Comments on: Print Stylesheet for Mefi?

Print Stylesheet for Mefi?

WCityMike — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:52:01 -0800

Would it be possible for someone -- admin, volunteer, or even I could take a whack -- to develop a print stylesheet for Metafilter? I went back to an old question I had asked on Ask Mefi and printed it out, to have it handy for something I was doing. It came out to a healthy 32 pages. For the hell of it, I grabbed a thread I knew was extremely long -- it ran well over 200 pages. Looking at the screen, it occurred to me that, if pb and the admins were amenable, some enterprising CSS coder might whip up a print stylesheet for the site. If all 5,000 CSS coders on the site who are better than me aren't interested, hell, I could even give it a try myself. There's a lot of material that isn't germane to a printout: navigation header, search box, comment box, footer, flags, 'add as favorite' links on comments, 'mark as best answer' links on comments, and "previous thread" and "next thread" navigation links, and perhaps even the tags box and/or logo. Additionally, both the post's and especially the comments' margins are fairly big for a printout, which pushes the page count up rather high. A darker color might be used for the links (they come out as a very light, barely-readable gray on the printout), or, even better, I remember seeing a CSS print stylesheet somewhere that turned links into the text of the link, boldfaced, followed by the URL in brackets. It might be useful to put a horizontal line between comments (for a printout, obviously not for the screen). Given that the redesign contest a few years ago showed that we have some very talented Mefite coders with good design sense, I imagine that, were the project to be a go, others might have some really useful ideas I hadn't thought of for a print stylesheet. Is this an idea that could be considered for implementation?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:54:25 -0800

If someone wants to take a crack at that, sure I'd be happy to add it to the site's code.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:59:50 -0800

Very cool! :)

I know CSS, but in a hacky "splice and burn" kind of a way. I could probably do it, but I'm definitely not the ideal candidate.

Hopefully one of the Mefite CSS geniuses can take a whack; if no one shows interest, I'll then give it a try myself ...

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:20:08 -0800

Also, I wanted to just note: this came to mind in conjunction with Ask Metafilter. I imagine that the print stylesheet would apply to the blue, green, gray, etc., but if I had to lay down a bet, I would say that more people print Ask Mefi threads than others, due to its "ask a question, get useful responsive advice" nature.

By: dw

dw — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:23:02 -0800

I will try to throw something together, but I'm super-busy with other things, so it may be some time.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:42:00 -0800

OH THANK GOD!

I thought you were agitating for us to all use a "print stylebook" (like the AP Guide) for MetaFilter posts and comments, and trying to get someone here to write it.

And I was all "HELLZ NO!" and gasping.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:46:17 -0800

I thought you were agitating for us to all use a "print stylebook" (K. Klangston, 2008)

That would be ridiculous.

Works Cited
Klangston, K. "Comment 539873" in MetaTalk: Feature Requests, Bugs, Etc.. MetaFilter Publishing Industries, Portland, OR. 2008.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:55:15 -0800

Ridiculous is right. We should use Chicago, and I'm just the guy to enforce it.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:56:18 -0800

And the first rule is: no two-letter zipcode abbreviations. That's Portland, Ore.: MetaFilter Publishing Industries, 2008.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:59:22 -0800

Chicago doesn't allow two-letter state (not ZIP, obvs.) abbreviations? Man, that's something that annoys me about the AP—when even the POST OFFICE is moving faster than you are, there's something wrong.

(Shouldn't MLA be the assumed style here?)

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:00:54 -0800

Ok, so we all agree. Someone is going to make a CSS stylesheet for printing that uses the Chicago font for all text.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:04:56 -0800

I think this is a good idea. Let's get it done, roll it out, and all that jazz.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:06:53 -0800

Chicago doesn't allow two-letter state (not ZIP, obvs.) abbreviations?

Yeah, they do; specifically, they say (15.29): "The two-letter, no-period state abbreviations preferred by the U.S. Postal Service should always be used where a zip code follows, and they may appear in any context where abbreviations are appropriate (see 17.100). Many writers and editors, however, prefer the older forms[...]." I am such an editor, and if I'm going to be Style Enforcer, we're not going to use USPS abbreviations except before zip codes. Also, serial commas will be mandatory. I will, of course, have to have the power to edit comments, but I will use my powers only for good.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:07:31 -0800

"Ridiculous is right. We should use Chicago, and I'm just the guy to enforce it." (hat)

hat, language. "Evidence #1 in Trial as to Whether Ass Should Be Up Against Wall Now That the Revolution is Here" MetaTalk, MetaFilter Network LLC. 29 April 2008 <http://metatalk.metafilter.com/16190/Print-Stylesheet-for-Mefi#539882>.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:10:24 -0800

All posts that I disagree with should print in size-72 Comic Sans.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:14:33 -0800

I'm working on one right now.

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:15:03 -0800

I am all for this. There is not enough Chicago-style pizza in Portland, Oregon.

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:16:39 -0800

> if I'm going to be Style Enforcer, we're not going to use USPS abbreviations except before zip codes.

Only good things can come from having an official Style Enforcer, and I want to see Year of Metafilter In Review in the manner of a Mr. Blackwell's Ten Worst Dressed List.

By: rtha

rtha — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:18:10 -0800

Uh oh. I might have to get into a fight* with languagehat over two- versus three-letter state abbreviations.

However, serial commas are absolutely mandatory. I don't care if you come from some random country that doesn't use them. My cultural sensitivity does not extend that far. This is a U.S. site, and you can use serial commas or feel the WHACK of the banhammer.

However, I'm currently drowning in a long, long document that was authored and fussed with by many people before it came to me. Its current state is "Style? What style? We doan need no steenking style!" At least I get to impose my will. If they let me.

Hope me!

*rock, paper, scissors?

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:24:14 -0800

But I've never even been to Illinois! *cries*

By: blacklite

blacklite — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:34:12 -0800

They're not just serial commas, or american, or whatever, they're Oxford commas. I've always been more partial to Cambridge, but in this case, Oxford is right.

Anyway, derail aside, I'm glad to hear that Chicago is coming to Portland. I'm not a fan personally but I know that they still have a lot of fans.

By: scrump

scrump — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:35:17 -0800

serial commas are absolutely mandatory

STOP THEM BEFORE THEY STRIKE AGAIN

By: cschneid

cschneid — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:37:19 -0800

*Flips the road sign*

I think the topic went thatta-way!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:45:49 -0800

Uh oh. I might have to get into a fight* with languagehat over two- versus three-letter state abbreviations.

However, serial commas are absolutely mandatory.

Hmm. Well, you're sound on the basics, so I might deputize you and give you special two-letter-abbreviation limited powers. You are, after all, an official longboater.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:47:52 -0800

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Comma

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:53:51 -0800

and if I'm going to be Style Enforcer...

Please. Don't trouble yourself. We're doing fine without that.

By: soundofsuburbia

soundofsuburbia — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:58:34 -0800

This is a U.S. site

Du, din morsa är en amerikansk sajt.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:01:16 -0800

"Please. Don't trouble yourself. We're doing fine without that." (Faris)

Faris, Dave. "When Joy Was Killed" MetaTalk, MetaFilter Network LLC. 29 April 2008 <http://metatalk.metafilter.com/16190/Print-Stylesheet-for-Mefi#539927>

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:01:40 -0800

"Also, serial commas will be mandatory."

Bah. The AP is quite good on this, as one of their rare moments of clarity, eschewing an automatic rule and arguing for (what I believe) are the best practices for reducing ambiguity.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:04:20 -0800

Sorry, Kattullus. It never occurred to me that someone could find joy in discussing commas and whether or not to use two letter abbreviations or three. Do carry on with your pitiful banter.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:08:10 -0800

Oh, the blanket! She is wet!
Oh, the stick! She is muddy!

By: quin

quin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:38:26 -0800

Man, I would have made a great Style Enforcer.

"Hey, mother fucker, am I seeing this correctly? Are you actually wearing that flannel shirt tucked in to your jeans? Are you kidding me? Haven't we talked about this before? Yeah. We did, I remember now. It was the same time we "talked" about your habit of wearing your sun-visor on backwards, and upside down. As I recall you walked with a bit of a limp that summer didn't you? Something about a bad knee? And how you couldn't really use your left had for all those broken fingers.

What a fucking tragedy that was.

So, let's be clear here, you don't make style decisions anymore. You've lost that privilege, now you trust what others tell you. But hey, it's for the best.

This way, you'll live longer."

Yeah. I could do that. That would be so cool.

By: rtha

rtha — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:44:08 -0800

Hmm. Well, you're sound on the basics, so I might deputize you and give you special two-letter-abbreviation limited powers. You are, after all, an official longboater.

Whew!

Because I suck at rock, paper, scissors.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:09:50 -0800

Someone should also make a really groovy obit post about Hoffman also.

By: misha

misha — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:22:44 -0800

I had to look up "serial commas" just for this pony, but I completely agree they should be mandatory now that I know what you were all talking about!

By: theiconoclast31

theiconoclast31 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:34:52 -0800

Certainly not complete, but maybe of use to someone who wants to finish:

#bottomline, #navglobal, #yellowbar, .footpad, .whitesmallcopy {

  display: none;

}



h1.posttitle {

  margin-left: 20px;

  color: #333;

  font-family:  Georgia, serif;

}



.copy a, .smallcopy a {

  color: #333;

}

The trick seems to be preserving the copyright .fineprint in the footer, but removing the other navigation links.

By: grouse

grouse — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:42:51 -0800

Hell, even I know to use the Oxford comma and I'm at Cambridge.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:52:47 -0800

"Sorry, Kattullus. It never occurred to me that someone could find joy in discussing commas and whether or not to use two letter abbreviations or three. Do carry on with your pitiful banter."

Ibid.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:34:49 -0800

Aren't any Harvard jerks going to muscle in and claim ownership of that comma?

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:58:52 -0800

Hmm. Well, you're sound on the basics, so I might deputize you and give you special two-letter-abbreviation limited powers. You are, after all, an official longboater.
posted by languagehat at 12:45 PM
Ooh, Mr. hat! the longboat had a Viking funeral on July 9. 2006. rtha joined: September 25, 2006 and could not have been a longboater.

By: mrzarquon

mrzarquon — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:11:09 -0800

cranberry- different longboat, in memory of the infamous 15931 (sans quoi) thread that hit over 3k comments.

By: FelliniBlank

FelliniBlank — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:20:37 -0800

languagehat: And the first rule is: no two-letter zipcode abbreviations.

OK, consider me spooked out. Just last night as I was tucking myself into bed, I was musing nostalgically and inexplicably over the old three- and four-letter state abbreviations: "Ou sont les Ill., Cal., Mich., Fla. d'antan?"

By: sciurus

sciurus — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:32:05 -0800

I've got a rough stylesheet put together. I'm surely willing to tweak it. Whom should I mail it to? Do you want me to post the markup in-thread? I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out if the sheet is working because the custom inline styles override some of what I'm trying to do.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:34:05 -0800

Oh yeah, it seems to be working fine across all the subsites & with both the default and plain themes.

By: goatdog

goatdog — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:53:18 -0800

I am all for this. There is not enough Chicago-style pizza in Portland, Oregon.

That's a strong argument in favor of living in Portland, Oregon.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:20:13 -0800

I really like the old-style province/state abbreviations. There is something elegant about them. I think it is the same sort of thing that I appreciate about seeing old books written by Th. C. Smith and Ch. James and Wm. Shakespeare, etc.

I always liked writing Alta. more than AB for Alberta.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:23:16 -0800

feel the WHACK of the banhammer

Just don't let me catch you Strunkin' White again.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:05:01 -0800

sclurus, I didn't see a reply in-thread, but I imagine you'd e-mail it to Mathowie; if you click on his name in his reply upthread, I think his e-mail's on his profile page.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:41:41 -0800

If, sir, you, sir, choose to chew, sir, with the Goo-Goose: Chew, sir! Do, sir!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:10:17 -0800

yeah scurius, email it either to the contact form or to mathowie. and thanks!

By: sciurus

sciurus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:15:55 -0800

I emailed it to mathowie and cortext last night. I would like to state, for the record, that it still needs some work. :)

By: ersatz

ersatz — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:38:43 -0800

MetaTalk: And I was all "HELLZ NO!" and gasping.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:40:16 -0800

Can we make this "feature" something we can turn off please? I hate it when the content of a web page changes when I print it. Especially the bit about expanding out URLs as it'll look like crap in PDFs.

By: criticalbill

criticalbill — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:16:32 -0800

Anybody who says a serial comma is mandatory in all circumstances and not merely when it resolves ambiguity is stubborn, out-dated, almost certainly American and hence unqualified to comment, and wrong.

By: netbros

netbros — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:22:49 -0800

Ah Bill, you're just being critical.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:38:46 -0800

stubborn, out-dated, almost certainly American and hence unqualified to comment, ~~and wrong~~ but right.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:30:29 -0800

Can we make this "feature" something we can turn off please?

Or just add a print button like every other site, that changes the stylesheet.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:36:46 -0800

The two-letter, no-period state abbreviations preferred by the U.S. Postal Service should always be used where a zip code follows, and they may appear in any context where abbreviations are appropriate (see 17.100). Many writers and editors, however, prefer the older forms[...]." I am such an editor,

Ooh, I'm tingling all over, because you are wrong. You are wrong and crusty with the dust of wrong ancients here. There are unimpeachable arguments for postal abbreviations that even you cannot refute. Postal codes save precious space in typeset. Naive people who have never dealt with 100-page indexes are scoffing at this but you are growing pale from dawning horror and because you are now bleeding freely from the razor of my practical logic. Postal codes are instantly familiar. They are clean. They have no bullshit extra punctuation. Body blow, body blow, body blow. You are pretty much the walking dead at this point but that won't stop me from delivering the coup de grace: all the major styles use postal abbreviations: uncrusty Chicago, AMA, APA, and even MLA, which cherishes periods so dearly you would think it was a feminist collective. You can't see me but I am currently waving your skull and spine above my head with a Xena-like ululation.

I do wholeheartedly agree with you about the Oxford comma, however. Also, did I mention the in-laws are in town for a whole week? Maybe I should have started off with that. Anyway, here are your internal organs back. No hard feelings. Hugs? Friends?

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:49:54 -0800

Postal codes are instantly familiar.

MA
ME
MI
MN
MO
MS

Yep. No ambiguity there.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:52:24 -0800

Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi?

Hey, those all start with the same letter. Huh.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:53:35 -0800

Yep. No ambiguity there.

Just because you failed geography doesn't mean we all have to spell it Ore.

By: yarrow

yarrow — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:13:03 -0800

Quiz: True or false, AK=Arkansas?

People who fill in address information in our MIS get this wrong a LOT.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:30:39 -0800

Hey, mod douches: Go look up the word ambiguity and get back to me.

If you honestly believe MI is "instantly familiar" to someone from, say, NOT THE UNITED STATES, think a-fucking-gain.

Abbreviations are for lazy people. Abbreviations of abbreviations are for postal workers.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:33:45 -0800

Sys Rq = lazy

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:35:04 -0800

That's really neither here nor there.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:36:09 -0800

Is this what academics do all day? Argue over citation styles? It's hilarious.

By: eriko

eriko — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:37:51 -0800

MA
ME
MI
MN
MO
MS

Yep. No ambiguity there.

MU

By: rtha

rtha — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:38:35 -0800

...MLA, which cherishes periods so dearly you would think it was a feminist collective.
[230,000,000 favorites +]

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:38:52 -0800

I believe that when WWIII really gets into full swing and civilization collapses, postal workers will be among the most dangerous groups with which your average post-apoc citizen will have to grapple, and so taking the effort to understand their ways is a sound investment.

I also believe that nobody outside of the United States spends much time thinking about Michigan, so the point is moot.

By: eriko

eriko — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:39:01 -0800

And you forgot MT, MD, and MH.

By: rtha

rtha — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:39:30 -0800

I often have to stop and think which of these is which - I blame my slight dyslexia:

AR
AK
AL
AZ

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:57:26 -0800

I also believe that nobody outside of the United States spends much time thinking about Michigan, so the point is moot.

It rather proves the point, actually.

If you want a moot point, you should try pointing out that on the unlikely occasion that, say, a South Asian finds a postal abbreviation in the location of publication in a bibliographical citation an impossible negotiation, he could probably just go and look it up.

and MH.

Mew Hampshire?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:59:50 -0800

Hey, mod douches

oh
no
you
did
not.

[hint: one of those is a postal code]

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:02:16 -0800

Nottingham, or Youtube?

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:03:17 -0800

The state of Penna. laughs at your 2, 3, and 4-letter abbreviations.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:06:44 -0800

So anyway: More like PRINTERNET, amirite?

By: grouse

grouse — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:07:50 -0800

oh really, jessamyn?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:08:10 -0800

more like ZIP YOUR LIP CODE

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:12:28 -0800

I find that getting my point across is best facilitated by addressing my subject with one of the following titles:

mod douche
hitlerfag
corn-fed mulefucker
ham eater
President Bush
mom

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:12:41 -0800

[Prints thread, mails it to Michigan.]

By: inthe80s

inthe80s — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:17:10 -0800

I've done some print style sheets for my own websites and a few clients. They're not difficult really, all you're doing is putting a display:none in the elements that surround the navigation elements in the print section of the CSS.

I tried skimming the thread, it looks like someone has done it already? If not, I'm happy to give it a go.

By: quin

quin — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:25:41 -0800

corn-fed mulefucker

Now, do you mean that the mule is corn fed, or that the fucker of said mule is the corn eater?

See how important punctuation is?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:27:11 -0800

FWIW, when I rock the Mich., I rock the Mich. Righ.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:44:06 -0800

Okay, so, trying to filter the wheat from the chaff, the following people expressed interest and/or volunteered code: dw, sciurus, theiconoclast31 (code posted to thread), and inthe80s.

Sciurus sent his code in. If any of the rest would like to send theirs in, here's links to Matt's, Jessamyn's, and Cortex's profiles and the admin contact form, for your convenience.

Cortex, that donut is freakin' huge. And what makes me chuckle is the gray background -- was that a studio session?

Thanks, you guys. It's kind of cool when an idea pops into your head and people think it's a cool idea, too. That doesn't happen to me too often. ;-)

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:47:26 -0800

That was a morale-boosting donut session in the studio called Corporate America.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:50:24 -0800

cranberry- different longboat, in memory of the infamous 15931 (sans quoi) thread that hit over 3k comments.

Is this where we argue about longboat ontology? Because I believe the Sans Quoi branch should be considered a discrete sect. I mean, the schism changed everything. Sure, there are commonalities, but for the most part the traditional Longboatists are as different from the Sans Quoi Reformationists as they are from the Cabal (which does not exist, but the differences are detailed here). In short, you guys need a new name. May I suggest "Knarr"?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:57:44 -0800

May I propose the obvious informal title of "Spartans"?

Also, we really need to spur the Inter-Conclave Informational Committee to hurry up and get out a draft of the Venn Diagram Initiative; it's hard to keep track of who falls in which camps when I'm in a hurry and have been drinking.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:02:59 -0800

There are 8 US states that start with M. Why no love for MD and MT?

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:05:17 -0800

And what Melissa May said except my in-laws are not in town.

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:37:31 -0800

So anyway: More like PRINTERNET, amirite?

Is it just me, or does anyone else think the idea of a PRINTERNET is awesome? We could all setup dot matrix printers to get MetaFilter automagically printed out whenever anything new is added. It would be like RSS, but way better, because it involves printing stuff out. One of the things I miss about old school computing nowadays is that I don't get to hear horrible mechanical screetching noises all the time.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:38:13 -0800

There are 8 US states that start with M.

And yet, only one of them has a name which derives from Spanish. (Apropos of nothing, except I've always enjoyed that article.)

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:07:41 -0800

you are now bleeding freely from the razor of my practical logic.

'Tis but a scratch.

And yet, only one of them has a name which derives from Spanish.

Ah, but it may equally well be from Latin. See Montana: A History of Two Centuries, by Michael P. Malone et al., pp. 95-96:

The House and Senate also debated [in 1864] the name that Congressman Ashley had placed on his creation. "Montana," from the Latin or Spanish adjective meaning "mountainous," first appeared as a place name in 1858, when Josiah Hinman gave the name to a small mining town near Pike's Peak. ... Although Ashley won his battle in the House, two weeks later the Senate again challenged the name "Montana." Again, several members believed the classical name was inappropriate and argued that an Indian word would be better. But no one could suggest a name with any relevance to the place, so they too settled on Ashley's title, but only after this illuminating exchange:
MR. HOWARD: I was equally puzzled when I saw the name in the bill. I was obliged to turn to my old Latin dictionary. ... It is a very classical word, pure Latin. It means a mountainous region, a mountainous country.
MR. WADE: Then the name is well adapted to the Territory.
MR. HOWARD: You will find that it is used by Livy and some of the other Latin historians, which is no small praise.
MR. WADE: I do not care anything about the name. I suppose we have a right to make a name; certainly just as good a right to make it as anybody else. It is a good enough name.
Montana it became, and Montana it has remained.

(My bold throughout.)

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:13:54 -0800

I had assumed they just named it after Hannah.

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:19:11 -0800

We need a stylesheet that transforms MeFi into 132CPL line data, so we can read it off of huge reams of greenbar.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:34:51 -0800

If any of the rest would like to send theirs in, here's links to Matt's, Jessamyn's, and Cortex's profiles and the admin contact form, for your convenience.

wtf, if you send it to me or cortex we'll just make spitwads out of it.

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:37:56 -0800

My bold throughout my italic.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:40:13 -0800

In order to contribute to both themes in this thread I would like to contribute the following:

I like MT, Ind., Mass., Hawai'i, and monkeys.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:55:05 -0800

Also:

See how important punctuation is?

Well, the hyphenation being contained to just "corn-fed" with a space before mulefucker suggests pretty strongly that it is the mulefucker being modified by "corn-fed", and not the "mule" constituent of same.

Had he written "corn-fed-mule fucker", I think the cornfedness of the mule would be unambiguous (setting aside the other possible parsing that the referent was not being delcared one who fucks corn-fed mules but rather a fucko of the "corn-fed mule" variety, but I think we're assuming a sexual intent here); with "corn-fed-mule-fucker", you have real ambiguity in deciding how to parse the hyphenation.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:01:04 -0800

goodnewsfortheinsane: Sure, there are commonalities, but for the most part the traditional Longboatists are as different from the Sans Quoi Reformationists as they are from the Cabal (which does not exist, but the differences are detailed here). In short, you guys need a new name. May I suggest "Knarr"?

Sorry, dude, the knörr has it's own religion. Oh, and everyone knows that the Cabal is Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:04:57 -0800

I did like seeing "Wash" on our old license plates.

By: wendell

wendell — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:30:07 -0800

Go See Cal
Go See Cal
Go See Cal

Once Mr. Worthington became famous for his cars and his dog spot, it became necessary for all other Californians to redefine themselves. Therefore we embrace the two-letter "CA". It also helped prevent the division of the state into North California and South California some years ago, because those Carolingists had already taken NC and SC.

VO: This IS the San Fernando Valley. (an extreme in-joke for people who grew up when one suburban L.A. radio station ran hourly features on local history to bond with the listeners in its prime service area. Also Nels Van Benthuysen is the best bad radio name ever.)

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:00:52 -0800

wendell seems to be confused about Canada again.

By: Cranberry

Cranberry — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:20:46 -0800

Canada = ca in internet addresses. California = CA in all other applications.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:38:30 -0800

Usually I have a geeky interest in such things, but the academic style course I did was kind of boring.

What I remember though, and I'm not sure what kind of guide/manual this was from, was that there were a handful of American cities (definitely less than ten) to which one needn't append the state name/abbreviation (in publisher info in citations, I guess). NYC was in there of course, LA, SF, Boston, Chicago, and a few others.

Was this idiosyncratic or has anyone here heard of it too?

By: Sparx

Sparx — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:18:40 -0800

Surely the 2/3 abbreviation states question could be solved by regular expression? I, for one, had no idea that ME was Maine (assuming Cortex spoke truth) and would have been forced to google a two letter word in order to fail to guess its origins.

In other related events, your (MA)ssachusetts(MA)ssachusetts so large, you have to divide her in Harvard to see where she coming from.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:30:54 -0800

Here's my (tortured but heirarchical) way of organizing and hence remembering the wacky M* stuff, actually:

MA: Arbitrary roteness: NOT MAINE. Hence, gotta be MAssachusetts.
MS: MISSissippi. Sure, so MiSsissippi.
MN: Well, MINNesota. Okay, MiNnesota.
MI: Mississippi and Minnesota are spoken for. Must be MIchigan!
ME: Can't be Missouri or Michigan, and MassachusEtts and MinnEsota are spoken for and not really super plausible besides, so, hurray: MainE.
MO: couldn't have been Mass. or Miss. or Michigan or Maine anyway, and MinnesOta is taken and silly anyway, so, yowie wowie, it's time for MissOuri.

I don't actually think through this in common usage, for the record. But I that's roughly how it lives in my brain when I really want to reference it or I'm second-guessing myself.

By: frecklefaerie

frecklefaerie — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:11:35 -0800

Where's the love for MD, cortex? :(

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:40:29 -0800

MarylanD and MonTana both somehow don't even seem to need the extra help, they just are. Do not ask me why.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:09:01 -0800

Mt is already the abbrev for Mount => Montana.

By: prosthezis

prosthezis — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:01:48 -0800

What I remember though, and I'm not sure what kind of guide/manual this was from, was that there were a handful of American cities (definitely less than ten) to which one needn't append the state name/abbreviation (in publisher info in citations, I guess). NYC was in there of course, LA, SF, Boston, Chicago, and a few others.

Chicago says "If the city of publication may be unknown to readers or may be confused with another city of the same name, the abbreviation of the state, province, or (sometimes) country is added. Washington is traditionally followed by DC, but other major cities such as Los Angeles and Baltimore, need no abbreviation."

I, for one, am particularly annoyed when I see Indianapolis, IN, but that might just be me. And Indianapolis, IA? Well, I have no idea what they were even thinking.

The italics are Chicago's.

By: markr

markr — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:26:08 -0800

For what it's worth, if you use two letters to abbreviate US state names in your writing, none of your international readers have any idea which state you mean. I blame this practise, at least partially, for not having the foggiest idea which state many major US cities are in.

By: prosthezis

prosthezis — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:03:34 -0800

The rule I posted only applies to notes, by the way. State names are supposed to spelled out in the text.

By: grouse

grouse — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:07:12 -0800

To be honest, markr, I imagine the same is true for some of the traditional abbreviations.

By: Neale

Neale — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:41:07 -0800

I've put something quick together that you can see here. Threads look somewhat similar, with the comments inlined. There's still some info I'll strip out of there, and I'll close that cap between the header and the date.

Quick questions:

* Is there anything the mods would insist appear on the page (eg. copyright stuff)?

* Is there anyway of enforcing what is printed in the header/footer, or is this defaulted by the browser?

* Is it possible to get master list of styles?

* scurius, could I get a peak at yours? you can e-mail me using wrongwaygoback at a place called yahoo.com

By: grouse

grouse — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 23:42:44 -0800

Neale, that looks pretty good. Especially the professional white background.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:33:18 -0800

Oy, the html could really use some re-working and semantification for this to be an easy task. In particular, the usage of the "comments" class for the "older/newer" links and the non-id'd footer divs are rough.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:55:38 -0800

Yeah, I sent the Matt and email offering to help with with standardizing the markup awhile ago, but it probably got lost in the shuffle.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Thu, 01 May 2008 06:28:33 -0800

I did one, found here.

If you have the web developer extension you can test it out by saving it locally, then doing CSS > Display CSS By Media Type > Print, then CSS > Add User Style Sheet.

I've only tested in Firefox, and some bits rely on CSS that's not supported by IE at least (in particular, the :after pseudo-class).

By: Pax

Pax — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:42:53 -0800

Once Mr. Worthington became famous for his cars and his dog spot...

Is that like a liver spot?

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:19:45 -0800

beerbajay; that's really nice! I especially like the href expansion for links in the comments.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:47:59 -0800

I made a PRINTERNET stylesheet (contains control characters, view in a real programmer's text editor) for my NEC Spinwriter 2050 letter-quality printer!

Features include:

132 characters per line
Character pitch of 12 per inch monospaced
Double-Strike for bold
Shadow (offset double-strike) for links
Backtracking Underscores for underscore
Roman oblique ALL CAPS for italics

Preliminary video and images — in this printing there's some problems with the shadowing in the 'posted by' links, currently fixed (along with an unseen unclosed start-underline). Right now the printer is sitting unplugged draining it's capacitors till it loses memory, as it tends to go into freak-out-mode when I cancel jobs.

I'll try another printing after I get some breakfast in me!

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:16:35 -0800

Urgent pony request:

I would like to be able to read MeFi by watching live streaming video of blasdelf's printer printing off threads in real time. Thanks in advance.

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:36:30 -0800

Yeah, get a webcam on that sucker and hook it up to RSS.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:49:37 -0800

RSS is a bit nasty (Winer disease) — If I automated the process I'd probably use Beautiful Soup on the HTML version of it (replacing my bag of vim tricks and sed regexes).

By: dw

dw — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:09:03 -0800

Well, good. Looks like I won't have to write a stylesheet after all. Good thing, since the slightly unsemantic nature of that footer was driving me nuts trying to get the copyright to display without having to individually turn off every tag in the footer.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:26:17 -0800

beerbajay came through! We now have a super clean print stylesheet on every section of the site.

Here is a PDF of what the front page of MetaTalk looks like when you hit print.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:50:53 -0800

Man, that looks fantastic.

By: dw

dw — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:01:57 -0800

Awesome work, beerbajay.

RSS is a bit nasty (Winer disease)

Honestly, it's not. It suffers from some stupidity (e.g. not using ISO 8601 for dates), but for the it's held up because it's simple and well-formed. Atom is a better choice, though annoying verbose in spots.

And Winer disease -- what does that have to do with it? RSS has some perverse sense of self-importance built in? Where?

By: Neale

Neale — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:24:20 -0800

*puts keyboard down, takes a nap*

yay!

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:51:59 -0800

mathowie: Actually it looks a bit odd; I think you'll need to add media="screen" to the rest of the default101907.css and tabs-meta.css

There shouldn't be any colors left over in the print version (all black/white). Of course, if you want the standard sans-serif and colored links, etc, then go ahead and mix 'em.

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:53:31 -0800

blasdelf, that totally made my day. Rock on.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:58:49 -0800

It should be more like this.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:58:47 -0800

Awesome. Great job beerbajay!

By: neetij

neetij — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:02:43 -0800

Great start beerbajay. I used your stylesheet, and have a few thoughts (with sample code).

Keep the date from the top yellow bar. Can't rely on the printer to print the header with date, time, etc.



#logo { /*in conjunction with visit date (yellowbar below), uses less space */

	float: left;

	}

#yellowbar { /* floats to the right of page, small text size */

	padding: 30px 0 0 0;

	color:#333;

	float: right;

	font-size:10px;

	}

#yellowbar:before { /* approximate print date. Does not work in IE6 & IE7 (sorta works in IE8)*/

	content:"Visited on:";

	}

beerbajay, here's how you can get rid of the stuff surrounding the Tags list to the right - works in most modern browsers. Could probably apply similar methods to a lot of other code.



div[style^="float"] div[align="right"] {

	display:none;

	}

If anyone were to print the main page (just because they can), this would hide the 'n new' links.



b[style^="color: white"] a.new {

	display:none;

	}

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Sat, 03 May 2008 13:19:21 -0800

Woah nice; I've not had occasion to use the attribute selectors since I'm usually jamming tons of ids/classes on things. Maybe mathowie can integrate some of your suggestions, if he likes 'em.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:24:16 -0800

neetij, I added your adjustments to the stylesheet, thanks for the extra work.

By: joeclark

joeclark — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:31:37 -0800

Print stylesheets should never use colour for text, to avoid depleting people’s inkjets.

By: beerbajay

beerbajay — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:04:11 -0800

Agreed, joeclark. *pokes mathowie in the direction of his previous comments*

By: mathowie

mathowie — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:38:56 -0800

ok, I made the links all black instead of blue.

By: neetij

neetij — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:49:02 -0800

mathowie, you'll have to remove #yellowbar from line 35 (/* kills navigation */) for the date to be visible.

An additional suggestion for Matt. If this is used by the AskMeFi readers more than anyone else...it'd be nice to have the best answers highlighted (a light border with a bit of padding, perhaps). For example: .best {border:1px solid #ccc; padding:5px;}

By: mathowie

mathowie — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:06:21 -0800

neetij, I made those changes, good call.