FYI – Blogger changes

Posted on January 12, 2012 by ScottC

So yesterday Blogger put in place some changes, in particular to the comments section. Unfortunately, they did not add new options, but rather changed existing options, so it is impossible (at least for now) for us to keep the look that we used to have.

The major change they made was to add threading comments, ie exactly what PL has now. The primary downside to this change, as we experienced last night, is twofold. First, there appears to be spacing/font issues in the comments. It doesn’t look quite right, and the comments input box seems to be a bit erratic, sometimes showing up and other times not. Also, on mobile devices (at least the iPad and iPhone) there are some technical problems. For instance, I can no longer copy and paste from the comments.

We can get the comments section to revert back to the way it looked via one of two options, but with one significant exception. The comments input box will not appear on the post page under the comments. Instead, you have to click on “Post a comment”, and you will be taken either to a pop-up window with the input box, or a whole new page with the input box. Currently we have it set to the latter, but in either case, all of the comments are viewable in the new window, as well as on the original post. If you want you can look through last nights open thread to see the comments that some of us have already had about each option.

None of the options are ideal, and each has its drawbacks. We are currently using what is called the full page comments, ie clicking on “post a comment” takes you to a whole new page, with all the comments in a blogger style format, and an input box at the top. There are other options on that page which you may or may not like (ie view blog entry, collapse comments). But I just wanted to give you a heads up. Please post any comments/preferences to this post, and we will have to come to a consensus on which style we should use going forward.

UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention. When I was trolling around on the Blogger help site last night, I saw one comment which suggests that, when using the threaded comments option, if comments ever reach a total of 200, then the Plum Line method of only displaying X number of comments with a “Load More” button kicks in. And there were complaints about the loading speed of the “Load More”. So it seems that, with threading, Blogger is moving towards the Plum Line style which we all loved so much.

UPDATE 2: I’ve turned the threaded comments back on, at lms’ suggestion, so others can see what it looks like and test it out. Please post any problems here or, if you can’t post at all, e-mail me or kevin or lme.

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Morning Report

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1294.5 6.3 0.49%
Eurostoxx Index 2371.5 31.960 1.37%
Oil (WTI) 101.97 1.100 1.09%
LIBOR 0.5715 -0.005 -0.87%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 81.118 -0.140 -0.17%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 1.92% 0.01%

Markets are slightly positive this morning as good news out of Europe is offset by disappointing economic numbers out of the US. Spain and Italy had good debt auctions, which is pulling down sovereign yields across the board. The ECB held rates at 1% and noted “tentative signs of stabilization” in Europe.
Initial Jobless claims for the week ending 1/7 were 399k, versus 375k expected. Continuing claims were higher as well. Retail Sales for December were flat ex autos. November numbers were revised upwards. Given the comp numbers reported last week, I would not be surprised to see upward revisions. It feels like an outlier.
Regarding the jobs numbers, an interesting dynamic will be playing out in the unemployment numbers. Workers who have been unemployed for over 6 months are considered “discouraged workers” and do not count in the unemployment numbers. As the economy improves, those workers will start looking for work again and should be counted as “unemployed” This should add upward pressure to the unemployment numbers. But, with an election coming up, the Labor Department will want to understate this phenomenon as much as possible. So I would take any unemployment numbers with a grain of salt, if you don’t already.
The winter that never was (it is 40 degrees and rainy this morning in the Northeast) is wreaking havoc on natural gas prices. While WTI continues to hang around $100, gas is now down to $2.71. Natural gas bulls are being taken to the woodshed, and is approaching the 2009 lows of $2.51. It will be interesting to see if someone ends up getting carried out on a gas bet.

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