cookiecrook²

3:11 PM #

UIGUI Button Replacement

Earlier today, Gabriel Jeffrey came up with a new CSS method for styling HTML button elements. I’ve dubbed it the UIGUI Button Replacement (UBR). I think he’s still working out some kinks, but it looks promising.

11:00 PM #

AIR Austin 2004

If you’re a web developer in Austin, don’t forget to sign up for the Accessibility Internet Rally. Training for AIR Austin 2004 has already started, so hurry up and sign up if you haven’t already.

Also take a gander at the fresh, new, standards-compliant Knowbility web site, designed by Kyle Kirk and carefully crafted by Knowbility’s webmaster, Mike Moore. Nice work, guys!

11:38 PM #

Zulu Nation Beatdown… Almost.

Most of you don’t know this, but I used to have a radio show on the UT student station, KVRX, and Jeff Shoemaker recently suggested I share this anecdote.

Touring musicians come through Austin on a regular basis, so the electronic acts, and sometime cross-over hip-hop acts, would come on my Friday night mix show, The 13th Hour. This story is about one artist who did not come on my show. Out of the many artists who were scheduled to be on my show, only two failed to show up: Afrika Bambaataa and Cut Chemist. The Cut Chemist story is rather uneventful, though incidentally, that is the time I met L’usine, who happened to be Jeff Shoemaker’s roommate. Anyways…

As a local non-profit organization, KVRX organized in-kind promotion with of some the other media outlets such as the Austin Chronicle weekly arts and culture newspaper. We had a 2" by 5" ad space to use how we pleased and, that week, we dedicated the space to promoting the Afrika Bambaataa appearance. The first indication of trouble came when the Chronicle bumped our weekly ad in favor of a paid advertisement. I called up our contact, irate because this was going to be the best show ever, and now the promotion was limited to word-of-mouth.

Zulu History

In the late 70 and early 80s as a member of the the Black Spades, Afrika Bambaataa saw the problems with street gang violence. He sought a positive change for urban youth culture and started the Zulu Nation: a crew of DJs, rappers, breakdancers, and graffiti writers. This positive reinforcement of competitive and collaborative artistic expression would form the basis of what Hip-Hop culture has become today.

Along with other members of the Zulu Nation, Afrika Bambaataa started Soul Sonic Force and, among other albums, released Planet Rock in 1983. Planet Rock is one of the most influential hip-hop and electro tracks of all time; it has influenced almost every genre of urban music since then. In 1983, I was seven years old.

Zulu Jilting

Fast-forward back to around 1997 or 1998 when an young college radio DJ (yours truly) nervously awaited the arrival of this musical forefather. I had the coveted Friday night timeslot, and Afrika Bambaataa was coming on my show. This was gonna be the best show ever!

I showed up about a half hour early and set up the decks—I always brought my own turntable case because the Technics 1200s at the station were old and broken. Everything was ready, the show was about start, and Afrika Bambaataa had not arrived yet.

No worries. Superstars never show up on time. I’ll just play a few tracks in the meantime.

I got on the mic, announced that Afrika Bambaataa was scheduled to appear and started dropping some breaks. I’ve forgotten exactly what I played, but I remember it was something I thought he’d like, though I was careful not to play anything that I thought might be in his set.

An hour and a half later, the dissappointment settled in when I finally resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to show up. (*sigh*) I was dissappointed, but I didn’t hold a grudge. I was still going to get to hear him spin at a rave the next day.

Zulu Rave

I bought my $20 tickets weeks before, and was excited to hear Afrika Bambaataa spin, even though my pride was stinging from the night before. I went alone, because many of my friends went to a different rave that night. I showed up to the venue around 11 PM, and walked into a large, mostly empty warehouse—Now, when I said, “mostly empty,” I wasn’t referring to the furnishings. I meant there were only about 30 people in the place…so I was apparently not the only one who had problems promoting. All the candy ravers went to the other place across town; I think it was some lame trance DJ. By 1 AM, the crowd had grown to around 100 people, though the venue could have held about 1500 comfortably.

Afrika Bambaataa got on the decks and started off with some new school electro breaks. Some of it sounded like Soul Oddity’s Tone Capsule series, and I know I heard some Crystal Method tracks, too. He wasn’t mixing much, just beat-matching with straight crossfader cuts. I assumed he was warming up and feeling out the crowd… Until he walked off stage about 20 minutes into the set.

No worries, he’s just getting some water or something. Wait, why’s that other DJ pulling out records? Did I really just pay $20 for a 20 minute DJ set that I could have done better myself?

I was probably a little bit jaded from the night before, but I was more upset that he skimped out on his set. Perhaps he didn’t think it would matter, but I believe that performers should always try to perform their best, even when they aren’t performing for a full house. Whatever my reasoning, I decided to give Afrika Bambaataa a piece of my mind.

You have to remember that I still had the utmost respect for this guy, so I tried approaching him with a friendly demeanor. I asked him when he was planning to go back on, and mentioned how much I had been looking forward to hearing his set. Somewhere in there, he gave me a look that read, “Whatever, kid.” and walked back behind his crew of Zulu Nation bouncers.

The “crew of Zulu Nation bouncers” should have made me think twice, but I lost it, and started talking smack. I screamed something about how I wanted my money back and how that was the one of the worst DJ sets I had ever heard. Around this time, I realized that I was surrounded on six sides by big, scary guys all standing a full head above me. One of them asked threateningly, “Are you disrespecting the Zulu Nation?”

My long-overdue instinct for self preservation kicked in, and I feebly mumbled, “Um, no…” I tried to get back in to the rest of the party, but my path was blocked. I was able to make it out into the parking lot, but a couple of the guys followed me out. I made a quick break for the car and took off.

And that’s how I almost got beat down by the Zulu Nation.

2:42 PM #

Art Spiegelman

The New York Times has an article on Art Spiegelman (Registration isn’t required if you use Bug Me Not) and his new book about September 11, In the Shadow of No Towers. Mr. Spiegelman previously won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus. (Link tip: Cory Doctorow)

I think like a typical American who can get narcotized by the mass media. For me, politics was always put in a strange box, sort of like “baseball for nerds.” But since Sept. 11, that bubble has burst.

Art Spiegelman will be speaking in Austin on October 28 at the Hogg Auditorium. The lecture is part of the UTPAC 2004-2005 program.

2:40 PM #

New Public Draft for WCAG 2.0

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group released a new public draft of WCAG 2.0 last weekend. The release also includes technology-specific techniques sections (including HTML Techniques and CSS Techniques) so that the top-level guidelines remain technology-agnostic. This is a significant improvement over WCAG 1.0 as it has been criticized for being too HTML-specific. Look for Scripting Techniques to come, possibly with the next public draft.