Website 19 Development Kick-Off

Posted October 15, 2006, 6:59 p.m.

On Thursday, the Joomla project (the content management system that powers this site) released the first beta of Joomla 1.5. I would have called it Joomla 2.0, personally, because 1.5 is a major rewrite of the CMS code-base. To implement it on my site will require quite a bit of work, but that’s okay because I had big things planned for Website 19 anyway.

I’ve hinted in the past at some changes to the focus of this website, and have made a number of subtle changes to its navigation structure and trashed a lot of old/outdated content in an effort to tweak and adjust it in the direction I’m going. I also had planned a number of technological changes for Website 18, but put them off when I realized it would be better to tie those changes in with the Joomla 1.5 upgrade and a later version of the site.

So, the long and short of it is that I’m going to make a lot of changes for Website 19 and the Joomla 1.5 system. I’m beginning early work on it right now, though I don’t expect it to go ‘live’ for at least a few months. Everything is on the table—the organization, features, the look, and more—so Off on a Tangent may look very different when I’m done. It could potentially be a bigger shift than the initial move to the Mambo/Joomla system in the first place.

But I’d like some input. What do you like and dislike about Off on a Tangent, how can I make it better, and what features have you seen elsewhere that you’d like to see here? Already under consideration is implementation of a full-fledged interactive forum system, which would replace the existing comment function and encourage/allow more robust discussion of the topics and articles on the site (and allow users to begin new topics).

Let me know what you think!

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.

A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.

In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.

I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.

You don’t have real diversity when you have a group of people who look different and think alike.

I tell you I have been misquoted everywhere, and the inaccuracies are chasing me round the world.

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.

If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him.

I observed . . . that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And . . . the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Are we so much better than the people of other ages and of other countries, that the same allurements of power and greatness, which led them aside from their duty, will have no influence upon men in our country?

War is like fishing with a golden net; the loss risked is always greater than the catch can be.

My commandment is: Thou shall not stand idly by. . . . You must interfere. And that is . . . the motto of human rights.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents.

‘Chance’ is nothing but an expression of human ignorance. We don’t know the reasons and causes and design of all things, because we are not God.

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. On the lips of him who has understanding wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.