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Tuesday, 22 January 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Reuters: Personal computer makers, trying to beat back a tablet mania that's eating into their sales, are making what may be a last-ditch attempt to sway customers by mimicking the competition.
Many of the laptops to be unveiled around the world in coming months will be hybrids or "convertibles" – morphing easily between portable tablets and full-powered laptops with a keyboard, industry analysts say.
The wave of hybrids comes as Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp, long the twin leaders of the PC industry, prepare to report results this week and next. Wall Street is predicting flat to sluggish quarterly revenue growth for both, underscoring the plight of an industry that has struggled to innovate.
In 2013, some are hoping that will change.
With the release of Microsoft's touch-centric, re-imagined Windows 8 platform in October and more power-efficient chips from Intel, PC makers are trying to spark growth by focusing on creating slim laptops with touchscreens that convert to tablets and vice versa.
Microsoft, expanding beyond its traditional business of selling software, is expected this month to roll out a "Surface Pro" tablet compatible with legacy PC software developed over decades.
That's a major selling point for corporate customers like German business software maker SAP, which plans to buy Surface Pros for employees that want it, said SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann.
"The hybrid model is very compelling for a lot of users," Bussmann told Reuters last week. "The iPad is not replacing the laptop. It's hard to create content. That's the niche that Microsoft is going after. The Surface can fill that gap."
Apple's iPad began chipping away at demand for laptops in 2010, an assault that accelerated with the launch of Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire and other Google Android devices like Samsung Electronics' Note.
With sales of PCs falling last year for the first time since 2001, this year may usher in a renaissance in design and innovation from manufacturers who previously focused on reducing costs instead of adding new features to entice consumers.
"People used to be able to just show up at the party and do well just because the market was going up," Lisa Su, a senior vice president at Advanced Micro Devices, which competes against Intel. "It's harder now. You can't just show up at the party. You have to innovate and have something special."
At Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, devices on display from Intel and others underscored the PC industry's plan to bet more on convertible laptops.
Lenovo's North America President Gerry Smith told Reuters last week that over the holidays he sold out of the company's "Yoga", a laptop with a screen that flips back behind its keyboard, and the "ThinkPad Twist", another lightweight laptop with a swiveling screen.
Intel itself showed off a hybrid prototype laptop dubbed "North Cape", housed in a thin tablet screen that attaches magnetically to a low-profile keyboard. And Asus showed a hefty 18-inch, all-in-one Windows 8 PC that converts to a tablet running Google's Android operating system.
Lenovo and Asus, which have both won positive reviews for their devices in recent months, increased their PC shipments by 14% and 17% respectively last year, according to Gartner.
"The number of unique systems that our partners have developed for Windows has almost doubled since launch. That gives an indication of how much innovation is going into the PC market," Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Windows unit, told Reuters.
To be sure, hybrids with detachable or twistable screens do not yet account for a significant proportion of global PC sales, and consumers still need to be sold on their benefits.
Previous attempts by PC makers to reinvigorate the market have had limited success. Pushed by Intel, manufacturers launched a series of slimmed down laptops early last year with features popular on tablets, like solid-state memory.
They were too expensive, often at more than $1,000 apiece, and failed to arrest the PC decline.
Microsoft's Windows 8 launch in October brought touchscreen features but failed to spark a resurgence in PC sales many manufacturers had hoped for. A round of finger-pointing ensued, with PC and chip executives blaming a shortage of touchscreen components and others saying it was the manufacturers that sharply underestimated consumer demand for touch devices.
Regardless, the entire PC ecosystem is onboard for 2013. Almost half of the Windows laptops rolled out this year may have touch screens. Of those, most will be in convertible form, according to IDC analyst David Daoud.
Further blurring the distinction between kinds of devices, about a quarter of upcoming Windows 8 gadgets will be tablets that can easily act as laptops with the help of keyboard accessories, he added.
But buyers may have to wait until the second half of the year to see many of them.
"The most likely scenario today is for the industry to have these products ready for the back-to-school season," Daoud said.


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Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
From the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians (the basis for the acclaimed major motion picture) and China Rich Girlfriend, here is the uproarious conclusion to the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.
Book Three of the Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy
When Nicholas Young hears that his grandmother, Su Yi, is on her deathbed, he rushes to be by her bedside—but he's not alone. The entire Shang-Young clan has convened from all corners of the globe to stake claim on their matriarch's massive fortune. With each family member vying to inherit Tyersall Park—a trophy estate on 64 prime acres in the heart of Singapore—Nicholas's childhood home turns into a hotbed of speculation and sabotage.
As her relatives fight over heirlooms, Astrid Leong is at the center of her own storm, desperately in love with her old sweetheart Charlie Wu, but tormented by her ex-husband—a man hell bent on destroying Astrid's reputation and relationship. Meanwhile Kitty Pong, married to China's second richest man, billionaire Jack Bing, still feels second best next to her new step-daughter, famous fashionista Colette Bing.
A sweeping novel that takes us from the elegantly appointed mansions of Manila to the secluded private islands in the Sulu Sea, from a kidnapping at Hong Kong's most elite private school to a surprise marriage proposal at an Indian palace, caught on camera by the telephoto lenses of paparazzi, Kevin Kwan's hilarious, gloriously wicked new novel reveals the long-buried secrets of Asia's most privileged families and their rich people problems.
about the bookshop
From heart-warming romance novels to thrillers that will have you on the edge of your beach chair, we have curated a collection fit for your next day in the sand, on the boat, or curled up on the couch.

subset: commoncrawl


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There's a train speeding down the tracks towards five innocent people who will never get away in time. You can save them by pulling a switch, but it'll kill another person on a different track. It's a thought experiment people have debated for ages, but it's about to become a real dilemma when we program robots to pull the switch, or not.
Popular Science explains how the classic hypothetical question becomes real:
A front tire blows, and your autonomous SUV swerves. But rather than veering left, into the opposing lane of traffic, the robotic vehicle steers right. Brakes engage, the system tries to correct itself, but there's too much momentum. Like a cornball stunt in a bad action movie, you are over the cliff, in free fall.
Your robot, the one you paid good money for, has chosen to kill you.
Maybe the robot itself didn't decide to kill you. Maybe its programmer did. Or the executive who decided on that company policy. Or the legislators who wrote the answer to that question into law. But someone, somewhere authorized a robot to act.
That's not the only possible situation either. As Patrick Lin asks in Wired, when faced with a choice of hitting one of two cars or people, what criteria should a driverless car use to pick its target? The future holds a whole bunch of complicated robo-ethics questions we're going to have to hammer out eventually, but in the meantime let's start with one:
Should a driverless car be authorized to kill you?
Image by Olivier Le Queinec/Shutterstock


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Spiraling Costs and Heightened Uncertainty
Enterprises today spend a considerable amount of time and money controlling and administering storage growth – challenges that are only multiplying. The amount of data to store, administer and protect continues to grow and the danger is that the associated costs spiral out of control along with it.
Despite this, many companies continue to use inefficient storage practices, noncompliant systems and wasteful provisioning. On top of that, they remain uncertain and frustrated over how just to move forward.
Visibility and Control
Capgemini's Storage Resource Optimization (SRO) helps companies overcome major storage issues by implementing IT storage best practices, improving procurement efficiency, enforcing compliance and optimizing provisioning . Using a standard platform to visualize, analyze and optimize storage infrastructure fosters greater understanding of storage capacity while also providing greater administrator visibility and control.
As an out-of-the-box, pay-as-you-go service for heterogeneous storage environments, Capgemini's SRO offer allows you to capture end-to-end capacity, performance, configuration and compliance data from multi-vendor storage components.
An Offering Unlike Any Other
Capgemini leverages proven tools, systems and processes, together with highly skilled consultants, to deliver SRO that enable significant costs savings for your company. The tools utilized include EMC's ViPR storage resource manager, which enables IT to visualize storage relationships, analyze configurations and capacity growth and optimize resources to improve return on investment in traditional and software-defined storage environments.
In just 12 months, we have deployed SRO solutions for more than 60 customers supported by 20 data centers in six countries, covering 25 petabytes of storage. These deployments allow savings of $25M over four years.


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By SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — China, the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide, is directly feeling the man-made heat of global warming, scientists conclude in the first study to link the burning of fossil fuels to one country's rise in its daily temperature spikes.
China emits more of the greenhouse gas than the next two biggest carbon polluters — the U.S. and India — combined. And its emissions keep soaring by about 10 percent per year.
While other studies have linked averaged-out temperature increases in China and other countries to greenhouse gases, this research is the first to link the warmer daily hottest and coldest readings, or spikes.
Those spikes, which often occur in late afternoon and the early morning, are what scientists say most affect people's health, plants and animals. People don't notice changes in averages, but they feel it when the daily high is hotter or when it doesn't cool off at night to let them recover from a sweltering day.
The study by Chinese and Canadian researchers found that just because of greenhouse gases, daytime highs rose 0.9 degree Celsius (1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the 46 years up to 2007. At night it was even worse: Because of greenhouse gases, the daily lows went up about 1.7 degrees Celsius (3 degrees Fahrenheit).
China is the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal, which is the largest source of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. While the country has made huge investments in alternative energy such as wind, solar and nuclear in recent years, its heavy reliance on coal is unlikely to change any time soon.
About 90 percent of the temperature rise seen by the researchers could be traced directly to man-made greenhouse gases, the study said. Man-made greenhouse gases also include methane and nitrous oxide, but carbon dioxide is considered by far the biggest factor.
The study appeared online in late March in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The study uses the accepted and traditional method that climate scientists employ to attribute a specific trend to man-made global warming or to rule it out as a cause.
Researchers ran computer simulations trying to replicate the observed increase in daily and nighttime high temperatures in China between 1961 and 2007. They first plugged in only natural forces — including solar variation — to try to get the heat increase. That didn't produce it.
The only way the computer simulations came up with the increase in daily high and low temperatures that occurred was when the actual amounts of atmospheric heat-trapping greenhouse gases were included.
"It is way above what you would expect from normal fluctuations of climate," study author Xuebin Zhang of the climate research division of Canada's environmental agency said in a telephone interview. "It is quite clear and can be attributed to greenhouse gases."
China did not become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases until 2007; for much of the period studied, it had a smaller economy. Because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for about a century, China and its defenders maintain that the U.S. and other developed nations bear more responsibility for climate change.
Outside experts praised the research as using proper methods and making sense. An earlier study didn't formally blame the proliferation of U.S. heat records to a rise in greenhouse gases but noted that they were increasing substantially with carbon dioxide pollution.
"The study is important because it formalizes what many scientists have been sensing as a gut instinct: that the increase in extreme heat that we've witnessed in recent decades, and especially in recent years, really cannot be dismissed as the vagaries of weather," said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
China has rapidly grown from a nation of subsistence farmers at the end of the 1970s into the world's second-largest economy behind the U.S., and the environmental costs of such change are often visible.
Beijing is no longer dominated by bicycles but by cars, and the skyline is barely visible at times because of thick pollution. More people are living in cities, buying air conditioners and other energy-hungry home electronics and consuming more energy for transportation and heating.
China passed the United States as the No. 1 carbon dioxide emitter about six years ago and "the gap is widening, it's huge," said Appalachian State University professor Gregg Marland, who helps track worldwide emissions for the U.S. Energy Department.
When developed countries around the world in 1997 agreed to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, developing countries, including China, were exempted.
U.S. Energy Department statistics say that China gets 70 percent of its energy from coal, compared with 20 percent in the United States. China is also a world leader in the production of cement, a process that also causes greenhouse emissions.


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Most of us have had an experience like this: we turn our heads to the side in bed and see a strange shape. It has a weird line to it, and it's an odd color, and it's suspended in a strange way. We're wary. We're confused. Whatever we're experiencing doesn't 'ring a bell,' for us. And then we turn our heads slightly, and recognition dawns. That thing we're seeing was the fringed scarf that we borrowed from someone last night for the walk home through the rain. It's in that weird position because we hung it between the desk and the doorknob to dry.
When we lie back down, most of us keep this sense of recognition. Now that we know what it is, we can see and understand the way the scarf moves in the draft from under the door. Now that we know what we're 'looking' for, we can see it clearly. We can recognize it the way we recognize everything else in our life. But people with a syndrome called agnosia don't have this continued recognition. The second the object goes away, it goes back to being alien.
Photo by Frogstar via Shuterstock
General Visual Agnosia
There are many different types of agnosia. All are caused by trauma, tumors, or strokes, and all represent small slice of personal blindness. Not an absolute blindness to the sight, but a blindness to the memory of the sight, an inability to see things you've seen many times before. A small hit, a small tumor, or a small stroke, and your brain can simply wipe out your ability to recognize anything.
This was the illness of the famous man who mistook his wife for a hat. General agnosics are able to see just fine, but the things they see are a jumble of shapes and colors. The man described seeing a deep red conglomeration of shapes, clustered around a center, with a narrow green line hanging beneath it. Some people reading this might recognize the red and green object as a rose. The man never did. When he got up to go, the man stood up and looked for his hat. His still-seated wife, with her even, round, roughly head-shaped coif, looked enough like his hat for him to grab at her head, trying to pick up his hat to put it on.
Not all visual agnosia is that all-encompasing. An injury can take out the ability to recognize anything, or it can slice away recognition in sections. Dorsal simultanagnosia, for example, can take away your ability to see more than one thing at the same time. Show a person a line drawing of three different objects superimposed, and they will seize on one and be unable to describe the rest. Color agnosics can't recognize that, for example, a green cow is an unusual hue. Topographical agnosia robs people of the ability to let their visual cues guide their direction. A topographical agnosic can tell you that the table is to the left, but can't get there. Category-specific agnosia patients can't distinguish one group of objects from another, even simple distinctions like living things from nonliving things. A table and a cat are equally likely to be alive to them. Any ability to coordinate between seeing the incoming photons and responding to them can be taken away.
The most famous of agnosias is prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. This is also the only type of agnosia that can be 'learned.' Everyone has a section of the brain, the fusiform gyrus, that deals with facial recognition. If that is damaged, recognition is gone. This section, however, needs input and practice at several key stages of development to be of any use. Babies born with cataracts, which often can't be removed until six to eight months in, are face blind. Children who have been blinded and don't get their sight back until adulthood are often face blind. It's thought that some children who are neglected, and unable to see a parent's face responding to their own, can become face blind.
Face blindness is often so subtle that Heather Sellers , who had such an intense case that she wrote a memoir about it entitled You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know, didn't realize she was face-blind until her thirties. Face blindness isn't, according to her book, the blankness that most people assume it is. Most of the time, when someone was in her boss's office, wearing her boss's clothes, talking like her boss and with her boss's physicality, she figured out it was her boss so quickly that she never noticed not recognizing the face. She saw faces, like anyone else, and if she occasionally forgot a face, or mistook one person for another, or walked by someone in the street without recognizing them, well, who didn't?
When she took her boyfriend to meet her mother, she managed to walk by her own mother in a grocery store on the way to the house. When her boyfriend recognized her mother from the grocery store once they got to the house, Sellers thought he was kidding, and then brushed the whole incident off. Later, when she took a face blindness test, which showed a picture of a face with the hair and the ears cropped out, she didn't recognize it as the tester sitting right in front of her. Face blind people sometimes recognize who they're talking to, and sometimes they don't, depending on if the person they're recognizing are in a familiar setting, have the same hair, and whether or not the crowd around them is big. Meet a face blind person for lunch in their office, and they'll recognize you. Ask them to meet in a crowd, and you might as well be asking them to pick out one fish from a whole school streaming past. Sellers stresses that the worst part of the condition isn't the small misunderstandings, although those can be disastrous, but the cumulative effect. One misunderstanding after another racks up until the person is in a constant state of wondering if they know this person, or the next person, or the next.
Topoagnosia and Astereognosia: Tactile Agnosia
There's an old joke that goes like this: A man comes into a doctor's office. He says, "Doctor, I think something is really wrong with me. When I touch my leg it hurts and when I touch my stomach it hurts and when I touch my head it hurts. No matter what I touch, it hurts!" The doctor looks at him, raises an eyebrow, and says, "Your hand is broken." Topognosis is the ability to tell which part of the body is being touched. Topoagnosics have no ability, without looking, to understand what part of their body is being touched at any particular time. A pain can come because their hand is on the stove, or because their shoes are too tight.
Astereognosia negates people's ability to recognize what they're touching. Although they may be able to describe the points of it - going back to a rose, they can recognize a long rigid stick with points on it leading to thin, soft sheets stacked on top of each other - but they can't understand what the object is unless they can see it. The feel of objects doesn't create a memory that can be accessed and compared to whatever they're touching. Every sensation is a new sensation, and a strange one.
And it's that eternal newness and strangeness that characterizes all agnosias. Whether it's figuring out that, to go to the door on the left you have to turn your feet in a certain way, despite having gone to that door on the left plenty of times, or if you need to figure out each day if that person waving to you on the street is your mother with a new haircut or a crazy person fixated on you. Agnosics can see, can hear, can know, can acknowledge, but they cannot fall back into the patterns that most of us can use to navigate our way through the world. Engaging freshly with the world every time you encounter it has an allure. You never look at a flower as 'just another rose,' if it's an object of mystery from the first glance until you finally figure it out, but the drawbacks are self-evident. There's little-to-no cross between the agnosic world and the so-called 'normal' world. Taking a look at the differences as described to us, though, lets us see exactly how much we rely on what we've seen before to understand what we're seeing now. We live our lives by establishing unconscious patterns - now we see what happens when those patterns are ripped away.
Top Image: Che
Hat Image: Jorge Royan
Face Image: G.dallorto
Via Colorado Edu, McGill, University of Calgary and You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know.


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This is the last design for our inaugural print run. WE PROMISE!
This new one comes out of Revelation. Isn't it amazing that there are creatures in heaven that worship the king 24-7 singing holy holy holy…? This design is to illustrate that and to be a reminder that our King is worthy of such unending praise.
Click image below to go to site. and you can see image on shirt on merch/order page


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As part of the wider movement for women's rights during the mid-1800s, women campaigned for admission to medical schools and the opportunity to learn and work alongside men in the professions. Such rights came slowly. Even after qualifying as physicians, women were often excluded from employment in medical schools, hospitals, clinics, and laboratories. To provide access to these opportunities, many among the first generation of women physicians established women's medical colleges or hospitals for women and children.
Persistence, ingenuity, and ability enabled women to advance into all areas of science and medicine. Courageously, they worked long and hard to succeed even where they were most unwelcome, such as in surgery and scientific research.
The first women to complete medical training and launch careers confronted daunting professional and social restrictions. To establish their rightful place as physicians and to expand opportunities for other women in medicine, they devised many strategies, establishing their own hospitals, schools, and professional societies. They excelled in their chosen fields of medical practice and scientific research-often while campaigning for political change and managing the administrative responsibilities and financial affairs of educational and medical institutions.
By succeeding in work considered "unsuitable" for women, these leaders overturned prevailing assumptions about the supposedly lesser intellectual abilities of women and the traditional responsibilities of wives and mothers.
The first women of color who gained access to medical school confronted financial hardships, discrimination against women, and racism. For generations, their families had been enslaved or oppressed. They had been denied the means of making a living and access to decent medical care. Even to begin training, these women often had to work their way through medical school or seek funding from supporters of women's and minorities' rights.
Once they became doctors, these women played an important role in bringing better standards of care to their own communities and served as role models for other women.
By the early 1900s, women had made impressive inroads into the medical profession as physicians, but few had been encouraged to pursue careers as medical researchers. To succeed as scientists, despite opposition from male colleagues at leading institutions, women physicians persisted in gaining access to mentors, laboratory facilities, and research grants to build their careers.
The achievements of these innovators often went unrewarded or unacknowledged for years. Yet these resourceful researchers carved paths for other women to follow and eventually gained recognition for their contributions to medical science.


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Friday, July 15, 2011
Review: The Reading Promise
by: Alice Ozma
Grand Central Publishing
Copyright: May, 2011
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
I must confess I have not thoroughly read this book. My mind has been pre-occupied with Paris plans and I simply have not made the time to sit down and read it as thoroughly as I would like. Since it is a new release, I do not have the option to renew my hold because there are others in line waiting their turn. So I decided to skim the book quickly to see if it was one that I would be interested in checking out again when I have more time. It most definitely is!
The premise of the book, for those who don't know, is the real-life story of Alice Ozma and her father, Jim Brozina, an elementary school librarian, and the promise they made to one another the he would read aloud to her every night for a period of 1,000 days. Initially her father thought this was too lofty a goal, but they both made the commitment and in the end --- they read a little over nine years: every single night! No matter how late they got home - or how early they had to wake up the next morning - "the reading streak" was a priority in both their lives.
This book is not only a touching father/daughter relationship that continues to grow and prosper long after most teenagers distance themselves from their parents - but it is also a story that brings to mind personal regrets in my own life.
I began reading to each of my three children from the time they were able to hold their head up in the infant seat - about three months old. I had all shapes and sizes of cardboard books that they could "read" without tearing - as well as picture books that "mommy would hold" We had our favorites that we would read nearly every night, like Barn Dance and Goodight Moon, and The Tooth Gnasher Super Flash, and we always read at least one Berenstain Bears book that would give me the opportunity to teach a life lesson. We all fondly remember this nightly ritual.
But when my children entered first grade and were learning to read on their own, I decided that I needed to take a backseat. I mean after all, how could they learn to read on their own if they relied on me to do it for them? That was my belief anyway. And so I am the one who halted the bedtime reading routine. I am the one who said you are too old for this. I am the one who thought they were too lazy to read themselves - and I never gave it a though that perhaps they just wanted to spend that time together - bonding like we had done when they were younger.
Alice's book has shown me what a big mistake I have made. I did not have all the right answers, and this is one area where my answer was devastating. To this day, two out of my three children dislike reading and I take full responsibility.
So while I cannot rectify past mistakes - I will try not to repeat them. As Brynn grows up and we share our weekly visits to the library (yes, I have already planned these special outings) I will vow not to stop reading aloud to her until she makes that decision. And if she is like Alice --- then I will be reading aloud to her on the day of her high school graduation.
9 comments:
I would luv to read this book, what a wonderful goal between a father and his daughter. Thanks for sharing the book.ReplyDelete
Molly, don't blame yourself...I am a teacher and have two kids. My daughter barely likes to read...And my son,, who is younger, likes to read even Time magazine. I started reading to them but as a teacher my voice was so worm out by night time that sometimes it just was too hard. I would also like to recommend to you the book The Reading Aloud Handbook by Jim Trealese. It's great book about the benefits of reading to kids since they are infants. Bon chance in your trip to Paris!ReplyDelete
Glad to see this is worth checking out again! We did a lot of reading aloud as the girls were growing up - from board books as babies through Harry Potter and The Series of Unfortunate Events when they were older. Still, only 2 of the 3 are readers, so you may be being a bit too hard on yourself, Molly. Love that you're planning special library visits with Brynn already!ReplyDelete
This book sounds precious. But I'll just pipe in here and tell you that for a period of a few years, not long ago (late pre-teen) I DID read to my kids, and they loved it. But then they decided it wasn't cool and turned their backs on it. They turned their backs on audios too. I'm hoping that one day, they will want it back but I'm beginning to see that this can't be forced.ReplyDelete
The description of the book brought tears to my eyes. I read to my son until he decided he was too old for it and I kind of regret that I didn't push harder to keep it going. Books not only bond, they're also great conversation starters.ReplyDelete
I will definitely have to check this out, Molly! And if it helps any, my dad read aloud to me when I was little, but it didn't continue after I was about 5 or 6 and look at me:) But I do LOVE that you're already making library visit plans with Brynn!!ReplyDelete
I'm totally in love with the sounds of this story and the relationship between the father/daughter! I think this is one that I could really get into and would love to have the opportunity to read every night to my grandchild!!ReplyDelete
2 of our kids, who hated reading in their school years, became readers after they left for college. So there is still hope.ReplyDelete
As far as grandkids, my two grandsons have a non-reading mother. Living at a distance, it's difficult to get any reading time with them, so my solution is to send them books for every occasion. I don't think they are getting much use, but hopefully, as the boys get into grade school (they are currently K and 2nd) they will pick them up on their own.
Enjoy every minute of reading to Brynn.
The Reading Promise sounds wonderful!ReplyDelete


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Open Jump Arena
Open Jump Arena is our main jumping and fun zone where friends jump together and perform acrobatics while our Rockin' Jump staff monitor safe play from all angles.Watch Video →
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"There is no better better place to take a high energy, super social 10 year old grand kid."
Ann E.


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PHILADELPHIA -- Relieved commuters rode Philadelphia-area trains that operated as usual Monday after a one-day strike over the weekend that threatened to disrupt work schedules for tens of thousands of people.
The walkout ended after President Barack Obama appointed an emergency board to mediate the contract dispute between the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and two unions representing engineers and electricians.
About 400 workers walked off the job Saturday, shutting down 13 rail lines that carry about 60,000 passengers each weekday between Philadelphia and its suburbs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Buses, subways and trolleys continued operating.
The workers were required by law to return after the creation of the emergency board, which expires in 240 days. Hearings are scheduled for next week and the board will issue recommendations by July 14.
SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams said all striking employees reported for work Sunday except for one, whose absence might not be strike-related, and operations ran well throughout the day. SEPTA spokeswoman Kristin Geiger said no major delays were reported during Monday's morning rush hour.
Among the regular passengers glad to see the end of the walkout was Steve Bessler, who exited a train at downtown's Suburban Station on Sunday with his dad to transfer to the subway for a Father's Day outing to the Phillies game.
Bessler said that thinking about potential commuting chaos on Monday "really did stress me for a while." His backup plan was to drive to the subway, whose lines weren't affected by the strike.
"I was dreading that because everyone else would have been doing the same thing," Bessler said.
Marc Iwanowicz, 28, said his normal 45-minute train ride from Philadelphia to his job at a suburban sporting goods store took twice that long Saturday. He said he took a combination of subway and bus because a cab ride would have been too expensive.
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen vice president Stephen Bruno said the strike could have been avoided if SEPTA had agreed to the unions' proposal of accepted binding arbitration.
SEPTA has said its offer is on par with what its other transit unions have accepted.
Engineers, whose contract expired in 2010, are seeking raises of at least 14.5 percent over five years, about 3 percentage points more than SEPTA has offered. A group of engineers outside Suburban Station said they were not allowed to comment.
Terry Gallagher, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Obama's intervention was "what we were waiting for." The union's contract expired in 2009.
Obama created the three-member board at the request of Gov. Tom Corbett. If no resolution is reached, a second emergency board can be requested.
In March, Obama appointed a second presidential emergency board to resolve a dispute between New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a union representing workers with the Long Island Rail Road.
The last SEPTA regional rail strike, in 1983, lasted more than three months.
Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson


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General Motors is parting ways with its Chief Marketing Officer Joel Ewanick, sources tell Automotive News, ending the approximately two-year tenure of the sometimes controversial exec's term.
Ewanick first gained notoriety at Hyundai, where he envisioned the brand's successful "Assurance" campaign. You remember the one. If you lost your job and had just bought a Hyundai they told you you'd be able to return it with no penalty. It was genius marketing at the height of a panicky economic downturn that convinced frightened people to buy new cars, with no realistic downside for the company.
He was then nabbed by Nissan before being picked up by GM.
AutoNews hints that Ewanick's abrupt decisions regarding Facebook and the Super Bowl, as well as perhaps willingness to answer questions on Jalopnik, were a sign of a decision-making process that didn't fit GM's style.
There's also the "Chevy Runs Deep" tagline that we previously deemed "the worst slogan ever."
It's also possible that Ewanick just got a job offer from an organization with a more positive market perception than GM. Someone like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Right now GM ain't talking.
Whatever the reason, Ewanick does get credit for saving the company Silverado-loads of cash by ditching the dozens of agencies that previously did ad work for GM and consolidating it under one roof.
On a positive note, if Ewanick still owns a Hyundai he'll be able to return it, free of charge now.
Know anything about this? Feel free to use one of our burner accounts to drop juicy information below. We'll follow up as soon as we have more.
Photo Credit: Getty Images


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"Arrangement" by Michelle Fleck Friday, 18 April 2014 /// Written by Van Edwards
This morning we take a closer look at this beautiful painting by San Francisco based Michelle Fleck now showing at FFDG.
Arrangement measures 24"x30", acrylic and aerosol on panel - inquires: info(at)ffdg.net
"Salt the Skies" at FFDG Opening Fri, Mar 21st Tuesday, 18 March 2014 /// Written by Trippe
FFDG's spring show "Salt the Skies" is set to open on Friday, March 21st (6-9pm).
Featuring works by Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold, Mario Ayala, Jud Bergeron, Curiot (Favio Martinez),
Christopher Burch, Lola Dupre, Michelle Fleck,
Matt Gonzalez, Hiro Kurata, Marty Machado, Mark Mulroney, and Nicomi Nix Turner
"Salt the Skies" at FFDG Opening Fri, Mar 21st Friday, 07 March 2014 /// Written by Trippe
Paintings by Michelle Fleck Thursday, 06 February 2014 /// Written by Trippe
Paintings by San Francisco based Michelle Fleck who participated in our Winter Group show last year. Check her site for more... We'll be showing a couple of her latest works in an upcoming group show. Wonderful paintings. Check her '11 solo show at Park Life.
Winter Group Show @FFDG Thursday, 13 December 2012 /// Written by Van Edwards
Our Winter Group Show opened last Friday at FFDG here in San Francisco. It runs through Jan 12, 2013 and features works from:
Ryan De La Hoz, Michelle Fleck, Matt Gonzalez, Yis "Nosego" Goodwin, Scott Greenwalt, Alec Huxley, Dave Kinsey, Mark Mulroney, Ferris Plock, Albert Reyes, Max Rippon, Bryan Schnelle, Mike Shine, Scott Teplin, Paul Urich, Xiau-Fong Wee, Taylor White, Alex Ziv, and Zoltron.
Note that the gallery will be closed the week of Dec 24 - 29th.
Alex Ziv
27" x 35", framed
pen & ink on paper
price and availability,
Matt Gonzalez
wood, paper, mixed media
12" x 16.5" 3"
price and availability,
Paragon by Dave Kinsey (left) & Untitled by Max Ripon (right)
12" x 16"
acrylic on panel
price and availability,
Winter Group Show Opening Tonight, Friday Friday, 07 December 2012 /// Written by Van Edwards
Winter Group Show
Opening: Friday, Dec 7th (6-9pm)
@FFDG, San Francisco
2277 Mission St. @19th
Works by Ryan De La Hoz, Michelle Fleck, Matt Gonzalez, Yis "Nosego" Goodwin, Scott Greenwalt, Alec Huxley, Dave Kinsey, Mark Mulroney, Ferris Plock, Albert Reyes, Max Rippon, Bryan Schnelle, Mike Shine, Scott Teplin, Paul Urich, Xiau-Fong Wee, Taylor White, Alex Ziv, and Zoltron.
We celebrate our first year at our Mission St. location with this dynamic group show featuring artists we've had the pleasure of working with over the years and open our walls up to some fresh new faces in contemporary art. The Winter Group show features abstract paintings, street art orientated artists, illustrative works and much more in this group show featuring small works from 20 artists working in the United States, with the exception of Max Rippon who works out of Barcelona, Spain. All works contain exquisite detail with each artist representing the best of their genres.
preview inquires, email: info(at)ffdg.net
RSVP Facebook
Artist bios
Michelle Fleck Tonight, Fri @Park Life Friday, 30 September 2011 /// Written by Trippe
Michelle Fleck tonight, Friday, at Park Life (220 Clement St) here in San Francisco. We're going to head down to check out these urabn landscape snap shots. Park Life's site doesn't state, but if memory serves us correct, their openings normally run 6-9pm.
Fecal Face is going to cover the show, have some beers, and relax after a crazy week. Join us! ~Show details
Gone Fishin'
Tuesday, 13 October 2015 11:39
I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...
I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.
It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.
Hit me up if you have any ECommerce related questions. - trippe.io
SF Giants' World Series Trophy & DLX
Wednesday, 04 March 2015 17:21
I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.
Alexis Anne Mackenzie - 2/28
Wednesday, 25 February 2015 10:21
SAN FRANCISCO --- Alexis Anne Mackenzie opens Multiverse at Eleanor Harwood in the Mission on Saturday, Feb 28th. -details
The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur
Wednesday, 21 January 2015 10:34
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes "creative" and everybody "a creative," then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what's the difference, after all? So "art" itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading
"Six Degrees" @FFDG
Friday, 16 January 2015 09:30
"Six Degrees" opens tonight, Friday Jan 16th (7-10pm) at FFDG in San Francisco. ~Group show featuring: Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold III, Mario Ayala, Mariel Bayona, Ryan Beavers, Jud Bergeron, Chris Burch, Ryan De La Hoz, Martin Machado, Jess Mudgett, Meryl Pataky, Lucien Shapiro, Mike Shine, Minka Sicklinger, Nicomi Nix Turner, and Alex Ziv.
In Wake of Attack, Comix Legend Says Satire Must Stay Offensive
Friday, 09 January 2015 09:59
"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. "How they react sort of shows how important that really is." Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on
Thursday, 08 January 2015 09:36
SF Bay Area: What Might Have Been
Tuesday, 06 January 2015 09:36
The San Francisco Bay Area is renowned for its tens of thousands of acres of beautiful parks and public open spaces.
What many people don't know is that these lands were almost lost to large-scale development. link
1/5/14 - Going Back
Monday, 05 January 2015 10:49
Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter @Park Life (5/23)
Friday, 23 May 2014 09:22
Opening tonight, Friday May 23rd (7-10pm) at Park Life in the Inner Richmond (220 Clement St) is Again Home Again featuring works from the duo Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter who split time living in Sacramento and a tiny island at the top of Pudget Sound with their children.
Jacob Magraw will be showing embroidery pieces on cloth along with painted, gouache works on paper --- Rachell Sumpter paints scenes of colored splendor dropped into scenes of desolate wilderness. ~show details
NYPD told to carry spray paint to cover graffiti
Wednesday, 21 May 2014 10:37
NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?
The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.
Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON
Wednesday, 16 June 2010 17:39
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text:
Squirrels have fuzzy tails.
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doh! yet another mistake I made I tested it with 6V, thinking its fine, and thinking that 1.2V*4=6V . . . blaaaaah. Perhaps people will have to either use a 6V RC pack, or a 9V battery to power the microcontroller with the 4 cells powering the servos . . .Writing this tutorial has been such an educational experience for me . . .For my particular circuit, that prototyping board would not have saved time as the bus is in the wrong spot
you (and everyone else) has my full permission to fully criticize my work to the fullest I only want the best and most correct info on SoR . . .
So pretty much any one of these will work? http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Criteria?Ref=883&Site=US&Cat=33424294
Even though it's bleedin' obvious (or is it?)......What is happening with the servos with remotre control you put in on the 2nd part of the series?Are these now removed from the equation?
it wasn't 100% clear to me how the soldering on the back went, i.e which pin to which pin. You might want to edit the picture so bright lines are overlayed on the soldering so that it's clearer?
Click on the pictures for a full res close-up with overlayed colored lines
I'm lost now. Can you link to the exact one you picked?
Ok I made some changes in a few places to account for my battery mistake. I now designed it so people can take two directions: a 6V+ battery pack (easy), or 4.8V batteries with holder and 9V battery (more complicated but cheaper).
QuoteSo pretty much any one of these will work? http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Criteria?Ref=883&Site=US&Cat=33424294not really, cause the pinouts would be different, and the programming would be different . . . i had to pick a microcontroller that has free programming software, has a good share of analog and digital pins, was popular and has a lot of source code available, didnt have too many pins to make soldering a pain, has a cheap programmer, and was ultra cheap itself - a hard task!
I'm willing to bet a 3 year old can understand this enough to build the circuit . . . (apologies to all 3 year olds reading this tutorial)
since im leaving this weekend for my 6 week trip i wont have time to really look into it until late April . . .


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It looks like a special effect, but it's not. What you're watching is an F-35B supersonic stealth jet spend 30 seconds suspended 150ft in the air, for the very first time.
Vizio's Latest TVs Go All Quantum
The first successful hover test was piloted at the Patuxent River naval base by British pilot Graham Tomlinson. This isn't the first aircraft that can take off and land vertically, of course. But it's the first of its kind with the capability. The plan is for the F-35B to replace the Harrier fleets of the US Marine Corps, Royal Navy, and RAF as soon as budget and production constraints allow. But the technology is clearly ready for action now. What I wouldn't give to get in a review unit. [The Register via Dvice]


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We humans have trouble functioning when we are sleep-deprived, but some birds accomplish great migratory feats with little nighttime sleep. They may make up for the sleep they lose flying at night by snoozing—sometimes resting only half their brain for seconds at a time—while perched during the day. Studying these "micro-naps" may yield clues about how to combat human ailments related to sleep deprivation.
By examining EEG recordings, scientists recently confirmed that captive Swainson's thrushes fall asleep almost immediately and nap for five to 10 seconds during periods of drowsiness. In some instances, the birds keep one eye open in a semialert state, possibly to watch for predators, while the other eye rests and the corresponding half of their brain sleeps. Other birds and a few aquatic mammals (which must periodically swim to the surface to breathe) also experience "unihemispheric" sleep.
It is hard to imagine humans taking one-eyed naps, says one of the study's authors, Verner Bingman, a behavioral neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University. Our brains are much more interconnected than those of a bird, which has hemispheres that can work more independently, he explains. Nevertheless, birds might teach us about how humans could compensate for sleep deprivation. It is not yet clear if the birds make up for all their sleep lost during the migratory season, according to Ruth Benca, a psychiatrist who studies animal sleep at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. If, instead, their need for sleep changes throughout the year, studies such as this one could help us to better understand insomnia and other human disorders, she says.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Napping Is for the Birds".


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SNOW HILL – After 10 years as one of the top elected officials in Worcester County, Commissioner Louise Gulyas has achieved the pinnacle of political success in county government after being elected president of the body.
Gulyas took over the presidency from Commissioner Virgil Shockley on Tuesday. Commissioner Bud Church was voted into the vice presidency the same day, taking Gulyas' former slot.
The vote was not unanimous. Commissioner Judy Boggs voted "nay" on both elections.
"I just can't bring myself to vote for a president and vice president who represent one small piece of the county," Boggs said.
Boggs said she did not doubt the abilities of Gulyas and Church to do their jobs, but that she felt the presidency and vice presidency should be distributed among different areas of the county. Gulyas represents Ocean City, while Church represents West Ocean City and Berlin.
"I wanted to clarify I have every respect for them and their ability," Boggs said.
Four commissioners represent northern county districts: Gulyas (Ocean City), Church (West Ocean City and Berlin), Boggs (south Ocean Pines), and Commissioner Linda Busick (Bishopville and north Ocean Pines).
Two represent mixed north and south districts: Commissioner Jim Purnell (Berlin and Snow Hill), and Shockley, (Snow Hill, and the western rural part of the county). Purnell has already served as vice president and then president of the commissioners. The single entirely south end district, centered around Pocomoke City, is represented by Bobby Cowger.
At the moment, Cowger said, the demands of his business would not allow him to hold either office.
"I have all the confidence in the world in them," said Cowger.
"We serve the constituents in our district but we serve all of Worcester County," said Busick. "I think that the job will be done well."
Gulyas said later that she was not bothered by Boggs' 'nay' vote, but disagreed that the new officers concentrate power in one small section of the county.
"It's about all of us representing the whole county," said Gulyas. "Everyone only has one vote."
Little was said on Shockley's ouster from the president's seat.
"I want to thank Virgil for leading us for this year," said Purnell. "He's done a wonderful job. It wasn't easy."
Shockley, who helmed the meeting until the vote on the presidency was taken, swapped chairs with Gulyas after the vote.
"I'm very nervous," Gulyas said, before taking charge of the meeting.
Later, Gulyas said her nerves disappeared quickly.
"I felt good after the whole day. I felt very relieved and very good about the job we did," she said.
Gulyas has been interested in serving as president of the commissioners for some time.
"It's something I've always had in the back of my mind to do. I've wanted to be president for a long time," said Gulyas.
The economy and budget will be Worcester County's biggest challenge.
"The commissioners as a group do not intend to raise taxes, therefore we're going to have to slash and cut. We don't want to see anybody furloughed," said Gulyas. "We as a county have always been able to make do. So we'll make do."


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Understanding and using CSS Grid is easier than you might expect. The day Grid support shipped in Firefox 52, I decided on the spur of the moment to convert the basic layout of my personal site to use Grid. And it was a fairly simple process—five minutes to write the grid styles, then 15-20 spent troubleshooting.
Grid allows us to literally define column and row grid lines, and then attach elements to those lines in any order we choose. That may sound like tables, but Grid is so much more than tables ever dreamed. It means more responsive layouts, far more accessible documents, and far cleaner markup than even floats and positioning ever afforded us.
It's been decades since CSS first emerged, but it's never contained a system anything like this. And Grid is already supported in both Chrome and Firefox, with Safari coming soon (its Technology Preview releases support Grid as of this writing). A new era in digital design is dawning right now.
The way things used to be#section2
Before we get to the Grid, allow me to take just a moment to explain the markup structure of meyerweb's main pages, and the positioning-and-margins approach I've been using for, um, about 12 years now. Here's how the markup is structured:

…

…

…

…

…

…

Some of those IDs are idiosyncratic holdovers from my early-2000s view of layout and naming conventions.
#extra, for example, is what most of us would call
#sitemast stands in for
#masthead. And
#footer is from the days before the actual
 element
divs (which should probably be
sections these days, but never mind that now) are arranged the way they are so that if the CSS fails to load, or a speaking browser is used to browse the site, then the site's masthead is first, the ability to search the site is second, and the main content of the page is third. After that, extra materials, site navigation, and the footer follow.
All of these were stitched together into a layout by absolutely positioning the navigate and search
divs. The sitemast was set to be
192px tall, and both the navigate and search
divs were given
top: 192px; to show up just below it. In order to leave space for them to land, top margins were applied to the main and extra
divs. (Fig. 1)
Constructing the grid#section3
So that's how things have been laid out since the middle of 2005, more or less. I fiddled with a flexbox layout at one point as an experiment, but never shipped it, because it felt clumsy to be using a one-dimensional layout tool to manage a two-dimensional layout. I probably should have converted the navigation bar to flexbox, but I got distracted by something else and never returned to the effort.
Besides, Grid was coming. In the run-up to Grid support being released to the public, I was focused on learning and teaching Grid, creating test cases, and using it to build figures for publication. And then, March 7th, 2017, it shipped to the public in Firefox 52. I tweeted and posted an article and demo I'd put together the night before, and sat back in wonderment that the day had finally come to pass. After 20+ years of CSS, finally, a real layout system, a set of properties and values designed from the outset for that purpose.
And then I decided, more or less in that moment, to convert my personal site to use Grid for its main-level layout. It took me less than five minutes to come up with the following:
body {
display: grid;
grid-template-rows: 192px min-content min-content 1fr;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 20em;
#sitemast {
grid-row: 1;
grid-column: 1 / span 2;
#search {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 2;
#main {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 1;
#extra {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 2;
#navigate {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 1;
#footer {
grid-row: 4;
grid-column: 1;
That's not all I had to do, but it's the core. Let me break it down for you.
body {
display: grid;
grid-template-rows: 192px min-content min-content 1fr;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 20em;
This part of the CSS sets the
body element to be a grid container and sets up the grid lines. When you make an element a grid container, all of its children become grid items. (If you've worked with flexbox, then this pattern will be familiar to you.) So with that
display: grid, I turned all of the child
divs into grid items.
Next come the rows in the grid. The values in
grid-template-rows actually define separation distances between grid lines (the same is true of
grid-template-columns, which we'll get to in a moment). So the value
192px min-content min-content 1fr; means: "Go 192 pixels down from the top of the grid container and drop a grid line. Then drop another two such that they provide enough vertical space for the contents of the rows they define. Finally, leave one
fr (fraction) of distance between the third grid line and the bottom of the grid container." (Fig. 2)
The value
min-content is pretty cool. It means just what it says: "Take up the minimum amount of space needed to fit the contents." So for the second row, the one that will contain the navigation bar and search field, it will be as tall as the taller of the two, and no taller.
Ditto for the third row, the one containing the main and extra
divs. On the homepage, the main
div will be taller. On subpages, that might not always be the case. In all circumstances, the row containing those two
divs will always be tall enough to contain them both.
With the rows figured out, next come the columns. I decided to keep things simple and just set up two. If you look at meyerweb's home page, it appears to have three columns, but that's only true of blog posts—a substantial but minority part of the site—and the left-side "column" is more of a sidebar inside the main column.
In the original design, the sidebar (
#extra) is 18em wide, with some extra space to keep it away from the main column. But the column also has to fit the search box, which is a bit wider. After some experimentation, I settled on a width of
20em. The rest was left to flex as
1fr. (Fig. 3)
Now that I've used the
fr unit twice, a few words of explanation are in order.
fr stands for "fraction," and means "a fraction of the available unconstrained space." In this grid, there are two columns. One of them has an explicit width of
20em, which is thus constrained—there's no room for flexibility. The rest of the column space is unconstrained—as the width of the grid container changes (say, due to changes of the browser window) the unconstrained space will change to be the container's width minus the
20em of constrained space.
Imagine for a moment I'd decided to split the grid into four columns, with the rightmost being
20em wide and the rest being equal, flexible widths. That would have looked like:
grid-template-columns: 1fr 1fr 1fr 20em;
Alternatively, I could have written it as:
grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr) 20em;
In any event, that would have caused the unconstrained space to be divided equally among the first three columns. If the grid container were
65em wide, the last column would be
20em wide, and the other three
15em each. (3 x 15 = 45; 45 + 20 = 65.) Shrink the grid container down
50em wide, and the first three columns would shrink to
10em each.
In my case, I wanted that first column to take all of the space not given to the constrained last column, so it got
1fr. The final result is shown in Fig. 4.
Placing the items#section4
With the grid lines set up, now it's just a matter of attaching grid items to the grid lines. This can be done automatically, using the grid-flow algorithm, but this is a case where I want to place each item in a specific place. That leads to the following:
#sitemast {
grid-row: 1;
grid-column: 1 / span 2;
#search {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 2;
#main {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 1;
#extra {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 2;
#navigate {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 1;
#footer {
grid-row: 4;
grid-column: 1;
For each of the six
divs, I simply said, "Pin your top edge to this row line, and your left edge to this column line." I used line numbers because that's all I gave myself—it's possible to assign names to grid lines, but I didn't. (But stay tuned for an example of this, later in the article!)
So, to pick one example, I set up the
#main portion to start on the third row line and the first column line. That means it will, by default, fill out the space from the first to second column lines, and from the third to fourth row lines.
Almost all of the
divs were set up in this way. The exception in this case is the
#sitemast. It starts at the first column and row lines, but since I wanted it to go all the way across the grid, I set its column value to
1 / span 2. That means "Start at column line 1, and span across two columns." I could have gotten the same result with the value
1 / 3, which means "Go from column line 1 to column line 3." (Fig. 5)
But realize: that's just a diagram, not the actual layout situation. Not yet, at any rate.
Something I want to be clear about here is that while you can explicitly assign all of your grid items to specific rows and columns, you don't have to do so. Grid has a flow model that allows grid items to be automatically assigned to the next open grid cell, depending on the flow direction. In my case, I could have gotten away with literally just these rules:
#sitemast {
grid-column: 1 / span 2;
#navigate {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 1;
That would have ensured the masthead was two columns wide, and that the navigation
div was placed in the exact grid cell I wanted. That would have left the second row's first cell filled by navigation, and the rest of the grid cells open.
Given that, the unassigned items would be flowed into the grid in source order. The masthead (
#sitemast) would be placed in the first two-column row it could find, which turns out to be the first row. The search
div would flow into the next open cell, which is row 2, column 2, because row 2, column 1 is already occupied by the navigation
div. After that, the main
div would flow into the first open cell: row 3, column 1. Extra would go into the next cell: row 3, column 2. And then the footer would be placed into row 4, column 1.
The end result would be exactly what's shown in Fig. 5. The difference would be that if I had a special page where another
div was added, it could throw off the whole layout, depending on where it appeared in the HTML. By explicitly assigning my layout pieces to the places I want them, I prevent a stray element from upending everything.
Given the styles I wrote, if a child element of the
body is added to a page, it will become a grid item. If I don't give it an explicit place in the grid, it will end up flowed into the first available grid cell. Since the lower-right cell (row 4, column 2) is unoccupied, that's where the extra element would be placed…assuming it isn't set to span two columns. In that case, it would end up at the bottom of the grid, in an automatically-created fifth row.
Accommodating the past#section5
It's easy enough to set up a grid, but when you drop grid items into it, they bring all of their existing styles in with them. That might not be a big deal in some cases, but in mine, it meant all of the margins and padding I'd used to keep the layout pieces apart from each other were now messing with the placement of the grid items. You can see this in Fig. 6, created using a local copy of the site.
Ouch. It was time to override the pieces of the legacy layout styles I didn't need in Grid, but did need to keep for browsers that don't yet understand Grid.
So I wrapped the whole bit in an
@supports block. Since I wanted to constrain the grid layout to wider displays, I put an
@media block just inside
@supports, and then proceeded to zero out or otherwise change the various margins and padding I didn't need in a Grid context. Here's how it turned out:
@supports (display: grid) {
@media (min-width: 60.001em) {
body {
display: grid;
grid-template-rows: 192px min-content min-content 1fr;
grid-template-columns: 1fr 20em;
#sitemast {
grid-row: 1;
grid-column: 1 / span 2;
#search {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 2;
position: static;
padding: 0.25em 0 1em;
#main {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 1;
margin-right: 0;
margin-top: 1.25em;
padding-top: 0;
.hpg #main {
margin-top: 0;
padding-top: 0;
#extra {
grid-row: 3;
grid-column: 2;
position: static;
top: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-top: 0.5em;
margin-left: auto;
#navigate {
grid-row: 2;
grid-column: 1;
position: static;
margin-top: 1px;
padding-bottom: 0;
#footer {
grid-row: 4;
grid-column: 1;
margin-right: 0;
I probably could refactor that to be more efficient, but for now, I'm going to leave it as-is. It makes clear what had to be done to which grid item—which ones needed to override
position so their absolute positioning didn't interact weirdly with the grid, which margins and padding needed to be changed, and so on. Let's look at the end result (Fig. 7).
You might be forgiven for thinking that this was much ado about not very much. Why go to all that effort just to make it look the same? The real power here, in what is admittedly a simple case, is how I no longer have to worry about overlap. The footer will always be below the main and extra
divs, no matter which is taller. When I was using positioning, that was never guaranteed.
Similarly, the navigation and search will always maintain a shared height, making sure neither will overlap with the content below them—and thanks to
min-content, I don't have to guess at how tall they might get. Grid just handles all that for me.
And remember, the layout still functions in old browsers just as it always did, using positioning. I didn't "break" the site for browsers that don't understand Grid. The more capable Grid layout is there, waiting for browsers like Chrome and Firefox that understand it.
If you want to see all this live for yourself, head over to meyerweb.com and inspect elements in Firefox 52 or later. There you'll see a little waffle icon next to the
display: grid declaration on the
body element. Click it, and Firefox will draw the grid lines on the page for you to scrutinize. (You can also enable a more powerful layout tool in Nightly builds of Firefox; see my post " Grid Inspection " for details.)
Naming conventions#section6
I mentioned earlier that it's possible to name grid lines. I didn't do it for my own styles because the grid I defined was so simple, but for more complicated grids, naming the lines might be useful.
Using the stripped-down version of the styles, the one without all the legacy overrides, naming the grid lines would look something like this:
body {
display: grid;
grid-template-rows: [masthead] 192px [navsearch] min-content [mainextra] min-content [footer] 1fr;
grid-template-columns: [left] 1fr [middle] 20em [right];
Each of those square-bracketed words is assigned as a name to the corresponding grid line. (Fig. 8)
Once those names are defined, you can refer to them in your
grid-row and
grid-column properties. For example:
#sitemast {
grid-row: masthead;
grid-column: left / span right;
#search {
grid-row: navsearch;
grid-column: middle;
#main {
grid-row: mainextra;
grid-column: left;
#extra {
grid-row: mainextra;
grid-column: middle;
#navigate {
grid-row: navsearch;
grid-column: left;
#footer {
grid-row: footer;
grid-column: left;
Much like class names, you can assign multiple names to a grid line by supplying a space-separated list. Try this one for size:
grid-template-columns: [start left] 1fr [middle sidebar] 20em [right end];
You can then refer to any one of those names in your
grid-column declaration. There's no defined limit on the number of names, but remember what comes with great power.
In case you were wondering, you can mix grid line names and numbers, so something like
grid-row: navsearch; grid-column: 2;} is completely fine. You can use any name the browser can parse, which means you can specify just about anything Unicode and your CSS file's character encoding will allow.
Grid and Flexbox#section7
A question you may have is: now that we have Grid, do I throw away Flexbox? Absolutely not! The two can and do work very well together.
Consider the navigation bar of my design. For years, it's been laid out using an unordered list and
float: left for the list items. Simplified a bit, the CSS and markup looks like this:
#navlinks {
float: left;
width: 100%;
#navlinks li {
float: left;
list-style: none;
margin-left: 1px;

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Why not
display: inline-block instead of
float: left? Because that literally wasn't an option when I wrote the CSS for the navlinks, and I never got around to updating it. (You may be sensing a theme here.)
Now I have two much better options for arranging those links: Grid and Flexbox. I could define a grid there, which would go something like this:
#navlinks {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(6,min-content);
#navlinks li {
list-style: none;
margin-left: 1px;
That would essentially get the same result, only in a grid, which is far more robust than either floats or inline blocks.
On the other hand, I'd be using Grid, which is a two-dimensional layout system, for a one-dimensional piece of layout. It's certainly possible to do this, but it feels a little like overkill, and it's not really what Grid was designed to do. Flexbox, on the other hand, is designed for exactly these kinds of situations.
So I might write the following instead:
#navlinks {
display: flex;
justify-content: flex-start;
flex-wrap: wrap;
#navlinks li {
list-style: none;
margin-left: 1px;
Again, that would be basically the same result, but in a more robust fashion. In addition to keeping the links all lined up, the
wrap value will let the links go to a second line if need be. And because the flexbox sits inside a grid item that's part of a grid row whose height is
min-content, any increase in height (due to line wrapping or whatever) will cause the entire row to become taller. That means the rows after it will move down to accommodate it.
And now that I look at the markup again, I've realized I can simplify that markup without needing to touch any grid styles. Instead of wrapping a list with a
div, I can drop the
div and reassign its ID to the list. So the markup can become:

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After adjusting the selectors in my CSS from
#navlinks to
#navigate, the resulting layout will be exactly as it was before. The
ul will become a grid item and a flex container. That is a thing you can do.
The downside in my case would be dealing with any interactions between that change and my legacy layout, but it's not a huge issue to solve. It's just a matter of doing it.
So what are the down sides? Not many, but they do exist.
Most fundamentally, there's no way to define an overall page grid that has all items relate to it. In other words, if I say:
body {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: repeat(16, 1fr);
…then that sets up a 16-column flexible grid for the
body element only, and its child elements are the only ones that can become grid items. I can't reach down into the document tree and assign elements to be placed on that
body grid. That's the main reason I didn't try to put the little sidebar bits on my blog posts into a shared grid: I literally can't, at this point, unless I resort to ugly CSS or HTML hackery.
The capability to do such things is known as subgrid, and it hasn't been implemented by any browsers as yet. There are questions as to exactly how it should or shouldn't work, so there's still plenty of hope that everything will work out in the end. It's a disappointment that we don't have it yet, and that lack restricts the full range of grid's power, but hopefully only for a short while.
In the meantime, I'm sure people will come up with ways to work around this limitation. A basic workaround in this case: I could define a grid that applies to every blog post individually, and arrange the pieces of each post on those nested grids. The CSS would look something like:
div.post {
display: grid;
grid-template-columns: [meta] 10em [main] 1fr;
grid-template-rows: [title] min-content [main] 1fr;
With that, I could place the metadata, the title, and the post's body text into the defined grid cells, using either grid line numbers or the grid names I set up. Something like:
div.post h3 {
grid-column: 2;
grid-row: title;
ul.meta {
grid-column: meta;
grid-row: main;
div.post div.text {
grid-column: main;
grid-row: main;
The drawback is that the metadata is then constrained to be a specific width, instead of my being able to set a column that all metadata shares, and size it by the longest bit of content. That's no worse than right now, where I'm setting the floated metadata to an explicit width, so this doesn't lose me anything. It's just a (temporarily) missed opportunity to gain something.
Another limitation, one that may or may not be addressed, is that you cannot directly style grid cells. Suppose I'd wanted to put a box around the
#extra sidebar, completely filling out that cell. I'd have to style the
div. I can't do something like this:
@grid-cell(2, 3) {
background: teal;
border: 1px solid;
I mean, I'm not even sure the syntax would look anything like that (probably not), and this sort of capability is only now starting to be debated by the Working Group. If you have use cases for this sort of capability, definitely share them with the world and the folks at www-style. The more real-world cases there are, the stronger the case for supporting them.
And there will, inevitably, be bugs to fix. For example, as I was finishing this article, I discovered that in some situations, Chrome 57 can suffer from a page-blanking bug when using Grid. It appears to be caused by having absolutely-positioned elements removed from a Grid page, and can be triggered by extensions like Window Resizer and LastPass. The good news is that a fix has been accepted for Chrome 58, so it should be fixed by the end of April 2017 at the latest.
Grid power#section9
I hope this exploration of applying Grid to a live site has given you a taste of what's possible. But I want to warn you that it's just a taste, and a minor one at that. I was only able to scratch the surface of what the Grid syntax makes possible, so if this has captured your imagination, I strongly encourage you to experiment and then to dive into the Grid specification to see what else is possible. (Grid gaps! Dense grid packing! Inline grids! Auto-filling rows and columns!)
But even more, what I explored here was the barest wrinkle on the outer edges of a scratch on the surface of everything that Grid will make possible. Sure, it can make our existing designs more flexible, robust, and simple to maintain. That's pretty great. It also makes possible layouts we've never even dreamed of, because they were impossible given the tools we had available. There are new techniques, even new art movements, waiting to be discovered. We haven't experienced a phase shift this profound since the original move from tables to CSS. I hope you'll be a part of exploring this new realm.
As I said, this is at best an introduction. Want to know more? Here are some great resources to get you going:
- Announcing CSS Grid & the Firefox Grid Inspector Tool
- The Experimental Layout Lab of Jen Simmons — a collection of experiments and examples, ranging from the utilitarian to the wildly artistic
- CSS Grid Guides on MDN — a central hub for 11 articles by Rachel Andrew, written for the Mozilla Developer Network
- Grid by Example — Rachel Andrew's collection of examples, tutorials, and videos
- Grid + Flexbox: the best 1-2 punch in web layout — a great look at the union of these two layout techniques by Chen Hui Jing


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