Since there’s a limit to how much time I can spend cleaning up around here, a reminder: The coding of WordPress is such that using a solitary hyphen, or “dash”, in a comment will completely fark not only your comment but all the subsequent comments. Assuming there can be any subsequent comments, because on some platforms (IE) an ‘unlinked’ hyphen just cuts off the rest of the thread entirely.
If you need to hyphenate — and, goddess knows, I can’t criticize the practice — use two dashes, not separated, and all will be well. (See?)
Also, if you want to block-quote more than one paragraph, inserting two underscores (underlines: ___ ) in the “empty” space between them keeps things tidy. The underlines, done properly (only two, butted against the left-hand margin) will not show up on the screen.
Housekeeping aside, who’s got plans for the evening?
junebug
I don’t know how many of you watch The News Hour, but did I hear it right when Judy said her segment on St. Ronnie kicks off a year long observance of his life and legacy?
A year? Really? I’d rather put a gun to my head.
Poopyman
A hyphen comes up, strikethrough begins, another hyphen comes up, strikethrough ends. Never a missed communication.
Chuck Butcher
You’d have to kinda wonder why a web site can’t get along with IE.
Gina
@junebug: Even better reason to only get the news from Wonkette. And Al Jazeera English.
cmorenc
Plans for this evening?
The wife and I bought a fancy new coffee table for our bonus room this evening, and ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant on the way home. Once home, I wrestled the 100 lb box upstairs, assembled it with my toolbox, went to the YMCA and did a 20 minute stationary bike “random hill” workout with resistance set to “10”, did some ab exercises, showered, and now I’m back home. I’m feeling all full of virtuousness at the moment.
Though it’s only 9pm, it’s a chilly, rainy night out, and so I have no plans to spoil my feelings of virtuousness or virtuosity by going out and doing anything stupid to spoil that. Since the soccer games I was supposed to referee tomorrow morning have been declared rainouts, I can sleep in tomorrow morning. Life is good. At home. Doing nothing further constructive, tonight, except floating along on rare feelings of virtuousness.
Mike in NC
Watch “Fringe”, drink martinis, and praise the Lord we don’t live in Chicago or Dallas this time of winter.
Epicurus
@junebug: Sadly, yes, it’s his centenary. I predict there will be a movement to have the Church actually declare Reagan a saint by the end of the celebration. For me, the whole thing spells heavy, heavy drinking.
cathyx
I was feeling odd, maybe over tired, then I had some wine and feel much better. Does that mean I have a problem?
Poopyman
@junebug: I can accept that — if at the end of the year the airport becomes plain ol’ National Airport again.
Poopyman
@cathyx: Vitamin W.
Omnes Omnibus
@Poopyman: That’s what I call it.
General Stuck
I use solitary hyphens all the time, and it doesn’t blow up threads. So – what is the problemo here.
stuckinred
@cathyx: Feeling old huh?
50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War
freelancer
Malcom X on Netflix Instant.
Gina
Evening is done. We picked up the table and robot for our Lego Robotics team, looks like I’ll be coaching next year. Now I’m hiding in my lair, the kitchen, enjoying some chocolaty coffee and the rare kid-free time.
I need to figure out a downstairs desk setup, we have limited wall and floor space and lots of wall hogging baseboard radiators where there are no windows. Bleah.
debit
I am sitting at home in blessed silence, savoring how I’m not currently being screamed at by angry Somali people. I plan to continue this activity until Monday when the screaming will resume.
frosty
@Poopyman: Well why not? National Airport is it’s name, isn’t it?
Gotta admit, I’m not too fond of Thurgood Marshall BWI Airport either.
At least the other local airport, Dulles, isn’t named after some guy … oh, wait.
cathyx
@stuckinred: Talk about feeling old, Bruce Springstein was on the cover of AARP last September with the headline “The Boss Turns 60”. Ugh!
Mark S.
@junebug: @Epicurus:
When did hundred year birthdays of dead people get noticed by anything more than a “Huh, that’s kind of interesting” type of response? Nobody cared that much when it was Jesus’ 2,000th birthday.
I find the Reagan worship really creepy. He already gets credit for bringing down the Soviet Union when he told them to tear down this wall. What next? Walking on water? Raising the dead?
PeakVT
Isn’t the hyphen problem due to a module in WP that can be turned off? WP is (over)interpreting commentors’ text and spitting it back out as HTML. I don’t think most blogowners would want that feature.
cathyx
@Mark S.: Along that same line, I think the Elvis worship is creepy too.
Linnaeus
Off to the nearby Scottish bar for some food and a couple of drams of Scotland’s finest.
junebug
I get Rick Perry et. al. getting together this weekend in Cali, but what I don’t get is why the year long observance. I’m wondering who declared that period of time and what the hell it will involve.
Poopyman
@cathyx: Well, have you ever seen them together?
(A Google search finds no pics with both Ronnie and Elvis. For some reason I find that odd.)
Shadow's Mom
cathyx
@Poopyman: Why is that odd?
stuckinred
@cathyx: He and I are the same age. In fact, I “got in a little home town jam” if you know what I am sayin?
bk
Well, I DID have plans until this website crashed my computer. You have something against Firefox?
Karen
I’m watching “What would you do?” which is basically controversial situations acted out in places like restaurants and bars or supermarkets then seeing if anyone speaks up. I don’t know if anyone watches it but for most of the situations where situations like waiters being rude to heavy people, waiters acted prejudiced in front of actors who are an interacial couple or even a father with a son who wants a Barbie doll in a toy store, the location is either in NY or NJ and when people do the right thing (acting sympthetic or speaking up at the injustices) I don’t think anything of it because it’s NY/NJ which tends to be more liberal.
But tonight, it took place in Tuscon, Arizona fast food place and the acted situation was that a security guard takes it upon himself to harrass and try to arrest people of Mexican descent. Almost all the people who reacted, were rude to the security guard or even chased him out of the fast food place. A woman even planned to somehow drive them out of the area so they couldn’t be deported.
The reason I even mention this is that I’m wondering where all those people who cheered for the anti-imigration bill are? Am I silly for feeling hope for America based on the decency these people showed for people who they felt were hurting?
If that’s the case then I’m silly.
cathyx
@stuckinred: I guess that means you’re old too. (place smiley face icon here)
dmsilev
@Mike in NC:
For the most part, it’s not really that bad here. Yes, walking or driving is more tedious than normal right now, but people can still get around, stores are opened and stocked, etc. Two days ago, a different story, but by now, things are reasonable.
dms
stuckinred
@cathyx: I’m a cool rocking daddy in the u.s.a.
Warren Terra
I think the problem is when a single hyphen is used with no character or a space before it, and a character other than a space or a carriage return after it – like a bullet point.
A single hyphen surrounded by spaces on either side causes no problems, as can be seen in the previous sentence. A single hyphen within a compound (i.e. two-part) word is also OK, as can be seen in this sentence.
The danger is when someone tries to use a hyphen as a bullet point, or puts a space before the hyphen within a hyphenated word.
stuckinred
We just watched “It’s Kind of a Funny Story”. It was.
Mark S.
@cathyx:
Ha, I actually went to Graceland last year. I was expecting some ridiculously tacky mega-mansion, but the house was actually kind of modest. Except for a couple of rooms with purple carpet and yellow ceilings, you might think you were on the set of the Brady Bunch.
cathyx
@Mark S.: So are you saying you worship Elvis?
Ms.B
John’s earlier post about the Bill Wither’s documentary reminded me I have the documentary I Knew It Was You on John Cazale here from Netflix. Loved/love him–only 5 feature films, all of which make for great obsessive re-watching.
So tonight, that and some red wine and after that part, the film The Salesman
stuckinred
@Ms.B: Amazing story about Cazale. I knew nothing about him and Streep.
MikeJ
@stuckinred: Only 50 years for people who are bad at math. The Vietnamese were actively trying to get westerners out since at least ’45.
Dennis G.
WP is just filled with so many mysteries. The underscore trick answers a question I’ve had from time to time.
Now if I could only figure out how many goats to sacrifice (and where) so that WP will allow me to post video.
It seems that my ritual sacrifice of pomegranates to WP just does not seem to work.
Cheers
Mark S.
@cathyx:
Yes, I worship Elvis.
Ms.B
@stuckinred:
Sure is. I’m just starting the doc, but figure Streep helping Cazale through the filming of The Deer Hunter will be covered.
MikeJ
@Dennis G.: WP claims “To quickly embed a YouTube video, simply copy the video’s URL from your web browser’s address bar while viewing the video and paste it on a line by itself in your post/page editor”
(good for front page posts only, not comments.)
cathyx
@Mark S.: Well then, I guess you have no room to criticize the Reagan worshipers. I don’t think I worship any person, but I definitely worship a good steak.
Mnemosyne
Finishing my packing tonight so I can get up at 4-fucking-a.m. tomorrow morning to catch the SuperShuttle to Chicago.
Yes. We are leaving Los Angeles for a week and going to Chicago. Because we are fucking morons.
gnomedad
Can we have a “posting tips” page, please? With the standard hints about dashes and soshulism and multiple links and other good stuff?
NonWonderDog
Are you guys using Textile for some reason?
-strikethrough text-
*bold text*
_italic text_
*_-+bold italic strikethrough underlined text+-_*
* bulleted list
** 2-level
|Table | with two columns |
|and two | lines |
Brand ^TM^
Text ~subscript~
%{color:red}text in red%
Tax Analyst
Thanks for the posting tip. I actually knew that, but made the hyphen mistake a week or two ago because I just plain forgot that it would screw up the thread. Naturally I remembered when I saw the damage moments later. A big “OOPS” moment, for sure. I wonder, if the posting author tried to delete the comment after seeing the problem if the program would remove the offending strikethroughs that it caused.
Not going to test it right now, though.
Mary G
The Girl Scouts came by this afternoon and I am going to make hot cocoa, eat a few thin mints, and finish watching Downton Abbey online. Great series if you liked Upstairs/Downstairs or Gosford Park.
NonWonderDog
Ehh, it looks like you’re using a weird broken incomplete Textile plugin. You should probably turn that off, since nobody here knows how to use it.
MikeJ
@NonWonderDog: Some people know how to use it, but not *everyone* knows how to use it. Which is the problem.
Mark S.
@cathyx:
On second thought, fuck Elvis. Here’s my new God.
Phoebe
Puppy Kicker Act Update:
http://wamuanimalhouse.org/audio-player?nid=616
NonWonderDog
@MikeJ:
It still shouldn’t span across comments, and the comment box has html buttons. I don’t get why there’s a second markup language that hardly anybody knows about.
More testing:
_italic_
__still italic__
==_not italic_==
@monospace@
I don’t think the blockquote problem is Textile related.
suzanne
The seven-year-old came down with a fever last night, and the baby is a barf machine. I want frozen yogurt, but don’t have the energy to leave the house.
All I want to do is sleep tonight,
And she just barfed AGAIN. Goddamnit.
General Stuck
Baby barf kind of looks a little yogurtish, don’t it. maybe a few minutes chilled in the fridge?
now i nauseate myself a little
Ms.B
@suzanne:
Only consolation I have at hand for the barfathons is that, years later, you’ll probably only recall the times you were barfed on, full force. Mine was when nursing twins, and I saw that tell-tale look in one’s face with no time to take action, and so, mega barf inside my open robe and downward.
LT
Then stand up, fart three times, and sing the Bulgarian national anthem.
What the fucking fuck happened that you have to do this nonsense? I blog professionally (!! I know !!) on a WordPress site and have none of this. And I’ve never seen it anywhere else. Just bizarre.
P.S. I love you anyway.
Platonicspoof
I had great expectations for an evening of listening to Sarah!’s mellifluous homage to Reagan, but the audio for the live feed on The Fox News Channel sounded like something from America’s Funniest Home Videos: echoey, flat, even a little mic feedback.
Not really an exaggeration, and I expect it was worse for the elderly.
BethanyAnne
Heh. A good response to the worship of St. Ronnie from Digby.
No one of Importance
This is the only WP site I’ve ever encounted with this hyphen/strikethrough issue. I run 4 or 5 for my own use, and have installed over a hundred for clients. Never once encountered the problem. Maybe it’s time for the site owner to try a different comment plugin?
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Aw. Poor Mia. Poor seven-year-old. POOR YOU!
@General Stuck: EWWWWW!
Mark S.
test
BethanyAnne
@No one of Importance: Several thing about this site are … unique. And they’ve persisted through several redesigns. At this point, I’m assuming feature, not bug.
Jebediah
Well, there is a teatard ad at the top of the page for me.
I clicked on it thinking they should have to pay for making me see their ad… they had a pop up asking for name and email address. It certainly would have been rude of me to give rudely false ones. I wonder if the domain Koch-suckers.com exists?
suzanne
@Ms.B:
That happened to me three times today. Slid right down my cleavage. It’s awesome.
And, Stuck, I always thought it looked a little more like feta.
Yutsano
@suzanne:
You may have just turned me off to spanakopita forever.
Ms.B
@suzanne:
My husband began, just began to giggle, when it happened. Lucky for him he had been majorly vomited on in his own right by then (though not down his very own netherparts).
Now it’s a mutual family ancient anecdote, so there’s that.
CarolDuhart
Everything about the Reagasm has struck me as over the top. It’s as if the Republicans have no other great Presidents. And Reagan died naturally, so there isn’t even the pang of unfulfilled promise like JFK. Or the sadness of FDR, dying just before the end of the war and never even having a minute to savor his success.
I wonder what Poppy must think. He even won a war in the Middle East, but hardly anyone in his party even gives him a slight kudos for what he did. He’s still doomed to be the postscript to the Greatness That Was Reagan. Nixon is seen as the disgraced precursor. Ike? Hoover? anyone further back? Treated like the prophets that came before Jesus.
HeartlandLiberal
As a programmer, but not in PHP which WordPress uses, I would say this is a failure of WordPress programmers to find a way to “escape” a single hyphen in the code that scans the text entered into a comment.
“Escaping” a character if what you have to do in any language to a character that may be misconstrued when parsed as a command value or a special character used, for instance, as a delimiter in a language.
I have never written PHP, but I scrounged around and found in one of my WordPress installations on my server, in the wp_includes folder, a file “formatting.php”. Skimming through it, I find all sorts of examples of where WordPress is checking input and if necessary replacing a character with an ASCII sequence that is more browser safe, manipulating html URLs that have been entered, etc. I would just guess that the problem with the hyphen/dash, is that that puppy has multiple uses, including being used in math operations, and the programmers just have not figured out a way to safely code to handle or even recognize all uses.
The formatting.php file is also full of the use of ‘regular expression’ statements, which I have always found one of the most abstruse and esoteric programming implementations I have seen in all my years as a programmer. Lots of special characters in incomprehensible combinations are used to scan/filter an input string of characters, make decisions on their significance, and do replacements where deemed necessary.
Even in some of the SQL coding I have been doing recently, to develop passthrough SQL code in Microsoft SQL, to hand off to a remote Oracle database engine to retrieve data, I have had to write some bizarre stuff, e.g. just to successfully surround a string with single quotes at either end to submit to Oracle, I have to multiple escape single quotes, because I have to first build a string for the command, then embed that command in a second string command, to hand off to the Linked Server module that will make the actual call to Oracle. So to get a string like:
‘ somevar = ‘VALUE’ ‘
I have to code
” somevar = ‘ + ”” + ”” + ‘VALUE’ + ”” + ”” + ‘
Doesn’t that look like fun? But if you do all the escape setup correctly, by the time the linked server parses the strings successfully, it ends up like the first example when Oracle reads the command. And works.
James Joyner
Oddly, while my site has had all manner of problems over the years, I’ve never had any trouble with WordPress recognizing hyphens and acting appropriately.
It does seem that every other upgrade causes special characters in old posts and comments to show up as machine language.
cleek
ditto Joyner and everyone else.
whatever the problem, it’s not stock WP. hyphens have no effect at all on my blog.
what’s really going on is that you’ve got some comment pre-filtering thing in place (a plugin, prolly) that is turning punctuation into HTML markup.
Mako
http://blog.firetree.net/2008/10/10/remove-textile-from-a-wordpress-blog/
henqiguai
@junebug (#1):
Wait ! It gets better ! The Super Bowl game will be doing a tribute to the b@stard, tomorrow, as well. Usually I just watch the Super Bowl for the commercials; this year, I’m thinking I’m going to pass even that enjoyment.
Chad N Freude
The single hyphen can be smuggled past the FYWP filter as an HTML character code.
Tehanu
@Mark S.:
At Graceland, you mean the rooms with the shag carpeting on the walls and ceilings? When we were there, the house docent (seriously) told us to look up to see it and added that “This was a very popular style in the 1960s.” At which my spouse leaned over to me and muttered, “Yeah, among hillbilly millionaires.”