The latest in a fine tradition of tychoish posts…

Five People I Enjoy on Twitter

Five Improvements to Web Browsers

  • Enforce document structure standards on the server. Documents must be structured and organized within the constraints of a couple of conventions or else the server throws a 500 error.
  • Locate all design and presentation on the client side, and allow designs to be fully independent of the design.
  • Scripting happens on the client side, in sandboxes, and are integral parts of the browser applications.
  • Therefore, scripts shouldn’t be provided with the browser or by the viewer, not by the content creator. In other words, die JavaScript, die, and replace it with lightweight greasemonkeyesque+webkit-style browsers. Except might as well use python/perl/ruby/etc. while you’re at it.
  • Applications, can and should interact with servers and infrastructure and data over the network, but “the web” shouldn’t convert interactive applications. The goal here is to make the web-as-information-distribution work.

Five Things I’m quasi likely to Acquire in the Next Few Months

  • An Amazon Kindle
  • Some sort of roasting pan
  • A New Laptop Bag
  • A table and chairs (one of which might be good for spinning)
  • A gym membership

Five Things That are Awesome about Dance Weekends

  • You can dance with someone more than once, without it being creepy or weird. At an evening of a dance, it’s only really realistic to dance with someone once because there are 15 or 20 dances max. At an all day dance, we’re talking 60 or 70 dances.
  • Innocent and awesome dance crushes.
  • The “gender” thing is more flexible at big dance weekends. Which is fun. It’s probably true that part of the fun is in part due to the fact that queering up the gender roles in a contra dance makes contra a little harder, but I also just enjoy it for it’s awesome factor. M.N. also noted that when you come across older men dancing together in the contra lupine, you know it’s all gravy. And that’s more likely to happen at a dance weekend.
  • Awesome bands. In short: Giant Robot Dance.
  • Squares that don’t suck.

Five Changes in Habits that I Would Have Never Expected to See In Myself

  • Sacred Harp/Shape Note Singing
  • A Decrease in knitting output and interest
  • Weekend plans and events three to four weekends out of five.
  • The degree with which I’m a neat freak about my apartment. (Not absurd, but I still have moments where I surprise myself.)
  • Contra dancing as my main form of dance, as opposed to Morris and/or International folk.