sIFR

Now I'm no web developer but this sounds pretty rad. Dan, I thought of you.

Excerpt from this blog:

sIFR is meant to replace short passages of plain browser text with text rendered in your typeface of choice, regardless of whether or not your users have that font installed on their systems. It accomplishes this by using a combination of JavaScript, CSS, and Flash. Here is the entire process:

1. A normal (X)HTML page is loaded into the browser.

2. A JavaScript function is run which first checks that Flash is installed and then looks for whatever tags, ids, or classes you designate. If Flash isn't installed (or obviously if JavaScript is turned off), the (X)HTML page displays as normal and nothing further occurs. If Flash is installed, JavaScript traverses through the source of your page measuring each element you've designated as something you'd like "sIFRed".

3. Once measured, the script creates Flash movies of the same dimensions and overlays them on top of the original elements, pumping the original browser text in as a Flash variable.

4. Actions inside of each Flash file then draws that text in your chosen typeface at a 6 point size and scales it up until it fits snugly inside the Flash movie.

This all happens in a split-second, so all of the checking, replacing, and scaling is not visible to the user. It is not uncommon to notice a very short delay as the Flash loads, but to the user, none of the internals of this process are exposed.

Full write-up.

The Bagua (Initiative)

YES. Another LOST rant.

I just stumbled across something really interesting - a shape called the Bagua. And it looks remarkably close to the logo used in LOST for The DHARMA Initiative. In fact, they purposefully incorporated this logo into the show.

Visit this site while keeping LOST in mind. They give details of the Bagua, it's pretty neat.

I'm amazed at how much thought went into this TV Series.

Amazing!

Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris was walking across the highway one day and was hit by a tyson chicken truck. He bounced off two cars and did a back flip onto a gasoline truck. He pulled a pair of nunchucks (which are named after him) and beat the chicken truck so bad that it had to be air lifted to county general.

He went to visit the truck in the hospital, and when one of the nurses asked him to leave, he roundhouse kicked her so hard that it caused a blackout across most of the country.

Then he went into space and roundhouse kicked the sun so it wouldn't be so hot. His roundhouse kick saves lives and planets.