Internet Exploder

I really hate Internet Explorer. It’s a web designer’s nightmare due to its lack of CSS standards compliance. If anyone has had or is having problems viewing my blog with IE, I’m sorry. I simply don’t have the time or the inclination to tweak my layout until IE doesn’t choke on it. If any of my readers wants to try their hand at fixing things, they have my blessing. Drop me a line via the contact form if you get things to look right (or fix the annoying stac overflow problem I’m having). I can’t give anything in return except a public thank you. Perhaps you’ll shave off some purgatory time for your efforts. 😉

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About Funky Dung

Who is Funky Dung? 29-year-old grad student in Intelligent Systems (A.I.) at the University of Pittsburgh. I consider myself to be politically moderate and independent and somewhere between a traditional and neo-traditional Catholic. I was raised Lutheran, spent a number of years as an agnostic, and joined the Catholic Church at the 2000 Easter Vigil. Why Funky Dung? I haven't been asked this question nearly as many times as you or I might expect. Funky Dung is a reference to an obscure Pink Floyd song. On the album Atom Heart Mother, there is a track called Atom Heart Mother Suite. It's broken up into movements, like a symphony, and one of the movements is called Funky Dung. I picked that nickname a long time ago (while I was still in high school I think), shortly after getting an internet connection for the first time. To me it means "cool/neat/groovy/spiffy stuff/crap/shiznit", as in "That's some cool stuff, dude!" Whence Ales Rarus? I used to enjoy making people guess what this means, but I've decided to relent and make it known to all. Ales Rarus is a Latin play on words. "Avis rarus" means "a rare bird" and carries similar meaning to "an odd fellow". "Ales" is another Latin word for bird that carries connotations of omens, signs of the times, and/or augery. If you want to get technical, both "avis" and "ales" are feminine (requiring "rara", but they can be made masculine in poetry (which tends to breaks lots of rules). I decided I'd rather have a masculine name in Latin. ;) Yeah, I'm a nerd. So what? :-P Wherefore blog? It is my intention to "teach in order to lead others to faith" by being always "on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word, either to unbelievers . . . or to the faithful" through the "use of the communications media". I also act knowing that I "have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors [my] opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and [I] have a right to make [my] opinion known to the other Christian faithful, with due regard to the integrity of faith and morals and reverence toward [my and their] pastors, and with consideration for the common good and the dignity of persons." (adapted from CCC 904-907) Statement of Faith I have been baptized and confirmed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I, therefore, renounce Satan; I renounce all his works; I renounce all his allurements. I hold and profess all that is contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Niceno- Constantinopolitan Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Having been buried with Christ unto death and raised up with him unto a new life, I promise to live no longer for myself or for that world which is the enemy of God but for him who died for me and rose again, serving God, my heavenly Father, faithfully and unto death in the holy Catholic Church. I am obedient to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. That is, I promote and defend authentic Catholic Teaching and Faith in union with Christ and His Church and in union with the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter. Thanks be unto Thee, O my God, for all Thy infinite goodness, and, especially, for the love Thou hast shown unto me at my Confirmation. I Give Thee thanks that Thou didst then send down Thy Holy Spirit unto my soul with all His gifts and graces. May He take full possession of me for ever. May His divine unction cause my face to shine. May His heavenly wisdom reign in my heart. May His understanding enlighten my darkness. May His counsel guide me. May His knowledge instruct me. May His piety make me fervent. May His divine fear keep me from all evil. Drive from my soul, O Lord, all that may defile it. Give me grace to be Thy faithful soldier, that having fought the good fight of faith, I may be brought to the crown of everlasting life, through the merits of Thy dearly beloved Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Behind the Curtain: an Interview With Funky Dung (Thursday, March 03, 2005) I try to avoid most memes that make their way 'round the blogosphere (We really do need a better name, don't we?), but some are worth participating in. Take for instance the "interview game" that's the talk o' the 'sphere. I think it's a great way to get to know the people in neighborhood. Who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhod? In your neigh-bor-hoo-ood...*smack* Sorry, Sesame Street flashback. Anyhow, I saw Jeff "Curt Jester" Miller's answers and figured since he's a regular reader of mine he'd be a good interviewer. Without further ado, here are my answers to his questions. 1. Being that your pseudonym Funky Dung was chosen from a Pink Floyd track on Atom Heart Mother, what is you favorite Pink Floyd song and why? Wow. That's a tuffy. It's hard to pick out a single favorite. Pink Floyd isn't really a band known for singles. They mostly did album rock and my appreciation of them is mostly of a gestalt nature. If I had to pick one, though, it'd be "Comfortably Numb". I get chills up my spine every time I hear it and if it's been long enough since the last time, I get midty-eyed. I really don't know why. That's a rather unsatisfying answer for an interview, so here are the lyrics to a Rush song. It's not their best piece of music, but the lyrics describe me pretty well.

New World Man He's a rebel and a runner He's a signal turning green He's a restless young romantic Wants to run the big machine He's got a problem with his poisons But you know he'll find a cure He's cleaning up his systems To keep his nature pure Learning to match the beat of the old world man Learning to catch the heat of the third world man He's got to make his own mistakes And learn to mend the mess he makes He's old enough to know what's right But young enough not to choose it He's noble enough to win the world But weak enough to lose it --- He's a new world man... He's a radio receiver Tuned to factories and farms He's a writer and arranger And a young boy bearing arms He's got a problem with his power With weapons on patrol He's got to walk a fine line And keep his self-control Trying to save the day for the old world man Trying to pave the way for the third world man He's not concerned with yesterday He knows constant change is here today He's noble enough to know what's right But weak enough not to choose it He's wise enough to win the world But fool enough to lose it --- He's a new world man...
2. What do you consider your most important turning point from agnosticism to the Catholic Church. At some point in '99, I started attending RCIA at the Pittsburgh Oratory. I mostly went to ask a lot of obnoxious Protestant questions. Or at least that's what I told myself. I think deep down I wanted desperately to have faith again. At that point I think I'd decided that if any variety of Christianity had the Truth, the Catholic Church did. Protestantism's wholesale rejection of 1500 years of tradition didn't sit well with me, even as a former Lutheran. During class one week, Sister Bernadette Young (who runs the program) passed out thin booklet called "Handbook for Today's Catholic". One paragraph in that book spoke to me and I nearly cried as I read it.
"A person who is seeking deeper insight into reality may sometimes have doubts, even about God himself. Such doubts do not necessarily indicate lack of faith. They may be just the opposite - a sign of growing faith. Faith is alive and dynamic. It seeks, through grace, to penetrate into the very mystery of God. If a particular doctrine of faith no longer 'makes sense' to a person, the person should go right on seeking. To know what a doctrine says is one thing. To gain insight into its meaning through the gift of understanding is something else. When in doubt, 'Seek and you will find.' The person who seeks y reading, discussing, thinking, or praying eventually sees the light. The person who talks to God even when God is 'not there' is alive with faith."
At the end of class I told Sr. Bernadette that I wanted to enter the Church at the next Easter vigil. 3. If you were a tree what kind of, oh sorry about that .. what is the PODest thing you have ever done? I set up WikiIndex, a clearinghouse for reviews of theological books, good, bad, and ugly. It has a long way to go, but it'll be cool when it's finished. :) 4. What is your favorite quote from Venerable John Henry Newman? "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." 5. If you could ban one hymn from existence, what would it be? That's a tough one. As a member of the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas, there are obviously a lot of songs that grate on my nerves. If I had to pick one, though, I'd probably pick "Sing of the Lord's Goodness" by Ernie Sands.

9 thoughts on “Internet Exploder

  1. howard

    Perhaps you’ll shave off some purgatory time for your efforts.

    The real way to shave some time of that sentence would be to convert as many lost souls as possible from IE to Firefox (or pretty much any other browser I’ve tried).

  2. Peter

    Forget what I said about Shiira, at least in regard to viewing this site. The only browsers I can find that display this site readably are Firefox or Camino. Funny thing, they both use the same rendering engine.

    Meanwhile, Safari or Shiira, both of which use Apple’s rendering engine, display it badly, and apparently so does Internet Explorer.

    Until yesterday, all the browsers I regularly use (Safari, Shiira, and Firefox) displayed this site just fine. Now only one of them works (and also Camino). How exactly does that mean your site conforms to “standards” while the browsers that display it badly do not?

    I would think that “standards” would only embrace those things that are most broadly accepted, such that a site that conforms to standards would display correctly on the widest range of software. (In other words, “standards” aren’t what somebody declares, they’re what actually work.)

  3. Funky Dung

    Well, my html- and css-fu aren’t good enough for me to be certain my site is standards compliant. As for what constitutes a standard, it’s no different from defining protocols like TCP/IP or Java syntax. The problem is when some people/companies think they’re too good/important for standards, like Microsoft. The whole point of a predefined common web language is for people to all see the same site rendered in the same way on all of their machines, regardless of platform. IE not only fails to render html and css according to specifications, it also renders code that works in no other browser.

    Anyhow, getting to more practical matters, if you could describe how my page renders improperly, you’d make my day. Even if, by luck, my site is fully standards compliant, I’d still like to use whatever workarounds are available to make it at least tolerable to view, if not entirely aesthetically pleasing.

  4. Peter

    I can tell you what it looks like, but I can’t tell you why it looks that way.

    In Safari and Shiira, nothing shows up in columns. Rather, on the main page, I see your title banner at the top, followed by all the most recent entries, followed by content that ought to be in the left-hand sidebar, followed by content that ought to be in the right-hand sidebar.

    On pages for individual entries, I see content that ought to be in the left-hand sidebar, followed by content that ought to be in the right-hand sidebar, followed by the entry itself, the comments, and this comment box.

    The background color for everything is that olive color that’s usually just around the edges and between the columns. Except for the bodies of your entries, all font sizes look like they’re a good four points too large, if not more.

    Nothing overlaps or is inaccessible, but the whole thing is bloody hideous. Plus, with all all the content showing up without columns and most of the text in extra large font sizes, pages are very long for scrolling through.

  5. Mythanos

    Oddly enough (considering the title and subject), Internet Explorer 7 Beta seems to work perfectly here. Hope for the future, I suppose…

  6. howard

    Yeah, for me too. I don’t know about the 6.x versions (I know it used to mangle it when I still had the earlier version), but IE 7 beta 2 looks fine.

    And contrary to what Peter suggests, I think that your site should look fairly okay in most browsers. It looks okay in all the browsers I have on my machine (FF 1.5, Opera 8.5, Netscape 7.2 and IE7 Beta 2). I actually just emailed you screenshots to that effect.

    Interestingly, the fact that IE 7 is an improvement seems to support your thoughts about standards compliance. Hopefully that’s the wave of the future.

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