Arachnids and Ecosystems
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
My brother is deathly afraid of spiders, as are most people. I’ve seen him jump on a chair out of sheer fright; a grown man scared of an insect no bigger than his pinky. Comically, I tell him that if it came down to a duel to the death, he would probably win. But rational arguments don’t have much effect when it comes to the visceral. So I’ve tried a new strategy in an effort to spare the little creatures.
This past weekend, we were in his garage, working on our bikes after a group ride. Washing, waxing, admiring, you know how it goes. I spotted a big bellied spider, the kind that look like Black Widows taking down a wood bug. As I admired the beauty of nature, my brother was busy trying to find a cup to trap the little guy in an effort to evict him from the premises. I urged him to leave the spider alone; that another two would quickly take its place. He exclaimed that was acceptable. I smirked.
As he was about to capture the little critter, it scurried away and hid. My brother was visibly disappointed. I used this opportunity to explain that every space has a natural ecosystem. A system that will always achieve balance. His garage was no exception. Think about it. It is a building filled with all manner of insect. Flies, mosquitoes, wood bugs, spiders, beetles, ear wigs, etc. Each of those species is a predator and also subject to predation. The ecosystem maintains balance because each species is represented. Now, if one were to remove as many spiders as they could find, all those other insects that are kept under control would flourish. Spiders are actually quite important. So much so, that they get a free pass when it comes to pest control. In fact, professional pest removal services will never harm spiders. The ecosystem would lose balance.
Fine, you say, so long as you don’t see another spider. Fair enough. But that is not taking into account the entire picture. Now that you’ve removed the local spiders, the other species will multiply. If you were a roaming spider looking for a good place to lay your web to get some grub, where would you go? If you answered the garage that is teaming with food, you answered correctly.
Now you’ve got spiders coming in droves because you’ve effectively created an arachnid smorgasbord. That means more spiders for you to evict. Keep trying to control their numbers, and the problem will only escalate. The bugs that were once controlled by the spider populace are now free to multiply. It’s a war you cannot win. Spiders are plentiful and there will be no shortage, trust me.
Truly, the best thing to do is let them be. The garage can only support so many spiders. Once their numbers reach the limit, the competition for food will be so great that no other spider will want to join the fray. They will seek other areas that have less competition for food. It’s a catch-22. You are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s not very intuitive, I know. You could of course try to deplete their food supply by eradicating all the bugs they feed on. But who wants to spend their entire days catching flies, mosquitoes, wood bugs, or ants. They multiply far faster than you can hope to eradicate them, trust me.
So next time you see someone reaching for that kleenex, explain to them that when they kill off that little spider, two more will come and take its place. An ecosystem is always self-correcting. That is unless you can find the keystone species, but that is another discussion entirely.
I ♥ HTML
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>I ♥ (x)HTML</title>
<style type="text/css">
.notice { I suggest you change; the XHTML to match the; content being checked (e.g., CSS, HTML5,
etc.; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
If you've got an unhealthy <obsession /> with getting
<a href="#">every</a>
<a href="#">single</a>
<a href="#">thing</a>
on your website to pass <em>W3C Validation</em>, then this is for <you />. And if <you /> got here from some link, that means I probably bamboozled someone and they in turn, <you />.
<sorry src="/' alt="really" />
<link src="So put a link in your footer and be proud of your slavish devotion to W3C doctrine, and show that you ♥ your code" />
<!-- I don't think I need to tell anyone the code, do I? -->
<p><strong>G33k for Life</strong></p>
</body>
</html>Microsoft Sux0rs: In support of Dick Brass
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
In case you haven’t read the recent article by Dick Brass, former VP over at Microsoft, let me provide you with a precis. He condemned the Redmond Giant for their ridiculous internal “internecine warfare,” claiming it (and other poor decisions) have seen the company spiral into a stagnant pool of anti-innovation. He claims, due to internal struggles and myopic R&D, Microsoft has not only lost their edge, but also their vision (tell us all something we don’t know Dick). Anyone interested in a terrific read can jump over to the New York Time for the full story.
I have no reason to doubt Dick. He seems like an intelligent man, with great insight. Moreover, Frank Shaw, VP of Communication with Microsoft, responded to Dick’s sassy column, but never disputed the actual allegations. As a matter of fact, it was a rather limp-wristed reply that rambled on about how successful a company they still are. No facts. No evidence. Kind of like telling someone they’ll get to taste a rainbow if they join your organization. (If you’re into fluff, you’ll find his article almost frame-worthy.) So until anything surfaces, I’ll take Dick on his words. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it is nice to have another citation when you feel the need to drag Bill Gates’ legacy through the mud at your local Linux rally.
Poetry in Code: The Haiku Error Page
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
There exists an abundant supply of articles on the internet aimed at making 404 error pages more helpful and informative. They often suggest web designers include a search field, common links, and generally avoid being too convoluted or too technical in nature. All excellent tips that promote usability and accessibility.
Frankly, I could care less about reading an error page. I’ll go look elsewhere. I don’t need suggestive links. Give me access to your navigation system and I’m good. I’d rather just fall back on Google or another place for the content. Internal site searches often produce irrelevant content or poorly presented information. In any case, I don’t like using internal searches and can’t remember the last time I’ve had to rely on them (or better yet, the last time they produced anything remotely close to what I was looking for).
Furthermore, the only sure fire way to avoid the problems those pages often cause visitors is to monitor crawl stats, either through your server or through Google Web Master Tools. If you see 404s, clean them up by fixing the code (if you broke something), or simply by adding permanent (301) redirects to your .htaccess file. Packing an error page with links or miscellany is a waste of time in my opinion. It’s a bandaid, not a cure. Fix the problem and you’ll likely never need one (provided it’s not a 403 or a 500).
So I decided I would take a different approach and pack my error pages with wisdom instead of the usual drivel.
Pee on the Bee: Urinals Get a Touch of Usability
The following article was witten and published by William Szilveszter.
If you’re a guy, you’re probably aware of “splash-back”, which is just an unfortunate by-product of peeing in a urinal. If you’ve never heard of splash-back, then let me assure you, it’s exactly what it sounds like. But leave it to human factors psychologists to devise a solution.
What do you think men do when they stand there and pee? What do you think they think about? Well, if you think world problems are solved at those wall-mounted, porcelain receptacles, think again. Most men seem to focus on aiming their streams. Yes ladies, it’s true. Whether we admit it or not, we aren’t doing much more than playing “First One to Erode the Urinal Cake” or pretending we are Chief Fireman Baker, a gruff loaner with a heart of gold who also happens to be Urinal Town’s only hope to quell a fire that threatens to decimate the local orphanage.
So what do human factors have to do with splash-back? Well plenty actually. Some scientists got together and found the optimal area to pee on. An area that saw the least amount of splash-back. Once they found that area, they would need to mark it. Basically, they would need to get all the men to aim their stream at that one spot. How to do that ? Stick something there. By conducting some simple experiments, they found that men would aim their stream at specific “targets.” They chose a bee, but it could have been anything, really (others have used flies, bulls-eyes, and an assortment of quirky little targets). You can click on the thumbnail above to enlarge the image (sorry for the low quality shots, all I had was my iPhone).
So the next time you see a little bee on a urinal, and can’t help but a) wonder what it’s doing there, and b) why you have to aim for it, well, now you know (and it’s not there to reduce “spillage” as falsely reported by BoingBoing). Personally, I think it’s actually pretty cool to see something I read about in class, applied to the real world. These were taken on campus, and when I saw them, I was secretly proud of my academic institution for being so progressive.
