I started writing ASP & PHP, the whole ASP.Net thing was about helping Visual Studio developers make crappy web apps, it wasn't fit for purpose for the web writ large.
You didn't need to switch to Linux either; I built everything under Windows (IT didn't allow Linux desktops) and deployed it to both Windows and Linux servers.
The reason we used tables was because getting things right in CSS in the early days across all of the browsers was a nightmare. An expensive nightmare. Which was fine if you were a well funded startup and could afford to rebuild your HTML regularly.
CSS at the time was still a leaky abstraction: in order to get things working, you had to include extraneous DIVs in the HTML code as anchors for the CSS rules.
The standard body has attempted to address this issue with pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes as well as other features I may not be aware of.
At least though, these extra DIVs weren't disrupting the page layout (eg. when disabling the CSS - something that was still possible at the time), which was beneficial for accessibility.
I kept our internal reporting site running for 3-4 years, I used CSS for layout.. it required regular maintenance but I had enough time to do it as my main job was as a Database Admin / Data Engineer (I'd have been called "devops engineer" nowadays as I had quite a broad set of responsibilities).
It always felt like a fun challenge. For me, it was a crucial part of my love of the web (and eventually, programming): the hackability and the way that there was no canonical correct way to solve a given problem. I miss those days.
Really poor form there from Microsoft, I hope that some of the wiser heads see this and educate the team responsible and ensure that this is made right.
There is something very similar to 80s Britain and Eastern Europe. It's why a lot of us who grew up (or had formative years in that decade) have a kinship with people from there.
Fools, Dad's Army, 'Allo 'Allo, Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly, The IT Crowd, Father Ted, The Office, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Bottom, The Young Ones, The Thick Of It, Alan Partridge, Some Mothers Do Have 'em, Mr Bean, Yes Minister, The Inbetweeners... British (and Irish) comedy was the best in the world for three decades.
Monty Python, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, League of Gentlemen, Royle Family, Phoenix Nights, Peep Show, Extras, Brass Eye, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Bang Bang It’s Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars, Spaced, Mighty Boosh, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, One Foot in the Grave, Ali G, Whose Line is it Anyway, HIGNFY, Idiot Abroad, Life’s Too Short, Fast Show, Black Books, Porridge…
We could do this forever, I’m sure there’s a load still missing!
It's crazy isn't it? American sitcoms/comedy doesn't even come close and is almost universally derivative of the British greats, despite having 5-6x the population and far bigger budgets.
I think that is comes from the fact that Americans take themselves too seriously and have a very strong and an even stronger censorship model than the British (thanks to well-funded religious organisations who make fun illegal).
I agree that British sitcoms (not comedy generally) were superior for a couple of decades, but think we need to give modern American comedy much more credit; Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry Sanders, various animation series, etc, etc have established them back at the top. I can't see the UK as that competitive these days.
That's not considering American standup, movies etc which leave us in the dust.
Oh there are certainly some excellent American comedy shows..
Seinfeld, Curb, Arrested Development, Modern Family, The Office (US), South Park, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Frasier, Fresh Prince, Friends, How I Met Your Month, Futurama, Simpsons (OG) and then there's not a lot more on the bench unless you include the lesser remakes of British shows.
A lot of them aren't funny or aren't satire.. just look at the Shameless remake - they turned that into a character drama when it was a sitcom.
America has more of a stand-up culture I feel.
I wonder if it's because the news in America is pretty much fiction that they basically don't have political satire as a genre outside of the topical news shows (Daily Show / John Oliver) which are honestly more like real news shows than comedy at this point.
I'm shocked that no one has mentioned the Mrs Merton Show though you did at least mention The Royle Family. Caroline Aherne was amazing at understated comedy.
"So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?" she asked Debbie McGee.
It's notable just how many of the shows called out in this thread have links to the Cambridge Footlights. Certainly not all, but perhaps a third have cast who came through that club.
The Tory Party, that was the biggest long running joke ever, I never thought that they'd be able to top the hilarious Boris Johnson but then Liz Truss came out of nowhere and PORK MARKETS'd her way into infamy!
Let's not forget that the Alan Partridge character was borne on Chris Morris' absolutely genius radio show "On The Hour", and made it onto tv on Morris' televised successor "The Day Today".
Which reminds me of the actual high water mark of British comedy, which was Chris Morris' third and final series "Brass Eye". He rustled too many feathers with that one.
It's a damn shame that those shows have been wiped from YouTube. For my money, Chris Morris is the most unappreciated creator of the 90s/00s, limey or not.
I know. I guess I tend to focus on the adults who I think are in principle trying and reachable, because I think there we can make a difference by popularizing the right information.
I really wish that the EU would step in and force Google to either kill Shorts or give us full control over the crap they're pushing down our throats.
As this is HN and full of smart people - if there are any workable (OSS) options to filtering YouTube to remove shorts (and the far-right/Nazi crap) then please let us know.
NCATS and other NIH data resource teams were heavily affected or completely dismantled during the latest reductions in force (RIFs). Getting data from certain areas inside HHS will be difficult to impossible for the foreseeable future.
Your concerns may be justified. The site says: "This repository is under review for potential modification in compliance with Administration directives."
I volunteer with the team and they are very open to sharing the data. It’s all freely available on the website and app, but if you want to request a download of it for your own analysis, etc, they are happy to provide one. You do have to sign a data use/transfer agreement in that case, which they are working on revising right now. You can email [email protected] to request a download of the data. Also they recently emailed us about that note - the Administration is requiring all NIH programs that collect any human data to post that message.
I've had screen issues with two MBP within warranty and Apple attempt to charge 1800 EUR to fix them. The laptops cost > 3000 EUR but still. These are issues which are fixable with either a 2 EUR part or a 50 EUR part.
Richard has a student with an idea involving AI and joins his company as an advisor but can't keep his opinions to himself. Ends up ruining the company because everything he touches turns to shit.
You didn't need to switch to Linux either; I built everything under Windows (IT didn't allow Linux desktops) and deployed it to both Windows and Linux servers.
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