Chimeric Dream

Everybody has a different definition of when the “holiday season” actually starts: Thanksgiving Day; Black Friday; Halloween (if you ask most major retailers); when they bring home a their freshly cut tree; and so on. I am no different. My sign arrived in the mail today — galettes!

Galettes are a cookie that has been a holiday tradition in my family for as long as I have been alive (and for almost 100 years before that!). These cookies are made by hand, one or two at a time, and sent all over the country to members of our family. For years, my grandmother was the official galette-maker, but a couple years back, my dad took over. I don’t even want to know how many hundreds of these he has to make each year for our growing family (the galette iron he has handles two cookies per batch), but I certainly am glad he does it.

What holiday traditions do you celebrate?

It seems that Microsoft is pulling out all the stops now. In the video below, you see the latest in their attempt to halt the decline of Internet Explorer’s market share. In the video, Dolly Parton (yes, *that* Dolly Parton) praises Internet Explorer 8 for its webslices feature. She does this after a cliche remark about how little she knows when it comes to computers.

But I have to ask this: is she really the best choice for such an endorsement? Considering when Parton was in her peak years of popularity, I would say that the people most likely to care about her recommendations are exactly the people who have no idea what YouTube is. “U-Tube? Is that kind of like a pipe bent in half?” On top of that, how likely are they to care about webslices (the primary focus of the video) anyway?

To me, this endorsement says: “I have no idea what that interweb thing is, but Microsoft paid me to say Internet Explorer was great, so what the hell! So whether you’re a redneck, a retiree, or just lack them ‘computer skills’, give IE8 a try!”

Video after the break.
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I recently read an article on "How to REALLY Build a Web Page", and I was sorely disappointed. Although I tend to know the majority of what is covered in your average "beginner" article, I enjoy reading them to see others’ takes on the basic premises of web design and coding.

Unfortunately, that particular article left something to be desired. Therefore I wanted to write my own take on building a basic web page. This post will focus on the initial steps to build the HTML (and the steps you should take before writing your first line of code).
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Ok… this is just awesome.

I got to play some of the Star Wars music in orchestra, but never had an experience quite like this. Major props to the orchestra’s director for doing something like this. I’m sure the audience loved it.

Darth Vader Conducts an Orchestra

Whether by malicious intent or otherwise, someone took the driver’s side mirror off my car this weekend. I was visiting Becca in Manhattan, and at some point between when I parked and when I went to leave, my car was damaged.

I have a few reasons why I believe it may have been a malicious act. 1) There is no other visible damage to my car, indicating that if it was a sideswipe, it was close enough to hit the mirror but far enough away to miss everything else; 2) The mirror was carefully place on the top of my hood where I would notice it quickly (as if the whole “missing mirror” thing might have escaped my attention); 3) There was no note on my car, which implies a certain “I don’t give a s**t” attitude; and 4) I have a KU parking permit that was prominently displayed on my car, which, depending on the person in question, may be enough to warrant such an act.

However, all of these things don’t necessarily add up to vandalism, and I certainly want to believe that it was a simple accident. But #3 above *really* gets to me. If it truly was an accident, how hard is it to leave a note with your information? This is just simple common courtesy. And if it was intentional, what is the reason? Are there really people out there who need only to know that someone is from a rival school to decide that person is worthy of being vandalized?

So now I am out $100 (my comprehensive deductible), and I will be without a car for two days. I realize that this is a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but I just wish that people would have a bit more respect for one another…

But like my dad says, “wish in one hand…“

According to the Project Euler website, “Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems…”

Always a fan of puzzles, I have decided to share my attempts and solutions here.

Note: If you are trying to solve Problem #28 for yourself, DO NOT READ AHEAD!
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According to the Project Euler website, “Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems…”

Always a fan of puzzles, I have decided to share my attempts and solutions here.

Note: If you are trying to solve Problem #5 for yourself, DO NOT READ AHEAD!
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According to the Project Euler website, “Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems…”

Always a fan of puzzles, I have decided to share my attempts and solutions here.

Note: If you are trying to solve Problem #1 for yourself, DO NOT READ AHEAD!
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As you have probably noticed, I have migrated to a WordPress blog.  Since I started my website, the quality (in my opinion) of WP has increased exponentially.  I have not been able to find a WP theme that I like, so I will be making my own.  Until then, the generic (read: “ugly”) theme will remain.  However, I can now keep my entire site in one CMS/Blog system without worrying about all kinds of extra stuff.

Woo hoo.  Thanks for stopping by.

Things are undergoing yet more changes here at Chimeric Dream. I am merging most of the old site into my blog to make everything easier to maintain, and my D&D campaign setting Pannotia is getting its own domain. As part of all of this, I will be officially dropping support for IE6 in my layout.

I’ll be posting here as things progress. More information and explanations to come.