June 28, 2009

Minor style changes

Yeah, it's still the ugly old iSteve blog you've come to know and put up with, just with a serif font (Georgia) instead of Arial and some color tweaks.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

much easier on the eyes - but i always wondered why you didn't get someone to make you a more aesthetic template and perhaps bring in a few elements from the old isteve site for nostalgia's sake.

MacSweeney said...

I'd really like it if you did something to clearly show when you're quoting somebody, and when you're writing yourself. Right now, you just do this thing where you centre quotes, and I often get confused as to when it's you speaking or a quote.

Anonymous said...

Self-admitted supergenius (and video game developer)Vox Day don't need no stinkin' "more aesthetic template":
http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Big improvement. But the real eyesore is that book cover with its V-DARE orange.

Shawn said...

It is an improvement, but it doesn't matter too much. We are here for your content.

Anonymous said...

I'm easily amused, but I always thought the "Like I, Claudius or I, Robot, only even more pompous!" line from the old iSteve site was very funny, and made you come across as marginally less evil. You should try to find a place for it here.

Anonymous said...

Yep, easier to read, looks good.

SFG said...

The ugliness of your site means it's all about the writing and thought. :)

headache said...

I don't find iSteve all that ugly. Beats VDare and the graphics choked MSM sites, or sites like Slate and NRO where they spend more time making it pretty than thinking about what they write.

Bill said...

Shawn's right: your content is by far the most important part of the site.

HOWEVER, the design really is kind of second rate. The space isn't all that well managed on blogspot, and you could do better with a couple more pages on the blog.

I spend $10/month to host myself, and I've got ownership over my place on the web as well as my content. With blogspot, you don't really have that -- Google does. For example, are your posts copyrighted, or are they simply OS material that anyone can compile? It's kind of ambiguous when you use a free blogging service.

I know you probably don't have the time or inclination to do a redesign with a WordPress blog or something like that, but I'd be willing to bet that there are people out there who would do it for you. For a more professional sales platform for your written material, I would highly recommend it.

Anonymous said...

I actually liked the old style of site.

Second, have you considered having your posts mirrored on a Wordpress site in case Google ever decides to delete your blog?

failing00 said...

Steve, once again this illustrates why you're simply unqualified to make decisions about aesthetics. The Drudge report hasn't changed styles in over 15 years. Most of the commenters here are showing appalling ignorance of blog layouts. Also, NRO is a beacon of style in the blogosphere, an unsinkable aircraft carrier, if you will.

Anonymous said...

I like the book cover.

I like to think its a homage to the early style of Penguin paperbacks?

Lupe de Luna said...

Vdare looks like amateur hour and that is a deliberate decision.

Is Vdare government cointelpro?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cointelpro

Most of the "far right" political organizations and media organizations in American history have been government operations. The nation is constantly lurching to the left, against the wishes of its conservative population, for good reason. It's not an accident. There are no accidents in politics. The "right" in America has never stopped the Gramscian socialist revolution because it was never supposed to stop it, it was only supposed to lag twenty years behind.

Anyway after ten years Brimelow could have squirreled away only a measely $5/week and by now been able to afford a professionally designed website.

Hardly anyone else uses the Vdare color scheme (probably no one else in politics) because it immediately communicates a lack of seriousness and a "crank" atmosphere. Back in the early days of the internet there was a huge free pirated porn website called "The Hun". The Hun's color scheme looked a lot like Vdare.

On the other hand Alex Jones is being death-threated by USGov spooks on a daily basis because he demonstrates how damaging a genuine anti-establishment operation can be. His sites are visually slick, professional and effective and consequently Jones is making people in high places very nervous with his growing alternative media network.

Meanwhile back at Vdare it's still 1997.

Vdare could be ten times as effective as it is. It could have a much broader reach. Brimelow acts as if photography radio or video all were never invented. If you're a left wing revolutionary Vdare is the perfect political opposition.

PS Steve never did fix the "tech problems" on his old high traffic isteve.com web domain. How strange. Maybe because he wants his commenters databased forever here on the blogger.com (Google-owned) computers. If you haven't figured out that Google is part of the US intelligence community yet then you just haven't been paying attention.

nanonymous said...

Just a suggestion:

If you want to do one better than Georgia, consider Cambria or Constantia. They are part of MS Cleartype Collection, a set of great fonts designed with Cleartype "sub-pixel rendering technology" features in mind. Whenever user uses LCD and the OS supports Cleartype (all Win versions from XP onward do), the on-screen reading of these fonts is much, much easier!

Cambria is pretty similar to Georgia (but better IMHO). The entire Cleartype Collection is included in all versions of Office 2007 and Vista, so the user base that has the font installed is similar to that of Georgia.

m said...

Racist!!!!!!!!!!

Steve Sailer said...

Dear Cointelpro:

Just put $10,000 in fresh $100 bills in the flower pot on my front porch and I I'll be back to an awful-looking san-serif typeface within 24 hours.

But, if I don't get the cash, who knows what I could do: maybe even switch to Palatino Linotype!

Yours truly,
Steve Sailer

earworm said...

failing00,
You forgot the babes angle. I cannot figure it out but maybe few babes hang around on iSteve because somehow he is beta and sexually harassing them? Oh, I give up.

Stopped Clock said...

VDare's JPG logo is really ugly and probably doesnt help their PR very much. As you can see, even VDare supporters think they need a better web designer. Other than the logo, though, I dont really think the site looks bad.

I, too, would like to see this site switch back to an independent domain and run independent software, but I imagine that you must have had a good reason for going to blogger.

Anonymous said...

Looks good.

Now if only you could convince VDARE to do a major redesign/updating of their website.

Anonymous said...

While not going the whole way with Lupe de Luna I would regard Google with deep suspicion.

Google deny they keep records of every search made, I dont believe them. Sure they cannot guarantee to match each search to an individual - shared PCs and all that, but they can go a long way down that route.

Then there is gmail, can you you trust them not to have a record of every email sent/received? I certainly can't.

Blogger - getting the picture now?

Then there is youtube.

Between those Google has a pretty comprehensive cross section of people's online activities. In some cases that is their whole online existence.

So I dont trust Google one bit.

Toadal said...

Hardly anyone else uses the Vdare color scheme (probably no one else in politics) because it immediately communicates a lack of seriousness and a "crank" atmosphere.
...
While I frequently post iSteve links to my friends, I couldn't email a Vdare link and wince whenever Steve attempts to direct traffic there. In general, Brimelow's color scheme, layout, and iconography are unnerving and slightly menacing and communicate an unwillingness to amuse or explore ideas. But hey, I can't listen to confrontational Michael Savage for more than 60 seconds while he mesmerizes others for hours, so to each his own.
...
(Wordpress) For a more professional sales platform for your written material.
...
Last year, I startled our Director of Engineering with the speed and ease I could setup a professional looking, free Wordpress blog for a product's beta launch. He is a very perceptive guy, but just hadn't kept up with Internet technology.

Silver said...

Compare Vdare to Townhall or NRO. Need I say more?