I’ve added a CSS fix to the site to work around the Internet Explorer expanding box bug. In a nutshell, IE will incorrectly expand a fixed-width block element if the block is populated with oversized content. On this site, that means that the sidebar can drop below the enter content block.
I employed the overflow:hidden workaround on my left-hand content block as described in the linked article on Position Is Everything. Thanks go to Titus for reporting the problem.
I recently had occasion to finish Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s haunting vision of a dystopian society has aged remarkably well over the past 50 years. There’s already a wealth of literary analysis concerning his work, but I’m not seeking to repeat such efforts here.
One thing I did find very interesting, however, was the coda added to the 50th Anniversary printing of Fahrenheit 451. The coda contains comments from Bradbury following the revelation that his most famous work had been, amazingly enough, edited for expletives in earlier, school-bound printings. He also responds to the mass of individuals over the years that have sought revisions of his works more favorable to particular aesthetics (gender, ethnic, etc.). Bradbury’s remarks really put the absurdity of such requests in perspective for me.
Lest we forget, “There is more than one way to burn a book.”
This past week I traveled to Toulouse, France, on business to receive training and discuss plans for a near-term integrated display system project. It’s essentially a display with a PC attached to it; think rugged iMac. It’s a sure bet that the system will run a flavor of Linux and utilize an embedded monitoring module for thermal management. I will be responsible for integrating the operating system, drivers, and our in-house applications, which may require modification for the project.
Our French hosts were very courteous and easy to work with. All business was conducted in English and I had no problems communicating my thoughts. Even so, it was satisfying to note my high school French coming back little by little. Every day we were treated to lunch in the Thales cafeteria several blocks removed from the BarcoView Texen site. Dinner was typically at a local restaurant of our choosing. I tried a number of interesting dishes including fondue savoyarde, magret du canard, and cassoulet, one of the local specialities.
Toulouse itself was mostly untouched by the Industrial Revolution so it managed to retain a great small town charm despite its recent growth into an industrial center and the fourth-largest metropolitan area in France. I had ample opportunity to roam the city on Saturday so I took my camera along and tried to capture some picturesque views of Toulouse. You can browse the results using the gallery link below.
