- From: Todd Fahrner <fahrner@pobox.com>
- Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 15:05:00 -0700
- To: "David Perrell" <davidp@earthlink.net>, <www-style@w3.org>
David Perrell wrote, at 12:17 -0800 on 3.12.97: > > This points out a serious, looming problem. The logical extension of > >this last progression is parsecs, which are typically abbreviated as >"pc." > >However, this unit abbreviation is already used for picas! What to do? > >Obviously the authors were not sufficiently far-sighted in their original > >efforts, and total backwards compatibility is now directly threatened. > > Practically-speaking, parsecs should not be considered for inclusion, >since > by the time a display warranting such units is rendered the viewer would > probably be dead. Also consider the accessibility problems arising from round-off errors in representing geometric divisions of the sky in decimal notation - whole galaxies could be misregistered, effectively excluding them from the universe of network-accessible information. Besides which I've heard something about the red and blue guns being affected when operating over astronomical units, which could lead to unsightly dithering in 8-bit display environments. A better solution to this quandary, I think, is to create the @sky media type, and to use pixel notation exclusively in such stylesheets. All CSS1-conformant UAs will, as we know, adjust pixel values to approximate a visual angle of 0.0227 degrees. The use of fractional pixels should permit the targetting of most astronomically significant objects within a 20-minute turn time, unless the UA is running on a Pentium(tm) processor. _____________________________ Todd Fahrner mailto:fahrner@pobox.com The trouble with knowing how to do things the wrong way is that your skills will always be in demand.
Received on Wednesday, 3 December 1997 17:03:13 UTC