Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Website 20.1 Revision

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Today I have launched a minor revision to the web site, bringing the version to 20.1. This is the first significant change to the site since I launched v.20 in April, marking the switch to the WordPress content management system. Here are just a couple of quick highlights:

  • Visual tweaks and adjustments (as always, these ‘minor revisions’ are where I start playing with new design cues that, if I like them, end up being a part of the next major redesign).
  • Adjustments to the display of list-view pages (for tags and categories). There was a lot of inconsistency before, which has been ironed out and these pages should work better across-the-board now. You’ll see a lot of improvement on the tag indexes (and, over the next few days, I’m going to aggressively tag all my old, un-tagged content).
  • Improvements to the LoFi view for mobile browsers—it should be a bit easier and faster to navigate around on the tiny-screen now.
  • Improvements to browser support—most notably the initiation of support for the Internet Explorer 8 betas (which had butchered my site previously) and some improvements in the new Google Chrome browser.

Robert Novak: How a Tumor Is Changing My Life

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I’m no particular fan of conservative columnist Robert Novak, nor am I a fan of liberal Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), but both have found themselves in dire medical straits with recent diagnoses of serious brain tumors. I wish both of them the absolute best, and my prayers go out to them.

Novak, who announced his retirement from being a full-time columnist shortly after his diagnosis, returns with an interesting piece in today’s Washington Post about his condition and what has happened since things started going downhill for him in July. You may remember that shortly before his diagnosis people were condemning Novak as a criminal who had hit a pedestrian in downtown Washington with his Corvette (which he was known to drive a bit too fast) and tried to drive away without stopping. It turns out that Novak really didn’t see the man he hit, and was likely disoriented due to a tumor he didn’t even know he had until days later.

Most touchingly, Novak—who is ideologically unfriendly toward Senator Kennedy, and vice-versa—has found support from the Kennedy family, including the Senator. It is nice to see a couple of opinionated folks on opposite sides of the political fence put their differences aside and be human toward one another; something that happens fairly often, but rarely gets attention.

Republican Party Officially Nominates McCain

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Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has been formally nominated by the Republican Party as their Presidential candidate to stand in the November general election against Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). McCain has been the presumptive nominee since securing a majority of pledged party convention delegates in March, but the delegates to the Republican National Convention have now made McCain’s nomination official.

Senator McCain is joined on the Republican ticket by Vice Presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), who McCain announced as his running mate last Friday.

Palin is only the second woman on a major-party national ticket, following Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. If McCain is elected, Palin would become the first female Vice President (and, in the event of McCain’s death, resignation, or removal from office, would become the first female President).

Thoughts on Gov. Palin

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My good friend Wes left a comment on my entry reporting Governor Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) selection to be Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) Vice Presidential running mate in which he asked:

“What is your opinion on SenatorJohn McCain’s pick of Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate? I know this may be a loaded question, lol.”

It is a loaded question. Palin is certainly an intriguing and interesting choice. She has a pretty impressive (though short) resumé—in many respects, more so than Senator Barack Obama’s (D-IL) similarly short resumé. This is not a dig at Obama . . . as a 1st-term Senator he is really the ‘low man on the totem pole’ and doesn’t get to sponsor the big-name bills and such. That’s just because the Senate is based, mostly, on seniority, while executive positions (like the mayoral and gubernatorial roles Palin has played) get much more attention and can pad a political resumé much quicker.

Both Palin and Obama have been criticized (sometimes, humorously, by the other’s campaign organization) for their lack of experience or ill-preparedness for the office of President, but I really see ‘experience’ as a non-issue. Leadership is largely an innate quality—you either have it or you don’t—and an ‘inexperienced’ politician can easily surround themselves with ‘experienced’ aides and advisers and make good executive decisions just as well as an ‘experienced’ politician can. I’m much more concerned with basic qualities of leadership and, more importantly, policy (which will be the primary basis of my endorsements, which are coming later this month).

Read more . . .

Google Launches ‘Chrome’ Web Browser

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Google, the omnipresent search firm that has managed to stretch the Internet in ways previously unimaginable, has just launched their own open-source web browser: Google Chrome. Chrome builds upon technologies developed by other open source projects, like the Apple-led WebKit effort (which is used as the core renderer) and other technologies that originated at Mozilla and elsewhere, but also brings several innovative features of its own. Because Chrome is open source (BSD License), its most innovative features and technologies can be used by other browsers like Firefox, Safari, and even proprietary browsers like Internet Explorer and Opera.

Chrome uses the same rendering engine as Apple’s Safari browser, so it is no surprise that most web sites—including this one—seem to work just fine. In fact, I’ve already added Chrome to my list of supported browsers (although there are sure to be minor incompatibilities; let me know if you find any).

The beta that Google released today is available only for Microsoft Windows operating systems, however Google promises Mac and Linux versions (though they provided no schedule for their release). If you are a Windows user and are dissatisfied with your browser universe, Chrome might be worth a look. All-in-all, the technological ‘under the hood’ innovations we see here are likely a harbinger of things to come in the web browser universe—and it never hurts to have some competing open source products, since Chrome, WebKit, and Firefox can all ‘steal’ from one another and move the entire Internet forward (except for the poor souls still using Internet Explorer).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.