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The InterWeb

Import

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I just bought a new cassette for my bike from the UK, and am trying to decide where to have it shipped – here in the US, or to relatives in the UK. So to the US Customs site I go to work out what the rates are. The link to the rates isn’t obvious, but I spot a FAQ link and follow it like an eager puppy chasing a toilet roll. Here are the instructions on how to find the ‘Harmonized Tariff Schedule, direct from the site:

To locate the current Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) visit www.cbp.gov click on Import (at the top of the page), click on Duty Rates (on the left), under “On the Web” (on the far right) click on 2005 HTS (U.S. International Trade Commission) or 2005 HTS by Chapter.

Oh if only there were some feature of the Interweb that allowed for direct linking to a particular page. Wait, ‘linking’, that’s it, we could call them links, and we could make them blue and underline them to make them stand out on the page.

Stage two is to work out what it counts as.

  • Fish and crustaceans, molluscs and other aquatic invertebrates – No.
  • Edible fruit and nuts; peel of citrus fruit or melons – Ye..oh wait, *citrus* fruits. No
  • Ores, slag and ash – Of course not, but I can’t just skip over the word slag
  • Impregnated, coated, covered or laminated textile fabrics; textile articles of a kind suitable for industrial use – See previous item, only this time it’s ‘impregnated’
  • Nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances; parts thereof – No, but we’re getting warmer
  • Vehicles other than railway or tramway rolling stock, and parts and accessories thereof – Bingo!

Opening the pdf, we first find the following comment:

Heading 8712 includes all children’s bicycles. Other children’s cycles fall in heading 9501.

That’s a pretty sophisticated parsing of bicycle versus cycle, but fortunately I’m all growed up.

Tractors, tractors, motor cars motor cars motor cars, parts, tanks, motorcycles, wait, did that say tanks?

OK, bicycles. Hmm, are my tires greater than 63.5cm in diameter? Google, 700c is 622mm, plus the tire on either side gives more than 63.5 I think. So the bike itself would be covered by 8712.00.25, so the parts are covered by 8714. Here we go, 8714.93.70.00, “Multiple free-wheel sprockets”. Well that sounds more like something I would use on my patented safety velocipede, but I think this is it.

…

Free!

Or possibly 30%, if I knew what column 2 meant. Ah, Cuba and North Korea, I’m safe. And I see products of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are covered under column one – have to make a mental note of that just in case.

Category Clouds

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I’ve been asked how the technorati-like cloud to your right is achieved. Being something of a gadfly, I had already upgraded my WordPress install to use Widgets, which I believe all the cool kids are using nowadays. The instructions to install the basic widget setup are pretty good, so long as you actually follow them rather than doing half of them and then assuming you’re done (but who would do that?)

After that I found the Category Cloud Widget on the Widget Blog(widgr.com, anyone?). Installation was again straightforward, the only trick to keep in mind is that you have to activate the widget just like a plugin from within the WordPress admin pages.

Once installed the parameters to make it work are straightforward – I set it to scale from 70% to 250% of the standard font, which seemed best suited to this theme as it uses relative sizes rather than absolute values.

The widget code was taken from this normal plugin. This is probably a bit easier, but lacks your RDA of AJAX I’m afraid.

My Big Web 2.0 Idea

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Widgets are everywhere; WordPress, TypePad, OS X, and about 56 million other places according to Google. But up until now there hasn’t been one place that collects all of these together*, highlighting trends, allowing you to identify favorites on one platform and find matching functionality for other applications. Rest easy, because I’m poised to launch** widgr.com, a site that, um, does what I just said.

I’m thinking bold pastels, rounded corners, floaty AJAX things, and of course the all-important missing letter before the ‘r’. There’ll be advertising, of course, but really I’m doing it for the sense of giving back to the community. That and the thought of millions of Americans unknowingly using a British slang word for a boy’s thingy.

*I didn’t actually check, but it’s a fair bet
**Not really – who’s got the time?