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Mark Otto "derping around with measuring CSS performance". Nothing looks particularly concerning to me, to the point where I would change how I do things. The most surprising numbers were in background vs background-color, but Paul Irish debunks that a bit.
There must be something in the water as Ben Frain has dug in a little bit on CSS performance as well. I like Ben's soundbite:
With CSS, architecture is outside the braces; performance is inside
Direct Link to Article — Permalink
css perf is a post from CSS-Tricks
]]>It's worth noting that the srcset attribute for the img element has landed in Chromium (Chrome will get it in 34, Opera 21). Their example: <img alt="A rad wolf." src="pic1x.jpg" srcset="pic1x.jpg 1x, pic2x.jpg 2x, pic4x.jpg 4x"> And:
Stay tuned for the
<picture>element
We needed this. The fight was arduous. The solution is good. Other browsers will be on the way. This is notable as once a browser supports something, the tendency is for it to always be supported. Plus now polyfills can be true polyfills.
Direct Link to Article — Permalink
srcset in Chrome is a post from CSS-Tricks
]]>Decentralised networks are naturally robust against certain types of attack. Now one mathematician says advanced geometry shows how to make them even more robust.
One of the common myths about the internet is that it was originally designed during the Cold War to survive nuclear attack. Historians of the internet are quick to point out that this was not at all one of the design goals of the early network, although the decentralised nature of the system turns out to make it much more robust than any kind of centralised network.
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Yesterday, I was arrested for opposing climate change. I, along with hundreds of other college students from UMBC and elsewhere, peacefully protested the proposed Keystone XL pipeline by disobeying orders to leave the White House sidewalk.
A lot of people have asked me why I tried to get arrested. It was not a decision I made lightly. I have never been arrested before, and don’t plan on it again.
I want to prove that this issue is serious enough to get arrested over. Not serious only for me, but for all Americans. Farmers in the Midwest who depend on the Ogallala Aquifer to grow the nation’s crops. Americans who depend on them for food. First nations in Alberta who find their voice silenced by Big Oil.
It's serious for people in Miami, Ocean City, and all along the coasts who are affected by human-caused rising seas. For the people of New York City and New Orleans who’ve already felt the disasters of stronger storms and rising waters.
This pipeline makes no sense for America. TransCanada and the oil companies get to sell oil more cheaply on the world market, and what does America get in exchange? Temporary construction jobs, carbon dioxide pollution, and a 1,700 mile long pipeline which has already spilled at least 14 times in 12 months of operating its southern portion.
We can’t end our dependence for fossil fuels in an instant. But we can sure as hell keep TransCanada from increasing our dependence. Say no to Keystone XL. Say yes to energy independence and renewable energy.
To quote a sign at the rally, “KXL most affects people who can’t afford to be here.” They couldn’t, but I could. I got arrested because I could make my voice heard.
What do you think? You can speak out too. Tell your friends and family about Keystone XL. Tell Obama that America rejects fossil fuel dependence, rejects pollution, and rejects the Keystone XL pipeline.
UMBC has a great history of Civic Action. Thanks for reading.
Patrick Hixenbaugh
UMBC Students for Environmental Awareness
Sources:
Keystone spills more than 12 times in first year
Engineer turned whistleblower calls Keystone XL a potential “disaster.”
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Some of the most commonly used elements for marking up web content are unordered, ordered, and definition lists. In this post you’re going to learn how to use these HTML list elements in your own web page markup. You’ll learn which elements are best for certain applications and how to apply custom styling to your lists using CSS.
Lets get started.
The <ol> element is used to mark up an ordered list of items. Individual <li> elements should be used for each of the items in the list.
The example below shows a list of web browsers, in order of popularity.
<ol>
<li>Google Chrome</li>
<li>Internet Explorer</li>
<li>Firefox</li>
<li>Safari</li>
<li>Opera</li>
</ol>This example will produce the following list.
By default, the browser will display a number to the side of each of the list items starting at 1. You can change the starting number by specifying a start attribute on your <ol> element.
<ol start="5">...</ol>You can also reverse the numbering by adding the reversed attribute to your <ol> element.
<ol reversed>...</ol>The <ul> element is used for marking up a list of items where the ordering of those items is not important. This element can be used for things like shopping lists, kit lists, or navigation links.
The example below shows an unordered list of items from an expedition kit list.
<ul>
<li>Rucksack</li>
<li>Compass</li>
<li>Map</li>
<li>Water Bottle</li>
<li>Jacket</li>
</ul>By default, the browser will display bullet points next to each of the list items. Later in this post you’ll learn how to change this behavior using CSS.
The <dl> element is used to mark up a series of term/description groups. Terms are marked up using the <dt> element and descriptions using the <dd> element. Each term should have at least one associated <dd> element.
The example below shows a description list that represents the author and editors for a book. The first term/description group specifies a single author. The second group specifies four editors.
<dl>
<dt>Author</dt>
<dd>Matt West</dd>
<dt>Editors</dt>
<dd>Sara Shlaer</dd>
<dd>Ellie Scott</dd>
<dd>Debbye Butler</dd>
<dd>Nick Elliott</dd>
</dl>Notice that we don’t need another element to wrap the term/description groups. The browser will just assume that any <dd> elements belong to the last <dt> element that was encountered.
You could also use a description list to mark up an FAQ page. The questions would be contained within <dt> elements and the answers within <dd> elements.
<dl>
<dt>Why is HTML5 so cool?</dt>
<dd>Because unicorns.</dd>
<dt>What is the meaning of life?</dt>
<dd>42</dd>
</dl>There are a number of CSS styling properties that you can use to customize the appearance of your <ol> and <ul> lists. These properties allow you to change the styling of the marker displayed next to each list item, as well as it’s positioning. You also have the option to set your own marker using an image you’ve created.
ul {
list-style-type: disc;
list-style-position: outside;
list-style-image: none;
}The list-style property provides as short-hand way of specifying all three of these properties at once.
ul {
list-style: <list-style-type> <list-style-position> <list-style-image>;
}Lets take a look at each of these CSS properties in a little more detail.
The list-style-type property sets the marker that will appear next to each of the list items. If you don’t want a marker to be displayed you should set this property to none.
ul {
list-style-type: circle;
}Here’s a list of all the different values that are accepted for the list-style-type property. Check out the CodePen demo below to see these in action.
disccirclesquaredecimaldecimal-leading-zerolower-romanupper-romanlower-greeklower-latinupper-latinarmeniangeorgianlower-alphaupper-alphanoneThe list-style-position property has two possible values, inside and outside.
ul {
list-style-position: inside;
}Setting this property to outside will position the marker outside the list item block as shown below.
An ordered list element with list-style-position set to outside
Setting the property to inside will position the marker inside the list item block.
An ordered list element with list-style-position set to inside
The list-style-image property can be used to specify a custom image that should be used as the marker for each list item. If you don’t want to use a custom image you can set this property to none.
ul {
list-style-image: url(path/to/image.png);
}
Using an image for the list item markers
In this post you’ve learned how to use the various HTML list elements to correctly mark up your web content. You’ve also learned how to style your lists with CSS, including how to set your own custom list markers.
HTML lists are something that you’ll find yourself using a lot as you start creating your own websites. Aside from the main page content, list elements can also come in handy when constructing navigation menus. All-in-all a rather handy set of elements to have in your toolbox.
The post How to Use The HTML List Elements appeared first on Treehouse Blog.
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CSEE Professor Tülay Adali and Professor Kelly Westlake from the University of Maryland School of Medicine received an award from the joint UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Seed Grant Program for a project that ultimately will improve the recovery of stroke victims. The new joint UMBC-UMB Seed Grant Program pairs primary investigators from UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore to conduct research as a team. Successful partners are offered research funding of up to $75,000 over twelve months to pursue their collaboration.
Nearly 800,000 U.S. citizens have a stroke each year, making it the leading cause of long-term disability. Treatment for stroke victims is mainly targeted towards residual functional deficits, especially regaining hand functions. Their project (“Independent Vector Analysis to Investigate Cognitive Neural Networks after Stroke: A Comparison between Two Rehabilitation Interventions”) will have a direct impact on stroke rehabilitation through objective evaluation of the two main treatment paradigms currently in use: unimanual (involving one hand) and bimanual (involving both hands) training. The evaluation will use the new class of medical image analysis techniques, independent vector analysis (IVA) algorithms, developed by Dr. Adali and her research group. The new class of IVA algorithms successfully captures subject variability and perform significantly better than the approaches traditionally used for the problem.
The initial results of the project demonstrate the advantages using IVA for the problem and will be presented this month at the 48th Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems in Princeton, NJ. The PIs are preparing two journal submissions, one based on the methods developed for the task and a second one emphasizing clinical significance of the results. These results will also provide the preliminary data for the proposal that Professors Adali and Westlake plan to submit to the NIH later this year.
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