieve great design. It easy to be distracted by glossy aesthetics, but a simple, well-thought-out, polished, application is what your goal should really be.

So pay attention to every detail.

No pixel should go unexamined. It sounds hard, and at first it's tedious, but it quickly becomes habitual. You start to look at the corners of boxes, or unfocus your eyes after you read a logo.

If you're going to take this one step further, learn about typography and negative space. Specifically vertical rhythm and the use of 6.

Just like you can't "hack" a well-designed API, you can't "hack" good design. It takes effort, attentiveness, and the willingness to try ten variations before you choose an option.

tiddchristopheron Web Giants Consider 'Nuclear Option' Blackout to Fight SOPA

I sent you an email. (chris@ctidd.com)

tiddchristopheron Turning off Google search results indirection

I've had a problem on my system (Firefox 4.0-9.1, Windows 7), where upon clicking a result link, the search results page refreshes. Nothing else happens. I can't get to individual results without middle clicking to open them in a new tab. This has been happening since Google Instant came out. Does anyone know what could be going on?

tiddchristopheron Dorm Room Design and Construction

The room's pretty neat, but I'm having trouble understanding why a college student would put this much effort into something that needs to be torn down at the end of the year. I get the "because I can" hacker attitude, but as someone heading back to school tomorrow, I've got to say I would never put most of that stuff in my room. Hardwood flooring: who has the money to blow on that in college? It's one thing to optimize a room for comfort and utility. It's another to install unneeded gadgets.

tiddchristopheron New Visual Proportions for the iOS User Interface

That sounds brilliant for single-column layouts. Too bad it wouldn't hold up to a multi-column approach.

tiddchristopheron New Visual Proportions for the iOS User Interface

One of the things vertical rhythm's used for is making two parallel columns of text align with each other at regular intervals. From my limited knowledge of music, every measure of a song, the song's elements align. In a design, every measure (baseline), the design's elements align. By align, I don't mean with some arbitrary measure, but with the other elements.

Here's a quick example I made: http://i.imgur.com/NEc92.png

You do make a good point: When you get into single-column layouts, like a solo in a song, having mathematical vertical rhythm is irrelevant.

tiddchristopheron 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

That would be the cynical way to look at it. For a sole inventor, working independently of any company, I think the filing fee is about $150. It's possible he had enough saved to pay for it himself. :) Heck, judging from his report, the kid might have even figured out the whole application by himself. That alone would be just as impressive as any invention.

tiddchristopheron 13-Year-Old Makes Solar Power Breakthrough by Harnessing the Fibonacci Sequence

The description, "The study earned Aidan a provisional U.S patent," is misleading. A provisional patent is merely a completely automated recognition of your claim to an invention. You submit your provisional filing, and then have one year to file an actual patent, which is reviewed by patent examiners. You don't "earn" a provisional patent--you just pay a couple hundred dollars and submit a few forms.

tiddchristopheron Oh, Adobe... read the copy, then view the source.

Regarding constructive criticism, I posted elsewhere in this thread that Muse generated a div to preload hover images. It's a nice bit of usability optimization, but the code could certainly benefit from a dose of minimalism. Even if Muse initially generates the page with this much bloat, I'm thinking it would be trivial [for Adobe] to run the page through an optimizer that rips out anything without style assigned to it. Then it could refactor the stylesheets, getting rid of redundancies, i.e. styles targeting p.paragraph and the like, and run a second round of optimization. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, but it would be worth the effort if they could cut the page into even a tenth the original size, which is a gross under-expectation.

tiddchristopheron Oh, Adobe... read the copy, then view the source.

I can't tell whether you're suggesting a solution or taking a guess as to what Muse did. I think it's the latter. Sorry if I interpreted your question incorrectly. :)

They're using a hidden div full of <img> elements to load the hover images before they're requested by an actual hover. It's all the way at the bottom of their code code: <div class="preload_images"> [Removed for brevity] </div>

Sprite sheets are another option (using the sliding doors technique), but they're a bit more ungainly. They would save a couple HTTP requests, but that extent of optimization isn't necessary on most sites. Unless I've already combined all my stylesheets into one file, I certainly wouldn't start combining images.

What really matters is perceptible lag to a user, and either technique work just as well for that.

I find Adobe's technique kind of neat, and I'll probably use it in some of my future websites.

tiddchristopheron Oh, Adobe... read the copy, then view the source.

The original does have at least one advantage: preloaded hover images. It's nice for them to improve usability a tiny bit, along with all the bloat. I can't imagine a complete newcomer to HTML and CSS hacking together a page and having it come out nearly as bad. Any designer who can learn design can easily learn to code better than Muse, in my opinion.

tiddchristopheron How soon does a bike pay back its initial carbon footprint?

I strongly disagree with your recommendation. The article talks about saddles with relief cutouts or depressions, to make sure no pressure is put on the perineum. Saddles with cutouts are fine--even better than normal saddles for some people. Noseless saddles, on the other hand, address the problem entirely wrong. The tend to produce an uncomfortable position for long rides, as the nose is important for bike handling.

Back to cutout saddles, a cutout only helps if the saddle is heavily padded. When the padding compresses, you don't sink from your sit bones into your perineum. Another option is a firmer saddle. My saddle is hard as a rock, but it supports me properly, and I have no pain or numbness on even the longest rides.

Source: Me, recreational cyclist.

Read what Sheldon Brown had to say: http://sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html

Sheldon on noseless saddles:

"The lack of a nose can compromise lateral control in some cases.

The pads must be angled downward, which tends to make the rider slide forward. This is liable to lead to hand/wrist/neck problems as the rider braces on the handlebar to keep from sliding forward off the seat.

If the pads are not angled downward, they tend to cut off circulation to the thighs, and to interfere with the thigh muscles."

tiddchristopheron Redesigning the browser window

My gut reaction is that well-made typefaces for digital use, which are often designed with hinting in mind, would lose their benefits. For most fonts, though, it shouldn't make a difference whether antialiasing or subpixel rendering is done vertically or horizontal, and I know you can manually specify your subpixel information in Linux.

Edit: natesm posted a response to the grandparent of this comment with a screenshot of the subpixel orientation selection in Ubuntu.

tiddchristopheron Hotmail Adds New Feature "My Friend's Been Hacked"

I remember creating a blank password on Mac OS9 in grade school. It was clearly a bug that allowed me to do it, because the minimum password length was set to six characters, if I recall correctly. After I set the null password, I couldn't change it, but it worked fine for logging into my account. I was too embarrassed to ask the admin for help, so I was stuck with no password for about two years.

tiddchristopheron The Death Of Bundling In University Education?

So the primary purpose in giving people economically worthless education is to prevent them from committing crimes?

So it's economically worthless to decrease the number of criminals in society?

tiddchristopheron [dead]

I agree. I gave that code as an example of a bad idea. For me, "If you can, then use that relative size in your CSS", has never been an option. Ems also have the same sizing problems regarding not knowing the browser's base text size.

I'm sticking with the quite capable pixel unit for the foreseeable future. :)

tiddchristopheron [dead]

I agree with most of your post. I'm not saying designers should actively hinder accessibility or make users uncomfortable. We should do the opposite.

Still, in 2003, ems might have been best practice. In the modern web, ems and pixels are equivalent when it comes to scaling. One shouldn't avoid a good tool because it's hard to learn. (Example: I use Vim for all my coding.) However, one shouldn't use a tool just because it's hard to learn. Ems, in my opinion, introduce bugs, make planning more complicated, and have no meaningful benefits.

Using ems is like avoiding functions and instead duplicating code everywhere it's needed. Ems behave differently depending on their scope, and they're a pain to keep track of.

There's a similar issue with percent-based sizing. Let's look at some css:

*{font-size: 75%} h1{font-size: 125%;}

What size is h1? I honestly have no clue without a calculator. It almost definitely contains fractional pixel value. There's no way I'm getting appropriate vertical rhythm with percents. It's the same for ems.

I might be entirely wrong. Maybe I'd fall in love with ems if I started working with them regularly. It's a personal choice, from my understanding of modern browser scaling. Pixels are a completely valid method.