why can’t i start the automatic numbering for a caption (figure 1, figure 2) at an arbitrary number i decide?

why can’t i set the first page of my document to have a different top margin that all the rest of the pages? (see the infuriating V.1.d)

do i want the sections of my document to be numbered, thus making them chapters and invoking the wrath of V.1.d, but allowing my dumb as bricks captions to restart at 1 for each “chapter”?

by the fact that my wireless access point (Linksys BEFW11S4v2) keeps dropping it’s signal, requiring me to *frequently* get up and unplug it and replug it. i’ve called tech support, i’ve reflashed the firmware (same version), i’ve changed the channel from 6 to 11 to 9. and it keeps happening. started about two weeks ago. i’m wondering if the folks next door have a new portable phone or something. it’s not like i /need/ it for what i’m doing right now (my freaking master’s paper!!!), but it sure is distracting for half a webpage to load and then suddenly, 0% signal, meanwhile the little devil is sitting 10 feet away from me blinking cheerfully.

and it only happens in the middle of downloading a webpage never during the hours between when i’m pulling my hair out trying to explain my project’s “background.” i’m going to weaver street. maybe i’ll be less distracted there.

for the non-sql-acquainted: there’s nothing to see here, move along, move along…

this is an actual query (hand-generated) from my financial-database-cum-master’s-project:

SELECT o.obligation_id, 
o.project_year_id,
o.obligation_amount, 
o2.obligation_amount as allocable_amount,
o.obligation_modification_number,
o.obligation_notes,
f.fund_id,
f.objective_id,
ft.fund_type_code,
ft.fund_type_name,
obj.objective_code,
obj.objective_name,
r.region_code,
r.region_name,
e.earmark_code,
e.earmark_name,
p.project_year_id,
p.project_year_code
FROM obligation o 
LEFT JOIN obligation o2 	ON o2.parent_obligation_id = o.obligation_id
LEFT JOIN project_year p	ON o.project_year_id = p.project_year_id
LEFT JOIN fund f	ON o.fund_id=f.fund_id
LEFT JOIN fund_type ft	ON f.fund_type_id = ft.fund_type_id
LEFT JOIN objective obj	ON f.objective_id = obj.objective_id
LEFT JOIN region r	ON f.region_id = r.region_id
LEFT JOIN earmark e	ON f.earmark_id = e.earmark_id
WHERE ft.fund_type_id <> 4
ORDER BY o.project_year_id, ft.fund_type_id, obj.objective_id, r.region_name, o.obligation_amount

i’ve been building all these html form-based user interfaces for my master’s project, and i’ve been using radio buttons for data entry, except they’re so small that they end up violating Fitts’ Law in a major way. usually you can click a radio button’s label to select it, but there didn’t seem to be a way to attach a label to a radio button. until, that is, i discovered the LABEL tag!!!

for example, this HTML code:

<INPUT TYPE=radio NAME=a VALUE=1>radio1
<INPUT TYPE=radio NAME=a VALUE=2>radio2

produces this:

radio1
radio2

labels aren’t clickable…

but this html code:

<INPUT ID=r1 TYPE=radio NAME=b VALUE=1>
<LABEL FOR=r1>radio1</LABEL>
<INPUT ID=r2 TYPE=radio NAME=b VALUE=2>
<LABEL FOR=r2>radio2</LABEL>

produces this:

radio1
radio2

try clicking on the label to select one of the radio buttons.

(sidenote: IE requires use of FOR=idref to explicitly connect labels and controls. with Mozilla, you can just surround the control and label text with the label tags. god i like mozilla.)

Cory’s notes from the ETCON talk: Google is Harder Than it Looks

even cooler (i think) are his notes from Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks (just check out the description of this guy’s talk)

the last real comment Cory took struck me:

“Making stuff public is like having your parents come to stay — you clean everything up.”

i wonder if that’s the logic behind this? i’m really not trying to show off, and i don’t expect anyone to read it, but the notion of keeping a public record does behoove me to regularly update it, to make spelling and grammatical corrections, to add bullets of things i forgot to note, but seem important in retrospect.