Stupid CSS!

See that search box, the search icon and the RSS icon on the top right? They are the bane of my existance. Those elements display differently between Firefox 2, Firefox 3 and IE7. That’s three different ways of CSS interpretation, all with slightly different results! Funnily enough, the Internet Explorer interpretation is actually the closest to the “truth”. Aren’t web standards great?

Update: Hah! I got rid of the search image and now it is working everywhere

Stupid CA Cellphone Law

Am I the only one who remembers various studies that proved that there’s no difference between hands-on and hands-free cellphone use while driving? Both are equally distracting:

Many studies have shown that using hand-held cellphones while driving can constitute a hazardous distraction. However, the theory that hands-free sets are safer has been challenged by the findings of several studies. A study from researchers at the University of Utah, published in the summer 2006 issue of Human Factors, the quarterly journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, concludes that talking on a cellphone while driving is as dangerous as driving drunk, even if the phone is a hands-free model. An earlier study by researchers at the university found that motorists who talked on hands-free cellphones were 18 percent slower in braking and took 17 percent longer to regain the speed they lost when they braked.

So how is this new California law that banishes hands-on cellphones, but still allows dialing, texting and headsets, more than activism? Yesterday a coworker almost got run into by a woman who was talking on her speaker phone. This morning, I saw a woman driving way under the speed limit on hway 101 while talking exitedly on her headset. But all of the sudden we’re forbidden from normal cellphone use because that is too dangerous?

Dear Ticketmaster…

Please find my (IMHO quite constructive) complaint about your website below. I tried to submit this complaint via the TicketMaster page, but after a punishing process of finding the feedback form and entering this feedback, your submission button sent me with an automated response that, after listing a lot of possible solutions to my problem (none of which helped), finally left me with the somewhat hidden information that

*** YOUR INCIDENT HAS NOT YET BEEN SUBMITTED, PLEASE CLICK “FINISH SUBMITTING QUESTION” AFTER READING THE INFORMATION BELOW ***

Guess what? There was no link to submit the incident! Just a bunch of links to additional FAQ entries that didn’t help, either.

[Read more]

Impressed by Powerpoint? Not really.

Program compatability – you gotta love it. For years I’ve made my presentations in OpenOffice Impress, because it does everything I’d be doing in Powerpoint and…well, it’s free! You can’t beat that. In the end I’d convert my presentation to the Powerpoint format for downloads, so that everybody could open it. I never had problems with that workflow, and it still worked a few days ago. But all of the sudden, as of yesterday, Powerpoint refuses to open any .ppt file that I save out from Impress. Any, even the simplest onesheet. “Powerpoint can’t open the type of file represented by !GDC2007.ppt.” What the hell? You didn’t complain three days ago? And I haven’t upgraded Impress or Powerpoint, how could this be broken all of the sudden?

The solution is so simple yet annoying that it took me two days to figure it out. Oh, Powerpoint can open the file type represented by !GDC2007.ppt – but only when that file isn’t already opened in Impress. Because then, some super special “You can’t have it! I’m using it! Neener neener neener!” stuff must be going on behind the scenes, unheard by my weak human ears. That’s some weak sauce – and I don’t even know which application to blame for it…

Ding

As of today, I have been allowed to drink alcohol (legally!) for half of my life.

In Germany, that is. In the US, with its backwater, Puritan “You are responsible enough to die and vote for your country 3 years before you can be trusted to handle a glass of beer” I wouldn’t reach this mark for another 10 years. God bless good olde Europe

Xmas in November

Dear Corporate America,

Please look outside your window. Is the ground covered in snow? Do you see half eaten turkey bones strewn about? No? Good, that makes a lot of sense. Because it’s the middle of November.  So would you please SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT CHRISTMAS ALREADY?

It’s November. It’s November. It’s November. On the list of things on my radar, Xmas currently tracks somewhere around position #26, right between the question which girl is getting voted off America’s Next Top Model this week and whether we’re eating too much salt as a people.

Whatever happened to the notion that Christmas time starts in December with the time of Advent? Or, for you marketing people who only see the world through dollar signs, with Black Friday – that delightful American demi-holiday that follows the Thanksgiving celebrations?

I just don’t get it. Are there really that many people running around thinking “OMG! Xmas will be here before you know it! Better start thinking about buying all those presents now, in the first week of November!” Have we really gotten that conceited? I remember walking into the mall last November and seeing one of those mall Santas all ready for action. I couldn’t help but rolling my eyes and making a face, he just looked way out of place. And I think the guy saw me do it, too, because the reaction in his face was one of embarrasment. Honestly, he was probably thinking the same thing I was: “Sorry dude. I know how ridiculous it is for me to be sitting here in my bright red Santa costume in the middle of November; and I’m feeling damn stupid. But what can I say? I need the money…”

Anyway, enough of that. Of course it’s up to everybody how he reacts to this commercial holiday barrage. Maybe it’s working and people are really buying tons of Xmas gifts already. Maybe. Personally, I’ll be ignoring every outlet that is spewing Xmas commercials on me right now. It’s my own little island of (totally ineffective) Holiday activism.

It’s not beer!

I think everybody has one or two Pavlovian responses. You know, where somebody utters a certain phrase and you automatically, without conscious thought, reply with the same premeditated phrase. Back in Virginia, there was a waitress that would, without fail, say “You’re welcome!” when you acknowledged a soda refill or whatever with a simple “Thanks.” Grant had himself some fun with that if I remember correctly, testing the conditioning at the most unlikely places. I remember her collecting everybody’s menus one day and six instances of “Than…”"You’re welcome!”
Good times

I catch myself saying “It’s not beer!” every time a Budweiser commercial comes on on TV and ends with statements like “The king of beers”. I can’t help it. People usually think I’m being facetious, a roundabout way of saying that Budweiser is a beer of low quality. But that ain’t it, I literally mean that it’s not beer. Because by the Reihnheitsgebot, Budweiser is not beer. Budweiser is made with rice, and the German purity law mandates that beer is made from water, barley, hops – and nothing else.

If you suspect that that attitude is elitist, clings to semantics and is…well, German, you’re 100% right. But it’s fun, isn’t it?

P.S.: I’ve been known to drink Budweiser with various people when it’s been offered to me. Just don’t tell anybody!

Ted Nugent, Idiot

So Ted Nugent is saying that “Gun-free zones [in schools] are recipe for disaster“. Because you know what? If more people had guns in schools they could take down the shooter instead of running away defenseless. Nugent then starts a long list of examples where guns prevented additional(!) bloodshed because somebody with a gun took down the initial shooter. Wow. Am I the only one who thinks that this is so incredibly backwards that it hurts to think about? Here’s a quote from the article:

“At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.”

Uhm, HELLO? How did an eight-grade boy get hold of a gun in the first place?! And is nobody noticing a trend in these stories? Almost every one of Mr Nugent’s examples start with “Somebody killed X number of people - and then a hero took down the gunman with his own gun.” So people died because somebody had easy access to guns – but that isn’t bad. No, easy access to guns is good because it prevented additional killings!

This is madnass. It’s as if somebody was saying “Okay people, we’re living a very dry forrest, and the danger of wildfires is extremely high! But we will let you all carry flamethrowers because it’s your constitutional right. Just don’t use them! Please don’t use the flamethrowers! (Pause) Everybody having flamethrowers is a great idea, though – because when some psycho does start torching a tree everybody around him can use their own flamethrowers to burn down the madman!”

I don’t know about you, but the above sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. The entire forrest would be burning in no time. Here’s a thought: how about we don’t allow flamethrowers in the first place?

“Everybody who really wants to get guns will get them anyway”, I hear people say. “Tough gun control laws wouldn’t have prevented VT or Columbine, because if a criminal wants a gun, he’ll find a gun.” And my response to that is simple: Bullshit. People who commit killing sprees at schools are not criminals. They are sick. Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, has been revealed as psychotic, depressed coward. Does anybody honestly think that that guy would have gone into the illegal underground to obtain his weapons? His crime was one of convenience – he was depressed, had a huge inferiority complex – and he had easy access to guns. Boom – that’s when the mix became potent. Cho Seung-Hui living in a world of tough gun control laws – he would probably have gone to jail for stalking later on his life, or committed suicide. But he wouldn’t have shot 32 people, because a person like him doesn’t go out of his way to obtain weapons illegally. He wouldn’t have known how to! I wouldn’t know how to!

There, my hat is now in the political ring. I know that the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in American history, and taking that right away would have far-reaching implications. If the government can strip that right, what other rights are fair game? But arguments like Ted Nugent’s are ridiculously backwards. If that’s the official NRA line we’re in deeper trouble than I would ever have thought. And somebody ought to get that into America’s head.

VT

I wasn’t going to say much about the Virginia Tech shootings. What happens sucks big time. And all the victims should be in our thoughts. But after seeing the news coverage for two days, I feel like getting this off my chest:

Hello media outlets? Would you please stop showing the asshole on your main page? You’re giving him much more power than he deserves, and you’re only going to encourage other sick minds to do the same thing.

“Wow, the guy never got any attention and then his face was on the CNN front page for three days! Maybe I can do the same and people will notice me! I’ll pose with guns and stuff!”
But then again CNN et all are having a field day right now, aren’t they? Probably more people watching in a day than in a whole week of “normal” news. Of course they’re gonna milk it for all that it’s worth, and will claim that it’s only in the name of providing information. Which is bullshit, of course. I can wait a few days until all facts are actually in and get a perfect summery in 5 minuters. But by doing their ongoing “Breaking News!” stuff the news are saying more about our society than the shooter alone ever would have been able to

Vielen Dank, Deutschland…

Ein Grund mehr, alsbald nicht zurueck nach Deutschland zu ziehen. Ich habe jetzt keine hoch wissenschaftliche Analyse, die diesen Gesetzesvorschlag als halbgaren Aktionismus enttarnt. Der allgegenwaertige, aber nie offen genannte Grundtenor scheint ja immer derselbe zu sein: “Sowas passiert nicht bei uns in Deutschland! Unsere Gesellschaft ist von Grund auf characterstaerker als in anderen Laendern! Wenn es hier jetzt solche Amoklaeufe gibt, dann muessen aeussere Einfluesse Schuld sein!” Und schwupps waren Computerspiele – die ein Beiprodukt der gesellschaftlichen Veraenderung und nicht der Ursprung sind – an allem Schuld. Ich weiss auf jeden Fall eines: das Spielen dieser “extrem gewalthaltigen” Computerspiele hat ausschliesslich positive Auswirkungen auf mein Leben gehabt. Ich habe Freundschaften geschlossen, die auch nach ueber 10 Jahren noch bestehen, mir kreativ neue Welten erschlossen – und dabei nie eine erhoehte Faszination fuer Waffen oder das Toeten realer Menschen entwickelt. Eine Abstumpfung hat ebenso wenig statgefunden. Und Spiele, in denen “Leben gesammelt wurden” haben wir schon als kleine Kinder gespielt: das hiess Cowboy und Indianer oder bestand aus selbstgebastelten Blasrohren und rohen Erbsen.

Aber gut, ich will mich ja gar nicht wirklich gross aufregen. Man muss nicht immer gleich alles so heiss essen, wie es gekocht wird. Hier in Amerika schlagen die religioesen Fanatiker generell um sich, sobald eine weibliche Brustwarze zu sehen ist, und versaute Pfarrer verkuenden, eine dreiwoechige Gespraechstherapie habe sie von der Homosexualitaet “geheilt” (*prust*). In Deutschland sind es halt gewalttaetige Spiele. Ein Land, in dem jedermann vernuenftig, relaxed und groovy ist scheint es noch nicht zu geben (irgendwas in Skandinavien vielleicht?), also warten wir weiter geduldig ab.