Category: oddities
Design notebook 20181002
A little geekiness
If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that occasionally it changes appearance. That’s because I change WordPress “themes,” the templates that determine how everything displays. Many themes don’t allow full-size photos. In my last change, I found one that did. So I was thrilled…
…OK, stop right there. Today I notice that this theme has decided to replace my changing Uruguay header pictures with a black and white photo of mountains with snow, of which Uruguay has neither. How the hell did that happen? Actually, I kind of like the irony. I think I’ll leave it for a while.*
But this theme had something I didn’t like: when I wanted to make something italic, the theme displayed it as bold italic.
So for weeks my daily to-do list has had a reminder to fix it.
But how? I went to the theme developer’s site to find a helpful forum, only to find that the theme hasn’t been updated in two years. Bad news. Kind of on my own.
I downloaded the theme’s stylesheet. Nothing amiss there: the <em> and <i> tags were probably mapped to italic. So what next? I looked at the source code of a blog entry, downloaded the header.php file, and there it was!
OK, not exactly in-your-face obvious. But in line 36, the theme is calling for Google web fonts, and font Open Sans italic is only specified as 700 weight, which as you know — because doesn’t everyone work with Google web fonts every day? — is bold. So I got the correct “call” code from Google fonts, created a “child” theme in WordPress, and inserted the “correct” code in the header.php file there, which overrules the original (without the risk of your changes being wiped out with a theme update, even though that seems unlikely after two years).
And it works!
I still have no idea how header.php was invoked by my blog posts, but perhaps that’s because…well, I did look into PHP programming at one point and essentially decided life is too short.
I’ll leave it at that.
* No doubt it has to do with my messing around with code I don’t understand.
Am I dead yesterday?
Design notebook 20180220
Design Notebook 20171021
On foot again
I walked the few blocks to town today to take a bus to pick up our car from the mechanic, who spent the last couple days doing a couple hours’ work.
I saw this gnarly tree at the bus stop, then realized I had also never noticed the “expo” lot behind it, in the middle of town, where I have also never seen any activity. I’ll be watching it now for any signs of life.
It’s a pleasant treat, walking instead of riding a bike or driving, having time to see things I wouldn’t otherwise.
Of course, not having a muscular 30 kg leashed dog doing his best to dislocate my shoulder as I walk is also a pleasant treat.
As is avoiding the occasional interaction with loose dogs of irresponsible locals, which recently required preventing said dog access to certain parts of his anatomy for over a week.
I’ll spare you the details.
You’re welcome.
The bathroom door
My sister and brother-in-law sold their house in Madison, Connecticut, and moved into a lovely and practical townhouse, which they extensively remodeled. They couldn’t bear to change the inside of the downstairs bathroom door, but they did admit it was getting a little old for them.
I agreed it looked somewhat dated, but I also suggested it could be modified slightly to make it seem fresher and more modern. So I sent them my idea.
I’m still waiting to hear back.
Love your new house!
Mind if we put up this piece of shit ten meters from your back door?
Actually, that’s just a rhetorical question. We could care less what you think.
And who is we?
My neighbor Wayne tipped me off to this. I hadn’t been by recently, but know it well. This house is new, and this radiation tower even newer, and all of a quarter mile (.4 km) from the one installed a year and a half ago.
316 meters (1,034 feet) from our front door. The previous is 544 meters (1,785 feet) away.
In contrast to when I posted before, I now have a smart phone, and took these pictures with it. It has less bulk than my digital camera, many more capabilities, and is a great help traveling: Lyft, AirBnB, etc. However, generally when I carry it it’s in airplane mode. I don’t consider more radiation a good thing.
As I don’t consider another, closer radiation tower a good thing.
Graphic Nondesign Redux
I’ve shown this type of thing before. Having a bit of graphic design background, I’m (once again) appalled. There’s essentially nothing good about this design, from busy background to type and color choices. Which I guess is kind of an accomplishment in itself.