Keith Casey: I for one am stunned by O’Reilly’s disregard – either through malice or negligence – for their readership.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

It’s both gratifying and annoying when I get bit by an IE bug (that I’ve previously heard about) for the first time.

A coder innocently places a left float into a container box, and uses a left margin on the float to push it away from the left side of the container. Seems pretty simple, right? Well it is until it’s viewed in [Internet] Explorer for Windows. In that browser the left float margin has mysteriously been doubled in length!

The solution? Put display: inline; on the float.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

Uh-oh, looks like we have some work to do:

Next… for some odd reason, I’m feeling more and more MSFT-Patriotic as of late. One thorn I’m really beginning to get tired of, strangely enough, is O’Reilly media. Ever since I was a long-haired Unix geek I relied on O’Reilly. But I’m just getting tired of their begrudging support of Microsoft while at the same time snarking at us from their blogs and conventions. Annoyed with us? Then do us a favor and don’t go publishing anymore Microsoft-centric titles and make money elsewhere. As soon as I can find a reliable publisher that does as good a job of editing and producing texts, I’m switching. I really regret ever dollar now I spend towards buying an O’Reilly book when there’s not a quality alternative. —Mini-Microsoft

All I have to add is it’s not necessarily a requirement to love something in order to support it. That would be preferable, but it’s not always an option.

This post first appeared on From the Belly of the Beasts, a weblog from some of the people who build O’Reilly websites.

right now i am working like a demon on the database that i’ll be taking to cambodia.

i could live where i am currently living *forever* if it wasn’t for the fact that i can hear EVERY IMPACT OF OBJECT UPON FLOOR from the ‘apt’ above.

i hate that i know that most people don’t care in the least when asked what i ‘do’ and i say the word ‘computer’. one day, one person will be like, “tell me more”.

i have made a pseudo-conscious decision to be uncool. i do NOT have a car. yes i can drive, i love to drive. but i don’t have a car. mostly cause cars are expensive and i don’t *need* a car. but maybe 20% because i relish the fact that i am not like most people.

i also do not have a tv. (suddenly justin’s statistical uniqueness enters tenths of a percentage point)

i should also say that the money i earn beyond my exorbitant rent and liberal food/entertainment expenditures goes into my savings account. so i’m saving money and i’m not exactly sure what for. a car? a house? a financial investment?

since i am now an in-state student and receiving tuition remission, i no longer receive this $650 grad school grant. so i have to pay for all my various student fees out of pocket. errr… but i should get a rather sizable income tax refund from the government.

fate must be preparing to send me something very special because i have this gut feeling that things have been rather crappy lately. let me count the ways:

• i came home tonight to find that the over-large, heavy miniblinds on my living room window had ripped out of the window frame and toppled several stacks of papers on my desk (narrowly missing my computer and sparing my diploma).
• somehow i naively expected that i would be paid a full time salary while in grad school (this, thanks to phill, is now being repaired)
• in the process of being informed that my salary situation had taken a turn for the worse, i wrote a snippy email about someone else to phill, who then mistakenly(?) sent a reply to me and the person who i was being snippy about. that person was a little unhappy about what I wrote, and i had the pride swallowing privilege of apologizing
• the people who live in the apartment above me have come home from their summers, and for whatever reason, every footstep they make on their hardwood floors sounds like loud hammering. there also seems to be a dog living upstairs. i am starting to decide that i should begin to look for somewhere else to live.
• i have begun waking up “naturally” after only 7ish hours of sleep, instead of my normal/excessive 8-10. could that be because of the loud thumping above my head, which neither earplugs nor pillows seem able to block?
• the object of my lust remains squarely out of reach
• i recently traveled 28 consecutive hours from almaty, kazakhstan to chapel hill, north carolina, 20 hours of which I spent sitting on a plane.
• i decided to register for a class fully aware that it will be bad (unless *I* go way out of my way to make it meaningful)
• i presently pay out-of-state tuition, at $8000/semester. if I was classified as in-state, my tuition would be paid for by my work, and my graduate eduation would be free.
• while riding my bike to weaver street in order to pick up some chicken and vegetables for dinner, i was accosted by a fanatical mother who insisted that i “wear a helmet!”
• and i haven’t had any sustained time to re-evaluate my philosophy of life. as a result, i am currently running on habit and comfort.

do i really need all of this?

update: fallacy, eh?