Posts by Dr. Boli

THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA,

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By Eusebius, as told to the LibreOffice spelling checker.

And a single house of prayer, as though divinely enlarged, sufficed to contain at once Sicilians, Physicians, and Bathsheba; Pontoons, too, Pamphlet, and Cappuccino supplied the most distinguished members, as well as Anthracite, Hawaiians, and Epithets.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

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Sir: This morning I had occasion to drive out to one of those urban neighborhoods where the only place to park is on the street, and so I parked on the street, which was the only place to park. Then I had to walk half a block in the wrong direction to the parking kiosk, where I had to wait behind three other motorists who had parked in the same block, and then I had to enter my license-plate number twice, because the first time I had forgotten to push the green button to start the process of accepting my license-plate number, and then I had to wait while the kiosk processed the license-plate number, and then I had to plunk in the money for the parking, and then I had to wait while the machine processed the money and declared to me that it had indeed received the money, and then I had to walk the half-block back past my car, and then another half-block to my destination.

Yes, I thought, this is a lot of work for the ordinary motorist who merely wishes to stop his car at the curb and spend his money at a taxpaying business along that particular street. But it is all necessary, so that we may enjoy the many benefits of metered parking, as enumerated in my monograph, The Many Benefits of Metered Parking, and in the companion volume, A Number of Benefits of Metered Parking Which Had Not Occurred to Me When I Published My First Book on Metered Parking, the two books together constituting what I like to call a digraph.

And then I was suddenly struck by an inspiration. Fortunately there was only minor bruising of my left cheek. Suppose, I thought in my inspired state, the parking kiosks were individualized. Suppose, instead of having to walk half a block to a kiosk with a complex and unergonomic keypad, the happy motorist found an individual parking kiosk right at the individual space where said individual motorist parked.

How would this be accomplished? Obviously one would need some sort of small and inexpensive timing device, activated by the insertion of money. It could be located on a post or pole next to the parking space on the street, at about the ideal height for the average human being to manipulate it. The timer could be electronic, but if the use of electric power is a difficulty, it could be a clockwork, constructed on the same principle as an ordinary kitchen timer. This would have certain obvious advantages over the current system: among others, it could be arranged to provide a visual display of the time paid for at that particular space on the street, counting down until no time is left; it would also be possible for the motorist to add to that time before it has run down (which is impossible with the current centrally located parking kiosks), thus encouraging parked motorists to patronize more businesses on the same street and causing more tax money to flow to the city government.

Since it is a device to make the use of metered parking simpler and more efficient, it might be called a parking measurer or parking logger or some such thing. But I will leave those details to the marketing professionals who will doubtless be called upon to introduce the invention to the public.

I am not an idle visionary or head-in-the-clouds dreamer. I realize that such individualized parking time recording and display devices (I just thought of this name for them) may not be possible given the current state of technology. But clockwork technology is improving all the time, and in the near future it will certainly be possible to mount a coin-operated timing device on a pole. When that day comes, I hope the city parking authority will give serious consideration to my proposal.

——Sincerely, “Mad Mark” Markovitz, Downtown.

From DR. BOLI’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MISINFORMATION,

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Third Series.

Nero. It is notorious that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. It is less well known today, but in his own time caused almost equal scandal, that he strummed the ukulele during the revolt of Boadicea, tooted the ocarina during the plague of 63 a.d., and played the bongos when the Jewish War broke out.

A HINT FOR WORDPRESS THEME DEVELOPERS.

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It is no secret that WordPress runs half the Internet, and dictates what the other half is trying to be—either in imitation or in reaction.

Well, WordPress theme designers, the time has come to learn the difference between a block quote and a pull quote.

Now, for those who simply use the Web, without worrying too much about how it comes to look the way it looks and do what it does, a bit of explanation is in order. The simplest way to make a Web site, at least conceptually, is with simple HTML (“Hypertext Markup Language”) pages—HTML being a series of codes that tell your browser how to render the pages. A little bit of extra “CSS” (“Cascading Style Sheets”) code determines aesthetic things like fonts, column widths, colors, and so on. This is how Dr. Boli runs his Eclectic Library.

But a complex site becomes difficult to manage that way. It is much more efficient to use a “CMS” (“Content Management System”), which takes care of the technical details. The writer writes, the designer designs, and the CMS software puts their work together into a functioning site. The “theme” is the set of CSS codes and other aesthetic instructions that make the site look the way it looks. By changing the “theme,” you can change the whole look of a site all at once.

WordPress, which started as a machine for blogging, has grown into a behemoth of a CMS. This Magazine has used WordPress since 2007, making it a fairly early adopter of the system. The current look of the site is the result of Dr. Boli’s searching the entire universe of WordPress themes and finally giving up on finding one that met his specifications. Instead, he took a very basic theme and rewrote most of the CSS to create the unique aesthetic experience we enjoy today. And he never wants to do that again, because it was a slog.

The problem is that writing WordPress themes requires a good deal of coding. Designers are not necessarily the best coders. Neither are writers. Coders, on the other hand, are not necessarily the best writers or designers. It is a flaw of the system that the design aspects of it are left in the hands of computer programmers. Writers are generally at the mercy of these coders-turned-designers, who dictate how text served up on the Internet will look.

So it is up to us, the informed writers and designers, to teach theme coders what we need.

We could mention many things. We could mention column widths that are correct for comfortable reading. We could mention type fonts that are legible rather than pretty. But today we are mentioning block quotes.

In a printed book or magazine, a block quote is a quotation that seems too long for quotation marks. It is easier to read and sort out which text is the quoted text if these quotations are separated typographically. There is a traditional way of doing this: most often a block quote is indented from the main text on both right and left sides, and frequently the text in the quotation is slightly smaller than the main text.

First and foremost, war is war and military organization is, and must be, tyranny. This is, perhaps, the greatest and most barbarous cost of war and the most pressing reason for its abolition from civilization.

That was a block quote—in this case, a quotation from W. E. B. Du Bois. HTML has a <blockquote> tag for just this purpose. But the theme designer gets to decide how those blockquotes will look. And almost invariably the theme designers decide wrong.

All over the Internet, you will see quoted text that is much larger than the text that surrounds it. Frequently the quotations are also set in italics or bold or a pretty but illegible font, and they may have colored backgrounds and fancy ornamental quotation marks (usually huge and only at the beginning, not the end).

These are not block quotes. These are pull quotes. A “pull quote” is an ornamental graphic element designed to draw attention to part of the text, or more cynically to take up otherwise blank space on a page. It is not meant to be part of the article.

The problem is that theme designers usually assign pull-quote attributes to block quotes, and writers are stuck using them—or, worse, writers who wrote on a site with a well-designed theme wake up one morning to find that someone has decided to change the theme, and all the block quotes are huge and ugly. These huge, ugly, and incorrect quotes are everywhere. They make reading long passages a dreadful chore. They ruin the Internet.

At this point, the problem is almost by definition a WordPress problem, because the power of WordPress over the Internet is so great. It is not merely that half the sites you see are built on WordPress. Even the sites that use a different CMS very often are using adapted WordPress themes. (Dr. Boli’s own “Random Translations,” for example, is run on a much simpler system called “HTMLy,” but the theme is a ported WordPress theme.) So WordPress theme designers are the ones who must be educated.

Here, then, is your education. Block quotes are for quoted text within an article, and should generally appear slightly smaller than the text around them. Pull quotes are a separate thing, and should have their own separate style not likely to be confused with a block quote.

There. That wasn’t so hard.

SILENT JIM.

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(Music: Western theme with banjos.)

Announcer: And now Malt-O-Cod, the only malt food drink flavored with real cod-liver oil, presents…

(Music: Banjo roll, then sudden silence.)

Announcer: The Adventures of Silent Jim!

(Music resumes, under for…)

Announcer: Yes, it’s Silent Jim, the man of few words but mighty deeds, protecting the innocent from evildoers in the Wild West!

(Music: Fade.)

Announcer: As our story opens today, we find Silent Jim stepping up to the bar at Malenkov’s Saloon in Heatstroke City, Arizona.

Bartender: Wal, howdy, Silent Jim! Long time no see! What’ll it be today?

Silent Jim:

Bartender: Cain’t decide, huh? I know how that is. Look at all them bottles. How’s a man s’posed to pick one? Tell ya what. How ’bout I make you a Heatstroke City Steamer? Specialty of the house!

Silent Jim:

Bartender: Yeah, that’ll hit the spot.

(Sound: Glass and bottles clanking, continues under…)

Bartender: So rumor has it you larned them Clancy boys a real good lesson up there in Buchanan Station. That true?

Silent Jim:

Bartender: They sure as enfers deserved it, if’n you’ll pardon my French. Guess they larned the Wild West is a place where you gotta follow the rules. —Here ya go, Silent Jim. Compliments of the house. So what’s next in your life of epic adventure and constant he-man action?

Silent Jim:

Bartender: Wal, I reckon Heatstroke City could use your help right now. We been—

(Music: Stinger.)

B. B. Clancy: Thar’s that ugly cuss now, or my name ain’t Babblin’ Bob Clancy!

Bartender: Why, it’s Babblin’ Bob Clancy, the garrulousest outlaw in the Arizona Territory, and second cousin twice removed to the Clancy boys!

B. B. Clancy: Dang right it’s Babblin’ Bob Clancy, which is what my ma done called me soon as I started to talk, and all my aunts called me that too, cause I had scads of aunts, and they used to say to Ma, they said, ‘How’s Babblin’ Bob doin’ these days?’ and Ma used to say, ‘Lawd-a-mercy, sis, he’s garrulouser than ever,’ and then she’d smack me one, but I was still talkin’, and I ain’t done talkin’ yet, neither, that’s fer dang sure! Now I hear my cousins done run into trouble with this ornery devil, and I says to myself, I says, ‘Babblin’ Bob, family is family, no matter how many times they been removed, and you gotta stick up fer family, that’s what you gotta do.’ So what have you got to say fer yerself, Silent Jim?

Silent Jim:

B. B. Clancy: Oh, a wise guy! A reg’lar Aristotle! Well, let me tell you, Silent Jim, when I’ve took care of you, you ain’t gonna be so wise no more. You ain’t even gonna be Mortimer Adler. You’re gonna be like the third-dimmest kid in the freshman Introduction to Western Philosophy class, that’s what you’re gonna be. You’re gonna be like that kid where they say, ‘What’s the difference between Epictetus and Epicurus?’ and you get it all backwards, and you say it’s Epictetus what was all about ataraxia, and even if you gets it right you’ll be one of them dang fools what think it’s all about do what feels good, and you’ll totally miss the point of Epicureanism, when everybody knows it’s all about bein’ rational and suchlike. Cause the pleasures of the mind are way superior to the pleasures of the body, and you gotta be dumb as a jackass full o’ Monongahela rye not to see that catastematic pleasure is the real thing. Criminy, how often do these dang fools have to have it explained to them? It’s like their brains are made of tapioca. Say, what was we talkin’ about?

Silent Jim:

B. B. Clancy: Aw, you ain’t no help. Say, bartender, how ’bout one o’ them Heatstroke City Steamers everybody’s ravin’ about? I ain’t much for mixed drinks myself, but them things got a reputation right acrost the territory. Gimme a double. Or maybe a one-and-a-half, cause I gotta ride to Ten-Foot Pole afore sunset. Whatcha drinkin’, stranger? Can I buy you another one?

Silent Jim:

B. B. Clancy: Two Steamers, bartender, and put a head on ’em, or whipped cream or whatever. My ma always said, she said, if’n you’re gonna do it, Babblin’ Bob, she said, then do it all the way. (Fading out.) That’s what she said. So I always done it all the way, cause my ma ain’t never steered me wrong, and…

(Music: Western banjo theme, in and under for…)

Announcer: And so once again Silent Jim lives by his motto, Facta non verba, and tames the Wild West. Tune in next week for more shimmering dialogue and sparkling wit. Till then, kids, don’t be silent when it comes to what’s important. Remember that kids who drink Malt-O-Cod every day are 53% more likely to become world-renowned philosophers than the control group given only inferior fish-liver-flavored malt food drinks. Don’t risk your mind on cheap imitations. Badger your parents for more Malt-O-Cod today. It’s the malt food drink that’s brain food!

(Music: In full, then out.)

RANDOM AUTOBOLIFICATOR.

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You may have noticed that, after some months’ or years’ absence, the Random Autobolificator is back in the upper right corner of the page. Click on the picture to be taken to an undisclosed location. At least it is undisclosed until you click on the picture. After that, if the gears and ratchets work as designed, it should be pretty obvious.

Fool your friends! Send them a link to this address:

https://drboli.com/autobolificator

Not only will they not know where you are sending them, but you won’t know either! It’s fun for both of you.

Dr. Boli apologizes in advance for some of the older material, in which links may be broken and images may be missing. As of this moment there are 3,921 articles on line here, and it is difficult to maintain all of them in perfect working condition.