Walt Crawford

Home of the Modesto Nuts! A baseball team for the Rockies. http://www.milb.com/index... - OMG 404 Joe

(yes, and upstate starts 30 miles outside the city. the rest of us might as well not exist.) - Jenica

How are the kitties doing? - Katy S from iPhone

Yeah, I'm worried about the high likelihood of fire around the Bay Area this weekend. We had that super-wet December then everything dried up. No Bueno. - Russian Space Lizard

The cats are both considerably better. They scored "a perfect 4" this morning (two #2s), just what we wanted, and their appetites continue reasonably strong. - Walt Crawford

yay kitties! - RepoRat

Sam and Oz both thank you for the kind wishes. As do their staff, Linda and Walt. Now 102.3F outside, but a pleasant 80F inside--and the smoke's cleared. (But, barring an unlikely & rapid temperature drop, the Farmers' Market and Safeway did represent our walk for today...) - Walt Crawford

Further update on the cats: Sam (who's had the most trouble) threw up today--and it's a good thing. He hacked up a HUMONGOUS hairball--the biggest we've ever seen--which was almost certainly at the root of most of his trouble. Now it's gone. - Walt Crawford

Oh, as to the weather: hit 107 on Saturday in parts of Livermore (we only got to 103). Then 80-83 Sunday. Now low '70s (at 11:30 it was still 66F) with rain/thunder, maybe hail, overnight. The grass fire scorched 240 acres but was controlled rapidly. - Walt Crawford

Almost certainly, the younger one got messed up because he empathizes so much with the older one, but that doesn't help. So, unable to focus on anything that needs real focus. My posts & comments probably reflect that. - Walt Crawford

Sorry to hear about the sick kitties. - Katy S from iPhone

poor kittehs. our 14-year-old had an unpleasant episode that lasted (for us) about 2 weeks. She's MUCH better now - I hope yours both make a full recovery, and soon. (also: cute that your younger cat has an emotional response to the older's one's ailment) - $tephanie•Gardening

The odd thing is that, other than the eye issue (a flareup of Sam's herpes virus, which happens now & then, and is mostly better), neither of them seems to have anything *wrong* with them. My wife's back; the younger cat (Oz) isn't actually constipated; he's been given fluids and both will get appetite stuff. We'll see. - Walt Crawford

(We were reluctant to give appetite stuff to Sam because he used to have seizures once or twice a year, although they stopped several years back--and appetite stuff is actually antidepressant.) We shall see; we do what we can. (Both indoor cats, both incredibly fastidious, both typically healthy as can be, one--Oz--always nervous.) - Walt Crawford

Now I'll help my wife administer some medication (stomach-coating) to Sam, then go weed for an hour or so, since that doesn't require long-term focus. Writing is postponed for now. - Walt Crawford

Will be thinking about you and Oz and Sam. It's very hard to focus when a family member is sick. - Hedgehog

Thanks. I think it will all work out. Now off to weed (just gave Sam first meds of the morning). - Walt Crawford

that appetite stuff is a godsend. - $tephanie•Gardening

Some good news: Oz seems to have started functioning again (eating more and passing it through). So maybe we're on the road to general recovery. - Walt Crawford

I hope so! - RepoRat

Oh, so sorry to hear about the sick kitties. I hope everyone is on the mend soon. - laura x

I think they're starting to be on the mend. Maybe. With luck. - Walt Crawford

I will not speak of comic sans and multicolor text on a black background (both rare). Or of library names & logos that come up significantly after everything else on the page has loaded (common). Or libraries (and cities!) that don't name the state (way too common, and I've discussed that elsewhere). (Lincoln's a pretty big city that just happens to be split into 43 parts across the country.) - Walt Crawford

You know, I *will* speak of comic sans. I believe I saw it used on one library's website, sparingly, and in a manner I found appropriate. So it can happen. - Walt Crawford

John: Would it help to think of it as a long PDF document rather than an ebook? I'll do a post clarifying my intent: It's OK to mount it on any server that has at least some pretense of campus/student/whatever authentication (Coursera?). Doesn't need to be an ebook server: it's just a PDF. - Walt Crawford

That is apparently the thing we can't do so easily. - John Dupuis

Ah. That must post a number of difficulties. Sorry. - Walt Crawford

The worst part is that with all the shipping & handling, etc, the print book won't end up costing us much less than the $40. - John Dupuis

I'm guessing Canada s&h are on the high side? In the U.S., I think it would be $3.99 (MediaMail price, Lulu doesn't seem to be adding a handling charge). So with this week's discount it would be around $17 total. - Walt Crawford

It's been a while since I've ordered a Lulu print book, so maybe it's changed, but the last time I did I recall it was $10+. - John Dupuis

I get away from them as quickly as possible. (And what I'm doing usually involves <1 minute per site.) So, sorry, no ready example. (Another little grump: Too many public libraries change websites...and then let the old domain lapse, so it's picked up for various peculiar purposes. Working with IMLS 2010 URLs, I think I'm hitting about 2% of libraries where this happens. Fortunately, no extreme porn or violence so far.) - Walt Crawford

My wife says she's seeing the same phenomenon--more specifically, the site downloads about 90% of the way, freezes your browser for a while with the download icon not moving, then finishes or at least yields back control of the browser. I'm seeing it in Firefox; she's seeing it in Chrome and IE. - Walt Crawford

How was the non-extreme porn? - bevedog

How non-extreme was the porn? - laura x

OK, so far I haven't encountered any porn (although there was one Japanese mostly-text site that had me wondering...). Mostly ads. Cute, though, both of you. I shoulda' seen that one coming. (Next time I hit one of these--the freezing sites, not the abandoned ones--I'll post the link as a comment here.) - Walt Crawford

True enough. $8.75 will pay for lunch some day. - Walt Crawford

Once, many years ago, I got a $4 tax refund and Peter's dad got a $2.83 royalty check. We went out for beers, of course. - laura x from BuddyFeed

Of course! - Walt Crawford

As far as I'm concerned it does. (It's not a real license: It's a more expensive version that EXPLICITLY says it's OK to put it on an ebook server that doesn't have one-simultaneous-user limits, because "do what seems ethically reasonable" is tougher in some ways. As far as I'm concerned, if you buy the book, YOU OWN IT.) - Walt Crawford

Putting in the order today. And thank you for the easiest license negotiation ever! - Jen

I commented, mostly so you could just tell us what the trick answer is. Please? - Stephen le Francoeur

There is no trick answer. I'm guessing one or two women with very high quality displays might be discerning enough to find the answer. ("Women" because they frequently have superior color acuity.) Or maybe this one's just hopeless. - Walt Crawford

When I first looked at it yesterday, I could have sworn I saw a light blue frame around the image. - Stephen le Francoeur

I see a light blue square on my computer. I didn't see anything on my phone. - laura x

Oh wait. Now I see pink and yellow, too. And the pink sometimes looks lavender, depending on the light and the angle I'm looking at it from. - laura x

DO I PASS? DO I WIN SOMETHING? - laura x

I got nothin', even with my new cyborg eyes. - Jenica

Can't see a thing other than white. - Kirsten

Laura, what's in your drink? - Stephen le Francoeur

These eyes are useless, I demand a refund. - Meg V. Meg

http://xkcd.com/1213/ - Meg V. Meg

No prize. A light blue frame around the image is a display problem. And it turns out I screwed up (or JPEG compression screwed up) the image--there are only four colors where there should be seven. I've just posted a new one with ten colors (four of which I can see if I really try hard), but this one isn't a guessing game. - Walt Crawford

I assume it's cheating if you tilt your laptop screen? How much of this is dependent on display, or do you know. - Meg V. Meg

^ this. If I tilt my monitor, I can see four. - Jennifer Dittrich

There's no such thing as cheating (it's not a contest!), and I suspect a lot is dependent on display--a display in something like THX mode might do better. - Walt Crawford

I see only white; I'll forward it this evening to a (female) friend who's a tetrachromat. - Deborah Fitchett

I see pink and blue, if I tilt the screen way way down. - OMG 404 Joe

I see all of them, if I adjust my display so that I can see all of them. - Meg V. Meg