Aggregator

Met Office weather maps show it has been a warm and sunny start to the Easter holidays with temperatures hitting 21C.

Brain rot — the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on a phone — afflicts "plenty of people," writes the New York Times' lead consumer technology writer. [Alternate URL here.] He's suffering from it too — "These days, it's tough to even finish a book." But is the answer just avoiding distractions with a stripped-down $600 phone "that barely does anything"? For a week he tested the Light Phone III... The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts and not do much else. There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email... There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen, and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town. It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks. But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment, and overall I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door. Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product, and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features. For example, his old smartphone supported virtual phone-based passes for mass transit and speedy access to his gym. (And his friends made phone of the Light Phone's photos.) But at least never felt tempted to check his email when out to dinner. "While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones. "This Light Phone experiment reminded me of glamping: paying a lot to have an artificially crummier experience."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

HBO 's The White Lotus brings its third season to a close with the highly-anticipated finale that finally reveals the identity of the mysterious corpse in the premiere.

He was previously locked up for crimes of a sexual nature

Damon Wayans Sr. revealed that he learned of a surprising family connection one of his former girlfriends had during a recent podcast appearance.

Plan to standardize consent dialogs aims to lighten burden on devs, users, reviewers

Mozilla plans to make life easier for developers of Firefox browser Add-ons, aka extensions, by reducing the burden of presenting custom consent dialogs to those installing extensions.…

The incident was first reported at around 7.40am

With warmer weather finally here and lots of spring shoots beginning to appear, it can be a busy time for those with green thumbs and Louise, who is based in London, has shared her tips.

The A12 is at a standstill due to a crash involving four cars near J22 (Witham North) with congestion trailing back to J24 (Kelvedon North).

He stirred much controversy and was forced to apologise after making a poorly timed joke about Harvey Weinstein in the wake of the sexual assault allegations against him in 2017.

Singer Jesy Nelson has shared an update on her unborn twins after suffering a series of health scares in recent weeks but says they are 'going strong'

Emergency services were called to a car on fire on a busy road between Braintree and Great Notley. 

Reverend David Murray says his St Margaret's Church in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, has been cut off and numbers have plummeted from 100 to 60 since the cycleway was built in 2023.

The White Lotus fans have been left devastated after two popular characters were killed off in a epic bloodbath during the season three finale.

Tempers flared when EV influencer Sam Evans tried to keep Spotlight's Liam Bartlett away from federal energy minister Chris Bowen at a recent electric vehicle expo.

The fire service has issued a warning about discarding cigarettes during warmer weather

Jack Taverner gave businesswoman Elina Fragola (left) a black eye and a fractured nose after she revealed she had a video of him being 'intimate' with chorister Jean Munday.

PTA claims all members were "completely exonerated” and that “transparency and trust” are their top priorities.

White Lotus creator Mike White has hinted at the setting for the show's highly anticipated fourth season.

Do you know what I had forgotten until this morning? That VBScript (and thus, older versions of Visual Basic) don't require you to use parentheses when calling a function. Foo 5 and Foo(5) are the same thing.

Of course, why would I remember that? I thankfully haven't touched any of those languages since about… 2012. Which is actually a horrifyingly short time ago, back when I supported classic ASP web apps. Even when I did, I always used parentheses because I wanted my code to be something close to readable.

Classic ASP, there's a WTF for you. All the joy of the way PHP mixes markup and code into a single document, but with an arguably worse and weirder language.

Which finally, brings us to Josh's code. Josh worked for a traveling exhibition company, and that company had an entirely homebrewed CMS written in classic ASP. Here's a few hundred lines out of their navigation menu.

<ul class=menuMain> <% if menu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/home.asp' title='Home'>Home</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/home.asp' title='Home'>Home</a></li>" end if if menu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_homepage.asp' title='About World Challenge'>About us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_homepage.asp' title='About World Challenge'>About us</a></li>" end if if menu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/book-a-school-expedition.asp' title='How to book'>How to book</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/book-a-school-expedition.asp' title='How to book'>How to book</a></li>" end if if menu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/expeditions_home.asp' title='Expeditions'>Expeditions</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/expeditions_home.asp' title='Expeditions'>Expeditions</a></li>" end if if menu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safety_home.asp' title='Safety'>Safety</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safety_home.asp' title='Safety'>Safety</a></li>" end if if menu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/mm_what_is_mm.asp' title='Fundraising support'>Fundraising</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/mm_what_is_mm.asp' title='Fundraising support'>Fundraising</a></li>" end if if menu = "7" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/careers_home.asp' title='Work for us'>Work for us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/careers_home.asp' title='Work for us'>Work for us</a></li>" end if if menu = "8" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/contact_us_home.asp' title='Contact us'>Contact us</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/contact_us_home.asp' title='Contact us'>Contact us</a></li>" end if Response.Write "</ul>" Response.Write "<ul class='menuSub'>" if menu = "1" then end if if menu = "2" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_who_we_are.asp' title='Who we are'>Who we are</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_who_we_are.asp'title='Who we are'>Who we are</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/world_challenge_CSR.asp' title='CSR'>CSR</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/world_challenge_CSR.asp' title='CSR'>CSR</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/World-Challenge-Accreditation.asp' title='Partners and accreditation'>Partners and accreditation</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/World-Challenge-Accreditation.asp' title='Partners and accreditation'>Partners and accreditation</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/curriculum-links.asp' title='Curriculum links'>Curriculum links</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/curriculum-links.asp' title='Curriculum links'>Curriculum links</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/expedition_advice.asp' title='Expedition advice'>Expedition advice</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/expedition_advice.asp' title='Expedition advice'>Expedition advice</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "3" then Response.Write "<li></li>" end if if menu = "4" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_ca.asp' title='Central & North America'>Central and North America</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_ca.asp' title='Central and North America'>Central and North America</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sa.asp' title='South America'>South America</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sa.asp' title='South America'>South America</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sea.asp' title='South East Asia'>South East Asia</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_sea.asp' title='South East Asia'>South East Asia</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_asia.asp' title='Asia'>Asia</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_asia.asp' title='Asia'>Asia</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_africa.asp' title='Africa'>Africa</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_lh_dest_africa.asp' title='Africa'>Africa</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/europe_school_expeditions.asp' title='Europe'>Europe</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/europe_school_expeditions.asp' title='Europe'>Europe</a></li>" end if if submenu = "7" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/community-projects.asp' title='Community projects'>Community projects</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/community-projects.asp' title='Community projects'>Community projects</a></li>" end if if submenu = "8" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/exped_indiv_home.asp' title='Independent'>Independent</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/exped_indiv_home.asp' title='Independent'>Independent</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "5" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-people.asp' title='Safe People'>Safe people</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-people.asp' title='Safe People'>Safe people</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-place.asp' title='Safe places'>Safe places</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-place.asp' title='Safe places'>Safe places</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-policies-practises.asp' title='Safe practices and policies'>Safe practices and policies</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-policies-practises.asp' title='Safe practices and policies'>Safe practices and policies</a></li>" end if if submenu = "4" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safe-resources.asp' title='Safe Resources'>Safe resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safe-resources.asp' title='Safe Resources'>Safe resources</a></li>" end if if submenu = "5" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/safety_ops_centre.asp' title='Operations Centre'>Operations Centre</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/safety_ops_centre.asp' title='Operations Centre'>Operations Centre</a></li>" end if if submenu = "6" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/travel_safety_course.asp' title='Travelsafe course'>Travelsafe course</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/travel_safety_course.asp' title='Travelsafe course'>Travelsafe course</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "6" then ' if submenu = "1" then ' Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/fundraising-team.asp' title='Fundraising team'>Fundraising team</a></li>" ' else ' Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/fundraising-team.asp' title='Fundraising team'>Fundraising team</a></li>" ' end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/mm_ideas.asp' title='Fundraising ideas'>Fundraising ideas</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/mm_ideas.asp' title='Fundraising ideas'>Fundraising ideas</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_events_challenger_events.asp' title='Fundraising events'>Fundraising events</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_events_challenger_events.asp' title='Fundraising events'>Fundraising events</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "7" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/careers_leader_ops_overseas.asp' title='Lead an expedition'>Lead an expedition</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/careers_leader_ops_overseas.asp' title='Lead an expedition'>Lead an expedition</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/permanent_jobs_world_challenge.asp' title='Office based positions'>Office based positions</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/permanent_jobs_world_challenge.asp' title='Office based positions'>Office based positions</a></li>" end if end if if menu = "8" then if submenu = "1" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/pages/forms-brochure.asp' title='Request a brochure'>Request a brochure</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/pages/forms-brochure.asp' title='Request a brochure'>Request a brochure</a></li>" end if if submenu = "2" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a rel='external' href='http://f.chtah.com/s/3/2069554126/signup.html' title='Sign up for e-news'>Sign up for e-news</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a rel='external' href='http://f.chtah.com/s/3/2069554126/signup.html' title='Sign up for e-news'>Sign up for e-news</a></li>" end if if submenu = "3" then Response.Write "<li class='activ'><b></b><i></i><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" else Response.Write "<li><a href='/expeditions/about_wc_press_and_publications.asp' title='Press resources'>Press resources</a></li>" end if end if %> </ul>

This renders the whole menu, but based on the selected menu and submenu, it adds an activ class to the HTML elements. Which means that each HTML element is defined here twice, once with and without the CSS class on it. I know folks like to talk about dry code, but this code is SOGGY with repetition. Just absolutely dripping wet with the same thing multiple times. Moist.

[Advertisement] ProGet’s got you covered with security and access controls on your NuGet feeds. Learn more.