Notices by Eric A. Meyer (meyerweb@mastodon.social)

To all the mothers who have lost a child or children, whether before they were born or hours or days or years after, you are seen today and every day. I am so, so sorry for what you have had to suffer.

Apparently Pope Leo XIV has a degree in mathematics, so we can look forward to hearing his views on the nature of sin and cos.

I was today years old when I learned Major Eaton (“Top. Men.”) and Jek Porkins (”I can hold it!”) were the same guy. https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/Eaton#Behind_the_scenes

“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin’
Four dead in Ohio…”

Fifty-five years ago today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

#MayThe4th

HEY LEICESTER (UK)! Go see the art show I wish I could be there to see, “Paint By Style Sheet”, an exhibition of pieces created with #HTML and #CSS, at Phoenix Leicester. https://www.phoenix.org.uk/events/paint-by-style-sheet/

I’m seeing a lot of people making fun of their incompetence for this, but that’s not what this is. This whole regime is a gang of bullies, headed by a bully, and like all bullies, they’re cowards. Stand up to them, and they whimper away. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/business/trump-harvard-letter-mistake.html

@steter That’s what we all thought. Maybe he did too. And yet.

“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed ... and we will deserve it.”
—Lindsey Graham, 2016

He was right after all.

It turns out I was mistaken, and only one of the two buildings burned. Is still burning, in fact; fire crews are still on the scene and roads are still blocked, almost 12 hours after first responding. We counted at least six fire cranes, some still spraying. Thankfully, surrounding homes and businesses were protected.

@evan We’re not close enough to be personally at risk. A lot of people who live in the adjacent apartments are in real danger. I hope the fire crews (and there are many, from many surrounding suburbs) can keep them safe.

A bit down the road from us, there was a not-quite-a-park empty lot in the middle of a small commercial district that quietly sat there for years.

Couple of years back, it and a nearby parking lot were sold to a developer to tear up and build a pair of upscale mixed-use apartment buildings that were set to open soon.

Those buildings are both burning to the ground as I type this.

I really hope they don’t take the adjacent arthouse cinema, brewpub, and older apartment buildings with them.

⌨️ I blogged about what I’d like to see come to #CSS in 2025. Some of my wishes are repeats from past years, but it was nice to see how many past wishes have (or are about to) come true! https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2025/01/08/css-wish-list-2025/

“Ultimately, even as HTML has become the province of professionals, it cannot be gatekept. This is what makes so many programmers so anxious about the web, and sometimes pathetically desperate to maintain the all-too-real walls they’ve erected between software engineers and web developers. But people who write HTML know that hierarchies were made to be blown up. All it takes is a tag that doesn’t close where you’d expect it to.”

–@tim, in https://www.wired.com/story/html-is-actually-a-programming-language-fight-me/

Addendum: I do not wish for flying cars. I’ve seen how people pilot non-flying cars.

Every year since about 2007 has felt like a it’s year from out of the future, but somehow “2025” feels way more future-y than the others. It’s an affront that the actual reality of 2025 is so retrograde.

As much as I sneer at the way trailers have pre-trailer trailers now, I’m dreading the day someone decides to give the pre-trailer trailer its own trailer and thereby accelerate our descent into unhinged insanity.

Reality is being written by a malfunctioning Markov chain generator.

(Hat tip: @cstross)

Reality continues to be written by a malfunctioning Markov chain generator.

Reality continues to be written by a malfunctioning Markov chain generator.

@cstross Reality continues to be written by a malfunctioning Markov chain generator.