Review of New Blogger Interface

Hey, I'm not saying that y'alls out there are doing such a bad job.  But the new Blogger interface has me bugging out.  First of all, the biggest problem is this one right here:

That's one major huge issue. 

Apparently if you embed a video, and then convert to look at the HTML version of it, it's blocked from view by the video.  There's no way around this in the new version.  The problem doesn't exist in the old interface.  

Here's the old interface, looking and working just fine.  

The old interface would look even better, if it were more like this (note all the blank space over there?)

Oh snap!  A "preview mode."  How crucial. 

I just don't think that the persons in charge of Quality Control are really the ones out in the field.  That's why I'm recommending that Google develop a new "product" called "Field Agent" and it's an actual job.  I'd like to show you what a person with those kinds of responsibilities can do.  

Our place in Space, Part 1

Imagine how people (beings) of the future might consider our current search for life in the Universe. We look to ourselves as an anomaly since there's nothing else quite like organic life, that we know of. Meanwhile, we try to expand our understanding through exploration, driven by a belief that we are not the only creatures in the universe.
Religions often hold beliefs that life is like a strange theatrical performance. In an attempt to comprehend, they all propose that an intelligent creature beyond our comprehension created us, and only us, to test our moral strength to decide our placement in a subsequent existence.
That is a very good plot for a story, but the scientific mind would regard all of those beliefs as speculation.
For the purpose of encouraging moral behavior, the beliefs of religion work well. But as humans enter further and more deeply into
science, the facts that are presented will probably be subjected to greater scrutiny.
Meanwhile, life itself is all we know. As a thriving species that is pushing its capacity of resource consumption and population constantly, breaking new thresholds every moment is just part of the experience. We forget that it wasn't always like this. Life on Earth has been difficult and not full of the conveniences we are blessed with the fortune to have in modern times. In a broad sense, failure to appreciate the amenities provided by our developments and advances in technology could complicate our situation.
Karma dictates that taking something for granted is the first step towards losing something. And by "something" that could
mean anything, from a pair of headphones to global financial stability (I lost my headphones recently).
Religion often channels a dire and profound urge by humans to praise the unknown, possibly as a means to counteract the naturally occurring Karma Equation resulting from a lack of praise for those things which deserve appreciation. Praise as an energy form is a powerful tool in shaping the future. Humans often praise the divine spirits conjured in the religious teachings of the ancients, a kind of sacred fiction that gains special respect and reverence by being somehow associated with these divine spirits.
It's probably likely that these thoughts will be revised, as they have been throughout history. Mysticism will always exist, and might shape our interest in science to make "magic" a reality.
Life can happen anywhere, though. We may be special simply because we are here, we can think, and share our thoughts about these things on ever-increasingly connected communication networks. But perhaps we over-estimate our own value. Compared to whatever else we know in terms of planetary cellular life, we are the most advanced thing in the Universe.
There is always the chance though that this is just a dream. That this is only a test.

Quirking with Framesets

There's a way to create a top banner throughout your entire website, such as that you see on Nhv.Org
By clicking HOME, you're actually clicking on "index_home.htm" which is a page that is known as a frameset.

A frameset references two or more pages to create itself.  In this case, it references a file called banner.htm, which is only 60px tall, and stays at the top of the page.  As well as home.htm, which used to be where "home" once linked on the main page.

If you click "News" on the banner, it opens up in Blogspot.  Banner remains.
If you click "Audio" it opens up in Soundcloud.  Banner stays.

Quirking is a term that I use to describe when I get something done in a really simple manner which would have been possible in 1995.  This includes anything done with animated GIF's or Marquee tags.  There are no restraints to quirking, but usually it involves quickening the process of accomplishing something by doing it in a manner that is potentially way more glitchy.  I like glitches, too.  If computers were natural, they'd be natural mistakes.  Instead, they're more like the genius of artificial intelligence.

Creating a frameset with your index page is one way to create a top-banner menu for your entire site, even if you're browsing your content away from your own webpage, like on your Soundcloud page.

Once you create a frameset, the next thing you should do is include this code in the page where the pages split:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
if (self != top) {
    if (document.images)
        top.location.replace(window.location.href);
    else
        top.location.href = window.location.href;
}
</script>

Because let's say you double back to the main page with the frameset and re-click "home."  Without this code in "index," the framesets could continue to stack upon eachother.  This also prevents other people from doing the same thing to your web pages.

Now, whenever you re-visit the main page, you won't get double or triple banners.  Does not work in Facebook or Youtube, for the obvious potential for misuse.  In the case of NHV, I'm actually using it for a positive purpose: my free hyperlocal community bulletin website.

.Htaccess Power: The Custom Error Page

I heard about a friend who was having trouble with dead links that came up in Google Searches.  Here's a solution: you can create a custom 404 error page that brings people to your site and lands them safely into a zone that says "sorry! that page isn't there, but you're on the right track." 

It's called .htaccess and probably the tricky part is naming the file.  Most files are called filename.txt where ".txt" is a filetype and "filename" is the name of the file.  But for this particular file, the filename simply doesn't exist, and the filetype is .htaccess (go figure!).  The best way to create one is to open up the simplest text editor you can find.  Then add this one simple line of text:  

ErrorDocument 404 /errorpage.htm

Now, save the file in the main directory folder of your website.  Rename the file so that it has no name, but contains the lengthy extension ".htaccess" and then upload it onto your server.  

Write a webpage called errorpage.htm (or anything you want; I call mine 'error.htm' but you can modify that in the .htaccess file).  Then, upload that page to your server.  Now whenever anyone stumbles upon a dead link, it will appear as this custom page.  You can even create a custom google search tool to allow the person to keep searching for a term only on your website, or route it back to your main index page.  

Hopefully it solves the problem!  There is much more you can do with .Htaccess, which is really powerful in modifying your server, which statistically probably runs on Apache if you host your site with any standard company.  More .htaccess tricks will be announced in the future, here on Stereomedia!

L.S. Aristotle ((o))

Game Concept: Multilinear Video

Try to imagine a videogame.

Good luck getting Lego's permission, though.  I'm sure if they found out about SpacePirate, the litigious society in Denmark would surely have something to say.

So the idea of the game is this.  You are a Lego Spaceman, and your mission is to control the stereo and regain control of Kid Analog's mind by defeating SpacePirate.  That sounds quite easy, right?

Wrong!  If you make bad decisions, you will end up getting stuck in the tape deck.  That's what you get for trying to defeat SpacePirate without any cleverness!

Such is the never-ending battle between them:  the alpha and omega.  The light and the darkness.  The matter against the Anti-Matter.  SpacePirate and Aristotle!

New Domain Name Acquired

If you search the twitter feed #NHV what you find is information about the city of New Haven, posted by Mayor Destefano, local entrepreneur Ben Berkowitz, Yale University's main twitter account, and many others.  It became important to the organization that I'm trying to create, to have a term that people could identify with and distinguish as original from other sources.  That's why I obtained this domain name, and I hope it was a good investment.

New to the roster of domain names in 2012:  NHV.Org