Chris Valleskey

Hacker News CSS

Chris — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:05:21 +0000

If you read Hacker News, here’s a snippet of CSS I use to make the experience a little nicer:

body { margin: 0; }

center > table { width: 100% !important; margin: 0; }

table table { padding: 12px; }

center > table table { padding: 10px !important; }

center > table table > tr:nth-child(3n) { padding: 10px; }

Put that into GlimmerBlocker, Stylish, or whatever else you want, and there you go.

I posted this about a week ago on twitter through a Cloud App link, but I figured it would be better to give it more of a permanent place on my site. If Hacker News ever decides to update their archaic markup, I’ll be sure to update this post.

Who wants my DSLR?

Chris — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:54:02 +0000

I own a Nikon D40. It has seen its fair share of use, especially in the Smoky Mountains. If you want to see more shots I’ve taken with it, here’s my flickr account. I don’t claim to be a photographer though, so be warned.

A few months ago I picked up a Samsung S II. I upgraded from an original Droid, which continuously frustrated me with how slow it ran. I have to say everything about this new phone is amazing, especially the camera. Here’s a shot I took with it (click for full size):

Not too bad for a cell phone camera, eh? Not only that, but it shoots video in 1080p. After using it for the past few months, and noticing how little I use my Nikon, I started to wonder: Why do I even keep my DSLR? For one, it’s bulky. The only time I bring it with me is on trips, and even then I tend to use my S II for most of my photographs anyways. Again, I don’t claim to be any sort of photographer, so having a DSLR feels like overkill. What do you all think?

Adventures in Skyrim (Part 1)

Chris — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:22:17 +0000

I was playing Skyrim late at night. Everything that followed, both in the game and real life, was hilarious. If I keep playing Skyrim, and I probably will, I’ll be making more posts about it and the adventures I have with it.

Here’s what happened:

First of all, I was sleep deprived and not totally focused on the game, so things were kind of foggy. What I do remember is that I went off to kill Alduin.
After playing for a while, I saved the game, turned off the Xbox, and went to sleep.
I went to work, came home, and turned on the Xbox.
At this point, I started to tell Krista (my wife) about the little adventure I had the night before, and how I thought I had killed the big bad dragon.
After I started the game, we both noticed that I had a quest to get married. Krista asked me who I proposed to, and, well…I didn’t remember!
I went to Riften. Right away the game told me that I had failed the marriage quest. Whoops.
Krista was upset with me, not because I proposed to a character in a video game, but because I didn’t remember who it was.
After I told her this, Krista went on her laptop, brought up the Skyrim wiki, and began to tab through every single marriable woman in the game. I responded back to her: “No, no, no, NO, no, no, maybe…no, no…” and so on.
At one point I said “Yes!” and traveled to where the woman was. It wasn’t her. At this point I realized that I am a terrible person.
I ended up finding the woman after traveling all over Skyrim. I asked her to marry me again, and this time I showed up. She now sits in my house, makes food for me, and brings me Gold.
After all this, I still don’t remember her name.

I’ve never really been a huge fan of RPGs. Maybe it’s because I play so much Halo, or because I tend to not care so much about the storyline and instead focus on killing things as often and effectively as possible. Either way, I have thoroughly enjoyed Skyrim, even though I failed to attend my own wedding and forgot who I was supposed to marry.

Wireframe sketch template

Chris — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:23:37 +0000

Here’s something I made to help me with conceptualizing site designs and layout ideas onto paper. I’ve found that drawing my ideas out instead of making them pixel perfect in Illustrator saves me a lot of time. Feel free to use it however you want!

Download Wireframe Template (647kb)

Religious Spambots?

Chris — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:50:25 +0000

I deal with about fifty spam comments on this site a week. Most advertise prescription drugs, others talk about fake passports, but recently I’ve noticed a new trend: Nonsensical sentences that have a religious bent. Take this comment for example:

“Relying on the love of God, we ask you to join us in our prayers and our actions to eradicate this social and moral evil.” – Chase Shotebenada

I thought it was really interesting that there were no links to websites in the comment itself. However, the spambot (user?) entered in a website, which on my site will put in a link on your name when you post a comment.

Here’s another comment I got:

“Even if our intentions are sincerely for marriage, our actions are naïve and un Islamic.” – Melanie Duvancera

The first comment made me think that these bots were Christian. However, this second one has me confused. Are these bots Islamic? To be honest, I’m kind of excited to see what new comments, if any, show up. If any more do, I’ll update this post.

Oh yeah, and for some reason these last two comments both were submitted to my recent post on Dexter and Morality. Other bots comment on all of my posts. This could have been because that page comes up when you first go to my site, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

Has anyone else had similar comments appear on their blog? If so, I’d love to know about it.