Waffle

Jeroen asked about Joomla the other day while working on a project. So when I found this old article on Pete Ashton's blog while looking for something else, I thought of him. Take it from a guy I trust to know his stuff: Joomla sucks donkey cock.

Now, having had to use it on a daily-ish basis for a while I can honestly say, hand on heart, that it's a piece of shit and a hinderance to my work. At least the interface is. It's the most unintuitive, frustrating thing I've had to click my mouse on since I can't remember when. This is not helped by the project I'm using Joomla for not needing a fraction of its power.

So, my advice if you're setting up a site and want a content management system? Think very hard about what you need, strip away what you don't need and use either WordPress or Movable Type. They might be sold as blogging CMSs but they can do much more and they won't make you want to eat your fist.

I haven't used Joomla myself, but I'm happy to take Pete's word for it. I complain about Movable Type a lot, but it does what I want it to... eventually.

It's official now: The Yangtze Dolphin is extinct. Species go extinct all the time, which is bad enough, but this news hit me in the stomach. Hook Douglas Adams up to a generator and watch him spin.

(Via Pharyngula by way of Stranger Fruit.)

On August 2, Andrew Rilstone asked Is J.K. Rowling actually any good? and answered "No". Now*) he's written the review to back it up, and it's one of those reviews that made me nod in agreement even though I really like the series as a whole and the latest installment in particular. This is how it's done, would-be reviewers (warning: the quoted section is merely a sample of the whole and should not be taken as a substitute for it):

Harry Potter and the Qualified Recantation: ....
I thought that Rowling had cleverly dusted off the old and slightly reactionary genre of the school story and given us permission to enjoy it again. I thought that it was a witty conceit to set such a story in a world which functions, like Alice in Wonderland, according to a kind of dream-like illogical logic. That's very much how the adult world can appear to a child. (That was Lewis Caroll's point as well, obviously.) Snape asks Harry questions that he knows perfectly well that Harry can't possibly answer. Harry is sometimes late for lessons because one of the staircases in the school moved while he wasn't looking. The Headmaster makes strict and sometimes rather arbitrary rules but is just as likely to praise Harry as punish him when he breaks them. That's how school feels to a child. "I don't know how this works, I can't avoid getting into trouble because I simply don't know what these irrational adult-things expect of me." When I was eight, it was obvious that the class bully was a member of a secret order bent on world domination and that Miss Beale was a wicked witch in disguise. At Hogwarts, that's actually true.
[...]
The problem sets in around volume 4, when Rowling ceases to treat Hogwarts as a literary device and starts treating it as if it was a real educational establishment. The whimsical "Billy Bunter with a magic wand" adventures become subordinate to a painfully derivative fantasy quest story in which Harry is the Chosen One who can defeat the Dark Lord. This creates massive inconsistencies in tone. In the fifth volume, evil Blairite Dolores Umbridge starts to physically torture misbehaving pupils. Are we to read this as comic violence or react to it as a realistic depiction of quite serious child abuse? If the latter, are we entitled to ask whether there are social workers or schools inspectors in the wizarding world? If Harry is now the Hero With a Thousand Faces are we really supposed to care (or imagine that he cares) about his wizarding exams or who wins the Quidditch tournament?

I also like his use of style parodies to bring home his point, though neither that gimmick nor his use of the question-and-answer format midway through the review are strictly necessary. It's another fine example of the reviewer's craft, from a man who, unlike most bloggers, including, on most days, yours truly, actually thinks and organises his thoughts before posting. Read the whole thing.

*) Strictly in the non-journalistic sense of the word, i.e. after previously.

I've just had a very promising job interview with a local software localisation company. There's a good chance they'll give me a job, but they won't know for sure until two weeks from now, because they want me to do a specific kind of project that they're still trying to acquire.

Good news, then. But now I'm sort of wondering what to do with those two weeks. The welfare office will want me to keep applying for jobs at a steady pace but I can't really see the point. Unless I call a temp agency to do some menial job that's immediately available for one or two weeks. I think I'll try that.

Interview-wise, I need to watch my body language. At some point, while discussing my employment prior to 2001, I found myself sagging a bit. A bad posture isn't necessarily a problem; if it's how you sit and walk all the time it becomes a kind of gestural background noise. That's how it would have been for me ten years ago, but these days, I think I move differently. A friend who visited me the other day after I hadn't seen him for several years actually remarked on the changes in my posture and attitude. I seem to have straightened myself out, whether through increased exercise or through my six years working for myself. Could be either. So against that background of my generally looking alert, alive and straight-up, my demeanour when that part of my history was mentioned was a bit of a giveaway that I didn't enjoy talking about that part. I don't think it hurt me that much, but I certainly noticed it. Then again, maybe being fairly transparent in job interviews is a good thing. Anyone who looks at my rather checquered CV is going to want to know which of my former activities I liked or disliked, anyway.

Even if I don't get the job, the interview has allowed me to catch up and learn about the localisation business, so it should allow me to do better in the next interview. Though there are only so many software localisation firms to go around.

Next time, I'll probably under-dress a little compared to what I wore to this interview. It's a fairly informal culture, judging from the two interviews I've done with localisation firms. On the other hand, this may just be a Groningen thing. I don't know.

Being Unhealthy Could Cost You
Clarian Health is taking a novel approach to reducing health-care costs: It's penalizing workers for indicators of poor health For employees at Clarian Health, feeling the burn of trying to lose weight will take on new meaning.

In late June, the Indianapolis-based hospital system announced that starting in 2009, it will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index [BMI, a ratio of height to weight that measures body fat] is over 30. If their cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose levels are too high, they'll be charged $5 for each standard they don't meet. Ditto if they smoke: Starting next year, they'll be charged another $5 in each check.

But why stop there? The real money's in cancer and heart disease. I'd say lung cancer should be worth at least $150 per paycheck, and a heart attack should be cause for immediate suspension without pay. That should teach people to take care of themselves! (Via Sadly, No!)

By way of Brass Goggles

I found this wonderful little movie full of idiot noblemen, French poodles, steampunk, and sheer hilarity that must be shared widely.
Update by Reinder: Alas, the movie has been removed from Dailymotion at the request of Studio Blur who made it and own the rights. Fair enough, though I can't really see the point, what with the cat being out of the bag already. They have a teaser for "A Gentlemen's Duel" on their website, though as I type this, it doesn't seem to be working either. Watch it on the big screen when it comes out.

Hear Marcus Brigstocke have a good rant about the Abrahamic religions. Or watch it on Youtube with amateurish but still entertaining graphics.

Or, if you're really in a hurry, read a transcript.
Via Pete Ashton by way of Squeezypaws.

I'm taking the rest of the month of August off from Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan. Three reasons:

1. While the quality of the last month's updates was all right, I was finding it harder and harder to make them even at the reduced schedule. I wasn't having as much fun with it and I was getting more than a bit fed up with the work. I need to recharge those batteries.
2. Statistics for the website show that it's getting hit hard by the summer doldrums. If I'm going to take a break, it might as well be now.
3. Most importantly, I can no longer afford to go on spending so much time on the comic. My hunt for paying work is finally picking up steam but I really need to work full-time on it until I'm employed and earning a wage. A good one, as I've been sliding into debt over the past few months. I'm working on it, but the compulsion to create comics has been a big distraction. Time out is necessary.

Of course, if, as is the plan, I'm employed by the end of the three-week period, it's quite possible that I'll need more time off as I settle into my new schedule, and in any case I will have less time to write and draw. So further reductions in the schedule are very likely.

Over the next three weeks, starting on Tuesday, August 7, I'll be running the White House in Orbit story "Marauders of Mars" from 2001, on a daily schedule, on this website. The Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan story "Feral" will continue to update on the Modern Tales mirror on a weekly schedule as planned, until I run out of material. If I end up staying away for longer than three weeks, I've got one or two plans lined up that will at least keep the ROCR flame burning through my leave of absense; one of these plans is already in operation and I've noticed that some people have spotted it.

If, on the other hand, my jobhunt fails, I'll probably have at least some new material ready at the end of the three-week period. I can't guarantee how much it'll be, but there'll be some.

On the day when Matt Trepal announced the end of his webcomic, Fight Cast or Evade, its website was down, so I'm taking note of it now instead of yesterday. I've enjoyed Matt's humour and storytelling a lot over his comic's seven-year run.

In recent months it had been updating sporadically, and I guess Matt is right to end it now instead of pushing through with it without having the motivation to really do so. Seven years is much longer than most webcomics survive anyway, so well done and thanks, Matt.

I have nothing to add to this

As recently as the 1980s [...] Ronald fucking Reagan could not-so-boldly call for the elimination of all nuclear weapons and be widely regarded as having departed only ever-so-slightly from the hardcore militant industrialist anti-communist line. Ronald Reagan! Mr. "Evil Empire" himself wanted, or so he claimed, to eliminate all nuclear weapons from on Earth! Now it’s seen as a risky move (with a whiff of sixties fervor) for a Democratic primary contender to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against small, decidedly non-nuclear asymmetrical threats holed up in friendly nations? What? What dank, perverted path are we on? Twenty years from now, will Unity ‘28 scion Chelsea "LeMay" Clinton sadly note the unseriousness of those neo-stinking robo-hippies opposed, on principle, to nuking PETA? Or the NEA? A meth lab, maybe? The odd Mexican?

Twenty years ago, everybody in this country (give or take a baker’s million blazing nutjobs) understood that the use of nuclear weapons was a cataclysmic, final act of madness, a step towards global suicide to be avoided at (almost) any cost. Now, absent an enemy with any real ability to do us harm, the idea that nuclear weapons should be available to use on caves full of crazy idiots armed with weapons that were the height of military sophistication approximately seventy years ago, this idea is the conventional wisdom? Of the Democratic Party? The party that ostensibly wants to end the war in Iraq? Where have you gone, Robert McNamara / A nation turns its loony eyes to you, doot doot doo.

What the fuck, seriously. What. The. Fucking. Fuck. I want off this ball, blundering downhill. I want to go home, to the nation I imagined I lived in.