So the other day I decided enough was enough and started fresh. As this is my personal blog, I wanted a design that was fun, interesting and showcased various things I like. I also wanted a bit of a sandbox that I could play in with new CSS3 and HTML5 goodness. And so the 2012 edition of the site was born.

One of my objectives was to make the site lighter (in weight, not colour), but still be a bit of a visual smack in the face. As such I’m using CSS instead of images for display elements wherever possible — true, this is a good practice all around, but one that is easily ignored or forgotten when you’re eager to get things “just so”. Fortunately CSS3 support is pretty much across the board now (thanks for joining the group IE9, your dusty nametag is by the door), and that opens up a huge palette for a Web designer to play with.

This has resulted in a theme that uses only about 10KB of “layout” images, not counting the various background photos (which can be customized page-by-page — see the about page) or the slightly heavier home page due to those big social icons.

<rant>
However, if you still happen to be using an old browser, things are going to look a bit sketchy for you. I spend a lot of time making client sites backwards compatible, and it’s frustrating. Next to bookkeeping, it’s about the most mundane and irritating part of my gig. The truly insulting bit is that there are few things simpler than upgrading to a modern browser, and yet people refuse to do so. And this is why for my site, my site, I’ve said “to hell with it” and have barely given those fools a code line of consideration (if you are part of the 2% that come here using IE6 or IE7, I just called you a fool, de-fooling yourself is easy). A modern Web experience and browser security obviously isn’t a priority to people who are using 10-year-old browser tech, and I’d be doing them a disservice by enabling them to continue using it.
</rant>

Anyway, the design still has little ways to go, and there are lots of small (and largely long-forgotten) legacy things that will need to be dealt with (the downside to running this blog for a little more than 8 years now — seven of which have been in China — is that the way I laid things out in the past is a far cry from the more standard way I do things now, lesson learned).

One other change is that I’ve done away with Disqus for comments. As a rule, I try to avoid 3rd party integration for things that core software does well enough. I wanted to give Disqus a try though and so had installed it with the last update (a year ago). Overall, I like Disqus’ functionality, and I like that it pretty seamlessly can be enabled and disabled (you’ll notice all comments made during my Disqus trial are still there and still in the proper hierarchy). It also has some great SNS integration. However, I do a lot of work with WordPress, and I’m used to the WordPress way of managing comments. Because of that, the Disqus system never really felt comfortable to me.

I think that about covers it. Hopefully the new theme is as enjoyable to visit as it was to put together.

Making those photos interesting, other than to friends and family, is not something I’ve ever considered doing, and frankly doubt I have the skills to do. Such is not the case for the amazing work of Adele Enersen, a creative copywriter and stay-at-home mom from Finland. At her blog, Mila’s Daydreams, Adele waits for her daughter to fall asleep and then places her in amazing dreamscapes, which have been hastily constructed with odds and ends lying around her house. The results are fantastic:

Be sure to check out her blog for more photos and information on her book due out next year.

h/t to my friend Melyssa for sharing this with me.

If you’re outside of China, I’m sure if you just search YouTube for “atomic tom iphone” you’ll find this video.

Maggie, Button and I spent most of the afternoon with our good friends, and about 1.3 billion others, down at the nearby lake. Between our big dog and their beautiful baby with big bright blue eyes, we grabbed a bit of attention — somewhat of a rarity in the expat-saturated neighbourhood we live in.

Aside from a nice stroll outside yesterday, I also finally got around to taking some pregnancy photos of Maggie. We’ve been talking about doing them for ages, but it always seemed to slip deeper down the “todo” list. However, about to hit week #35, the pressure to get it done or risk never having them gave us the kick in the pants we needed.

Having ventured out a few times now to check out our local maternity- and baby-goods buying options, I’ve seen no shortage of studios offering to take the photos for us. And while I’m sure they would have done a much better job than myself, the thinness of my wallet wouldn’t allow it. That said, I’m pretty happy with what we managed to take. As is Maggie, the proof being that she’s letting me share them

The image (below) is a graphic I did back in mid-2008 for an article on Lost Laowai about the Great Firewall. The TechCrunch article is about Google’s search being completely blocked in the Mainland; which, it turns out, was simply a case of mistaken identity — the GFW thought Google was Radio Free Asia. No one ever said the GFW was smart — in fact, I doubt many have said anything positive about it.

Oh, a cool link that the TechCrunch article references is Google’s Mainland China service availability, which gives a day-by-day access report for Google’s services and whether or not they are blocked in Mainland China.

I think I’ll go set up some new Google Alerts — real random stuff like, “tiny shiny monkey butts” and “compulsive floor lickers”.

Great Firewall of China

Last week Sinosplice.com went live with a completely new design, and I’m quite proud to have been a part of it. John’s blog is one of the blogs I “came to China on” and have continued to follow in my time living here. Interim John and I have become friends, and I was quite excited when he approached me to help him freshen up the design of the site.

The new Sinosplice.com

My excitement was only slightly dampened by the trepidation of redesigning a site that is very well-known, not just for its content, but for it’s now infamous “John Pasden Gator Green“. Love it or hate it, Sinosplice was known for its green colour scheme, and we did away with pretty much all of it. Interestingly, in searching for the original reference to the now defunct Sinocidal post that coined the term, I came across this post from Sinosplice, where John stated nearly three years ago:

I’ve been pondering a redesign lately. I won’t have time to do it until late summer, but I’m thinking… Less green. More white. More space. Wider than 800 pixels.

Both John and I agreed that a fresh design was in order, and though we attempted to pay a bit of tribute to the past with some green accents, largely, it’s a whole new look. The principles John wanted to capture were a more open design that let the content breathe a bit more and made it easier to navigate. I think we accomplished this, and feedback so far has been positive.

Working on Sinosplice completes a bit of a triumvirate of China-centric blogs that were initial mainstays when I first arrived in China. The two others were Mask of China (designed in 2007, and now featuring a different design) and the Peking Duck (redesigned in 2008).

John’s done some cool A-B comparisons with screenshots on Sinosplice, so if you care to take a closer look at the changes, check it out.

The guidebooks give crash courses in it, many many novels have been written about it. When people repeat the catch-phrase, “China Rises”, communist marching and star-studded banners wave through the mind.

But China’s changed, it’s no longer the place it was in the 50s-70s. Not even close. It’s barely the place it was last week. North Korea, on the other hand, is virtually the same as it was when it was founded. Still a hereditary communist power (sweet irony) with a government clinging to the old ways with white-knuckles and a big gun. Still brashly refusing to go any way but its own, no matter how many people have to starve.

The West may lay criticisms on China and the lack of freedoms here, some of which are definitely not unqualified, but when you compare it to its tiny northeastern neighbour, you can’t help be see the stark contrast of how far this big beautiful country has come. If China’s the showcase for a country pulling itself out of a bad decision made 60 years ago, and a terrible system before that, the DPRK is the polar opposite.

Getting a clear picture of North Korea is a challenge though. It’s isolation and self-imposed segregation make it an island in a otherwise globalized world. I’m fortunate to have had a peak at North Korea living in China’s north east, and visiting the border with the DPRK. But I hope one day I’ll be able to actually go there and see it all for myself (even if it’s just the sanitized foreigner version in Pyongyang).

With that said, you can imagine the interest I had in a new project that came my way not long ago — designing the Web site for a new book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. The book is written by Barbara Demick, who some may know as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.

www.NothingToEnvy.com - designed by The Humanaught

I’ll let the design speak for itself, but here’s a bit more on the book:

In NOTHING TO ENVY, Demick follows the lives of six people: a couple of teenaged lovers courting in secret, an idealistic woman doctor, a homeless boy, a model factory worker who loves Kim Il Sung more than her own family and her rebellious daughter.

Demick spent six years painstakakingly reconstructing life in a city off-limits to outsiders through interviews with defectors, smuggled photographs and videos. The book spans the chaotic years that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, the devastating effects of a famine that killed an estimated twenty percent of the population, and an increase in illegal defections.

While many books focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, NOTHING TO ENVY is one of the few that dwells on what everyday life is like for ordinary citizens. With remarkable detail, Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime in the world today. She gives a portrait as vivid as walking oneself through the darkened streets of North Korea.

I just finished reading it and cannot recommend it enough to anyone with even just a passing interest in North Korea. If you’ve ever read Wild Swans (and I suggest you do), you’ll find some similarities, as both books tell their stories through the eyes of real people who lived through harrowing ordeals. Both explore what it is to live in a country where your thoughts are moulded into believing the omnipotence of a man and a system that are long-past failure.

For China-watchers, the book also shows the obstacle-strewn Chinese road that many DPRK defectors travel through to get out of a country that treats them like trash but wont let them go.

Truly a fascinating book.

So much of my day is spent designing stuff with a very specific purpose, it’s nice to have an outlet whereby I can let my creativity just go where it may. Alright, how much creativity can there be in a simple textured background? Not much, but the majority of the ones in there now were just quickies. However, I’m looking to dive deeper into digital art, and my first dip is this one:

The image is hugely inspired by the amazing work of Nathan Smith, whose designs I have (and will likely continue to) borrow liberally from.

You can check out the other backgrounds and keep tabs on new ones in my Wallpapers & Backgrounds Flickr set.