September 25, 2005

CSS

I enjoy the theory of CSS a lot: separating the content from its markup makes a lot of sense, and really plays to the strengths of computing and the web. I had a little bit of difficulty making sure everything worked and aligned the way I wanted/expected it to, but I was able to do it in the end.

One frustration I have run into while working on my CSS is that it is sometimes confusing to know which selector is controlling the property that I want to change. For instance, if I want the width of the navigation panel at the top of this page to be wider, should I change the div that encloses it or should I change the individual list elements, etc.? I find myself unsure of how many divs need to be enclosing a chunk of text/content on the screen, and, if there are multiple tags around the object I'm trying to modify, do they all need to be changed, or will just one do? Through trial and error (by commenting lines of CSS code), I've already found that a fair amount of the styles I have defined are superfluous.

For the assignment I decided I would try to explore how much the styles can be used to change the display of a page (a la the CSS zen garden). This gives a pretty good visual argument for the power (and importance) of stylesheets.

I created two identical websites, and by changing only the CSS I was able to make them look very different. The files are here and here. Here is the file with no stylesheet. (And oh yeah: the second link doesn't work in anything but Safari, it seems. Psych psych psych.)

Posted September 25, 2005 11:04 PM. Categories: Assignments , Week 2 | Permalink

Chapters 1,8 and 9 of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media

This reading took the discussion and consideration of media's effects several levels deeper than I've ever thought possible. There is a lot of use of what seems to be a specialized media studies vernacular that I was unprepared for, and navigating the ideas on the author's terms was difficult. I spent a lot of time resisting my initial feeling that the emperor has no clothes (words?). Nevertheless, I'll do my best to summarize, react (when possible), and explain.

In the first chapter, The Medium is the Message, the author expounds on the time-worn cliche that I had never really considered in depth. One statement that I liked was the example of the light bulb: a light bulb is not considered to have any content until it is being used to spell out an advertiser's name on a sign. I had a hard time with the author's statement that GE is in the business of moving information. When lights are used to display a message, yes, I can see how that would be true. But can't a light just be a light? The lights in my apartment certainly don't spell out any messages.

The author also states that a light can be used to enable a surgeon to perform surgery and to enable baseball players to play in the night. I fail to see how this is relevant. Aren't there a multitude of other media that enable the actions to occur? Gravity, air, the blood in the veins of the surgeon (the patient), the baseball players, are all enabling media.

The author did do a good job of dispelling the myth that technology is only either good or bad depending on how it is used. That is certainly a well-accepted fallacy.

Chapter 8 is titled, "The Spoken Word: Flower of Evil?" In this chapter we explore a little bit how different the spoken and printed words are. What came to my mind is email and IM conversations gone awry; when the non-verbal, non-printable gestures aren't effectively communicated, a lot of conversational cues go missing, which can lead to misunderstandings.

An interesting point made in that chapter, the significance of which is still not quite clear to me, is that electric technology does not need words, and may indeed lead us to a collective consciousness much like that of preverbal humans.

In chapter 9, "The Written Word: An Eye for an Ear," the author explains the fixing power of written language. He makes clear the limits of written language in the way that signifiers with adequate external referents (like the words, "American Flag"), while they do completely describe their external objects, are poor substitutions for them.

Posted September 25, 2005 11:01 PM. Categories: Reading Responses , Week 2 | Permalink

Everything Happens in New York

While on the subway reading the Onion, I noticed first that an obscure band from my college, We Are Scientists, was playing that night in the village. I then noticed that another obscure band, comprised of the high school friends of two of my college friends and called the Spinto Band, was also playing the same night.

Probably not that remarkable considering the volume of bands that rock through NYC everyday except that I had just been in LA visiting one of said friends who played a bunch of songs off the Spinto's latest release for me. He was also going to burn me the CD but forgot to, and then later when he offered to send it to me I demurred, saying I'd just support his friends' band and buy it myself here in New York. So ever since school started I've been looking for the Spinto Band's latest CD.

And then I find that they are playing, right in my area, that night, for only $10. It seemed like a remarkable coincidence, and I count myself very lucky to have been browsing the A.V. section of the Onion at that moment.

The Spintos played as part of the CMJ Music Marathon at the Pianos Bar in the East Village, and I was able to both name-drop our mutual acquaintances' names and purchase a CD directly from the band. Mission accomplished.

The show itself was quite good. Reviews for their latest CD on Amazon are splattered with commendations of the bandmembers' lackadaisical, none-too-serious stage presence. I agree—they seemed both humble and talented and unpretentious, which is rare. And sometimes they even seemed to be mocking themselves, which I'm not sure I like, but it's better than most of the alternatives.

The backup singer/guitarist had the most stage presence, although in his case it should probably be called strange presence: As he played, he would rock up and down, his guitar's head rising and falling like the prow of a ship in heavy seas, with a goofy, gape-mouthed grin and his eyes bug-eyed toward the sky, like someone in the throes of the rapture. I found it pretty disorienting, and he teetered from being annoying to just silly enough to be amusing.

On the CD that I purchased, there was a sticker comparing the Spinto Band to Pavement, the Flaming Lips and Yo La Tengo. I can hear it, yeah, but the lead singer so reminded me of Rivers Cuomo that I kept envisioning them as a fledgling Weezer.

I found out in talking to the band after their set that they're playing again this weekend at the Mercury Lounge. I'm going to go, and this time I'll figure out what's up with that backup singer.

Posted September 25, 2005 10:56 PM. Categories: New Experiences , Week 2 | Permalink