...so, I was grumbling to myself about IE not supporting certain CSS3 capabilities (selectors, box-shadows, text-shadows, etc), when I decided to go ahead and write a letter on the IE8 blog site:

Hi there.

I'm a web app developer and long-time [x]html/css hacker, and I'm curious about the timeline for IE8 supporting at least *some* of the useful new stuff in the CSS3 spec.

find it immensely aggravating that I can easily do rounded corners, drop-shadows, custom checkboxes/radio buttons, and opacity in Firefox, Safari, etc (but not in IE) using nothing more than CSS3-compliant stylesheets.

I always keep graceful degradation in mind when coding, but that doesn't mean I *want* pages to be either ugly in IE or uneccesarily complicated and verbose just because of browser compatibility issues.

When will I be able to rely on IE supporting CSS3 fully? It would help a lot in terms of lowering bandwidth, and simplifying development while ensuring a cross-browser experience that doesn't leave IE users with a dumbed-down view of a web app.

Shortly thereafter, I got a note back from Eric Lawrence on the subject:

The final version of IE8 was completed in March; in general, it does not (and thus will not) support CSS 3.

Planning for the next version of IE has started, and we have a large number of requests for support of various CSS3 modules.

-Eric

I'm fine with that, but it misses the crux of my question (namely "when will IE be doing the stuff that other browsers have been doing for a year or more with CSS3?"), so I asked another question:

Thanks, Eric...

Does that mean that the next version of IE will support *some* CSS modules when it ships, or that it will support the CSS3 spec in its entirety?

When will we see some blogging on the subject?

...and got a reply...

It's important to note that thus far, only 5 of the CSS3 modules have reached Candidate Recommendation stage: http://www.css3.info/modules/. Some modules are still in working draft stage, and it appears that at least one isn't even at Draft stage yet.

We will discuss our IE9 plans as they solidify. At this point, we're primarily listening to feedback from developers.

Thanks for identifying some of your top requests.

-Eric

I get it. I do, really. I *know* that CSS3 is unfinished. What I *don't* get is why 8 years after the initial working draft, the spec isn't close to being finalized, and why the parts that are simple or relatively stable have not been implemented by all browser vendors.

I make web-based applications for a living. I use a variety of tricks to make them more attractive, and I prefer omitting eye-candy or specific layout details to adding ugly CSS hacks, javascript workarounds, or conditional code just because some browser vendors are more willing than others to provide preemptive support for future standards.

I'm not sure what the primary issue is...politics, money, over-cautiousness...all I know is that the situation makes it harder than it needs to be for me to create simple things that just work in all browsers (a newspaper-style multi-column layout...a drop-shadow on a box or text...alternate images for checkboxes or radio buttons...text displayed at a 45-degree angle).

But hey, what do I know...I'm not coding browsers or part of the CSS working group.

+$1100 on the day including a 5 of 6 on the pick six, holy shit

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that "What's the meaning of life?" is precisely the same question as "What's the meaning of fire?".

In case anyone is wondering why I think a legislator creating a legislation against X is not proof that X is real, I present this interesting news item from Utah. Utah County Republicans reject 'Satanic' resolution. Here are some selections from the article:

Utah County Republicans defeated a resolution opposing well-heeled groups that a delegate claims are pushing a satanic plan to encourage illegitimate births and illegal immigration

Don Larsen, a Springville delegate, offered the resolution, titled "Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal," warning delegates that an "invisible government" comprised of left-wing foundations was pumping money into the Democratic Party to push for looser immigration laws and anti-family legislation.

"Satan's ultimate goal is to destroy the family," Larsen said, "and these people are playing a leading part in it."

Larsen's resolution contained quotes from the New Testament on the battle between good and evil. The copy of the resolution handed to delegates stated it "fulfills scriptural prophecies about our times."

"We are not going to be the majority party if we keep pushing the Latinos out," Wright said.

But Cameron Sevy, a Provo delegate, said the GOP shouldn't be ashamed to say that America is a Christian nation

Turns out legislators can be nuttier than slashdot tinfoil hatters.

It's been a while since I posted frequently enough for this to happen, but I'm pretty sure I just got a comment modded troll for the first time ever.

Is this really surprising? (Score:0, Troll)

Yeah, so I've got another Freak. I liked his taste in music and his sports commentary, so I followed his journals. Apparently my questions about his politics are just annoying, though, and he doesn't want dissenters to answer his taunts. He foed me, and then responded to me. I can't really respect that, so I dropped him as a friend. Guess I'll live without his perspective.

I've long advocated that the future of video delivery should either be multicast, or old-school protocols like HTTP combined with caching at the ISP. (Why all ISPs don't run transparent Squids, I still don't understand.) Bittorrent just isn't the right way to do it.

Thanks to Freedom To Tinker I've just learned that someone is using multicast to deliver TV.

Except it's not available in my area, and still requires propriety DVRs/STBs, which I assume means that it probably uses DRM and therefore has massive interoperability problems.

But it's a start. I hadn't heard of anyone actually doing it, before now.

I was writing a function in PHP4 and it kept getting bigger. It could use some splitting up for readability/testing/debugging purposes, although it didn't really need that to work. But then I realized I needed to reuse some sections of code, and since I hate duplicating code, those parts needed to be pulled out into their own functions.

But they needed access to the working set of local variables of the big function. Oh great.. do I pass all those vars by reference, making the argument list really long? Do I move all those variables into a struct (well, an associative array) and pass that?

These are, like, Programming 101 issues. Experienced programmers don't normally have to think about this stuff, because the right thing to do is just .. obvious.

Then I remembered that Pascal has the unusual (and rarely(*) needed) feature of nested procedures, where the sub-procedures can directly access the outer scope's local variables. It dawned on me: that would be incredibly convenient (and readable) in this case.

I wussed out and put everything into a class. It's not really oop (all this class does, is return a result) but that looked like the best way to deal, except now I have an ugly this-> in front of everything.

(*) I haven't programmed in Pascal (or anything like it) in over 20 years. Never really missed that feature until today.

About two weeks ago, I attempted to donate some blood to the Red Cross. They have a handy website that will let you find a local upcoming drive and schedule an appointment. I did so, and carefully perused their eligibility guidelines, and found nothing amiss. So, the day of the donation came, and I went, excited to be able to help people in some small way.

Well, it turns out I'm not good at reading, or somehow was looking at the wrong eligibility guidelines. My wife lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for a stretch of her childhood, and I was ignorant of the fact that I am therefore indefinitely ineligible to give blood. Here's the first restriction based on travel:

Persons who were born in or who lived in certain countries in Western Africa, or who have had close contact with persons who were born in or who lived in certain West African countries are not eligible to donate. This requirement is related to concerns about HIV Group O. Learn more about HIV Group O, and the specific African countries where it is found.

And here's the specific bit about HIV:

• were born in, or lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria, since 1977.
• since 1977, received a blood transfusion or medical treatment with a blood product in any of these countries, or
• had sex with anyone who, since 1977, was born in or lived in any of these countries. Learn more about HIV Group O, and the specific African countries where it is found.

(And yes, in that last section, it offers a link to learn more about HIV Group O that just links right back to itself. Helpful.)

First note: my wife is from the DCR, not a country simply called Congo - but the worker at the donation drive did not think there was a difference. A call to the Red Cross has not yielded any further enlightenment about whether they intended to exclude both the Republic of the Congo (which is colloquially called the Congo) and the confusingly similar Democratic Republic of the Congo (used to be called Zaire, but now just muddies the waters, nomenclature-wise). It seems likely that they mean to exclude both, but I would like to know. Either way, they really should spell out the full country names in their guidelines - bits are cheap on the internet, and it would have saved me a trip.

More disturbing to me is the fact that they are restricting donors based on first or second-hand exposure, but that still only matters if you know. First-hand, most people would know if they lived in one of the restricted countries. Second-hand, what if my wife had not told me she lived in one of them? If we were in a casual relationship, I may or may not have heard about her childhood in the DCR. She has no accent, so I would have no reason to assume that she had lived anywhere but the USA without further information. Furthermore, what if I had an intimate relationship with someone else after? They could know all about me, and I still may never have told them that my wife had lived in the DCR. If they were then screened at a donor drive, they would be let through. Risky business.

The biggest question is, why does it matter? Doesn't the Red Cross test all the blood that they collect at drives anyhow? They certainly screen for a lot of things - why not HIV Group O? Well, it turns out that (and you can read about this near the end of the eligibility guidelines) that HIV screening tests do not always catch Group O.

There is a rare form of HIV called Type O that is found in western Africa. The available tests for HIV do not always detect the Type O strain. This means that blood programs must take special precautions to keep this virus out of the blood supply by not taking blood donations from those who have been where the virus is found.

A side note - they don't even test for malaria, they handle that entirely by screening questions, which also seems a bit risky to me.

Recently (December of 2008) a combination test has been approved by the FDA:

The new FDA-approved test detects nucleic acid from HIV-2 and from HIV-1 Group O. ... In addition to HIV-2 and HIV-1 Group O, the MPX test simultaneously detects nucleic acid from the most common form of HIV, HIV-1 Group M, as well as the Hepatitis C Virus and the Hepatitis B Virus.

Up until this point, they only had an 80% success rate identifying Group O in samples. As I noted earlier, I have not heard back from the Red Cross, but I'd like to think I could go test myself for Group O and then be cleared to donate. We'll see. In the meantime, my trepidation about blood transfusions has gone up quite a bit, and I don't think I'll feel completely comfortable with the situation until they start testing all donations for Group O. The web site says:

It is possible that the tests used to screen donated blood may someday be improved so that they detect Type O HIV. If so, these donation restrictions may be removed.

Obviously, it'll take a while to put a new blood test in place, so 1 month after approval by the FDA, they haven't rolled it out everywhere. Even so, it seems like HIV is a damaging enough disease that testing for even rare strains should be rolled out across the US as aggressively as possible. If they ever do call me back, I'm definitely asking them what their timeline is on implementing Group O testing across the board.

You can now follow me on Twitter - search for my username's initialism, and you'll find me. Not that I have much to say, but if you've followed me for all these 285 slashdot journals, maybe you're looking for more from me, but in a pithier format. Twitter is there; or, uh, here.

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Those who buy into false dichotomies, and those who don't.

The frustrating reality is that nothing, positive or negative, can be inferred from silence.
 
This applies to job searches, religion, debates, and many other situations.

So, I'm aware that I'm offending people with some of my posts, but I really need some sort of forum to post this stuff and talk about it. Despite treading on other people's faith, I really don't mean to offend... I just really want to work this all out, and check my blindspots.

Anyhow, on to this journal's real topic; What to believe?
Essentially, since faith is necessary if I am to adhere to a religion, there remains one question to ask:
How should I determine what, amongst all the possibilities, to have faith in?

I know intuition has been raised by a number of commentators as the path - I still think that the number of directions taken by people who use intuition as their spiritual guide to be in line with the null hypothesis, that is, that there is no absolute truth outside of reality that can be found via intuition. To be honest, I'm not convinced that intuition is in any way different than the conscious problem solving or creativity that people exhibit, except that it happens below the "awareness of thought processing" radar. If I had seen intuition solve problems that were unsolvable via normal thought, then I would be convinced. The fact that intuition leads to as many bad decisions as it does to good decisions leaves me uncompelled.

Is intuition the only other possibility aside from rationality, or is (are?) there some other way(s) to find something beyond this reality?

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic

The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today.

The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf -- a philosopher or servant, -- but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.

1. Bible, 2. Albert Einstein, 3. Dorothy Thompson, 4. Anaïs Nin, 5. David Hume, 6. John F. Kennedy, 7. Pierre Abelard, 8. Stephen Hawking, 9. Tryon Edwards, 10. Robert G. Ingersoll