Comments for Strangeattractor

Comment on As You Like It at the Stratford Festival 2010 by Tweets that mention Strangeattractor » As You Like It at the Stratford Festival 2010 -- Topsy.com

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:29:49 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stratford Festival, strangeattractor. strangeattractor said: Ben Carlson is hilariously funny, songs are like a modern musical in As You Like It at @stratfest. My review: http://bit.ly/azijGf [...]

Comment on Barecity: a minimalist and customizable Wordpress theme by Ellen

Ellen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:08:13 +0000

Hi Leachdog. I have some answers for you.

1. Bringing the sidebar up to the top of the page

To bring the sidebar up to the top of the page, you need to modify the header.php file and the footer.php file. You need to move this line of code:

			 get_sidebar(); ?>

from after the first div tag in the footer.php file to after the div tag with the id of “rap” in the header.php file.

The original footer.php file begins like:

get_sidebar(); ?>

After the change it should look like:


		div>
			<div class="credit">

The original header.php file looks like this, starting at line 20:

<body>
	<div id="rap">	
		<div id="headwrap">
			<div id="header">

After the change it should look like this, starting at line 20:


	
		 get_sidebar(); ?>

I’ve tweaked my page a little more than that, so that the sidebar doesn’t go quite all the way to the top. What I did to achieve that was to adjust the margin in the CSS.

This is what the sidebar portion of the style.css file looked like before:

#sidebar {
	background: #fff;
	border-left: 1px dotted #ccc;
	padding: 0px 0 10px 20px;
	float: right;
	width: 144px;
}

This is what the sidebar portion of the style.css file looks like now. (I also changed the colour of the border and adjusted the padding.)

#sidebar {
	background: #fff;
	border-left: 1px dotted #444;
	padding: 0px 0px 0px 20px;
	margin-top: 36px;
	float: right; 
	width: 144px;
}

2. Making the widget titles in the sidebar bold.

I figured out how to make the widget titles bold, but first let’s look at what seems like it should work, but doesn’t work.

Before I made the fix that I describe in the main post, the Search title responded to a different part of the CSS than the other titles. It was becoming serif with the main text instead of sans-serif like the other items. This confused me until I figured it out. I imagine a similar thing is happening when you attempt to make the font bold.

Indeed, I reproduced the effect you mention by adding a bold font weight to the sidebar ul portion of the stylesheet.

#sidebar ul {
	color: #ccc;
	list-style-type: none;
	margin: 0;
	padding-left: 3px;
	text-transform: lowercase;
	font-weight: bold;
}

I’m not sure if that’s what you did, but that’s how I got similar results. The search title became bold, the others didn’t.

What you need to do instead is change the tags that the functions.php file inserts before and after the widget titles to create a division and a class just for the titles.

First modify lines 6 and 7 of the functions.php file so that they look like:

        'before_title' => '',
        'after_title' => '
',

Then, make a section for the class in the stylesheet. This is where you will make the widget titles bold, or change their color, or whatever else you want to do with them.

.widget_title {
	font-weight: bold;
}

That will make all of the widget titles except for the search title bold. Then, if you make the fix I describe in the main post, the Search one will match too.

An alternate way to fix this, instead of changing the functions.php file, is to set the sidebar ul li portion of the stylesheet to bold and the sidebar ul ul li portion to normal.

Those sections would then look like:

#sidebar ul li {
	font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
	font-weight: bold;
	margin-top: 10px;
	padding-bottom: 2px;
}

and

#sidebar ul ul li {
	border: 0;
	font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
	font-weight: normal;
	letter-spacing: 0;
	margin-top: 0;
	padding: 0;
	padding-left: 3px;
}

This alternate fix changes most of the widgets successfully. However, if like me you are using the tag cloud widget, or another widget that stays in the sidebar ul li portion of the stylesheet, then that widget will stay bold in its entirety.

That’s why I recommend adding a special class for widget titles to the functions.php file and stylesheet instead.

I hope this helps you.

Comment on Barecity: a minimalist and customizable Wordpress theme by leachdog

leachdog — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:42:32 +0000

Very interesting! Couple of questions, if you don’t mind:

1. How do you momve up the sidebar to the top of the page like you have now?

2. I’ve been trying to make the Widget titles bold. I figured out how to change the color, but for some reason, the widget titles stay normal, even if style.css says they should be “bolder”. Strangely, the Search widget seems to display the title as specified (it’s bolder), but not all the other widget titles.

thanks for your help and time

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Christine

Christine — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:57:10 +0000

Perhaps it would be helpful to hear from someone else that lives in Northdale.

My family lives on Albert Street. For the last five years I have spent countless hours trying to get Northdale rezoned.

There are two visions for intensification. The first is a student precinct. The student population prefers to live in one and two bedroom apartments close to the University. The City allowed developers to build 5 bedroom units. Why not rezone parts of Northdale to MR, build more apartments, condos and three story brownstones for students. Make it a green community with local services like coffee shops, dentists, restaurants and a grocery store. It will limit the need for cars and would house students in safe accomodations. Right now Northdale is full of unlicensed houses that are packed to the gills with students. Don’t you think students deserve better than run down houses that may or may not be safe?

What is here now was designed for single family occupency not students. And for a variety of reasons single families are not happy here. Why not build something that is accually designed for the students that do want to live in the neighbourhood.

The second option is a diverse and intensified community- some sort of MR zoning (apartments and condos) mixed with three story brownstones… This community would be roughly 50% students and 50% non students. It would be a youthful community with a wide variety of housing options- but again not five bedroom apartments- one and two bedrooms units. Services for the neighbourhood could be added to the ground floors of the buildings.

Just to be 100% clear- there would be significantly more student housing in Northdale with either option. I am talking about a seriously intensified neighbourhood close to many area attractions, jobs and the universities.

What is here doesn’t make sense. Something better needs to be built.

Christine

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Darcy

Darcy — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:02:19 +0000

JM Lambert, I think we agree on that last point. What you’re talking about is perfectly sensible and I don’t think we have a problem with it. But that’s not what HUG is saying to the papers. They’re saying the neighbourhood is a ghetto therefore the city needs to bulldoze and put up luxury condos.

HUG needs better spokespeople.

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by JM Lambert

JM Lambert — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:10:30 +0000

There may be some young professionals attracted to Northdale due to its walkability, rental property potential and housing prices, but it’s not contradictory to suggest that the housing stock of the area isn’t typically attractive to that demographic. Every infill development in Northdale, as Michael mentioned, involves high bedroom-count units, which are limited in their appeal. That, and the floorplans of post-war single-family homes in Northdale are relatively unpopular — it’s practically all Victory Housing and spartan bungalows.

To address the rowdiness issue: yes, most student renters are good neighbors. However, anyone who’s been a student in KW is well aware that people looking for optimally-located “party houses” often look for properties close to the universities or within stumbling distance from bars. So, unfortunately, Northdale is well-suited to the students most likely to be the worst neighbors. A good way to discourage these types of students from living in Northdale is to create mid-market high-density developments with — here’s the key point — low bedroom counts. This also makes the neighborhood more attractive to other demographics that would highly value its location and amenities.

Darcy, the people who are calling for a change in Northdale’s zoning are the same people who want to live there, just not in its current housing stock. It’s great that Ellen managed to find a house that works for her needs, but that doesn’t undermine the fact that Northdale doesn’t have the right properties for many people who fit her demographic.

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Johnny

Johnny — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:42:02 +0000

Can you send this to the Record as a Letter to the Editor? It would be great to see your firsthand perspective get out to a broader audience!

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Michael D

Michael D — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 03:51:48 +0000

Hi Darcy, I would respectfully suggest that I am not missing the point but simply disagreeing.

We’re not talking about mathematical theorems here. It isn’t a contradiction that Ellen — and some others, I’m sure — thinks the neighbourhood is fine. Any worthwhile generality has some exceptions. The contention you’d need to make is that Ellen’s is the general experience for live-in property owners in Northdale, and I think you’d have a hard time with that claim. Though I’m not placing much weight on how much I (or others) personally like/dislike the neighbourhood — what matters is the empirical preference and the manifestations thereof. And more importantly, I simply do not think the zoning there makes for good urban planning today.

What speculation, and what faulty information? Anyway, I think you are seriously misunderstanding the proposal and how it would work — specifically, how it would affect property owners and developers. I’d be glad to meet with you to discuss this — tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?

Regarding housing markets and the rest, I’ll respond to the linked post separately.

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Darcy Casselman

Darcy Casselman — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:00:22 +0000

Michael, I read your blog and I know where you’re coming from, but I think you’re missing the point.

Ellen (full disclosure: I’m her s/o) is a full-time resident in Northdale who wants to live there. Ellen’s next door neighbours are young professionals who want to live there. We think the house across the street was bought by a young family (with kids!) although she hasn’t actually met them yet and don’t know for sure if they’re not just hanging around to fix the place up and fill with students. Her part of the neighbourhood (a) isn’t that bad and (b) seems to be getting better.

The map that keeps getting printed in the Chronicle is wrong. The picture the HUG Waterloo people are painting is demonstrably false, and Ellen is the counter-example. The media coverage has been irresponsible and misleading.

You’re speculating based on faulty information. She’s telling you about the actual situation as she sees it.

I would love to see Northdale become a vibrant, high-density urban neighbourhood, but I don’t think the market can bear it. I could go on, but I’ve written a whole blog post about it, so I won’t belabour it here. See http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/2010/01/hug-waterloo.shtml

I’d love to talk to you personally about this. I’m sure Ellen would to. This whole thing bugs me in an irrate blogger sort of way, but it’s personally important for her. I don’t think we should be basing our urban planning decisions for a neighbourhood based on the wishes of people who don’t want to live there.

Comment on Northdale Neighbourhood is not a ghetto by Michael D

Michael D — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:17:33 +0000

Sorry, one more point: if high-bedroom-count units are allowed and overall density is restricted (i.e. the current situation), what results is only student housing of the five-bedroom apartment kind or the seven-bedroom house kind. What kind of IT worker (+ family) or even upper-year undergrad wants to live like that? Due to the limited supply, it’s not even particularly cheap.