cdcstudios.com | portfolio v7.1

So as I’ve been tinkering with IE7 beta and seeing how well it works (wow ma! Just like 2004!!!) I was shocked, saddened, dismayed to see it rendering both a few scriptaculous pages I’m working on as well as all of my moofx plugins with shiny spiffy doubled text.

From what I have been able to gather via diligent research (googling alot) is that when the slide/accordion/fade effects trigger IE 7 (and sometimes 6) are doubling the text. Supposedly a quick and dirty fix (hack) is to simply set a background color for the element being affected however a. that’s a bit difficult when working with faux column based sites and b. not very elegant of a solution.

Obviously this is one of those situations where either Microsoft’s bug team will go “oh hey we screwed up, sorry about that” since IE7 is still a “beta” product or else as usual and as we all expect from them, we develop a workaround and spend a few more years decrying the crap that Redmond ships. I’m betting on the latter but the hopeful part of me sees a little hope for IE being fixed.

As soon as I can come up with a clean workaround that doesn’t interfere with faux columns I’ll post updated versions of all 3 moofx plugins. I might even take the opportunity to polish up the options panel versions and maybe even release the “all-in-one multiplug” version.

Until I get that done though I head up to Seattle for Folklife and some excellent hippylike fun in the sun. Oh and in other news, Wednesday morning Zoe and I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time!!! The Midwife said Zoe’s about 12 weeks along and we can expect a baby around December 3rd. Woohoo!

Only 2 months left until we get the first ultrasound (and expect me to post it here as soon as I get my hands on it.

Anyhow have a great weekend and catch ya on the flipside!

So I’ve been following the Network Neutrality debate pretty closely hoping that for once Congress could/would manage to look at technology in a way that didn’t involve buying into whatever weird logic (RIAA suing customers) the corporations brought to the debate. I’m happy to report that so far the government appears to be siding with the consumers. For those of you not familiar (all 2 of you) with the current Network Neutrality debate it basically goes like this: The bandwidth providers want to charge certain bandwidth users extra money if they use a lot of bandwidth or bandwidth of a certain type.

What it really boils down to is the fact that much like the RIAA or MPAA instead of joining WITH the companies using this bandwidth to offer amazing new technology and applications is the Telco’s want to get continually paid for upgrades they’d already planned to do that will make their backbones cheaper in the longrun.

For those of you in the Pacific Northwest you’re familiar with this business model thanks to Starbucks founder Howard Shultz. Shultz demanded that Seattle taxpayers pay for a new arena for the Sonics or he’d move the team. Apparently the sports team economics of “taxpayer money subsidizes my massively profitable business so I can then charge taxpayers more for tickets” is now being examined by the Telcos.

Why should Comcast or Verizon spend money to increase their profitability when they can just have the consumers pay for the upgrades?

On the one hand the corporate arguments do make a little bit of sense: Some internet companies are using massive amounts of bandwidth (YouTube, Google Video etc) but they are free to consumers. However with a closer look we see that with Telcos being able to make companies pay to use bandwidth free sites like those mentioned above will likely go to a pay model and we’re suddenly right back where we were in the late 90’s.

This debate has brought together the far right and far left in totally new ways as well as given us the great bizarre quotes from PR hacks in the industry; like the Verizon Exec who implied that by charging high bandwidth users more money that small “garage” developers would have a greater ability to create that killer app. So a garage developer could make a “killer app” like basecamp or sidejobtrack that gets a massive amount of traffic and pay for it how exactly? With great traffic comes great bandwidth responsibility.

Get off it Telcos. If you don’t like your own business model get out of the business. Don’t shift your inability to want to part with a buck to consumers (i.e. anyone who pays you for your service) it is not our job to subsidize you. Corporations don’t deserve welfare (amtrak, airlines and subsidized farmers this includes you as well). Don’t let Congress allow the FCC to drop the ball on communications regulating yet again.

Zoe and I arrived at around 6:30 and started lighting candles. Shortly after we started lighting candles some more people showed up and everyone was friendly and compassionate (as usual for the scene). Also many of the reporters wanted to talk to us and we all took a turn talking. One thing we all said in common was that the Seattle rave scene is about community and being brothers and sisters to each other (komo news aired a very tiny clip of me saying just that actually). Anytime they (they being the two reporters most eagerly trying to spin this into “DRUGS!”) asked questions regarding drug use in the scene, we answered some people do but are usually quickly removed from the party by security. This wasn’t about raves, ravers or drugs. It was some psycho with too many guns.

All in all the vigil went great until around 11, neighbors bought a pizza for us, brought a case of water and blankets over for those of us that arrived early enough to get rained on. The media got a great example of the love and respect we all have for each other and saw that we’re friendly normal people.

Tragically at 11 people started showing up putting beer and liquor bottles next to the candles and being loud and acting more like they were at a party then being there to show support for their lost friends and to come together in this incredibly sad event.

The 8 people I came down there with and I all felt the vibe go from a showing love positive sort of time to a point where after neighbors asked us to turn down the music, cries of “fuck them we lost friends” from some of the people who arrived later.

Considering how nice the neighbors had been and that they’re a very closeknit neighborhood who knew everyone that lived in that house the lack of respect from some of the people that showed up was heartbreaking. I grew up in the Portland scene and in the short time I’ve been in Seattle, I’ve grown to really love our scene. Seeing these people acting like idiots hurt me, my friends and didn’t show the best support for the senseless loss of some great people.

I’m not sure how people got the idea the vigil was going to be at the Spot but for those that showed up with us to mourn and rejoice the way those lives lost touched us you’re awesome.There a couple of photos posted via flickr from someone in the neighborhood who came out to show support along with all us you can find here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukeallen/

NorthwestTekno - Seven people shot dead in Capitol Hill shooting

Some good people and at least 2 people that Zoe and I knew have been killed at an afterparty in Seattle. I’d advise avoiding what channels like Fox News are reporting since as usual it’s a heavy distortion of events. From what has been gathered from people actually there some psycho guy (ala high school shooting) went to an afterparty and shot the place up killing 7 (including himself) and wounding 2-3 others.

Zoe and I will be heading down to the scene to leave flowers and light some candles. If you are or know anyone in the rave scene give them a call and tell them how you feel about them and make sure they’re ok.

Peace.

All righty all you Seattlite party hounds. There’s a party tonight happening down at Chop Suey in honor of Ms. Tamara Weikel (djtamara) turning 30 years old. Those of you who know me know that I always speak highly of Tamara’s musical abilities and being all around righteous babe person should hop in your cars, cabs, carts or rollerblades and skedaddle down to Chop Suey at 9pm.

According to Sam Mickens in “The Stranger” (free Seattle weekly):

“Seattle’s own OG DJ Tamara has already, at the near dawn of her third decade, enjoyed an artistic career of astonishing volume and ridiculous diversity. A voraciously busy club DJ, multimedia artist, improvising musician, and lots of other shiz, Tamara has devoted her young life to an insanely passionate embrace of performance and composition in a far-flung swath of modes and settings. Apropos to the hostess’s free-range artistic involvements, this night—a massive party in celebration of the DJ’s 30th birthday—features modern soul, performance art, mashup DJs, electronic producers, free improvisers, and probably too much more to properly list. Co-headliner Reggie Watts has, like Tamara, managed a musical career that veers from the most pop-wielding, sweaty R&B to all stripes of experimental and improvised music.”

All in all seeing Tamara as well as Reggie Watts, Jacob London, KRNL.Panic, DJ Freddy King of Pants and the Degenerate Art Ensemble is going to be the event of the year if not the millenium so far (hyperbole is my strong suit).