Minor Site Update: Website 23.1

Posted April 18, 2013, 12:34 a.m.

I’ve just launched a minor update to Off on a Tangent, which brings the version to 23.1. Here are some of the things that have changed:

Style Changes: I already have a working design for my next major redesign, Website 24 . . . but it’s taking longer to develop than I expected. Since I’m already rolling out some of its style language in other places (like the Off on a Tangent Facebook page), I might as well do the same here on the site as part of this smaller update as a stop-gap until Website 24 is complete. It’s bluer and anglier.
Gallery Improvements: My photo galleries have been running on Thickbox for quite a while, but it’s no longer in active development and lacks a lot of modern features. I have switched to a newer lightbox system called Colorbox, which looks and works much better. For example, you can now progress back and forth through a gallery with the arrow keys.
Improved Mobile Sizing: The major mobile platforms finally decided to handle page sizing and zooming about the same as one another, which allowed me to remove a lot of annoying hacks and fix some odd behaviors. Things should work smoother in many of the supported mobile browsers now.
Bugfixes and Enhancements: Lots of other little things. For example, I can now include a ‘Last Updated’ date (in addition to the ‘Posted’ date) on selected entries—particularly ones that have undergone repeated updates as part of a breaking news situation. I’ve also fixed a quotes positioning bug in the sidebar that occurred on short pages, and a mobile caching bug that resulted in the mobile site not always displaying new posts right away.

As always, please let me know if you see any bugs or odd behavior in any of the supported desktop, tablet, and mobile browsers.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

There are people in government who don’t want other people to know what they know. It’s just another example of elitism. And I spit on elitism. Show me an elitist, and I’ll show you a loser.

Tom Clancy

We must not expect God to transform us without our bringing something to be transformed.

Fulton Sheen

I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What’s the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.

Elie Wiesel

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

When you’re right, you don’t have to worry too much about stinging political defeats. All you have to do is sit back and let the winners enact their policies. If you’re really right, and they’re really wrong, their policies will fail.

Scott Bradford

One of the pressures on governments . . . is to ‘do something’—even when there is nothing they can do that is likely to make things better and much that they can do that will risk making things worse.

Thomas Sowell

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Thomas Jefferson

Not to be deceived in matters of faith, we must always distinguish very carefully between the abuses to which a devotion may lead and the truths upon which the devotion rests.

U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops

The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Abraham Lincoln

Successful people don’t wish for success; they decide to pursue it.

Scott Adams

We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

Edward Bernays

Building from scratch isn’t too different from building from a kit, except that you have to make your own kit.

H. Ward Silver

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

Michael Crichton

Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is [intelligent life] arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.

Antony Flew

Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

If you constantly accuse those you disagree with of bigotry, chances are that you, not them, are the bigot.

Scott Bradford

I can’t help but laugh when I am condemned for believing in Heaven, Hell, and an invisible God by people who believe in invisible matter and hidden dimensions.

Scott Bradford

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.

Siddhartha Gautama

Some acts are always wrong—that is, intrinsically evil—and may never be done, no matter what the intention or the circumstances.

U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops