Tabs and links in web browsers

The current iteration of our website at work is well-received but some of its a tags for the hyperlinks use a target="_blank" attribute which means that a new tab or window is always opened when one clicks on the link. That this persistently irritates me makes me suspect that I may be an atypical visitor to the website.

For the most part I think of browser tabs as to-dos. For mouse-like peripherals I use input devices that offer me at least three buttons. For hyperlinks I expect one of the buttons to replace the content in the current tab and another to open the content in a new tab. So, I always have effortless means at hand to select one behavior or the other and this manual target override feels like that choice is removed to no good end.

I hypothesize that we may have gone with this website design because it works better for people with more normal setups and that mine is abnormally useful by default. Alternatively, I may be unusual in being mindful of the choice of where to open the new content as I click around.

Food in England

From Oxfam I am pleased to have obtained an old hardback in good condition of Dorothy Hartley's Food in England. From her writing she seems a positively interesting person. I have been curious about what English cuisine was like before the changes in society wrought by the twentieth century and she does a very good job of providing a detailed picture of what people ate and how they made it, especially in rural communities; clearly she has been a curious traveler. While the book does have organization, it is also delightfully random: one never knows quite what the next section will bring. I appreciate how she keenly relates so much about ways that are now largely forgotten, at least in the world I know.