The Weekly Wrap: July 30, 2023

I spent hours upon hours this week trying to code a new top navigation bar for our website. Our current navigation bar is an improvement over our old website, but usability tests showed that our users really wanted a drop down nav bar. 

Now, in strict coding sense, this should be easy to put together. There are plenty of cut and paste options out there. Sadly, none of them worked for me. First, it turns out I was using the wrong coding language. I was coding in straight HTML when I needed Bootstrap. Second, I didn't want a drop down on click bar. I wanted a drop on hover which is more complicated when it comes to coding CSS. Finally, our library's website is hosted by a service that has their own backend base code that I can't access. This base code sometimes messes with things but I have no ability to find out how or why. I have to guess to get things working.

So, for hours, I would build something that worked in a simulator but then failed on the website. Or, I could get the functionality to work but the formatting would change. Or, I could get the formatting to work, but the drop on hover would fail.

It was all highly aggravating... compounded by the fact that I hate coding. 

But, after many hours of perseverance, I think I found the one thing that was causing the cascade of issues. The functionality works in the simulator and on the website. I do to tweak some CSS formatting, but I'm almost there. 

I am going to throw myself a small dance party when I get the final nav bar on our website.

What aggravation have you pushed through recently?

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• There's joy in inventing words and phrases for unfortunate situations. [Hedger Humor]
• What makes employees happy? [HBR - may be paywalled]
• Sidewalk conflict. [Slate]
• Ticks are terrifying. [The Atlantic - may be paywalled]
• Finding love in the city. [The Syllabus Project]
• A Barbenheimer review. [Culture Study]
• Give advice not opinions. [INC]
• I will probably be sobbing my way through Barbie. [Mad Woman]

• The economists look at gender (and follow the citations). [Planet Money]
• There will be trouble in California when the rain comes. [The Daily]
• Barbie as a labor economics indicator. [The Indicator]
• Developing writing that works for those who are blind. [99% Invisible]
• This is cool but, also, nope! [Atlas Obscura]
• The language of babies. [Short Wave]
• A deep dive into college admissions for the rich and the complexity for college finances. [The Daily]
• Accounting power! [Planet Money]

• We haven't seen the new Avatar movie, but it is on our list. To get ready, we rewatched the original Avatar. This movie is visually stunning. I love how clearly James Cameron was influenced by ocean flora and fauna. But, oof, the script. It does not age well. Also, while the story itself is engaging the actual writing is so trite and overwrought. [Disney+]
• Woah! [@architechtanddesign]

• Our farm share this week included a massive (and fragrant!) bunch of fresh basil. There was no way I could do anything but make pesto with it. In lieu of pine nuts, I used walnuts because it was what I had on hand. I gave those a whirl in the blender with olive, salt, pepper, and a large clove of garlic. Since we're not going to use this soon, I tossed it in the freezer for later. [Inspiration recipe from Culinary Hill]
• A great way to use up a lot of ingredients is a stir fry. I made sesame chicken green bean stir fry to make use of several farm share items. It was quite a bit of chopping (plus, I needed to make the sauce). Not the easiest meal for a weeknight, but very tasty. [Ambitious Kitchen]