eating cucumbers without permission...

The main lesson I’ve learned from the astronomy-themed lectures so far is, “The universe is very large, and subatomic particles are very small.” Okay, that’s a little unfair. There’s been a lot of discussion of the scientific method and of the history of cosmology, but I’m not going to bother writing up my notes on most of it.

One thing that came up was a strange joke about astronomers and sheep.

By default, WordPress 1.5 puts the same number of posts on archive pages as it does on the front page. Given that I only want four posts on the front page, and an entire year’s worth on the yearly archive pages, some hackery is required.

Custom Posts Per Page plugin.

Note that it’s uploaded exactly as I use it; the exact post counts and the order=ASC stuff for some views should be changed to personal preference. It was a five minute thing, and I’m only posting about it now because the issue addresses keeps coming up over and over. Maybe some people will find this via Google.

Notes on gothic fiction and Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

I can’t see much practical value for this, but it turns out that in Firefox you can use a JavaScript function as the value of a src attribute. For example:

<script type="text/javascript">

function js_img() {

 var img = "\x47\x49\x46\x38\x39\x61\x0f\x00\x0f\x00" +
  "\xb3\x0c\x00\xff\xea\x00\x45\x45\x45\x00" +
  "\x00\x00\xff\xce\x00\xff\xc9\x00\xfe\x9d" +
  "\x00\xff\xb4\x00\xff\xfe\x93\xff\xfd\x13" +
  "\xff\xff\xc7\xff\xe5\x00\xff\xff\xeb\x00" +
  "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00" +
  "\x00\x21\xf9\x04\x01\x00\x00\x0c\x00\x2c" +
  "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x0f\x00\x0f\x00\x00\x04" +
  "\x58\x90\x49\x19\x6a\x9d\x98\xd5\x95\xce" +
  "\x19\x17\x16\x70\x08\x02\x9c\x43\x11\x4c" +
  "\x41\x27\x9c\xb0\x90\xae\xda\xf1\xc2\x31" +
  "\xa8\x25\x26\x70\xfb\x27\x82\x2a\x70\xe8" +
  "\xfd\x6e\x04\x43\xe5\x80\x6b\x02\x92\x95" +
  "\x9e\x33\xa8\x0c\x0c\xa6\x27\x85\x70\x65" +
  "\x3d\x09\xbe\xdf\xa7\x4e\x33\x18\xfc\x00" +
  "\x0a\x99\x8a\x55\x26\xb8\xdd\xb3\x4c\xc5" +
  "\x40\x37\x0c\x33\x2c\x0b\x6d\x12\x01\x00" +
  "\x3b";

 return img;
}
</script>

<img src="javascript:js_img();" alt="JS image" />

In Firefox that looks like a sad face; everywhere else it doesn’t work. (The Firefox behaviour is probably a bug rather than a feature, but still.) Voilà!

Update: turns out that XBM images work in IE. (Thanks Turnip!) Unfortunately, it’s the only format that does, and it’s black and white only. The hack dates back to Netscape 2, apparently.
Update 2: in Mozilla, see also the data: protocol.

Notes from three lectures on literary realism. I’m already so far behind. Terrible, terrible.