Site Redesign Party and Immediate Nap
The company I work for put all us contractors on furlough over the holidays. Furlough, in this sense, means they laid us off for a couple of weeks. I think it amounted to 12 days without pay. Counting weekends and a couple of paid holidays, I haven't been to work in 19 days. For most of that, I was trapped in my apartment by the sub-freezing temperatures outside. With all this free time on my hands, I finally got around to a redesign of SittingInOblivion.com.
This iteration is responsive and should display reasonably well on mobile devices. I'm trying to showcase the photographs as the main content and purpose of the site, but I will continue to write and include music. I've added a new Random Post feature, which I find to be tons of fun. The tagline beneath the site name has been made into a clickable link. The Archives section is more accessible to navigate now. There's a rudimentary RSS feed, which I'll spruce up soon. I installed a module to automatically detect broken links and videos (it even tries to fix them automatically, when possible). I've deprecated (i.e., gotten rid of) Every Song Ever, because it didn't seem necessary as a public feature. The Photos section and Code Wiki didn't get much love this round, but they are both scheduled for an overhaul in the coming weeks.
I'm still smoothing over the rough edges and making some aesthetic decisions. The site may not display exactly perfect in all browsers at all sizes yet. I honestly haven't even looked at it in IE or Edge. I will do that this weekend. If you run into any problems or want to send some feedback, you can email me at sittinginoblivion@gmail.com.
In Other News
- Your Brain Is So Easily Fooled - Journalist Erik Vance talks about his first book, Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain’s Ability to Deceive, Transform and Heal. (Scientific American)
- The Apprehension Engine: An Instrument Designed to Play the Music of Nightmares - Movie composer Mark Korven wanted to craft the perfect sounds for horror movies, but the instruments he needed didn’t exist, and he was tired of using the same digital samples. To produce the original effects needed for evoking breathtaking moments of suspension, he teamed up with guitar maker Tony Duggan-Smith to craft an original instrument that would better aid in manufacturing fear. (Colossal)
- The Minor White Archive - The Minor White Archive, which entered the Princeton University Art Museum in 1976, is the most significant collection of primary source material by and about the artist. The Archive consists of more than 26,000 items, including photographic prints by White and by other artists, including his students. (Minor White Archive)
- UK Faces Build-up of Plastic Waste - Britain has been shipping up to 500,000 tonnes of plastic for recycling in China every year, but now the trade has been stopped. At the moment the UK cannot deal with much of that waste. (BBC News)