Welcome to the other side

I’ve finally dumped my old hosting provider (Servergrid who was really flaky) for all but the most trivial of sites to port. This blog was the biggest obstacle and is finally functional. There are still bugs from the admin side but as near as I can tell, so far, the user experience is working correctly. Let me know if you have problems.


Do you like the new theme?

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19 thoughts on “Welcome to the other side

  1. Crap. The comments get pushed down to below the end of the right column…

    Ry, you realize both you and your daughters are in the picture above, right?

  2. Joe,

    Glad you asked for input re: new theme. I’m viewing the blog via LT in Firefox. . . I’m fond of the new layout & image header. Very nice.

    But I’ve never been fond of ”Ramblings of a red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal.” Those words have bothered me for years, every time I visit your site, over the years.

    Before I dive in, I openly state that I approach this from a marketing/advertising angle. It’s my job to wrap my mind around slogans n’ such.

    I understand the concept of seizing control of negative words. In some situations this technique is effective. However, I’ve never liked the tongue-in-cheek words quoted above. You, Joe, and your cohort Lyle, are *nothing near* rambling, knuckle-dragging, or anything near Neanderthal.

    I think most your readers will agree — we visit your site because of the advanced thinking behind the blog. Topics of explosives, guns, politics, sex are presented in a refreshingly elegant, thoughtful manner.

    Why embrace negative descriptors? Would the Brady Bunch embrace condescending words as a slogan to their blog? If I were a woman writing a ”gender progressive” blog, would it be effective to incorporate disparaging words into my blog header which is viewable every time readers visit my site? Would a gun-grabber refer to his writings as ”ramblings?” Hell, no.

    When working at your unconventional level, there’s no need to go out of your way to embrace insult words. Does Bruce Schneier integrate negative words from opponents into his ”blog brand?”

    Your blog content is far from being culturally backward. The viewpoints regarding guns, explosives, sex, politics tend to be the epitome of forward-thinking. When people query guns, explosives, etc. in Google, before they even visit your site, they’ll first read negative descriptors of “ramblings, red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal.” Words carry power.

    If you’re going to give your site a design makeover, I challenge you to consider giving your slogan a makeover for the better, free of voluntary put-downs. If you’re stuck on your slogan, so it goes. If you want more input, you know where to go.

    Besides, Lyle posts to the blog, too. At the bare minimum, if you’re stuck on your slogan and don’t want to change it, then you at least need to make ”Neanderthal” plural.

  3. First, I really dig the new look! I always wondered why you kept that pre-blog, bulletin board look. This is much more energetic and enjoyable.

    Stephanie makes some interesting points. I had referred to myself as a “redneck” in an early version of my blog, and my wife very quickly pointed out that if I wanted ANY of my posts to be taken seriously, I might want to reconsider the negative connotations associated both with the original blog title I had chosen, and with the descriptors I used.

    While anyone who chooses to read the posts here quickly recognizes that the descriptors are certainly “tongue in cheek”, many don’t or won’t read enough to figure it out once they see the title. (BTW, can someone who works in Redmond for Microsoft legitimately claim being a redneck without being thrown off campus?)

    Great blog, wonderful insights, (dangit, you beat me to the QOTD with Breda!), and I look forward to the evolution of the site!

  4. Cool, looks nice.

    I’m in the middle of rewriting my blog software from scratch. I’ll be switching from Subtext (which I helped write bits and pieces of) to Ansible, which is what I’m calling my new engine.

    If you’re looking for a scalable, high traffic, multi-user / multi-blog system with a simple to use installation system and slick, easy to use admin pages, then Ansible won’t be for you. If you know .Net and aren’t afraid to ‘hoof it’, then you might want it.

    But I wouldn’t recommend it 😉

    Just FYI, in FF-3 on Vista, this text box slides beneath the archives. It’s like the overflow is… uhh… underflowing or something. I’ll send you a screenshot to show what I mean.

  5. Joe,
    Yeah, I know we’re in the picture. The comment box is wonky in IE8, as well – the scroll bar is about and inch in and the textbox is as wide as the screen. I think when you fix the textbox width issues (they’re probably set to 100%), the comment deal will float back to the top.

  6. FWIW: I like the new look – except for the handgun watermark.

    It isn’t the handgun – I find that watermarks of any kind make it hard for me to read the text.

    Perhaps lightening the image to 50% of its current density would help?

  7. “Would the Brady Bunch embrace condescending words as a slogan to their blog?”

    No they would not. And that brings us to the point; the aggressor in any conflict sets the rules. In this case, the rule they created is to depict themselves as their diametric opposite. If that is the way this is to be played, if the Brady campaign “against gun violence” and such, or if Obama is for Hope and Unity, then we are ignorant, illiterate, violence-prone, bigoted, backwoods, redneck, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, incapable of thinking for ourselves, who get all our marching orders from the NRA, etc.

  8. Well, I finally got the new site Monday afternoon. Is fine. But then I really don’t care about the “theme” stuff unless it detracts from reading. Hopefully you won’t go off the air as much with the new provider.

  9. I like the layout, but the posts are not visually friendly for reading. May be the blurry pistol or font. The green script along the right column is easier to read.

    May be my old, old eyes.

  10. Lyle, you missed my point regarding voluntarily embracing negative put-down words as one’s slogan. re: “the aggressor in any conflict sets the rules” = I’m talking about the art of slogans, here. Not aggression, conflict, or war.

    This is about the image one wants to voluntarily portray to the world. Image, slogan, choice of words, etc. carry great weight.

    I direct lots of people (including representatives in the media) to this blog. I cringe every time I have to do this, because the first thing they’ll read is the header. Yes, readers will get to the hearty content, but self-deprecation *does not* work in the case of this blog.

    It would be nice to be cringe-free, when I direct media reps. to this site.

    As stated earlier, I understand the concept of seizing control of negative words. In some situations this technique is effective. In the instance of this blog, self-deprecation as a slogan doesn’t work for you. It works against you.

    Food for thought:

    Aimless Wanderer Blathers About Explosives & Guns
    Blog of a Nigger Blabber On Politics & Sex
    The Internet Whinings of an Incoherent Bleeding Heart Democrat
    Grunts From An Ape in Idaho

    Joe asked for response re: new site theme theme. He didn’t ask for universal approval. This is an opportunity to makeover the site slogan, for the better. Or not. If you don’t want to change for the better, then why bother asking for input?

    I leave you with Bill Waites’ words:

    I had referred to myself as a ”redneck” in an early version of my blog, and my wife very quickly pointed out that if I wanted ANY of my posts to be taken seriously, I might want to reconsider the negative connotations associated both with the original blog title I had chosen, and with the descriptors I used.

  11. Looks good from where I sit — Firefox 2.n on Kubuntu (that’s the Ubuntu Linux with the K Desktop environment, instead of Gnome). I’m exceptionally pleased that you managed to get the CSS/whatever right, in that when I zoom the text out to “readable for me”, your html textareas (and other form input thingies) don’t get all effed up. And it also survives the “make my browser window more narrow” test. I might even read your CSS for educational purposes.

    Also, props for doing away with changing the background color on a:hover. 🙂

    I’m going to make a WAG that you’re running your various sites on a VPS, so I guess it’s not worth asking whether your new hosting provider does it right when it comes to privilege domain separation on a shared host. (Yeah, I’m still dragging my feet on getting a new hosting account.)

  12. I am another one of those people who only really reads sites through RSS feeders, so… new theme? However, in all seriousness, this one appears to be a general upgrade over the last – I like how the text wraps around the column on the right, I like the variety of colors, and I like the watermark. Is the Name/E-Mail/Homepage portion of the comments form supposed to be indented to even with about “allowed”, though? Oh, and I hate keyword clouds, but that is just me.

  13. I read almost all the blogs via RSS feeds as well so themes don’t mean a lot except when visiting to read and make comments.

    The indent is an artifact of a bug (comments did not start until below the right column) fix. I think I could fix the indent if I spent some more time on it but I decided I had higher priority things to work on.

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