News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by earle on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:13PM (#773335)
This is actually more informative than their current site!
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by falsestprophet on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:23PM (#773814)
And at least on par with their last site as I remember
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by rabidsnail on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:27PM (#773383)
It's a webpage from the future! All of the tags are lowercase and some of them have these "style=" attributes with some weird programming language in them!
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by ars on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:15PM (#773794)
Doesn't validate, you have a </P> tag - what is that? Everyone knows you don't close your <P> tags.

What's that extra slash after the BR and HR?

And </li>?? Since when?

Where did you learn to program HTML?

:)

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @06:36PM (#773964)
Sheesh, sorry. I fixed it, per your suggestions. Also, all tags and attributes are capitalized, and there's no quotes around attribute values.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by JoelSutherland on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:59PM (#773472)
A colleague of mine wrote about agencies moving to this odd, search-style site a few months back:

http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/big-ad-agency-websites...

It just doesn't make any sense. It's not even trendy.

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by wkdown on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @03:20PM (#773531)
I can understand submitting this link to Digg / Reddit / 4Chan.

But why here? It's nonsense

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by ars on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @04:10PM (#773658)
Yah, it does seem that way.

It's actually a list of companies that Sequoia Capitol has invested in. So it's sort of an in joke given the startup focus this site has.

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @04:21PM (#773683)
It was actually inspired by this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=772027
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by mrtron on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:18PM (#773359)
Man I love that under construction animated gif.

That was a standard on all sites for so many years...

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by jamesjyu on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @04:39PM (#773722)
yeah, because really, when is a site not under construction??
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by icey on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:13PM (#773331)
Needs more blink.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @06:42PM (#773975)
Apparently the BLINK tag doesn't actually work in some modern browsers, so I had to reimplement it in JavaScript. If you'd like to use it on your own site, here's the code:

    var blinkOn = 1;
    window.setInterval(function() {
        var blinks = document.getElementsByTagName("blink");
        for (var i = 0; i < blinks.length; i++)
            blinks[i].style.visibility = blinkOn ? "visible" : "hidden";
        blinkOn ^= 1;
    }, 500);
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by ars on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @07:39PM (#774085)
Just a small note - you should not explicitly set the visibility to "visible", set it to the empty string "" instead. This way you don't overwrite the default property if it was something else.

And you can skip the blinkOn variable by:

  blinks[i].style.visibility = blinks[i].style.visibility == "" ? "hidden" : "";
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by invisible on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @09:12PM (#774206)
That's actually way slower because you're doing a comparison within an iteration. That's putting an if statement inside a loop while the result is the same for every iteration.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by ars on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @09:35PM (#774236)
Computers are not that slow these days :)

It reduces complexity and a global, which is far more important.

And that blink loop is probably not that big - just how many blink tags do you have?

I don't use it for blink loops anyway, I use it for toggle on/off, where keeping state for each element individually is pretty important.

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by invisible on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:10PM (#775495)
You're accessing the DOM every iteration, so I'd bet that it does matter somewhat if blink is used a lot.

You can avoid polluting by make it an actual function and then setting the function.blinkOn instead.

You're right: individually swapping them this works better, but the intent is to have them all off or all on.

  (function() {
    var blinkIterator = function() {
        var blinks = document.getElementsByTagName("blink"),
         onOff = blinkIterator.blinkOn ? "" : "hidden";
        for (var i = 0, l = blinks.length; i < l;)
            blinks[i++].style.visibility = onOff;
        blinkIterator.blinkOn ^= 1;
    };
    blinkIterator.blinkOn = 1;
    window.setInterval(blinkIterator, 750);
  })();
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by catch23 on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:37AM (#774441)
You don't need all that complexity. just use CSS:

text-decoration: blink

Works in FF 3.5

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:05AM (#774476)
Well, no. Browsers that don't support "blink" tags also don't support "text-decoration: blink".

I'd hardly call it complex either.

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by icey on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @07:10PM (#774045)
Well played, sir.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by jonursenbach on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:58PM (#773468)
And copy/pasted DHTML snowflake effects.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by nopassrecover on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:07AM (#774477)
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by zaidf on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @08:48PM (#774184)
Where the marquee at??
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by jrockway on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:09PM (#773313)
Wow, I really miss the days of black text on a gray background. * sniff
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by slyn on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:04PM (#773768)
Expect it to make a glorious comeback because of OLEDs: http://static.arstechnica.com/amoled.jpg

source: http://arst.ch/60n

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by gizmo on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:07PM (#773307)
No <marquee>? I'm disappointed.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by Scriptor on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:55PM (#773461)
Might not work in all browsers, but check your status bar.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by davidw on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @03:38PM (#773592)
It could definitely use a "this site best viewed with Mosaic 1.0" or something to that effect.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by ido on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @07:48PM (#774099)
And a visitor counter.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by raquo on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @04:15PM (#773675)
Look at the status bar!
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by aresant on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:16PM (#773348)
Fantastic. Their new site is ridiculous "look how trendy we are".
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by gaborcselle on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:25AM (#774488)
I actually think their site is pretty cool / innovative.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by webwright on Thursday August 20, 2009 @02:43AM (#774553)
Seriously?! If search engines had AI, I can see it being cool/innovative. With the current state of search technology, it's a usability disaster.

Problem #1 - language. Is their portfolio page called "portfolio"? Or "companies we've invested in?" Is their contact page called "contact"? Or "Get in touch?" Do they have a blog? Searching for "blog" seems to indicate that they don't-- unless it's called something other than "blog". Search is hard and they are making their users play "guess the right search query" when a scan/browse action would be easier and less error prone.

Problem #2 - scan-ability. So say I AM interest in learning more about their portfolio. Roughly what types of companies do they back (what's the search query to answer that question?)? What have they backed most recently (again, what search query?)? Who works there (a search for partners suggests "Energy (partners)")? Scanning is a huge part of web behavior.

Problem #3 - discoverability. What about what I'm NOT searching for? They have some GREAT content around how to pitch VCs, what ideas are VC-worthy, etc. With a content-free page, there is a 0% chance of me learning about stuff that I didn't know I was looking for.

Problem #4 - SPELLING. Take a look at their partner page (if you can find it). Are there any names there that you might have trouble spelling/searching for if you heard it at a dinner party last night?

We don't have to guess with usability. What they SHOULD have done is write down 5 tasks that people might do at their site and had a few friends run a few informal tests.

I'm willing to turn in my UX designer badge if my guess is wrong and this UI increases task performance speed and reduces errors.

Hrm, as I consider it-- I guess your comment doesn't dispute all that. It probably can be cool, innovative, AND a usability disaster.

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by thomasswift on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:42PM (#773417)
The top text blinks.... Plus 1000 points
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by zandorg on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:13PM (#773788)
OMG so hilarious!

Budd Ugly is a classic of web design parody, except that my buddy (a hypertext legend) thought it was a real site!

Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:49PM (#773870)
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by timdorr on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:12PM (#773328)
Wow, trendy stuff. I'm going to have to start using that window.status trick they're using.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by kwamenum86 on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @04:47PM (#773737)
Many more of those companies should have gotten the "Cool" animated gif...
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by mhartl on Thursday August 20, 2009 @12:33AM (#774438)
Awesome, but is there a reason 'capital' is misspelled 'capitol'?
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by whalesalad on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:11PM (#773780)
Was spelling capital wrong part of the parody too?
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by tlrobinson on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @05:51PM (#773876)
Yes.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by sirech on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:55PM (#773458)
needs a bright green background to emphasize the tree connection.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by hughprime on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @03:19PM (#773526)
What, and lose Netscape 1.0 support?
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by nostrademons on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @06:49PM (#773992)
Also missing the punch-the-monkey banner.
Re:-= sequoia capital =- by antidaily on Wednesday August 19, 2009 @02:23PM (#773371)
I lol'd.