Eric Meyer, billed as “renowned CSS master,” launched a product called CSS Sculptor for $149.99. I thought it was free, but $149.99 for only 30 CSS layouts is still pretty pricy. So no thanks. I’ll stick with Tim‘s awesome, Dreamweaver-free 99 Layouts he developed for our team at Vassar. Tim, I think we should put your product on sell as well. 99 layouts for 99 dollars. That’s going to be hot. Only a buck a layout. Even McDonald’s dollar menu can’t beat it. Anyone?
I received an email today requesting to use my current layout. I am flattered that someone finds my site “very clean and elegant” and that she couldn’t find free WordPress theme that she likes until she saw mine. Not that I don’t want to share my design because I have done so in the past, but I just redesign this layout not too long ago and intend to keep it for a while. Like many blogs, mine is not unique, but it has its individual characteristics. Something I am proud to call my own. This brings me to a great post I just read from SVN‘s Jason Fried regarding to finding inspiration from wristwatch:
So if someone can make a 2” circle look unique, you can make a million pixels look unique. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t think there’s only a few ways to display content. Don’t think there’s only a couple ways to style a sidebar. Don’t think there’s only a couple different designs for a header with tabs. Don’t think a list always has to look the same or there’s only one way to distinguish time-sensitive information. Don’t think there’s only a couple ways to call something out as important or high priority.
An online romance turned into murder:
Montgomery [45-year-old former marine] was consumed by his marathon online chats with Jessi [a 17-year-old from West Virginia]. While at work, he didn’t stop talking about her, telling colleagues that he planned to leave his wife [Cindi] and move to West Virginia. In the evening, he would chase his daughters off the computer, planting himself in front of the screen late into the night. Cindi couldn’t compete with his new obsession.
I want it too.
The professional webspace of designer and illustrator Kevin Cornell. Check out his wicked, idiosyncratic artworks in the gallery.
Béla Flecking
@tbrown. NP Sam Bowie 🙂
In his excellent article, “Death, Buddhism, and Existentialism in the Songs of Trinh Cong Son” (PDF format), John C. Schafer, an English professor at Humboldt State University, explores the Buddhist themes and “philosophy of life” in Trinh Cong Son’s lyrics. Shafer writes:
By refusing to announce simple meanings Trinh Cong Son lets listeners interpret his songs for themselves and thereby become partners with him in the creation of meaning. This willful incoherence also reflects a modernistic tendency to defamiliarize language in order to make one’s art appear fresh and new. But Trinh Cong Son’s intentional obscurity is also, I believe, a way to convey the Buddhist idea that one cannot reason one’s way to mental peace, a way to suggest that enlightenment lies beyond language and logic…
By studying Trinh Cong Son’s obsession with death, his fascination with Western philosophy and his admiration for Buddhism, Shafer concludes:
Perhaps Trinh Cong Son’s greatest contribution is that he has given Vietnamese a way to express this inner experience. Listening to many of his songs is for Vietnamese like visiting a pagoda and listening to the monks chanting prayers. Like these prayers, Trinh Cong Son’s songs are hard to understand, but they have the same power to soothe troubled minds.
The article is written in English with translation of the lyrics, but you could also read the Vietnamese version, “Cái chết, Phật giáo và chủ nghĩa hiện sinh trong nhạc Trịnh Công Sơn” (PDF), translated by Vy Huyen.
