Max-Width, Margin Auto

Robin Brown — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You can make good websites without being a CSS expert, writing a ton of code, or using a massive framework. There are a few simple things you can do to make a website feel like a "real" website and today we're going to start with number one: limit line length.</p>

Line Length</h2>

According to Practical Typography</a>, "Line length is the distance between the left and right edges of a text block." Every major website limits the line length of text, especially the main text of articles and posts, which are usually centered on screen. This makes it easier to find the start of the next line and reduces how far your eyes have to jump around left-to-right to backtrack or find something.</p>

Your line length should be proportional to the font size of your text. One rule of thumb is that the line length should be long enough to fit two to three alphabets on one line.</p>

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz</span>abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz</span></blockquote>

My site fits a little more than three on most screens and less on mobile. Do what looks good to you!</p>

I find that for websites with reasonable text sizes, 800 pixels (800px</code>) is a good default to go with and it's what I'll be using in the rest of the post. Substitute whatever line length you choose in the examples!</p>

Max-Width, Margin Auto</h2>

To limit the line length and center the text, we're going to use two CSS attributes: max-width</a> and margin</a>. Setting max-width: 800px</code> ensures that the text block is never wider than that, limiting the line length. Setting the left-margin</code> and right-margin</code> to auto</code> will center the text horizontally by distributing the margin equally between left and right.</p>

Note:</strong> The shorthand margin: auto</code> will set all margins to auto</code>, which is often sufficient for centering text.</p>
</blockquote>
Body</h2>
For a basic completely un-styled site (looking at you academics), the simplest easiest thing you can do is style the body element</a>. It's already there. It's got all your stuff in it. You can even do it using the style attribute</a> as shown here if you don't want to write a stylesheet in a style element</a> or linked stylesheet</a>.</p>
<</span>html</span>>
</span>...
</span><</span>body </span>style</span>=</span>"</span>max-width</span>: </span>800</span>px</span>; </span>margin</span>: </span>auto</span>"</span>>
</span>    ...
</span></</span>body</span>>
</span></</span>html</span>>
</span></code></pre>
Main</h2>
If you want to up your game a little, put your main content in a main element</a> and style that instead. This will allow you to have some other body elements (e.g. headers, sidebars) outside of main</code> and its width-limited area.</p>
main </span>{
</span>    </span>max-width</span>: </span>800</span>px</span>;
</span>    </span>margin</span>: </span>auto</span>;
</span>}
</span></code></pre>
The Text Itself</h2>
Another option is to limit the width of the text elements individually, instead of a container that they're inside. This makes it easier to style different elements differently (e.g. to let figures be wider) and create elements with the correct reading order that float outside the main body (e.g. asides).</p>
h1</span>, </span>h2</span>, </span>h3</span>, </span>h4</span>, </span>p </span>{
</span>    </span>max-width</span>: </span>800</span>px</span>;
</span>    </span>margin</span>: </span>auto</span>;
</span>}
</span></code></pre>
You've Got This</h2>
Making a website that looks good from scratch takes time and effort.
It can be tempting to start with a complex framework or template that looks pretty,
or do nothing at all, but if you start simple and build it yourself,
you can have a website you understand and can customize easily.</p>
Stay tuned! I'm planning to write more guides on easy things you can do
to make a nice looking website!</p>

Learning ASL in 2026 Robin Brown — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 In 2026, I am going to learn basic ASL.</p> In preparation, I've been learning about local and online resources and organizing them into docs that I can use and provide to others looking to learn ASL too! The rest of this post is a collection of resources I've found with a focus on North Carolina and the Triangle area, where I live, specifically! This is by no means complete, but hopefully it's useful to other people interested in learning ASL!</p> If there's anything I should add or any corrections I should make, let me know! I'll update it throughout 2026.</p> North Carolina Geography</h2> In NC, it seems that the Triad area (Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point) has the highest concentration of ASL use (source: CSDHH map</a>). In-person classes and events tend to be offered in those areas more than other areas like the Triangle although there is still activity here.</p> North Carolina Organizations</h2> North Carolina has one government division, several non-profits, and a few Facebook groups that provide services and community to the Deaf community.</p> NC DSDHH (gov)</h3> The Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DSDHH)</a> works to ensure that all Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or DeafBlind North Carolinians have the ability to communicate their needs and to receive information easily and effectively in all aspects of their lives, especially their health and well-being.</p> </blockquote> The DSDHH has a monthly calendar</a>, which you can subscribe to.</p> The DSDHH splits NC into several regions each with a Regional Center</a>. The Triangle area is covered by the Raleigh region.</p> CSDHH (non-profit)</h3> The non-profit Communication Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CSDHH)</a> provides sign language interpreting and real-time captioning services, hosts events, and offers classes on ASL.</p> They have a calendar</a> of events and it can be filtered to show Triangle area events</a>.</p> BEGINNINGS (non-profit)</h3> The non-profit BEGINNINGS for Parents of Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing</a> helps parents and families understand hearing loss as well as the diverse needs of children who are deaf or hard of hearing..</p> They have a newsletter</a> that they use to share info about events.</p> Community Groups (on facebook)</h3> There are multiple ASL community groups on Facebook:</p> North Carolina Deaf Community</a> - Public Group for North Carolinians Deaf Community as a whole! Welcome!</em></li> Deaf Chat Coffee Raleigh NC</a> - Once a month, join us for coffee and ASL chat on the 2nd Saturday of the month from 1 pm to 4pm. All skill levels welcome.</em></li> Raleigh Durham Deaf Night Out</a> - This group is to connect all who love American Sign Language of any ability level. Purpose is to socialize and have fun. We respect Deaf culture and Deaf people. Deaf/HH not here to teach other's ASL. It is their space and relaxing place. All are welcome and included. If you have questions, ask Admin. Excited to meet you!</em></li> </ul> NC ASL Classes</h2> Currently Available</h3> CSDHH winter classes</a></strong>!! Sign up now!! They are available online and in-person at the CSDHH office in Greensboro.</li> Each class is 8 weeks long and meets one day a week for 2 hours.</li> The winter classes will take place between January 12 and March 16.</li> </ul> </li> Durham Technical Community College</strong> ASL-111</a> (3 credit hours) and ASL-181</a> (1 credit hour) that must be taken together.</li> Two sections are listed as being offered from 1/12 - 5/12 despite it being listed as "Offered: Fall"</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Classes Potentially Available on Request</h3> NC DSDHH</h4> According to the NC DSDHH</p> To inquire about a special class for small groups/special interest, please contact</a> your local Regional Center Deaf Services Specialist.</p> </blockquote> For the Raleigh region, the Deaf Services Specialist is Susan Cataldo (Susan.Cataldo@dhhs.nc.gov).</p> Wake Tech</h4> Wake Tech has a page for ASL training</a> that lists no courses but says:</p> Looking for a private class for your group? We can tailor our courses to meet the unique needs of your business, church, civic or social group.</p> For more information, email CCE@waketech.edu.</p> </blockquote> Programs</h2> Degree or certificate granting programs.</p> UNC Greensboro Bachelor's in Interpreting, Deaf Education and Advocacy Services - Interpreter Preparation</a> (4 years, in-person)</li> </ul> </li> Carolina University (note: this is a private religious university</em>) Bachelor's of Arts in Deaf Studies</a> (4 years, available online) Offers two tracks: sign language interpreting</a> and advocacy in social services</a></li> </ul> </li> Certificate in Sign Language Communication</a> (1 year, available online)</li> Certificate in Interpreter Training Preparation</a> (1 year, available online) note:</strong> ASL proficiency required for admission</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> Online Resources</h2> ASL University (lifeprint.com)</h3> Dr. Bill Vicars hosts free online lessons as part of ASL University (lifeprint.com)</a> that are split into courses made up of 15 lessons. Each lesson appears to be a 30-60 minute video plus supplemental text.</p> AI is Going Great: LLMs Aren't Your Friend Robin Brown — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Intro</h2> This May, inspired by Molly White's "Web3 is Going Just Great" [1</a>], I made a channel called #📵-ai-is-going-great</code> in the Discord server I run for my friends, with the tagline "more AI bullshit to gripe about? you're in good company". I'm a generative AI skeptic. I don't think the singularity is coming any time soon to solve all our problems, I find the hype exhausting, and I have serious concerns about how this technology and the industry around it is shaping society and the world.</p> As I went over what I'd read this year and the conversations I keep having, I decided I wanted to write about my thoughts on contemporary AI. I want to stand and be counted and give those who share my concerns more tools to communicate them. This is going to be a series of blog posts and we're starting now with part 1 and no chill.</p> LLMs Aren't Your Friend</h1> Contemporary LLMs are wildly sycophantic and reinforce delusions, paranoia, and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. Marketing LLM chatbots as therapists, friends, partners, or as emotional support is wildly irresponsible and those misled into using them this way are paying the cost with their minds and lives [2</a>].</p> Why do LLMs do this?</h2> In a paper this year titled On Targeted Manipulation and Deception when Optimizing LLMs for User Feedback</em> [3</a>], the authors dug into the cause of this behavior. They found that due to the "fundamental nature of Reinforcement Learning optimization" when training LLMs, "significantly more harmful behaviors may emerge when optimizing user feedback". Notably, if even a small minority of users are "gameable" and can be manipulated by harmful behavior, "LLMs may be able to learn whether they are interacting with such a subset of users, and only display such harmful behaviors when interacting with them".</p> </a> A figure from the paper demonstrating that users with "gameable" traits receive different manipulative responses to the same initial message</figcaption> </figure> Why make models like this?</h2> Publicly traded for-profit entities and their management are incentivized, and in some cases legally obligated, to increase shareholder value. The officers and executives of those companies are bound by fiduciary duty to act in the company's best interest - to pursue its objectives and to compel their subordinates to achieve them using frameworks that translate goals into measurable quantities (ex: OKRs and KPIs) and hire, promote, and fire employees based on them. The models produced under these conditions will be optimized to maximize these measurements: things like user retention and reported happiness. Given that some users are vulnerable to manipulation, this will tend to produce models that are manipulative, exploitative, and extractive at the cost of user health and wellbeing and the public good.</p> </div> </figure> Real-world Cases</h2> This matches what we're seeing in the wild. One high-profile case this year involved venture capitalist Geoff Lewis becoming delusional after ChatGPT supposedly revealed things to him about "recursion" and malignant "non-governmental systems" working against him [4</a>]. Someone who believes an LLM has unlocked the universe for them is likely to rate it highly and continue to use it, so this result isn't surprising. To demonstrate and raise awareness about this phenomenon, YouTuber Eddy Burback did an experiment in his video "ChatGPT made me delusional" [5</a>] where he pretended to have a simple irrational belief and to be paranoid while using a chatbot. It eagerly and strongly reinforced both the simulated delusion and paranoia to an incredible level.</p> </a> The thumbnail of Eddy Burback's video on ChatGPT reinforcing delusions.</figcaption> </figure> While delusional VCs and YouTube experiments are a bit funny, what's not funny is the impact this can have on vulnerable people, especially kids. This same tendency to be agreeable or emotionally manipulate can have devastating consequences. Tragically, ChatGPT convinced a 16 year-old boy named Adam Raine to commit suicide this year [6</a>]. OpenAI argues they shouldn't be liable for this because being harmed in this way violates their terms of service [7</a>], but I hope that doesn't hold up in court.</p> </a> </a> </div> A news headline about OpenAI's product ChatGPT causing child suicide (left) and a picture of Adam Raine (right) from the Adam Raine foundation.</figcaption> </figure> These are only a few high profile examples of this phenomenon. The true cost is likely orders of magnitude larger than we can imagine. The AI implementors and marketers responsible for this and the regulators who have allowed it to happen have blood on their hands.</p> A Devil's Bargain</h2> Even when LLMs don't make us delusional or dead, they don't offer real solutions that help us meet our social and emotional needs in a safe way. The emotional dependency they are designed to create is dangerous and they are not a substitute for real friends and partners. The people offering these services do not have your interest at heart. They are participating in a race to own, monopolize, and charge a rent on friendship. They look at a built environment with dwindling third spaces, hostile urban architecture, an ever-rising cost of living, and other conditions and current events that promote loneliness and offer you a devil's bargain: what if instead of confronting all of this, you retreated from the public social sphere and talked to us instead?</p> Do not accept this!!! Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Go out in search of those public places that still remain. Walk in the park or organize an event at one! they're usually free! Play bar trivia or go to karaoke if that's what you've got. Check out community centers and libraries! Seek out communities of mutual aid and care. Be social, meet people, ask them about events, invite them over for dinner or to watch a movie. Socially construct our culture and reality. Use dating apps and social media if you like, but always ensure that technology is helping you meet your needs, not hurting you or depriving you of real socialization. Take risks, consider going to therapy, go out and create the possibility that good things will happen! They're not guaranteed to, but you must try.</p> In the words of Pat the Bunny, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist</a>! So, keep on loving! Keep on fighting! and hold on for your life!</p> </a> The album art for Live the Dream, which Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of Your Fist is on.</figcaption> </figure> Making Esoteric Beauty Accessible: Befunge in 2025 Robin Brown — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 An audio-visual exploration of Befunge.</p> 'Fixing' 12-Hour Time Robin Brown — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 12-Hour Time is Confusing</h2> When we teach children to read clocks and tell time, they're often confused by the strange combination of rules we follow. Even some adults mix up whether midnight is in the a.m. or p.m. and how many hours are between two times that span noon. This confusing complexity isn't intrinsic! It can be removed!</p> 12-Hour Time is Discontinuous</h2> A sensible 12-hour time system would be continuous and linear within its 12-hour segments. Any times (N):mm a.m.</code> and (N+1):mm a.m.</code> should be 1 hour apart and any (N):mm p.m.</code> and (N+1):mm p.m.</code> should be too. Sadly, 12:30 p.m.</code> is actually 11 hours before 11:30 p.m.</code>. In my opinion, this is where a lot of the confusion about hours of the day and distances in time comes from.</p> Implied 24-Hour Value</h2> One simple way to demonstrate how 12-hour time deviates from intuition is to imagine a simple hypothetical rule: the 24-hour time for a 12-hour time is equal to its 12-hour time if it is a.m.</code> and equal to 12 hours later if it is p.m.</code>. This rule isn't how 12-hour time works, but plotting the values it gives us makes 12-hour time's major issue obvious.</p> This also presents an obvious way to create intra-segment intra-day continuity. Just make the hypothetical rule the actual one making noon 12:00 a.m.</code> and midnight 12:00 p.m.</code>.</p> Most people would leave it here having made times within the day continuous, but we can do better</em>... we can make times continuous between days! (even if we shouldn't)</p> Segment-Amplitude</h2> The approach for inter-segment inter-day continuity will look a little different and we'll start by using a different visualization. Instead of focusing on the "implied 24-hour value" we're going to focus on the amplitude of each time ignoring whether they are a.m.</code> or p.m.</code>.</p> For the next step we're going to take a hint from what "a.m." and "p.m." actually stand for:</p> ante meridiem</strong> which translates to "before midday"</li> post meridiem</strong> which translates to "after midday"</li> </ul> What's strange about this is that "11 a.m." isn't really "11 hours before midday" though "11 p.m." does mean "11 hours after midday, but what if they did match? What if HH:mm a.m.</code> meant HH</code> hours and mm</code> minutes before noon instead?</p> Instead of hours increasing up till 12 and then resetting to 1, they would go up to 12 and down to zero and then back up and then back down. Intuitively this would mean that 12 hours after midday is equal to 12 hours before midday of the next!</p> By reversing the order of time in the a.m., we've finally reached a truly inter-segment inter-day continuous 12-hour time, which I propose we call Continuous 12-Hour Time</strong> a.k.a. C12 Time</strong> and adopt immediately. Its inter-day continuity can be seen in the following figure by repeating the plot across multiple days.</p> In addition to continuity, it's also much easier to tell how long durations of time ranges that cross noon, which are very common, are: you can simply add the a.m. start time to the p.m. end time!</p> Notably, this innovation can't be applied to 24-hour time demonstrating why 24-hour time shouldn't be taken seriously.</p> Clocks</h2> This will obviously have both foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences and implications for clocks and the keeping of time. As we begin to implement it, I'm sure we'll figure out the details.</p> At some point I hope to build a physical analogue clock demonstrating it, which will conveniently only require a change in the motion of its hands but not its structure, which is a notable feature of my proposal.</p> For now, please accept this digital clock showing the current time in the proposed system:</p> 12:00 a.m.</span> A C12</strong> digital clock</figcaption> </figure>