Archive for the ‘Web’ Category

ASCII Art has been around since 1966 in one form or another. Well, now there’s CSS Art. Román Cortés has created a portrait of Homer Simpson done entirely with CSS. Here’s an animated version (courtesy of Ned Batchelder) so that you can see how it’s done piece-by-piece. More recently, Román made a portrait of George Bush using the same technique. Very creative (and time consuming!) use of the medium. As it catches on, I’d wager that programs will be created to help automate the process, much like a rasterbator or ASCII generator.

After 2 days of tearing apart the WordPress default template Kubrick and piecing it back together through trial-and-error, I can safely say that I have a workable template on my hands. Granted, I won’t be able to stop fiddling with it whenever the mood strikes and I’m still not 100% satisfied with the layout. Now is as good a time as any to update my knowledge of web programming languages.

I like writing code. Working within the parameters of a programming language and figuring out how to get it to do what you want is personally far more interesting than adhering to some nebulous artistic guidelines. To me, programming is achieving a creative process (the abstract) through a strict set of rules (the concrete).

I don’t like having to re-invent the wheel, which is nearly a given when working with computers. I was perfectly happy with my nested tables and font tags. Now I have to learn how to do the same thing, but with Div and CSS tags. Then there will be some new hotness in another few years and I’ll have to learn that, too. Like all technology, it’s an evolving spiral of complexity and I probably sound like some old fart that opines tongue-in-cheek about punch cards. I understand the need for revision and updating, but there comes a point at which complexity overwhelms understandability for the current generation. The ability to adapt is highly valuable.