Burningbird

This week in HTML5...in verse.

So <time> is saved
though it may be changed,
and <data> is on the horizon.

<hgroup> is going,
you can hear it moaning,
as HTML5 continues to wizen.

Over at Technology at Burningbird:

Google has become all that is arrogant conceit. It believes it can do anything better than anyone else. It has dropped any pretense of seemingly wanting to work with others, and pretends its work is open, as long as it "gives" it all away when it's finished.

Google has created a replacement for HTTP (SPDY), RDF and semantics (schema.org and Microdata), a video format (WebM), WebP a new image format, and is now about to release its replacement for JavaScript: Dart.

And then there's the continuing saga of HTML5.

Two posts today over at Puppies at Burningbird.

The first has to do with the Debe Bell rabbit seizure. The Tea Party pundits had a field day with the "illegal" seizure and rants about property rights...until the Sheriff's office released photos taken of the Bell rabbits when they were seized. Unlike an O'Keefe video, these photos weren't "artistically edited", and demonstrate the horrid conditions under which these rabbits lived.

The second has to do with Attorney General Koster's new Anti-cruelty site, which is anything but anti-cruelty. I don't know what's happening in the administration of Jay Nixon. I don't know if Jon Hagler, Director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, and Koster have had a falling out.

If you've been reading my weblogs in their various incarnations since the painful beginning, you've read me talking about my car, Golden Girl.

Golden Girl isn't a fancy car. It's a 4 door 2002 Ford Focus with a Zetec engine and painted in metallic gold. It is my very first car.

No, I'm not so young. I'm just one of those who didn't decide to drive until I was...well, older than most people when they learn to drive. I started to learn to drive in Boston, practiced cross country, and received my first driver's license in San Francisco. I bought Golden Girl a few months later via the internet, at a time when this was still a very new idea. I test drove a Focus, but didn't meet Golden Girl until I picked her up.

Puppies...bunnies.... No animal should be treated cruelly in mills, roadside zoos, or the other places where greedy people prosper from animal suffering. I've extended the scope of this site to cover other types of animals, as well as other types of places that the USDA monitors, such as the deplorable roadside zoos found in too many states. My primary interest is still in closing down puppy mills in Missouri, but all these critters need all the champions they can get.

More at Puppies at Burningbird.

Another bunny mill story, but this time in Colorado. One angora pulled from a cage in the 85+ degree building was so covered in matted fur that you could barely see its face. As the sheriff stated, not only were the rabbits thirsty, they were "aggressively thirsty".

From Puppies at Burningbird:

Wendy Laymon has a shameful history of animal neglect as a commercial breeder, including being fined by the USDA and losing her USDA license. Chat in the community has it that she started up the Rescue a French Bulldog, not to save poor homeless french bull dogs but to muddy the water for genuine rescues—not to mention siphoning off donations from the less informed, as well as being a way to get rid of frenchies that haven't sold through her commercial breeding operation.

I enjoyed working on this book. I enjoyed worked with the media elements, though I'm more partial to the video element. Working on the book was also a learning experience—even, at times, an eyebrow raising experience. I thought I would share with you all some of the notes I wrote while working on the book.

In Notes from Writing HTML5 Media over at Technology at Burningbird, I covered some of the more interesting and surprising discoveries I made about the HTML5 media elements. These include a discussion about the context menus and control UI for the elements, the WebVTT vs. TTML debate, and some issues related to security, including the new crossorigin attribute. I also provide my own version of a codec support table for both audio and video, as well as a discussion about why it's so difficult to pinpoint exactly what is supported in each browser.

From Dollarhites: A Saga that Should End

The USDA informed me I could re-submit a request for the additional 120 pages of information once this case is closed. However, I have a 100 new kennel campaigns I want to start in the next month, and am not sure I want to continue to waste time with this issue. I would like to continue with a defense of the USDA—I feel they were grossly maligned with this incident—but there's a tawdry aspect to all of this that is making me lose interest.

It's not as if the Tea Party types will admit their errors, or do any fact checking. Evidently, tea and facts don't go together well.

From Puppies at Burningbird:

I received the disposition records sent to the Missouri Department of Agriculture as part of the consent decree for the closure of S & S Family Puppies. I've linked the PDF of the records, but note it is a rather large document.

The disposition records were from the auction of the dogs. All but a few of the dogs went to other breeders. Among the violations for some of the breeders are the following....

It is not difficult to make a digital copy of an inspection report. Most modern printers that make copies now have the ability to scan the copies into a PDF just as quickly as you can make the paper copy.

There is no reason for any agency, Missourian or otherwise, to not have digital copies of all their records. Not only does this decrease the need for paper, but it also ensures reasonable access of the records, as well as backup in case of fire, flood, and other disaster.

I have no idea what kind of information system the Department of Agriculture in Missouri has in place. I do know that, considering the interest people have in inspection records, the organization could more effectively deal with requests if it just provided the information via a simple to use online system. The USDA caught on to the advantages of such a system a few years back, which is why we can access so much USDA information online.