There is no question that Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst natural disasters ever to affect the United States. A number of major cities on the Gulf coast—New Orleans, Louisiana, and Biloxi, Mississippi, most notably—have been utterly devastated. If you want to help with the ongoing rescue and recovery efforts, please contact the Red Cross.
Minor Display Problems Solved [Updated]
The site had two minor display problems which affected Microsoft Internet Explorer users (links jumped when moused-over) and Mozilla Firefox for Windows users (the site was often displayed slightly too wide for the screen and a horizontal scroll bar appeared). I believe that both of these have been fixed, and the site should now display as-expected in all supported browsers.
Announcing Website 17: New Look; New Navigation Structure
On January 1, 2005, after several months of effort, I launched v16 of Off on a Tangent as the site entered its tenth calendar year on the web. Moving to v16 was a huge technological leap (shifting to a fully content-managed system), but I had never been completely satisfied with the visual design or the navigation structure. My goal then was simply to get it working. As I struggled with learning the new CMS (formerly known as Mambo), I spent little time fully utilizing the new system to make dynamic navigation, and even less making the site look great.
Site Notice: Friday Afternoon Downtime
Even though I’m still under the influence of Dayquil, I am planning to launch the next version of Off on a Tangent with a new look and a new navigation structure beginning tomorrow afternoon (Friday, August 25). What this means is that some time around 4:00 p.m. ET tomorrow, this website will become unavailable for at least a couple of hours.
Tone-Deafness Among Democrats
George Will’s excellent column in the Post this morning discusses exactly why many—myself included—have a harder and harder time paying any attention to the Democratic Party lately (and why the party, unless it drastically changes course, is destined for another electoral flop in 2008). Rather than debating the issues, the ‘Democratic base’ now largely resorts to spewing mindless insults and comes across as a bunch of angry psychos (making Howard Dean the DNC chairman certainly didn’t help).
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.