wolfwings

And she said I could keep my mini-site up for now, and continue working on improving it for use as an interface for the archive once the comic is done possibly. At this point I could use some external help to translate minor strings decently (or graphical icons for things like single versus dual-page layouts perhaps?) and figure there's no harm in making a public entry about this work asking for that help. I've been surprised before with which of my friends knows what languages. Hell, someone else may want to use this interface for their own chapter-based comic or story for download or whatever. Swipe it, abuse it, do what you wish to it.

I've also unlocked my previous two posts about this web-comic 'engine' (First post and second post) and would like comments on my work. :-)

The first nine pages of Inverloch (first two scenes of chapter 1) in my interface. Poke, try to break things, try to make it do something dumb, just lemme know what breaks it.

To read the rest of the comic, go to Seraph Inn, and if you want a translated version go to the Extra's link. :-)

A small side-note if you explore the 'translations' though: Any text that shows up <in angle brackets like this> is untranslated as I lack translated versions (navigation text and scene titles primarilly) or (in the case of chapter titles particularly) haven't transcribed a specific language into the interface yet.

Reactionless Thrusters, anyone?

...go to my previous post detailing my web-comic engine work first if any of this confuses you.

I've taken one idea from the only comment my previous post got, and am in the process of implementing another idea I had thanks to finding multi-language versions of the Inverloch webcomic.

I've only converted pages 1 and 2 to include Spanish support, but as that may imply to the astute out there the previously-linked-to example interface now supports changing the language of the comic dynamically using overlays. I also added a small text-blurb at the end of the page to explain how to change pages in what is (I hope) a clear and simple fashion.

Unfortunately I'm still grappling with the best way to implement the textual navigation side-bars and footer to support multi-language support. It'll involve some re-engineering of the overall engine, but the core structure shouldn't change that much. I need to re-test the new version on Safari, but it still works on IE6, O9, FF1.5, and K3.5.x so I'm confident I haven't broken anything yet.

And

elfs? I take back what I said many, many years ago while we were taking turns playing Raiden at ConFurence 8 or 9 (I forget which). Javascript is almost nothing like QuakeC, I simply didn't understand Javascript enough at the time to recognize that fact.

Anyone that reads Inverloch I'd especially like your input on this.

Hell, anyone working, reading, or coding the interface on a webcomic focussed on chapter-based stories oriented in portrait orientation is very likely to have valid input here.

I got hooked on Inverloch, but was severely disgusted with the interface for navigating the archives. In particular, the page ended up pixels too tall for me to click on the next button without scrolling the screen each time, so it made slogging through the archives very arduous. Not to mention, well, I'm running a widescreen laptop. One page at a time was annoying too, but the 'move-scroll-move-click' routine was getting old fast. (Yay for not having a wheel-mouse.)

So... I started writing my own interface. I just recently e-mailed the lady that writes and draws the comic, and maintains the website, but haven't heard back from her for better or ill for about half a week now when I told her about my work in case any of it was useful to her. At this point, I haven't heard back, and can verify through server-logs that she hasn't visited the 'demo page' I set up on my website either, so I'm guessing either it'll be a week or two before she gets back to me due to mail-volume, or my e-mail got caught in a spam-trap either automated or mental skimming over the e-mail and thinking it was an ad.

What's this have to do with LJ? Well, I'd like your input on the interface I made, and if you can think of anything obvious I could do to improve it? Or just in general does anyone have any comments on the work? None of the graphics are mine, all the HTML and Javascript is.

My alternate interface for Inverloch

The javascript 'engine' behind that interface

The Javascript is perhaps not the best though I've tested it as working on Safari, Konqourer, Firefox 1.5, Internet Explorer 6, and Opera 9.

The CSS is not mine, nor are ANY graphics. They're all from Inverloch obviously. :-) I'm only to blame for the navigation code and javascript.

Note I specifically only have the first nine pages viewable as I'm locally-cashing those pages (the first 'act' in chapter 1) on my web-server to prevent polluting the server-access logs and referrer-logs for Inverloch. Navigation works all the way up to the latest pages posted as of today, it just will load 'bad' images.

...but at least he didn't go out some mundane, boring way.

I mean, seriously... killed by a stingray? There's what, single-digit recorded deaths in all of recorded history from stingrays? Lots of maiming and injuries, but actual deaths? Unheard of.

Anyone out there have a high-res map of the 50 US states? I.E. Something I can flood-fill colors into then scale down to web-resolution so it'll look nice?

...but it's just the slave cylinder on the clutch acting up. Going to try bleeding that out this weekend if I get the chance, see if that helps.

The Escort is acting like a peach aside from the usual complaints about the automatic transmission downshifting and upshifting when I don't want it to. Upshifting when I'm still accelerating from a stoplight, and downshifting when I'm just trying to eek out another 5mph on the freeway to pass someone. Dumb tranny. =-.-=

Now to go give it it's first full oil change since the engine got rebuilt. Amazed at how freakin' hard it was to find a full-synthetic 5W20. =O.o= That, and if anyone knows if there's a trick to opening up the air-filter casing so I can put in the K&N, I'd love to hear about it. I'm just worrying it really does involve pulling all five or six bolts to lift the casing more-or-less out before I can pull the two halves apart and replace the filter, and wondering if there's some short-cut trick to it.

Just got my badge. =^.^= Came a-o-kay.

...and I tracked down a damn nifty site.

Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools

It has all sorts of things on it, and it's useful enough I figured I'd spread it around a bit more.

...I'm now the owner of a white 2001 Ford Escort.

Formerly a Fleet Vehicle for Warner Brothers.

With a rebuilt engine my mechanic did less than 2000 miles ago.

For $1700.

SCORE!

Now to go get a job. Just need to fraggin' write a resume. Always has been my largest obstacle, my second being trying to unwrap my job history since I've worked such a strange and wide variety of jobs over the years.

...but for all of you out there using FireFox, there's a plugin I'd like to demonstrate the power of.

GreaseMonkey

How it does it's magic isn't that important, but what that magic is capable of is quite nice. It allows scripts to be run on your client-side BEFORE any web-page scripts are run each time a web-page loads, allowing portions of websites to be rewritten, extended, or otherwise modified. Everything from blocking ads at a level of site-specific design that most ad-blockers can't touch, to bypassing 'click through' full-page ads, to simple removing or reducing the impact of artificial limitations.

DeviantArt is a wonderful example for this. By default, you're forced to use tiny thumbnails, can't view more than 24 images per page of a gallery (which I might add shows 5 images per line) have ads littered around the pages you view, AND occasionally have click-through full-screen ads pop up. Of course, all of this goes away if you pay them a subscription fee. Or if you go to the userscripts.org DeviantArt category and install the appropriate scripts.

This shows both the power of the tool, it's promise, and it's threat to the proverbial 'powers that be' in the form of utterly defeating all forms of 'coercive payment for freely available services' business models. You can no longer block only select forms of access to a feature to non-paying customers. If the feature is available at all, GreaseMonkey can allow all users to access it fully at any time they wish, to the point of re-writing your layout to suit themselves.

...when I hand you a laptop I've told you I've disabled the passwords on, and that you may create a FireFox profile or even a full username on, and hook up my cell-phone for GPRS so you can check your e-mail and sig-alert.com before you head home from work, you may not...

Clear the browser history

Clear the cookies

Only saving grace is they didn't clear my god-damn saved passwords. Now I have to hunt for all the webcomics I visit and tend to leave in my history file among other sites I visit regularly, and log into all the forums and websites I go to. And punch said friend in the arm next time I see him.

( Of interest only to SysAdmins most likely... )

...three folks I know, one of whom I thought was very nice and had bartered with in the past for a very nice piece of jewelry they made for me, have been betrayed. As any one of you know, it wasn't me obviously. They've all three left, with very little word. Since it's caused so much confusion, and their departing entries are all publically-viewable as they've deleted their respective friends-lists, I'll link to their departing posts.

Maly's departure
Jurann's departure
Oskar's departure

I've no idea what just happened...

...but Maly, Jurann, and Oskar will all be missed in their own ways. None of them will see this, and for multiple reasons I don't see a reason to link to their (former) LJ accounts. I wish the three of them well though, and may the necklace Maly made for me in trade last through the ages.

And to you who caused this, may you not look forward to the day you leave this mortal world. For betrayal such as yours is punished, if not here, in the final places that truly matter.

If you buy a table saw, buy one that won't cut your fingers off!

SawStop

Call it product placement, call it whatever you want, but geez... save some fingers. :-)

First they came for the knitting needles, and I didn't speak up
Because I wasn't much of a knitter
Then they came for the shoes, and I didn't speak up
Because I wear sandals
Then they came for the lighters, and I didn't speak up
Because I don't smoke
Then they came for my Dr Pepper
And now it's on, motherfuckers.

And for me, it's perfectly, exactly true.

And now this puts me between a rock and a hard place between gas prices and travel speed. Especially the likelyhood of them banning all electronics on carry-ons here in the USA I fear. I out-right refuse to part with my laptop and cell phone because of the sheer reliance I have on them both for my data and reading material.

And the amusing part? As far as I can tell, I'm the only person I've ever heard of that nearly got refused access to a plane because I didn't have shoes on. I was lucky I had a pair of socks in my carry-on luggage.

Honest-to-god, I get to the security checkpoint, wait for my flight, get stopped by the at-the-door screener and told if I don't have footwear I can't board. Not 100 feet (though about 90 minutes) after I pass through a security checkpoint where if I do have footwear on, I have to take it off. First time I've been told I needed to wear shoes to board an airline though. =o.O=

...it looks like I'll have another Civic shortly. *chuckles* A wagon no less, 84. :-)

Now to track down tranny parts...
Current plan: (since all the individual parts are interchangable and cheap as hell)

1st Gear	2nd Gear	3rd Gear	4th Gear	5th Gear	Final Drive
85 Civic SI	84-87 CRX HF	84-87 CRX HF	85 Civic SI	84-87 CRX HF	86-87 Civic SI	Source of Part
	~7:11	~8:11	~7:10	~7:11		Per-shift Gear Ratios
3.30	2.03	1.44	1.00	0.65	4.40	Gear Ratios
33.8	54.9	77.4	111.4	171.4		Speed @ 6000RPM
48.2	65.2	97.3	135.1	161.7		Stock Speed @ 6000RPM
143%	119%	126%	121%	94%		New Acceleration
70%	84%	80%	82%	106%		New Top Speed

The tranny would be approximately 6000rpm->4000rpm at the 2-3 and 3-4 shift (longer jump from 1st and into 5th, both intentional) and shifted down a fair bit from a stock Civic transmission (14.52 versus 10.1626 for the standard '84 transmission) so it'll accelerate MUCH better from a dead stop.

Edit And just as a side-note before people go "BUH? You'll go how fast?!?" at the top speeds I listed there, note that especially 5th gear is purely a 'cruising at 55-75 gear on flat ground' choice meant to really bump up highway MPG values. The stock engine won't have enough oomph to get up to those speeds at all. But I believe the stock transmission would be stuck in 2nd at best on the grapevine, while the 're-geared' one should still be able to handle 3rd on the grapevine. And my RPM's will be around 2000 at 55mph both before and after the conversion, so my long-distance MPG won't be affected negatively by this change, only my city MPG will take a slight penalty. Only thing left to do, start going over my Civic manuals to plan out where I'll put an oil cooler and temperature probe in since I learned how cheap such a system is.

...the human body may well be at a sort of 'optimal power point' in the hyper-dimensional intersection of hundreds of interelated curves of power, speed, and adaptability. The sheer fact that some extreme examples of our kind can learn echolocation to a good degree says volumes to me.

Then I realize... granting exceptional hearing to a deaf person is volumes easier than granting exceptional sight to a blind person. Yet we're unlikely to ever put the research into granting this because, while it could grant them full functionality, that functionality would be so markedly different and 'outside the norm' it would be rejected out of hand.

...there is a reason I avoid the major news outlets as much as possible on TV at least.

Pallywood, a short documentary showing simple proof that often the 'sight-bites' as they call them, are manufactured. True warfare from Israel is something we've only recently begun to truly see. Any centralized news source is subject to this effect, even the folks that made Pallywood. But it does show proof that the sheer quantity of major news-agency supplied camera's in the area dramatically changes the reality of what actually happens. It turns news agencies into propeganda machines. Not news machines.

And sadly, I believe that the progress towards a 'peace accord' in that area, or whatever term they feel like using, is merely capping a pwoder keg again. For better or worse, this is a fire that will, some day, need to burn itself out. The sheer fact that one side has claimed to only use 20% of their 12500-rocket supply despite 'shock and awe' style rocket barrages says so to me. Both sides are physically tiny, and whenever one side gets enough stockpile they'll risk the other side's wrath just to burn off the surplus before it goes out of date if nothing else. And thus the powder keg regenerates it's charge.

Well... I heard back from the Inverloch artist/author.

Hello, TL9!

Follow-up on my previous post...

Request for Comment...

Well, he's dead...

(no subject)

And the 944 is still being a bone-head...

Thanks, likeshine!

Investigating from my last post...

Well...

This originally began as a comment in someone's journal...

Basic Computer Etiquette...

(no subject)

Since there's been some confusion...

(no subject)

Support inventors!

As originally said by rhiannonstone via <lj site="livejournal.com

Well...

And on a much happier note...

And just for the record...

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