As I indicated in the New Year’s post, this year my plan is to roll my website over from a software-based set-up to a blog…and I think we’re open for beta-testing, if possibly not quite business.
A major aim for this project is simplicity, so you won’t find any bells or whistles (not that you ever did). In this respect I also want to keep the layout pretty clean and straightforward, so while there will inevitably be tweaking, I want things more or less as they currently are. On the other hand I am more than willing to listen to suggestions on fonts etc., or anything for better readability.
I have started simply by shifting Alligator over to the blog as a test case: I would appreciate it very much if people could drop in, take a look, let me know how things appear on your systems, and draw my attention to any mistakes or glitches.
Welcome to the third iteration of And You Call Yourself A Scientist!
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
#1 by ronald on January 25, 2016 - 9:48 pm
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Hm. Well, I could very easily be tedious and re-post my earlier comments about “Alligator” in their entirety but I’ll settle for just repeating a question:
What/where is the “true landmark…of American cinema…where the climax of Them! was shot” (as was part of “Alligator”)? I’m not familiar with it and, clearly, I should be. 😉 Thanks.
#2 by The Rev. on January 25, 2016 - 11:24 pm
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I don’t know if she meant any particular part of it, but both those scenes were shot in the Los Angeles drainage/sewer network. Future War, which was also filmed in L.A., had a couple of scenes shot there. The car race in Grease was shot in the riverbed of the L.A. River, which I have to assume is part of that system.
#3 by lyzard on January 26, 2016 - 1:05 am
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Yes, it’s “the Los Angeles River” if you want to be nostalgic about it and “the Los Angeles Storm Drain System” if you want to be more practical: a very distinctive set of concrete structures that have shown up in a squillion different movies over the years. It’s the place to go if you want a monster lurking in an urban area! – it’s where the ants nested in Them! and the killer baby hid in It’s Alive and where Ramon found his hormone-rich snacks…
#4 by ronald on January 26, 2016 - 9:17 am
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Thanks again.
BTW, this was the part where you had the option to say to go ahead and post the rest of my earlier “Alligator” comments in case they were interesting. No problem that you didn’t, though. 😉
#5 by The Rev. on January 26, 2016 - 12:01 am
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Well, Lyz, I didn’t find any problems offhand with the two posted reviews. The links all worked, the screenshots and comments are all there and hilarious, and there were no glitches that I noticed. I like your header, although I do miss that little drawing of (presumably) you doing SCIENCE!!! that’s on the old site. I like the random assemblage of screenshots on the front, too, although naturally I think Godzilla should be first. No problems with the fonts, and I kind of like the gentle, pale color scheme you have going, which I find easy on the eyes (an important factor given your catalog of optical oddities, perhaps?) Looking good so far!
On a different note, any word on your arm issue? Did they determine if it was related to the neck damage? How are you doing overall? Any change (hopefully for the better if so)? Am I bugging you with all the questions? 😉
#6 by lyzard on January 26, 2016 - 1:02 am
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Thank you for checking in – much appreciated! Easy on the eyes is always an important factor for me.
Yes, I rather miss my little alter-ego too; I’ll have to see if I can find a spot for her somewhere…
No, I have successfully stumped the medical profession! – but I was certainly much better generally for having time off over Christmas / New Year and I’m reasonably certain in my own mind that the neck and arm troubles are linked, though the latter is manifesting very strangely. The neck issue is apparently permanent but not serious, as long as I work at not letting it get any worse. Still planning on resigning from my job and having a proper R&R period, but I still have to slog through a month or six weeks first.
#7 by The Rev. on January 26, 2016 - 2:33 pm
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Awww, you’re welcome, hon. 🙂
Stumping the medical profession…I’ll take “Things a Mad Scientist Would Do” for $1,000, Alex. Next you’ll be talking about how they all called you mad, and how you’ll show them all.
I hope you enjoy your upcoming time off. As much as you can, given the circumstances, anyway. Although I have to admit I selfishly hope for a roundtable very soon so you have to write something new. Also El Santo, who seems to have vanished. I’ve been waiting to read his SW prequel reviews, as well as seeing what he thinks of the new one (which I finally saw a week ago). I hope he’s well; I haven’t been to the BMMB for a while to see if he’s been posting over there, at least.
#8 by goddessoftransitory on January 26, 2016 - 3:19 am
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Looks great, Lyz! I would have posted on the blog itself but I have to remember my wordpress password first.
Glad to hear your health issues are coming into hand, as well.
#9 by RogerBW on January 26, 2016 - 4:25 am
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Yay, RSS feeds! And indices! It all looks good too.
#10 by supersonic man on January 26, 2016 - 8:59 am
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Best wishies for the neck and arm!
The reviews look pretty good in the new format in mobile layout mode (will try desktop mode later), though the screencaps seem undersized. Maybe you can use larger images in future reviews. Nowadays it’s better for a browser to shrink a large image than to show one that’s small to start with.
The real test will be once you have many reviews, in the pages for finding and organizing them. That might be where WordPress is less helpful, I don’t know.
#11 by Richard on January 26, 2016 - 9:13 am
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Haven’t really looked the blog over yet, but I’ll say this for it:
For some reason, the old “AYCAS” website triggered the Internet blocking software at my job. The blog doesn’t.
#12 by The Rev. on January 26, 2016 - 2:17 pm
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Oh, hey, I’m glad you mentioned that! I had the same problem, and I, too, can see the blog at work just fine after quickly trying it out. I can read all the B-Masters at work now! Yay for distractions!
#13 by Alaric on January 26, 2016 - 9:30 am
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Looks great, everything seems to work, and, of course, the reviews are just as much fun to read as they were at the old site. I’m also wondering how things will be organized when there are more reviews- I always liked going back to old reviews of yours and re-reading them.
I just want to tell you- good luck. We’re all counting on you.
#14 by GalaxyJane on January 27, 2016 - 1:32 pm
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Nice clean look, easy to navigate, and I think the picture formatting is an improvement over the old site. I think it will be easier to find stuff there as well once everything is ported over.
Like everything you do around here Liz, nicely done.
#15 by Redcrow on January 27, 2016 - 4:01 pm
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*rather unsuccessfully googles closest English translations for “с новосельем!”* Umm… Congrats on the new (online) address? Have a great “housewarming” party (as soon as you feel like it, both physically and emotionally)?
I expect I’ll get used to the new blog eventually. I have zero problems with the way it looks or works now (and it even has comments!), so no useful suggestions here. At least, for now.
Hope your medical problems will eventually diminish as much as it’s possible or, at the very least, won’t get worse.
#16 by lyzard on January 29, 2016 - 4:44 am
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Thank you all for your input, it’s very much appreciated. No doubt there issues will show themselves as more material gets shifted but for the present at least things seem to be on the right track.
I do want to pick up something that Supes said:
though the screencaps seem undersized
Can I get more opinions on this?
I may say that I always seem to have unnecessary trouble with the images in WordPress, so sizing wasn’t as much on my mind as layout and alignment; however, I spent several hours the other morning giving myself a crash course in HTML for image formatting and I think I have that under control now.
The other tussle with WordPress is over the fact that the system really likes short, narrow posts, not long, wide ones; it took me as long as it did to get this stage because of working out how to evade a lot of built-in controls.
The post text now is as wide as it can go in this theme, and that’s as wide as the images can go too. For Alligator, where there are side-by-side images that can be made only slightly larger; for single images, and multi-P&S images in Uninvited there is more room to move. I may say that the latter were looking too big to me, so I reduced them a bit; but if there is a consensus over size I can certainly change that. It’s hard to predict how things will look across different systems—how are others finding the images?
Another point that was raised was about my synopses, which I know some people have an issue with anyway; though as I’ve said, they’re chiefly about me getting my thoughts in order, and the cast details out of the way. Because the font is now larger the synopsis is coming out as a very solid block of text—though of course it’s not actually any longer, it just looks it. Does anyone else have any reaction to this as it stands, or any suggestions?
Thanks again, all this is a big help.
#17 by RogerBW on January 29, 2016 - 3:59 pm
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The screencaps seem fine to me; in Alligator they’re taking up about 50% of the width of the text column in my main browser, while in Uninvited they’re more like 40%, but I assumed you had lower resolution video.
No problem with the synopses either. In fact I’m boringly satisfied with pretty much everything.
#18 by Supersonic Man on January 31, 2016 - 9:39 pm
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The screencaps seem decent sized in the Frankenstein review when read on desktop… maybe it’s only in mobile view that they look undersized.
#19 by Richard on January 29, 2016 - 8:53 am
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Type your comment here
A couple of paragraph breaks will do the trick….
#20 by supersonic man on January 30, 2016 - 11:40 pm
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I did kinda always wonder why you didn’t want paragraph breaks in your synopses. Figured it was just personal style.
I’ve also fought with widths in WordPress. I finally found a theme that allowed the text column to be sized proportionally to the browser window instead of some predetermined pittance of pixels, and then they promptly deprecated it. As for image widths, I find it very useful to use both the width: and max-width: style attributes simultaneously. Set one to the physical size of the picture, and the other to the proportion of the containing body that you’d like it to occupy if pixel size wasn’t an issue, and the browser will use whichever of the two is smaller. (Also use height: auto.)