Virtual Museum of Creative Design (Spain)

Friday, April 30, 2010 4:31:00 PM – Link

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Podcast: Health Reform Myths & Realities, Part 4

Jim Horney, Director of Federal Fiscal Policy, discusses the false claim that the new health reform law’s cost estimate should include the cost of preventing a cut in the amount that Medicare pays doctors. Duration: 2:51

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:27:53 PM – Link

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What’s Wrong With CSS

We’re currently in the midst of a CSS Zen Garden type excerise on our family of Q&A websites, which I affectionately refer to as “the Trilogy”:

• Server Fault
• Super User
• Stack Overflow
• Meta Stack Overflow

(In case you were wondering, yes, meta is the Star Wars Holiday Special.)

These sites all run the same core engine, but the logo, domain, and CSS “skin” that lies over the HTML skeleton is different in each case:

They are not terribly different looking, it’s true, but we also want them to be recognizable as a family of sites.

We’re working with two amazing designers, Jin Yang and Nathan Bowers, who are helping us whip the CSS and HTML into shape so they can produce a set of about 10 different Zen Garden designs. As new sites in our network get democracied into being, these designs will be used as a palette for the community to choose from. (And, later, the community will decide on a domain name and logo as well.)

Anyway, I bring this up not because my pokemans, let me show you them, but because I have to personally maintain four different CSS files. And that number is only going to get larger. Much larger. That scares me a little.

Most of all, what I’ve learned from this exercise in site theming is that CSS is kind of painful. I fully support CSS as a (mostly) functional user interface Model-View-Controller. But even if you have extreme HTML hygiene and Austrian levels of discipline, CSS has some serious limitations in practice.

Things in particular that bite us a lot:

• Vertical alignment is a giant, hacky PITA. (Tables work great for this though!)
• Lack of variables so we have to repeat colors all over the place.
• Lack of nesting so we have to repeat huge blocks of CSS all over the place.

In short, CSS violates the living crap out of the DRY principle. You are constantly and unavoidably repeating yourself.

That’s why I’m so intrigued by two Ruby gems that attempt to directly address the deficiencies of CSS.

1. Less CSS

 /* CSS */

#header { -moz-border-radius: 5; -webkit-border-radius: 5; border-radius: 5; }

#footer { -moz-border-radius: 10; -webkit-border-radius: 10; border-radius: 10; } 

 // LessCSS

.rounded_corners (@radius: 5px) { -moz-border-radius: @radius; -webkit-border-radius: @radius; border-radius: @radius; }

#header { .rounded_corners; }

#footer { .rounded_corners(10px); } 

2. SASS

 /* CSS */

.content_navigation { border-color: #3bbfce; color: #2aaebd; }

.border { padding: 8px; margin: 8px; border-color: #3bbfce; } 

 // Sass

!blue = #3bbfce !margin = 16px

.content_navigation border-color = !blue color = !blue - #111

.border padding = !margin / 2 margin = !margin / 2 border-color = !blue 

As you can see, in both cases we’re transmogrifying CSS into a bit more of a programming language, rather than the static set of layout rules it currently exists as. Behind the scenes, we’re generating plain vanilla CSS using these little dynamic languages. This could be done at project build time, or even dynamically on every page load if you have a good caching strategy.

I’m not sure how many of these improvements CSS3 will bring, never mind when the bulk of browsers in the world will support it. But I definitely feel that the core changes identified in both Less CSS and SASS address very real pain points in practical CSS use. It’s worth checking them out to understand why they exist, what they bring to the table, and how you could possibly adopt some of these strategies in your own CSS and your favorite programming language.

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:49:21 PM – Link

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Two pierrots in a studio

Friday, April 30, 2010 3:51:00 PM – Link

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Science Of The Deep Videos

Before aquanauts can surface from underwater, they must undergo an 18 hour decompression period. Find out more about this phenomenon in this clip from The Science Channel’s “Science of the Deep.”

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:00:00 PM – Link

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Is there a link between exercise and happiness?

Practices like laughercise and laughter yoga are on the rise, and researchers are getting serious about funny stuff. A recent study suggests that guffaws decrease levels of cortisol and epinephrine. One specialist is calling laughter the new exercise.

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:00:00 PM – Link

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Foreclosure Quiz

Foreclosure is a legal course of action in which nobody really comes out on top. Think you have some foreclosure fortitude? Take this quiz and find out.

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:00:00 PM – Link – Download

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How do I know if my household cleansers are safe?

Those germ and grime busters that reside under your sink may be effective at getting the gunk out of your oven or the stains off your tile and grout, but could they make you sick?

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:00:00 PM – Link

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7 Step Plan for Healthy Living

This seven-step plan for healthy living will keep you on track. Learn the seven-step plan for healthy living.

Friday, April 30, 2010 2:00:00 PM – Link – Download

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Tarte gourmande… en plein dans le mille !

Une méchante NCB (à savoir névralgie cervico-brachiale) m’éloigne depuis quelques jours de mon ordinateur… Difficile donc de poster en ce moment… par contre c’est devant mes fourneaux, debout, que je suis le plus à l’aise… alors je ne me prive pas d’essayer quelques nouvelles recettes… Comme tout le monde sait que le chocolat est un très bon médicament, j’ai décidé de troquer les pilules multicolores du pharmacien contre une bonne ganache… ça aide à prendre son mal en patience !

Une recette nouvelle… non pas vraiment mais une adaptation de la tarte au citron… la recette est ici pour la pâte…

Pour la garniture de la tarte au chocolat : 300 g de chocolat noir – 25 cl de crème fraîche (une crème entière)

Hachez le chocolat. Dans une casserole, versez la crème puis portez à ébullition. Versez la crème sur le chocolat, bien mélangez jusqu’à ce que le chocolat soit fondu. Le mélange doit être bien homogène. Versez sur les fonds de pâte (refroidi), placez au réfrigérateur pour que la ganache durcisse, puis dé-gus-tez !

Mon petit jardin de "fenêtre" !

Thursday, April 29, 2010 9:13:00 PM – Link

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