Is that falling snow or noise from the camera sensor? I’ll never tell…

On a clear day in Tokyo, you can see Mt. Fuji off in the distance.

The F train speeds through the Jackson Heights station.

That nor’easter? It ended up being weaker than expected here in New England.

Made for nice nighttime pictures, though.

First business trip of 2010 and it’s a doozy.

My trip to Washington DC was postponed because of the record snowfall and its effect on transport into and out of the region. So instead, I snuck into Boston this afternoon ahead of the nor’easter that’s supposed to dump 9 inches of snow on the region.

Given all the inclement weather, the third rail seems like the least of my worries.

Disqus is a pretty cool service. It’s one a new breed of comment hosting services (along with IntenseDebate and JS-Kit) that allows people to comment on this and many other blogs after logging in via their existing Twitter or Facebook account, instead of having to create a site-specific account.

But the default look-and-feel of the Disqus widgets could be better. In particular, the inclusion of multiple logos and the generic web 2.0-ish rounded button style both leave a lot to be desired. While you can customize via CSS, the documentation for the classes and ids used in the HTML they inject into your site is somewhat lacking.

I wasn’t about to let this detract from the design I recently developed using Blueprint, so I spent part of this past weekend adapting Disqus to my needs. Here’s the CSS I’m using to pare down and clean up their Narcissus theme:

/*first, ensure that all type matches Blueprint CSS*/
#disqus_thread {
  font-size: 75%;
  color: #222;
  background: #fff;
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

/*remove the default horizontal lines*/
#dsq-content .dsq-login-buttons, #dsq-content .dsq-request-user-info {
  background-image: none;
}

/*hide the logos and options panel*/
#dsq-content .dsq-options,
#dsq-content .dsq-dc-logo,
.dsq-brlink,  {
  display: none;
}

/*resize the h3's to match Blueprint's style*/
#dsq-new-post h3 {
  font-size: 1.2em;
  line-height: 1.25;
  margin-bottom: 1.25em;
  font-weight: bold;
}

/*ditto above, but also create space between comments and entry form*/
#dsq-comments-title h3 {
  font-size: 1.2em;
  line-height: 1.25;
  margin-bottom: 1.25em;
  margin-top: 1.5em;
}

/*change the look of the buttons to be less web-2.0-ish*/
button.dsq-button,
button.dsq-button-small,
#dsq-content .dsq-sharing-options button.dsq-button-small,
#dsq-content .dsq-panel,
#dsq-content .dsq-subscribe ul {
  background-image: none;
  background: #E8E8E8;
  border: 1px solid #AFAFAF;
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  border-radius: 0;
  -moz-border-radius: 0;
  -webkit-border-radius: 0;
}

/*remove rounded corners and reset text entry forms*/
#dsq-content .dsq-sharing-options:hover button.dsq-button-small {
  background-image: none;
  background: #E8E8E8;
  border: 1px solid #AFAFAF;
  border-bottom: 0;
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  border-radius: 0;
  -moz-border-radius: 0;
  -webkit-border-radius: 0;
}

/*remove rounded corners from text entry boxes*/
#dsq-content .dsq-comment-header,
#dsq-content .dsq-subscribe a,
#dsq-content .dsq-textarea .dsq-textarea-wrapper,
#dsq-content .dsq-post-fields .dsq-input-wrapper, 
#dsq-content .dsq-header-avatar a.dsq-avatar, 
#dsq-content #dsq-comments .dsq-header-avatar .dsq-drop-profile,
#dsq-content .dsq-thread-settings, 
#dsq-content .dsq-badge-verified {
  border-radius: 0;
  -moz-border-radius: 0;
  -webkit-border-radius: 0;
}

If you want Disqus to look like what I have here, then you should add the above into the Settings > Customize > Custom CSS menu in your account.

Now, if only I could do something about the latency…

Update: (2010-03-10) I’ve completely disabled comments on this site. Details as to why will be forthcoming.

I stumbled across this cool video a while ago.

I’m inspired try to do something similar on my next vacation.

Barack Obama’s inauguration tomorrow is a big down payment towards fulfilling Dr. King’s dream. But in the meantime, take a minute to remind yourself of the original vision.