I've not used footnotes recently and noticed last night that they aren't working properly – they are appearing behind the footer so can't be seen.
It looks like it's something to do with the changes I made to the comments, moving them to the side. No amount of z-index tweaking has resolved the issue so it's got to be something with the page layout.
More investigation required.
Update
I've come up with a workaround adding padding to the bottom of the footnote. Looks okay in testing.
Well, that was more complex that I expected.
It appears that things were a lot more involved as the new page layout was creating additional 'stacking contexts' that caused everything to not play nicely at all.
As well as the footnotes appearing 'underneath' the footer (on the z-axis) each article was creating it's own stacking context so that later posts would appear in front of footnotes from earlier posts. 🤷♂️
To work around this I have ended up dynamically setting the z-index of each post on the page whenever a footnote button is clicked so that the containing post appears in front of all others. It was even made more complicated because the footnote buttons are dynamically added to the DOM. 🤯
I eventually got it sorted after using Bard and ChatGPT for guidance, although Bard got confused and kept apologising and giving me exactly the same code when I told it something wasn't working.
And all because I wanted comments to come in from the side of the screen rather than appear inline.
I was reading a post from 9/11 two years ago in which I wrote:
People say the world changed that day – maybe it did but by how much I'm not sure. You only have to look at recent events in Afghanistan to realise it can't have changed that much, or that at least some of the change was temporary. As much as we hate to admit it, maybe some things just can't be changed and, given time, return to their natural equilibrium despite our best efforts.
I was reminded of what I wrote about the pandemic:
To steal a line from politicians, we should build back better, personally and societally. We should be aiming to improve things for so many and not just returning to the way things were.
The impact of the pandemic has shown just how inequitous life can be (we already knew that but Covid has hammered the point home.) The question is how can we move forward and build that better future?
True to form, the pandemic doesn't appear to have been a catalyst for any kind of meaningful change. Things have 'slowly, then all at once' returned to pre-covid normality with seemingly no lessons learnt.
I overheard someone in the toilets at work recently remark upon someone else barely washing their hands that everyone seemed to have forgotten the lesson and routine of basic, good hygiene. It's over, we don't need to worry about all that any more.
Those in power seek to stay in power. As Alan Jacobs writes:
These Powers ... call the shots ... they identify an “environment” which they stand outside of and manipulate; they determine what within that environment is "proper" ... What are the proper activities in environment X? What is the proper environment for activity X? The Powers organize and channel the energies of ordinary people into the proper, and do so according to their strategic purposes.
Move along, nothing to see here, be good obedient citizens. Know your place.
I can't help but wonder exactly what it would take for humanity (as a whole) to change. It is always said that we would band together in the face of some extra-terrestrial threat. Maybe so, but that would likely be just for the duration of that threat. If we survived there would be a race to claim responsibility for success and rapid moves to fill any kind of power or political vacuum. And we all know that politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
Even after an almost extinction level event there would be those seeking to gain power and profit, putting personal gain before the good of society. That's why our many imagined dystopian futures are less a warning and more a premonition.
What will it take to ensure they're not?
