Announcing Website 25

Posted July 11, 2016, 10:04 p.m.

I’m proud to announce the launch of a new major revision to Off on a Tangent, bringing the site to version 25.0.

This new version is much leaner and meaner and is built on modern web technologies. The size of each page-load is reduced, as are the number of graphics and other ‘overhead’ items. It includes a modernized custom WordPress theme based on Underscores and also utilizes the jQuery and Bootstrap frameworks. I’ve phased-out the jQuery UI framework I was using previously. Additionally, Off on a Tangent now fully supports high-DPI screens like Apple’s Retina and Microsoft’s PixelSense displays.

If you see any issues please contact me. Read on for a detailed list of what’s changed, what’s new, and what’s improved!

New Look and Feel—As always, the new version sports a new look and feel. It’s nice and clean and modern, and inspired by modern UI norms. As before, it should look and work great on everything from small phones to giant desktops.
Efficient Design—Reduced overhead and switched to modern, efficient formats (like SVG for vector images). This resulted in a 20% or greater reduction in data transfer over the previous version, which was already much improved from the one before.
WordPress Updates—The new theme is based on Underscores, a WordPress starter theme, which brings it up-do-date with newer WordPress capabilities and best-practices.
Framework Changes—Made a number of changes to the JavaScript frameworks in use on the site. Off on a Tangent now makes use of jQuery, Bootstrap, SmartMenus, and ColorBox. We no longer use jQuery UI.
HDPI Screen Support—All design and layout components now fully support high-DPI screens, including Apple Retina and Microsoft PixelSense. If you have one of these displays, a lot of things should look much crisper and nicer now!
Improved Quotes Page—We now have an improved quotes page, which organizes all quotes in the randomizer by author.

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

He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool.

It is not industry, but idleness, that is degrading.

We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.

Any man who preaches real love is bound to beget hate. It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love; sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed.

It has been observed by an honorable gentleman, that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior, and in that, I can learn of him.

More often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.

In democracies, the welfare state is the beginning, and the police state the end. The two merge sooner or later, in all experience, and for obvious reasons.

Skepticism is never certain of itself, being less a firm intellectual position than a pose to justify bad behavior.

Those who call black black, and white white, are sentenced for intolerance. Only the grays live.

Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them.

If science is to progress and to benefit the human race, it must return to the protective mantle that Christian thought provided it when it was born.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Little men are seldom fond of quarreling among giants.

It is my belief that there are ‘absolutes’ in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be ‘absolutes.’

In making any assertion, we must be guided by the nature of things, except in those things which are above nature, and are made known to us by Divine authority.

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him.

The emotions of oratory have been worn down through long years of overuse.

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