In 1974 Richard Feynman gave the commencement address at Caltech and coined the phrase cargo cult science. Cargo cult can be used to describe any process using a flawed model of causation.
The term cargo cult is used in anthropology to define the religious cults that spring up in the wake of a technologically advanced society interacting with a technologically primitive society. Most recently this happened during World War II in the Pacific South West when Allied and Japanese forces created military bases on islands with limited previous contact with the modern world. The military base would commonly use air fields to import war materials.
The technical details of why and how the air field is set up would be beyond the basic understanding of the local populace but they would be able to see the process and witness the outcome which would be bountiful supplies of cargo brought in from the sky.
After writing about the cross browser display inline-block i was reminded of a requirement from “The Sceptre of Rajim” project. Each item in a row of items would have the same height but also a number of designated elements would have an equal vertical position in that row.
The code written for the project targeted a specific list of items and was limited in scope. Requirements change over time and this sort of positioning seems to be a common feature, so after the project i resolved to make good on the promise i always make, to create reusable code.
The jQuery Equaliser plugin is a simple plugin that iterates across an array of elements with a declared parent element.
While drinking stout at @pubstandards on Thursday, we did broach the subject of code. While talking about equal height list items which have traditionally been difficult to work with, I raised an interesting technique that doesn’t seemed to have got much traction.
Instead of using floats to line up your items in rows, where varying heights that can tangle the floats, use display: inline-block.
At LBi Towers our JavaScript current library of choice is jQuery and where necessary we leverage the widgets of jQuery UI. Although there are a number of jQuery Carousel plugins there isn’t an official jQuery UI Carousel widget, which is an unfortunate omission as carousel’s tend to be a common requirement of site development.
To investigate jQuery UI widget development and fulfill this requirement i took some time to build this initial jQuery UI Carousel widget. Version 0.3.0 is the first release, it contains the basic functionality of a carousel and has been included in a current project i can only call “The Sceptre of Rajim” and yes at LBi Towers we have a fixation with M.A.S.K episode names.
At LBi London we’ve had the good fortune to get a Logitech Revue with Google TV. It’s an interesting piece of technology and i fully support the web enhanced TV experience.
As a web developer what interests me is the web experience designed for the TV, what Google calls spotlight. At first glance it is a rich experience that should do well in the consumer market. The problem i see is how that experience was created.
When first using spotlight you could be mistaken in believing you are visiting the existing web site enhanced for Google TV, promoting the One Web experience.