Who Needs Role Models?

I got an email today asking if there were an easier way to take my online class because when she clicked on a link that she thought was the next step, she was taken somewhere else. I really don’t know what to tell these people. It isn’t that hard, people! Of course, it IS that hard if you need someone holding your hand the entire way. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that, step 3 go here, step 4 go there, poof, you’re a web designer! I like teaching beginners. I really do. But I don’t like teaching lazy people who can’t be bothered to read or follow instructions. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I wrote to her telling her to go to the syllabus for the week and follow the links from there, going back to that page when she’d finished an article. Her reply: “That is what I did but could not get back. I saw a lot of links to other websites. I was reading lesson 1 and it said to type in HTML and I do not know how to do that yet so I think I registered for the wrong class. I thought I was registering for the html class but I think it is the wrong one. “ OH MY GOD! You couldn’t get back? See that fancy button in the upper left of your browser window? That’s the (wait for it) BACK button. Try clicking that. I’ll wait… Or, if that doesn’t work, try going back to the email where you first got the link. Oh, you deleted that already? How the FUCK can I help you then? I just wrote her again with step-by-fucking-step instructions for how to find the lessons, how to stay on them, how to avoid clicking anything other than what’s on the syllabus. Unfortunately, I can’t fucking control her mouse to stop her from clicking on anything shiny that she sees while she’s not reading the lesson. Holy fuck woman. Okay, after calming down a bit I took a look at the articles. I think she’s getting hung up in one of the Notepad articles that says “write your HTML here” and since she hasn’t learned HTML, she’s thinking “but I don’t know HTML” and getting frustrated. I honestly don’t know, as of course, she can’t even make that much clear in her communication to me. So I added a note in that article saying “if you are in the HTML class, don’t worry about writing HTML here, just type a few words and move to the next step.” Or something like that. Honestly, I think that what is rocket science is writing a course that is easy enough for the people who need their hands held but not so easy that the more adventurous learners aren’t bored to tears and walk away.

Jaryth is downstairs yelling “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” Mark replies “Which one? Nemo or Cars?” “Emo! Cars! Emo! Cars!” “You can only watch one at a time.” “Emo! Cars! Emo! He’s gonna swim with Dory!” In this instance “he” is Jaryth referring to himself. I guess he not only wants to watch “Emo” he wants to go swimming with Dory.

I did it! I got my link checker to zero. Or as the tool says “empty container”. [caption id=“attachment_188” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Woo-Hoo! Linkchecker at Zero”][/caption]

Now I suppose I have to go back to writing actual articles! Of course, I also need to finish cleaning up the HTML Tag Library and I should work on updating the CSS Style Properties Library. Those are tedious jobs too. :-)

So, I’ve started cooking again. I figure it’s not good karma for me to let Mark do all the cooking forever. ☺ But in order to facilitate this, I’ve started looking at online recipes. And I have two questions:

1. Why does Cooks.com get listed so often when their recipes are all the same?
   I did a search for something the other day, and was excited to see that there were like 20 recipes listed on Cooks.com. Of those 20, there were exactly three different ones. Three!?! I think Cooks.com is one of those user-generated content sites, and it’s obvious in this situation that there are no editors doing anything there. I mean, how many times do I need to read the same recipe? Even if they have slightly different titles, they are the same and once I’ve decided I don’t want the first copy of it, finding it again 10 more times just makes me leave the site without using any of the recipes. Lame!
2. Why do people, when rating recipes, give a recipe a 5 star rating and then proceed to explain how they completely changed the recipe?
   For example: “This was an awesome recipe! My family loved it! I replaced the chicken with tuna, added tomatoes and green onions (for color), and got rid of the garlic and onions (my family doesn’t like them). Oh, and I used cauliflower instead of potatoes.” And this is on a recipe for chicken-potato pie. It sounds to me like she made tuna-cauliflower pie.

Any suggestions for great, easy recipes are welcome! Please comment.

I got this mail series yesterday and today. It’s still not very informative… ——– Original Message ——– Subject: Re: Re: Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:49:30 -0500 From: Noah Hansen xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx To: Jennifer Kyrnin <webdesign.guide@about.com> lol ————————————————– From: “Jennifer Kyrnin” <webdesign.guide@about.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 6:21 PM To: “Noah Hansen” <xxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx> Subject: Re: > You’re right. This mail isn’t very informative. ☺ > > Was there something specific you were feeling was not very informative? Or was this a commentary on me in general? > > Jennifer Kyrnin > Guide to Web Design / HTML > http://webdesign.about.com/ > About.com | Need. Know. Accomplish > ———————————————— > About.com is part of the New York Times Company > > http://www.facebook.com/AboutWebDesign > http://www.twitter.com/htmljenn > > On 9/15/10 2:49 PM, Noah Hansen wrote: » not very informative » Noah Hansen

[caption id=“attachment_178” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Buttery Sticks - Margarine is for losers!”][/caption]

Yummy!

It’s sad when marketing has decided that “margarine” isn’t yummy sounding enough.

Psst: Nucoa people… Buttery sticks makes it sound like I’m about to use twigs that have been basted. And, personally, I’m not a huge fan of twigs.

Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday - Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is. He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything. What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much. [caption id=“attachment_172” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.”][/caption] What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow. Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.) [caption id=“attachment_175” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Jaryth Smiling for the Camera”][/caption]

There is this big rock off Highway 9 that we pass when we’re going to the Post Office. And the local high school students regularly paint it with various things. The typical paintings are like “Sarah loves Jesse” and “Panther’s Rule!” but today the rock says: “Get your own rock!” And on the other side it has the icons for Snohomish High School. I don’t know what they were responding too, but I’m guessing that students from another school painted it and SHS students were “taking it back”. I did have a laugh at the “get your own rock” phrase. You tell ‘em, kids! I’m sure that’ll keep them off your rock!

Today I received a comment on my web design blog complaining that a previous comment was “clearly spam”. The post in question talked about web design books I was looking forward to seeing. And the (possibly spammy) commenter linked to an ebook he was looking forward to.

My question is: what makes this spam? The fact that he bolded the title of the book? The fact that he included a link to the ebook’s web page? The fact that he didn’t say “I am not the author, I just like this book” or something equally obsequious?