About a week ago I heard a rumour that Lej had vacated Cambridge for the even wetter city of Portsmouth to attend a top secret recording studio session after penning an all new England World Cup anthem. Teaming up with Beauty and the Geek co-star Will Goodhand and a Royal Marines band, Edmund Bolton UK has done us proud once again with the horribly cheesy and inexplicably catchy We’re England. It’s replete with an insistant head-nodding rhythm and several silly voices — Will says his is supposed to be a cross between “Giles Brandreth and Timothy Claypole off Rentaghost”. Apparently. The duo’s combined geek star power and the song’s trashy contagiousness might just be enough to pull it off. Be one of the first to know, tell your mates and get ’em keen. So suck on that, Ronaldinho.
On similarly trashy note, Ben Stiller introduces this truly shocking canned 1999 pilot for Heat Vision and Jack. The story follows ex-astronaut Jack (played by Jack Black) whose rocket flies too close to the sun causing his brain to deform so that he becomes hyper-intelligent in the sunlight. His sidekick is talking motorbike Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson), imbued with the voice of his former roommate. Ruthlessly hunting them down is Ron Silverman (playing himself) as they keep moving across the USA. Trust me, it gets even sillier from there. Yet somehow this camp send-up of 70s and 80s pulp action TV shows manages to be entertaining.
Having supervisions in the week before exams start is less helpful than inconvenient, particularly when getting to it on Wednesday involves trekking to the opposite corner of Cambridge. Admittedly the afternoons are not my most productive period, but a 40min hike each way isn’t exactly an improvement. Until then I’m mostly holed up in my room poring over folders and tricking out my statute books with iridescent Post-it index tags. Plans for a Cambridge-targeted Pimp My Textbook are, no doubt, already in progress.
23 May 2006 at 9:19 am
Wednesday is going to be hellish, not only will I have that glorious trek to Fitz, but I’ll have to get back my mock results :((
23 May 2006 at 12:42 pm
Oh! Typo! You heard it from me, first! 😀
Also, just so you know: The adhesive in Post-it notes actually causes book pages to rot (after sitting on them for a long time). So, though the Post-its are undeniably handy for the mass of studious, er, students out there, you should stop for a second and think of the books, my friend. Think of the books.
(Man, I wish these comment things had an ‘italics’ feature.)
Every librarian who reads this website is looking down on you with disdain. I promise.
I once got yelled at by a librarian for putting Post-its in a book. It was very traumatizing. Very.
23 May 2006 at 1:07 pm
I’m using the Post-it index tabs, not Post-it notes. I think the glue is different, though I have no idea what the long-term effect on the books may be. Given that the statute books are updated every year, I’m not too worried though! 😉
You can use some HTML tags in your comments so < em > or < i > tags will have the desired effect.
23 May 2006 at 1:32 pm
Will they?
and what does “em” do?
God, I hope that works or I’m going to look very stupid.
23 May 2006 at 1:38 pm
I think I may have attempted those HTML tags before, and they didn’t work. Because for some reason, I had it in my head that HTML tags didn’t work in your comment thingies.
Oh well. Now I know. 😀
23 May 2006 at 1:44 pm
< em > (emphasis) and < strong > are actually often the proper tags to use rather than the more common < i > and < b >. They are structural (as opposed to formatting) tags that indicate the information held within them is more important. This is similar to the header tags, except that they can be used inline instead of as blocks. Search spiders will pay particular attention to the information contained within. It is also particularly important in making speech-friendly pages for those with screen readers as it marks a change in inflection. The Web Accessibility Guidelines prefer this method.
23 May 2006 at 3:22 pm
Is there a list of which tags work?
23 May 2006 at 4:07 pm
“search spiders”
I like the sound of them! :d
23 May 2006 at 4:08 pm
I’ll tell you what doesn’t work: the Online Poker Spam tag.
[angrily deletes more comment spam]
The following should work, but be warned that although I don’t moderate (non-spam) comments — other than the occassional typo correction cos I’m nice like that — I may strip out unnecessary font changes etc. in comments. Typing your entire message in fluorescent pink is strictly frowned upon.
< a href > < abbr > < acronym > < b > < code > < em >
< i > < li > < ol > < strike > < strong > < sub > < sup >
< div > and < span > tags may work but you shouldn’t really need to use them.
EDIT: as we discovered, these 2 tags work for logged-in users (ie. me) but not for visitors.
23 May 2006 at 9:22 pm
But flourescent pink can be so much fuuunnn!!
And the whole comment wasn’t in flourescent pink, so you can’t frown upon me. 😀
23 May 2006 at 9:23 pm
Damnit! It didn’t work! You lie. :((
23 May 2006 at 9:30 pm
Oh good, the font tag doesn’t work. That means it won’t break my site’s validation which is always handy, since the font tag isn’t part of strict XHTML. There is a sneaky CSS colouring technique that works, though.
23 May 2006 at 9:42 pm
Must…have…colours…
23 May 2006 at 9:47 pm
Well that didn’t work.
How about now?
23 May 2006 at 9:50 pm
:((
Come on, come on…
23 May 2006 at 9:51 pm
Now that’s clever ^:)^
23 May 2006 at 9:55 pm
Surely this time?
23 May 2006 at 9:56 pm
Grrrrrr, sneaky
23 May 2006 at 9:57 pm
h1 {
color: #000099;
}
I should probably be revising or something. I will if this one doesn’t work.
23 May 2006 at 9:58 pm
OK, so I lied.
Now?
23 May 2006 at 9:59 pm
Why isn’t it working?
23 May 2006 at 10:00 pm
I’m not sure whether to consider this spam or just highly amusing… :))
For the record, I can’t actually see exactly what your typing since illegal or incorrect tags are stripped out automatically.
23 May 2006 at 10:02 pm
This one will work!
23 May 2006 at 10:03 pm
Oh, I thought I was getting somewhere in that it at least wasn’t showing the tags. :”> Back to square 1…
23 May 2006 at 10:11 pm
OK I’m going to be really angry this time
<span style=”color: #55aaaa;”>Maybe this?</span>
23 May 2006 at 10:12 pm
I’ve tried that already. :p
But now I have a cunning plan!
23 May 2006 at 10:14 pm
Which didn’t work. But might this time…
23 May 2006 at 10:15 pm
Okay guys, my fault. :-t
I just did some testing (in another comment thread) and found that visitors have a different set of usable tags to logged-in users. :”>
The correct code for inline colouring is (as Sparkie carefully copied and pasted):
< span style = "color: #xxxxxx;" >
but it seems that visitors cannot use the span tag, which is why I said I couldn’t actually see the code you were using (in the hope that you’d tell me! :p
P.S. Adam would like the record to show that he copied and pasted the span tag first. So now you know.
23 May 2006 at 10:40 pm
Hehe, I distracted all you lovely Cambridge-ites (Cambridgeans?) from your work simply be mentioning the italics tag.
God, you children are so readily distracted by anything. I swear, it’s as if you all troll the internet, looking for something to do, besides work. Silly people. 😀
23 May 2006 at 10:42 pm
Pffff, as if!
Oh God, why am I still here. 😮
23 May 2006 at 10:45 pm
Jane, it’s Cantabrigian. And it’s exam term: what else are we supposed to do? :-??
And you’re still using < i > tags!
Adam, why are you still here?
23 May 2006 at 11:00 pm
Adam – you seem to know a fair amount about writing websites, why don’t you write one so I can read it and thus avoid more revision?
23 May 2006 at 11:05 pm
Or you could trawl the web until you find something interesting with which to update the Junkyard.
23 May 2006 at 11:23 pm
Dude, I can use those tags if I want to use those tags, and you can’t stop me.
(They’re the ones I use for livejournal, so I’m just used to them. The “em” ones seem to cumbersome, as they require typing more letters and are not immediately memerable – as in “i” stands for “italics” and all.)
EDIT: corrected typo on request and replaced all italic tags with emphasis tags. – |[P]|
23 May 2006 at 11:26 pm
Apparently I can.
23 May 2006 at 11:38 pm
I would say something witty here, but it fails me.
You’re mean.
Happy now?
:p
24 May 2006 at 12:43 am
OK OK i get the point.
New subject matter is now up, but due to a general lack of things happening around here it is hidden away in other sections.
24 May 2006 at 12:55 am
I would create a website to help people to procrastinate, but:
1 – I don’t know how
2 – I’m not sure what the hell I would put on it
3 – 5 days before my first exam is probably not the best time to start thinking about it
4 – I don’t know how
5 – I have no webspace (don’t you have to pay for that?)
6 – I would spend ages deliberating over girly things like the colour scheme and be ridiculed by all
7 – I use the internet way too much already
8 – I’d probably get bored of it after a while
9 – I’m sure no-one wants to know about the boring stuff I get up to
10 – I don’t know how
Sorry Rob, procrastinate on your own! :)>-
24 May 2006 at 1:15 am
1 – I don’t know how
–>Then learn by making one, you seem to have the basics already
2 – I’m not sure what the hell I would put on it
–>Why do you think I review alcohol? Couldn’t think of anything else at the time.
3 – 5 days before my first exam is probably not the best time to start thinking about it
–>OK I’ll give you this one, but by the end of May Week…
4 – I don’t know how
–>Wuss
5 – I have no webspace (don’t you have to pay for that?)
–>Get it free from the SRCF
6 – I would spend ages deliberating over girly things like the colour scheme and be ridiculed by all
–>There are websites that can suggest suitable colour schemes, otherwise just follow my hippie example and make one up
7 – I use the internet way too much already
–>That’s what it is there for
8 – I’d probably get bored of it after a while
–>Well make one that requires no long-term maintenance
9 – I’m sure no-one wants to know about the boring stuff I get up to
–>It doesn’t have to be a blog, mine wasn’t to start with
10 – I don’t know how
–>I’ll teach you, it’s a useful skill
24 May 2006 at 2:21 am
–>Then learn by making one, you seem to have the basics already
– it’s amazing what 5 minutes of googling can do. ¬_¬
–>Why do you think I review alcohol? Couldn’t think of anything else at the time.
– Hmmmmm…..
–>OK I’ll give you this one, but by the end of May Week…
– I do need something else to do beside drink…
–>Wuss
– Well, yes. ¬_¬
–>Get it free from the SRCF
– the what now?
–>There are websites that can suggest suitable colour schemes, otherwise just follow my hippie example and make one up
– yeah, this was a rubbish reason I thought. ¬_¬
–>That’s what it is there for
– I still use it too much though.
–>Well make one that requires no long-term maintenance
– could do I suppose.
–>It doesn’t have to be a blog, mine wasn’t to start with
– True.
–>I’ll teach you, it’s a useful skill
– oh go on then, I’ll think about making one if you show me how. Tune in next week for “Adam crashes the internet armed only with a knowledge of coding plucked from Google!”
24 May 2006 at 9:35 am
Aw, come on, Adam – if I can make a website (albeit, a really crappy, mediocre, boring one that I’ve never shown to anyone, and was only one page) without crashing the internet, than you can do it, too. And it’ll probably be prettier than mine. 😀
24 May 2006 at 5:35 pm
I really don’t want to be able to use the span tag, as it would allow me to propogate CSS beyond my comment.
I tried image vectoring, and that didn’t work, but I’m not keen that your processor isn’t escaping certain types of symbols that it really should be doing, all I now need to do now is create a unicode character that’s eliminated in your pre-processor character table mappings and your website is own3d.
But this is for another day and another life, right now I have other things to concern myself with…
& ? '
24 May 2006 at 5:37 pm
OK, maybe it’s only you that it’s letting do that… That’s better at least.
Hmmm…..
I have too many personalities
24 May 2006 at 5:40 pm
OK, maybe I should use this process against a local install instead… You seem to be doing a reasonably good job though 🙂
24 May 2006 at 5:44 pm
Yup, that’s why I was quite keen on the div/span tags not being made available but I didn’t have time to delve back into the code now to check. Fortunately it seems that intelligent limitations are already in place – unless I create a new user account and assign appropriate privileges (but this isn’t a social blogging exercise, despite your distaste for my expansion to Frappr!).
And yes, you have too many personalities. Which also causes a delay with the first post of each new identity, as they need to be moderated before appearing. 😉
Sparkie warned me this was going to into a “can we hack your site” exercise, and I joked it was fine provided you didn’t get involved! Seems to be holding up reasonably well so far though, but I’ll be interested to see what you discover…
24 May 2006 at 5:49 pm
SoopaJane – LJ favours the <em> tag over <i>.
EDIT: fixed tags (it thought you meant “&” so changed it to & ) – |[P]|
24 May 2006 at 5:50 pm
Arse.
(And I thought WordPress had some pretty good measures against CSS hijacks).
24 May 2006 at 5:53 pm
This is really interesting
Hmm… The joys of CSS,XHTML etc…
24 May 2006 at 5:53 pm
I really hope that this doesn’t come out in italics….
But in case it does, I’ll terminate the behaviour here anyhow
24 May 2006 at 5:56 pm
Oh, now this has got to be tried on a local machine. WordPress seems to think that it can do XHTML tag open/close tracking.
I’m impressed, but not all that sure I believe it.
The Pallas Cat shall spam no more. Have a nice life everyone.
Meow.