DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

This module and 23 just like it are being installed on my roof today.

I’ve squashed a few bugs, implemented a few new features, and made some changes to the layout, both in response to reader feedback and my own testing:

• the RSS feed is back online (although still due for an overhaul) (or overdue for a haul, one of those two)
• the font in the channels list is smaller and somewhat less clunky
• the masthead photo changes every 60 seconds, increasing the chances that, at least sometimes, you’ll become convinced that I have as much an eye for color selection as I do for hats. (By the way, it won’t change if you wait for it; you’ll have to reload, or in some browsers, force-reload.)
• comments in image ALT tags are no longer highlighted in search-engine results (yes, this broke pages magnificently; thanks for asking)

Not yet changed, as of this writing, is the hanging nature of list-item bullets. The fact that bullets sit to the left of the text margin causes many people concern. I have not yet determined whether to change this… the stylesheets are not finished, but honestly I like hanging punctuation.

My publishing software attempts to honor the traditions of typography. Note the “smart” quotes — and the emdashes. And the hanging bullets, darn it!

• You’ll
• learn
• to
• love
• it!
  Or your money back.

You know what would be really neat: hanging all punctuation, like in the #3 example of Typography 101. I used to do that in Pagemaker when I did lots of design work on paper, approximately 400 years ago. Another rewarding challenge those days: making sure text baselines were consistent across columns. It was trickier than you might think, but the results were cooool.

We’re awash in spiders. Part of country living, I guess.

Here’s a more interesting spider close-up: Ade Rixon’s “behind the fence post” shot.

Ade’s site has a channel dedicated to photography (click on [big picture].) I’ve borrowed the idea, so I’ll have a place to collect journal entries with photographs.

I’ve become more interested in photography lately. A recent unplanned visit to Jerry Dodrill’s gallery in Bodega led to a 40-minute conversation with the artist about technique. I considered participating in one of his photo-safari workshops, but he’s an avowed film photographer. I never sold my analog camera gear, but I just can’t imagine dealing with film costs again. Or, worse, the delays of developing — who can wait two days to see how a picture turned out? I think shooting film makes great sense for some people, but it’s not for me, at least not now.

Here’s my favorite Dodrill image: Desert Sunrise. Jerry’s gallery has a print of this, measuring about 6' x 4', which would look great in my office. (Is it too close to Christmas for me to drop hints like that without being obvious?)

I’m also impressed and inspired by Matt Haughey’s Ten Years Of My Life site — a ten-year archive of daily photos. It’s a wonderful complement to an online journal. The idea of looking back, in future years, to what I was not only thinking, but seeing, is wonderfully appealing.

I want your opinion, and I’ve made it really easy for you to give it to me… with both barrels, if necessary.

If you have a moment, please take the survey.

I’ve just launched a major redesign of this website, and a major rewrite of the underlying software. New features include:

• valid CSS/XHTML 1.1 markup via templating — no HTML in the source code
• search term highlighting for internal or external searches
  (To see an example of search term highlighting from an offsite search, try this Google search and click the debris.com link in the results.)
• nested channels
• context-specific page titles

More features are in the works. (Famous last words? Hey, just because this launch took me 2.5 years doesn’t mean the next one will too.)