Randomized Geek

8 reasons why Who Sucks sucks

2007-07-08T21:35:00.000+02:00

Who sucks suck

Who sucks? What site is that? I had a look after finding it with random browsing.
So who sucks sucks ...

1. It does not have a good search
2. It does not offer any good alternatives for anything
3. Pointing how something or someone sucks does not offer any better alternatives to the thing that sucks
4. It lacks originality
5. It's criteria for sucking are very biased - then again I don't know if it even is possible to have a sucks-themed site that is objective. So they hate boingboing.net and icanhascheezburgerger.com, and iPhone because it lacks flash support for websites? Buhuu.
6. It is digg whoring at every entry
7. It's made with wordpress but the whosucks logo looks like it was made with iWeb
8. It also lacks a proper whois information. About is minimal, and looking at registrant info from the domain is not that fruitful. I can assume the site was registered under no real person to avoid the hatemail that it will get (that it is looking for).

Domain Name: who-sucks.com

Registrant Contact:
who-sucks.com Private Registrant who-sucks.com@proxy.dreamhost.com
DreamHost Web Hosting
417 Associated Rd #324
Brea, CA 92821
US
+1.2139471032

There is just nothing original about it.

4 more web annoyances

2007-07-06T09:57:00.000+02:00

And something to add to the category of why I've quit reading a blog [via Pronet advertising] : 4 web annoyances to avoid on your site

Auto-Playing Audio/Video Advertisements
Window Resize
Pop-up Advertisements
Insensitive to Photosensitive Epilepsy

Could not agree more.

10 blogging mistakes to avoid
John Chow's 10 blogging mistakes to avoid
10 reasons why I've quit reading a blog

A moment before the sunrise it's the darkest one

2007-06-20T00:26:00.000+02:00

From the end of March until now I have barely posted. There have been good reasons for it. What happened in life made me turn inside myself for a while, and in a week it will turn around, and I will be me again - better than ever before.

I have changed my job since end of March. I also discovered that what I started doing since was not what I wanted to do, and that a company that I like a lot wanted to hire me - today I got a confirm that they can hire me. Suddenly there is sunshine in the life again, even when it's raining like in October in June when it's supposed to be the warmest days of the year ...

I got excited, and will blog more, and more often. It is a promise.
I will work with exciting products, of which some later depending on what I can say and what not.

The sunrise of Ricardo puts an image to what it feels like now. A moment before the sunrise it's the darkest one ... now it's getting to that sunrise moment, and I can see again.

Ireland and EU-1 visa crisis gets some media attention

2007-06-20T00:15:00.000+02:00

1,000 married couples face 'legal fiasco' - Irish Times [link] [via]

An estimated 1,000 married couples face what is being described by the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland as a “legal fiasco” following a High Court ruling that the Department of Justice is within its rights to insist non-EU spouses of EU citizens live in another member state before being allowed to live and work here.

The European Commission is investigating the stance of the department, it has emerged.

In an unpublished ruling, seen by The Irish Times, Mr Justice Michael Hanna said the Department of Justice was intra vires in demanding that non-EU spouses of EU citizens reside legally in another member state before being eligible for residency here.

More

This is a big deal for Ireland. 10 % of its population are non-Irish. So it is more than 1000 couples that are influenced by this. We probably know 10 couples already - but that is working for very international companies.

Nevertheless, some media coverage is better than no media coverage.

And a few more reasons why some blogs become way less interesting

2007-04-24T12:48:00.000+02:00

As a few additions to 10 reasons why I've quit reading a blog - the ones that I have quit reading recently don't fit always to the reasons below.

- The blogger is suddenly having a kid, and instead of geek ramblings, now you have links to ultrasounds pictures and something else creepy
- The feed is constantly not working. When a certain blog feed had issues, and I kept seeing always one certain blog post I could not care less about, to be new, from February, day after day, refresh after refresh, I just removed it. I could not stand seeing the same post over and over and over...
- The blog is just updated way too often (the few updates a day is ok, but when it goes to a group of bloggers doing 20 updates a day, unless it's something I really dig, it's a bit too much of the same topic)

And, well - when it's been months since the last update. I know I have been not as active with this space here as I wanted to, but it has been a very frustrating time in the real life. Something happened that changed about everything possible.

Signs of Hell freezing over

2007-02-28T17:11:00.000+01:00

I think Hell is slowly freezing over.
Proof? .. a short list of the major events.

1. Apple has moved their product line to have Intel processors, from consumer line to Xserves.
2. You can run Windows (or any other 'non-Mac') OS on your Mac.
3. Finland has won the Eurovision [link]
4. A New Yorker gets grumpy online because she has never met a rude person in her life. [story]

And the winner - while searching for a decent photo of Hell, Norway ... sometimes the google advertising gives funny results.

10 blogging mistakes to avoid

2007-02-28T15:03:00.000+01:00

Time to avoid the blogging mistake #1 as listed for top 10 (or wost 10?) by John Chow. Of the ones listed, I had never heard of John Chow. How about instead of that # 10, not reading Guy Kawasaki or .. well, keeping fresh and updating your ideas?

And as again, for some own input on the subject, and as continuation of 10 reasons why I've quit reading a blog - here what I could consider some of the worst things for blogging :

1. Being abandoned or giving the feel of being it. If it's about an interesting topic, and has some good content, maybe a look every now and then to check for updates, or maybe it gets to even bloglines or google reader but no new contents in months .. could make a nice graphic here for time per readers abandonment.
2. The God-attitude of writing. "I know everything about cars/digital photography/social networking/social media optimization/photoshop//macs/something else". Good - if you actually do know that much, how about making money out of it and working in that field? Blogging gives good options for a starter for getting good feedback, but if the years of bragging on how good one is is nothing more but confabulation made by just the author, then it may become suddenly boring.
3. Summarized the reasons for quitting reading : no original content, being supposed to like the blog and the topic, buzzwords, blogging about your kids in your work related blog when you are not a nurse, no sense of humor, too much posting or no new content...
4. Poor writing skills. When your language and expressions give the reader a headache, even if it's because of your f4sh10nabl3 sp3ll1ng, still. Let the writing take its time. Formulate the phrases when you know what you want to say.
5. Negativity. People that are negative attract negative things around their life - the life, the work, everything becomes dark and stale. If you don't like negativity, then maybe time to read something more positive than a blog where the constant topics are about how one's life sucks.
6. Not growing. When all your blogging for the past four years have been about one thing only, maybe it's time to add some more interests and write about them. Bruce Schneier doesn't think only about security issues, but also blogs about squids (on Fridays) and writes restaurant reviews. So why would anyone else have only one obsession or interest? Then at least add to your interests getting more interests. Ask your readers for ideas in what to become interested in.
7. Me, me, me. My camera, my opinions, my blog, my links. Me me me. Solution? Get a life, and get some online and offline friends and other interests than you yourself and you.
8. Liking and linking what everyone else does. Google and digg whoring. And just because the boingboing editors like Yasmina Tesanovic or ioerror then you like them just because ..
9. Being afraid of writing or other reasons for no content. It's ok to have as a part your del.icio.us links and quick links to the funny things that you find but add some original input too, at least once every few weeks.

That's 9 until there. What would be the 10th?
Sticking to default template?
Annoying amount of ads?
Using a certain hosting site?
Word is yours.

Eleana Ramos dies 6 months after Luisel - anorexic model family ...

2007-02-15T12:49:00.000+01:00

Six months ago the headlines and anorexia interests around the world noticed the death of Luisel Ramos, the 22 years old model from Uruguay who died for anorexia.

Now ... her sister, Eliana Ramos, 18, has died. While doing a catwalk while modeling ... anorexia. Again. Eliana was working for a company called Pancho Dotto. La Repubblica has added some pictures of Eliana on today's news. The news add that it's not 100 % sure yet if she died of anorexia but .. you could think maybe of changing the career if your sister dies? Or that perhaps the parents would have preferred that their second child would have considered other career options?

La chica, que integraba el staff de Pancho Dotto, fue hallada muerta en su casa de Montevideo. Según los forenses, sufrió una "muerte súbita". [Clarin]

"Ella no fumaba, no tomaba nada, sólo Coca o agua. Y nunca se drogó", afirmó. Jairo mencionó que el médico les dio "el ejemplo de un jugador de fútbol que se muere en la cancha".
Personas cercanas a la familia indicaron que hacía tiempo que Luisel estaba bajo mucha presión: "Venía al mango hace mucho tiempo por la organización, el martes desfiló y después se quedó armando más cosas para el miércoles. Terminaba y de noche repartía invitaciones para los desfiles. Mucho estrés y ansiedad para una gurisa joven". [AbiertaTV]

Very tiny steps for the modeling world indeed.

-- Update : the correct spelling for her first name is Eleana - lazy press.

NYT : Number of People Stopped by New York Police Soars

2007-02-08T21:11:00.000+01:00

Number of People Stopped by New York Police Soars:

By AL BAKER and EMILY VASQUEZ
Published: February 3, 2007
The New York Police Department released new information yesterday showing that police officers stopped 508,540 individuals on New York City streets last year — an average of 1,393 stops per day — often searching them for illegal weapons. The number was up from 97,296 in 2002, the last time the department divulged 12 months’ worth of data.

After inquiries by the City Council and civil rights advocates, the department delivered four bound volumes of statistics to the Council in midafternoon. The raw data showed that more than half of those stopped last year were black: an average of 67,000 per quarter.

At the same time, the average number of people arrested per quarter as a result of such stops almost doubled to 5,317 last year, from 2,819 in 2002, and summonses nearly quintupled, to a quarterly average of 7,292 last year from 1,461 in 2002.

Until yesterday, the most recent information released by the Police Department about how and why it stops people to search them, sometimes looking for illegal guns, was from 2003, according to city officials and city and court records. Some officials have said that lag put the department at odds with a pair of legal requirements that sprang from public outrage at the 1999 fatal police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed black street peddler.

The department, which rejects such assertions, has not released numbers from 2004 and 2005, or from the last three months of 2003.

Those who review the data are now grappling with dual issues: determining why the Police Department waited so long to release any new figures, and why it is stopping more people and searching them.

The issue of these police-public encounters — called “stop and frisks” — became an emotional flashpoint after the shooting of Mr. Diallo, whose death in a barrage of 41 police bullets led to weeks of protests and scores of arrests outside 1 Police Plaza, in Lower Manhattan.

Many of the protesters contended that there was a pattern of racial profiling in stop-and-frisks. A state study later in 1999 confirmed racial disparities in such stops.

The guidelines to monitor stop-and-frisks in detail were set forth in a city law signed in 2001, and in a federal court case settled by the Bloomberg administration in 2004. Both called for the Police Department to release to the City Council, four times a year, basic data about the people who are stopped and questioned by officers, and the reasons for such encounters.

But until yesterday, it had been a year since the department reported its stop-and-frisk activity, and those numbers dated from a three-month period ending in September 2003.

In the meantime, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, an independent city agency that investigates charges of police misconduct, found that complaints involving stops and searches have more than doubled in recent years, increasing to 2,556 last year from 1,128 in 2003. Complaints involving police stops now account for 33 percent of all complaints, up from 20 percent in 2003.

At a City Council hearing on Jan. 24, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly assured council members that his officers were not practicing racial profiling in street stops.

“Officers are stopping those they reasonably suspect of committing a crime, based on descriptions and circumstances,” Mr. Kelly said, “and not on personal bias.”

Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman, said later that the department’s analysis of the numbers showed that while 55.2 percent of the stop encounters last year involved blacks, 68.5 percent of crimes involved suspects described as black by their victims (or by witnesses, in the case of homicides). Hispanics, he said, made up 30.5 percent of those stopped and 24.5 percent of suspected offenders. For whites, he said, the numbers were 11.1 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively.

Mr. Browne said that aggressive street enforcement was partly responsible for the increase in stop-and-frisks. Also, he said, “careful accounting” of such encounters by the department in recent years made the increase seem greater. “Part of it is taking guns off the street and responding to complaints where we use stop-and-frisk,” he said.

It was unclear last night how much of the increase in stops was due to suspected gun possession or how many led to gun arrests. Mr. Browne could not confirm a direct line between gun arrests and increases in stops, and said officers’ efforts to take guns off the streets were just one facet of the crime suppression the stop-and-frisk forms reflected.

The 2006 figures, delivered yesterday by two officers in plain clothes, were contained in four books of about 250 pages each. Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., chairman of the Council’s public safety committee, said his staff was unable to interpret the numbers immediately.

The department’s lag in releasing the numbers came to light after the fatal shooting in November of another unarmed black man, Sean Bell, and has been seized on by civil rights advocates, academics and current and former government officials. Mr. Bell’s death was not related to a stop-and-frisk operation, but it has become a valve for frustrations over relations between the police and minority residents. But members of the City Council said they had been requesting the material even before the Bell shooting.

Jeffrey Fagan, a professor of law and public health at Columbia University who studied the issue in 1999 for Eliot Spitzer, then the attorney general, said he was not surprised that the number of stop-and-frisks went up “during a period of no accountability.”

But, he added, “it is an astonishing fact that stop rates went up by 500 percent when crime rates were flat.” Police officials and a city lawyer said there were several reasons the department had fallen behind in releasing the numbers. Compiling the reports, they said, has been hampered by antiquated technology, especially since the numbers have risen. The department has been working to modernize its reporting system, officials said, and has not been withholding the data deliberately.

Some observers questioned whether producing data on street stops remained on the department’s front burner during the age of terrorism.

“I just don’t think it’s a priority,” Dr. Fagan said of the data collection.

The total number of stops includes cases in which the officers acted to prevent what could have been terrorist activity, the police said. But those stops are relatively rare, they said, and there is no separate category for keeping track of them. Searches of subway riders’ bags are not considered stop-and-frisk encounters because people willing to forgo entry to the subway can decline them.

Joel Berger, who monitored matters of police conduct as an executive in the city’s Law Department from 1988 to 1996, said: “It is particularly frightening that the Police Department is not following the statute that requires reporting on stop, question and frisks. It is the thing that happens most often and most troubles people, and the failure to report the numbers is, effectively, very alarming.”

Mr. Spitzer first dug into the issue of street stops after the Diallo shooting and found that Hispanics and blacks were being disproportionately targeted. After adjusting for varying crime rates among racial groups, his analysis found that blacks were stopped 23 percent more often than whites. Hispanics were stopped 39 percent more often than whites.

In the wake of those findings, the city signed a law allowing the Council to collect the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk data on a quarterly basis. Separately, the federal class-action lawsuit, Daniels v. City of New York, alleged that the police habitually used racial profiling in stop-and-frisk situations. When the city’s corporation counsel settled the case in January 2004, the agreement required the police to disclose data on such encounters through 2007.

The idea was that increased transparency about police stops would not only foster analysis of one of the department’s most crucial tactics for reducing crime, but also would help restore the public’s trust.

Mr. Spitzer’s study reviewed police records known as UF-250s. Officers must fill them out after making forcible stops, including those in which a person is frisked or searched. His report noted that officers did not always fill them out. The form shows the race of the person stopped as well as the reason.

Under a system begun in the spring of 1999, police officials said, forms completed at individual precincts were taken to 1 Police Plaza, where their 50 points of data were gathered. Envisioning a daunting backlog, Mr. Kelly in 2005 directed that the process be decentralized so that the raw data could be recorded quickly, at the precinct level.

Mr. Kelly told officials at the Jan. 24 hearing that the data for the remainder of 2003, and for all of 2004 and 2005, would take longer to provide. That is “because it must be compiled manually, rather than in a technologically advanced way,” according to a letter sent Thursday from the Law Department to a plaintiff in the federal case.

“We’ve been patiently waiting for years now,” Councilman Vallone, told Mr. Kelly at the hearing. “We would again request that you give us that information.”

For a time, the police gave the data to the City Council with some regularity. But the frequency of the reports slowed, and in February 2006, the department released data for the third quarter of 2003.

Then, the flow of data stopped. Until yesterday.

But city leaders came under criticism as well for failing to more forcefully demand the data. “The City Council has failed to ensure that the Police Department is producing the reports, as required by the statute,” said Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “As a result, it has not been doing any monitoring of stop-and-frisk activity, which was the very point of the statute.”

Kittymoticons

2007-01-28T19:16:00.001+01:00

Kittymoticons

Questions that would be nice to ask in a job interview

2007-01-28T18:11:00.000+01:00

What's the suicide rate of your employees?
Does the company healthcare cover suicide? Or heart-lung transplants, cosmetic surgery such as liposuction, tubal, boobjob and cures for erectile dysfunction?
Have you ever had sex with an employee? Or with a customer?
What kind of shooting facilities are there in the office?
How many diversity persons are there working at the site? Would you consider hiring a 35 years old white male as your diversity person?
Who did you sleep with to become a manager?
What kind of possibilities are there to explore the possibility of collecting the protection money from the employees for keeping their computers working?
Is it true that the outgoing calls are not recorded?
I can see asking creative questions that have nothing to do with the job I'm applying for or with measuring the candidates attitudes are in ... don't you want to ask anything relevant?
Is it part of your dress code that everyone dresses as if they were working for Microsoft?
I had a look walking around the office before this interview, and man, I didn't see anyone who would look happy in their job. What reasons do the employees usually give when they leave?
Could you give examples of your micromanagement style?
What's your company policy for sexual harassment?
Do they sell beer in the canteen?
How often do you get extra paid time off for funerals?
How much underperforming do you tolerate before firing your employees?
Is swearing in the office allowed?
How many hours are there typically time to watch movies during a typical work day?
Does your company dress code allow the employees to wear a burqa?
Are those real?

Updates on the way ...

2007-01-27T17:31:00.000+01:00

The past few weeks have been surprising. Surprising slow and fast on the same time, confusing and making some changes, giving the air of more changes to come soon. While the other half is still in the paperwork hell, I might get some good news soon regarding work - keep thumbs up.
Winter has never bee my best time. Cold and dark just suck most of the energy out. That and being sick for the past few days make it that I don't yet have a good rant update. Maybe tomorrow though.

Lying will take you far

2007-01-11T21:41:00.000+01:00

After some years of observing people in the work and social life I have come to a weird conclusion : lying is worth it. I should have disregarded all the good parental and moral advice about lying and just started to do it, and properly, a long time ago.

Especially in the past year, I have noticed how much some people lie. I have observed two pathological liars at the work environment - one of them got herself a job promotion with lying, after spending weeks and months in several occasions sick for a reason that isn't medically credible (but when one just keeps lying systematically, no one seems to even notice that), and the other person was a bit surprisingly close to me.

The sick and then job promotion liar according to this other liar, keeps lying constantly. The second liar helped me recognize signs of lying - where she thought she'd be hiding her own signs of lying so well. Anyway. Normally when one has four sick incidents in any six months, the person is fired. The only exceptions to this have been one boss who had really really many and who was then sick for a year in the row but that didn't matter either because of her position or someone that she knew or because pregnancy gets somehow so special treatment (even though it is one's own fault to get in that condition in the first place), and this liar. She got allergies that caused her to be sick for weeks - the great stories of medication that she mentioned included details about her allergy medication, Xanax ... even if that medicine hasn't ever been used for anything else than mental disorders and panic. Still allergic (for work?) for weeks, on Xanax and booze .. no questions asked. After coming back for work for a few weeks then a tennis elbow, from using the mouse. Which was another weeks in a row of being sick. Physiologically, anyone using a mouse except maybe as a tennis ball replacement doesn't really cause it. So you would think that weeks of rest and physiotherapy would fix it if it was present. And if it didn't fix it, at least steroid injections would. She got those, and that in the storyline just made it worse .. I remember seeing her occasionally after that at work, probably because the management started to be suspicious enough, and shortly after she landed in a new job. I am definitely curious to see what kind of stories were involved in getting this new job as I know a bunch of more compatible people than her who were running for that particular job. Unless of course what the other applicants were missing was the ability to feed BS to everybody and lie without any consciousness issues.

The second liar taught me how to see when someone is talking BS.

Both liar would fit to the categories of pathological, chronic and habitual liars. Both liars main points are usually to make them appear nicer, to make the reality appear nicer to them, to get something (money, pay rise, sell things, get what ever you have they want), avoiding being caught of lying (by telling more lies), avoiding embarrassment and so on.

What they sometimes forget that once they start to treat you as their trusted friend, and reveal the amount of total lies ... you will have hard time believing anything they say. Or what they do and say may look totally nonsense. Once you get a lot of results of lying just keep lying and everything will be fine ... and then just keep lying. So the second one went to a holiday, landed in a week holiday to a job offer with 50 % more salary. She thought about it for a while, decided being bored with her actual job then, and quit. Telling some people about taking that job she was offered, other people that she'd get to the other side of the world to study, and went to live in a boring country 'while the visa would be processed for a maximum of two weeks' months ago. I don't fully get it but it will be a lot easier to believe what I see. So for most people to just ignore what they say and concentrate on what they do, believing in what they say when they have done it.

Another good example of how far you can go with lying is observing the politicians... of any country.

I think my new year's resolution would sort of have to lie more and better. And not have any moral problems lying so that the lying is even better.

Enough paperwork BS, again

2007-01-08T21:35:00.000+01:00

Six more weeks or so, before the Department of Justice will have to give an answer.
And to send our paperwork back.
Can't wait really.

Six months without a passport, driver's license, marriage certificate.... can't travel anywhere even inside the country where you would even stay overnight, no way of getting out of the country (did I mention my parents are over 70 and sick?), can't drive the car without the driver's license (not that we could afford a car with one lousy salary for two), and part of us who can't work before getting the papers back, can't get a PPS (SSN) number before those papers are back .... being forced to not do anything during the day for so long time is getting on the nerves. It's not really getting on the nerves, it's been very much on the nerves since last August. Really, enough of this paperwork BS. And really, it sucks.

And even more BS if the non-EU part of us would have had a working visa here to start with...

When we'll get that paperwork, then will be months and months for other paperwork perhaps, but just can't wait to get out of here. We are both going thru some interviews - thankfully I have a stable job - he here, I there... would be nice to get the things running again. Life feels too stale when you can't get a weekend break, when you can't afford to rent a car for a weekend, to buy a new toy like an iPod when you happen to see something that you like... it becomes stale, and having a seasonal depression and all this happening during the winter will not make it much better either. There are moments when the work sucks (no matter which work, any of them), when you need a break, want to go out, can't afford to .. and the other part is glued in front of the computer for all day, with the lousy network speeds not allowing to even basic browse on a broadband... days become repetitive, drag on to work, not for the pleasure of it but because of the need of an income, do the job, serve, get back home, another lousy night without being able to get anywhere... days go by, making it one by one a day closer to getting the papers, getting those damn pieces of paper, stamps on passport, more visa applications...

May this be a better year from now on.

2006 in a few lines

2007-01-02T22:07:00.000+01:00

2006 in very few lines :
Depression most of the time, while trying to survive the daily BS in life
Marriage - finally. No more of the 90 days BS either way
Visa hell - 6 months two on a lousy salary .. and well, this after finishing the 90 days hell
Reorgs - how much worse can everything get reorganized?
BS - way too many levels
People - social networking when I really want to be alone
Gadgets - nothing really exciting
Home - the third year in same house
Money - at least still used to life in student income ...

2006 - travel experience changed because of the shampoo terrorists

2006-12-30T12:50:00.000+01:00

In 2006 the traveling changed because of the shampoo terrorists. A bunch of Asian origin, Arabic sounding named Brits were caught by the British police while they were supposedly getting ready to explode planes flying from UK to US using explosives hidden in juices, shampoos and moisturizers. Never mind that most of them didn't even have a passport so they could possibly not have got into those planes...

These shampoo terrorists got the experience of flying to a new low. Think of 1960s when you could bring the guns in the planes.. even those who would have been using their guns, would never have done it in the planes. The plane itself didn't give the impression of a cattle carrier - it was the experience of travel, people put on their best clothes for travel as it was a big experience, and they enjoyed it. A lot has changed. A lot was changed already before 9/11, but after that the traveling experience has gone just downhill. Move all your belongings to the x-ray belt (excluding your baby), including your belt, shoes, .. anything you can. They would strip you naked and use the rubber gloves if you would keep flying with that low experience. Most people wouldn't, so just move your belts, shoes, .. everything. Unpack your laptop and electric gadgets, show the camera lenses, unpack the iPods, and the newest addition to the security theater : put all your liquid belongings in a zip bag of a certain size - excluding baby formula which can be of unlimited amounts, and some medicines. They even confiscate your rocks.

A few weeks after this shampoo terrorism caused new additions to this liquid security theater had been going on, you would already find a whole new range of cosmetics in the stores. Shampoos, deodorants, conditioners, moisturizers that were in the new 75-100 ml size range. Same stuff you would get the bottle 5 times bigger for the same price, sometimes even for less. The shampoo companies sure make money out of that theater. Just as the companies making the x-ray machines made money in the 1980s after sponsoring bank robbers and hijackers to get up the need for a lot of new x-ray machines. And the programmers of ATS make out of the need to have some automated system that looks like they are doing something smart.

So the assumptions behind this liquid theater are that 1) terrorists don't hide their liquid bombs in infant formula or milk (since that will not be confiscated, the milk formula must be safe...) 2) anything in amounts less than 100 ml in a can and being max 10 bottles of that same stuff must be safe (since allowed to bring) and 3) liquid or gel like substance in bras are safe. You don't have to move your bras.

Talk about a whole new kind of recruitment strategies for all these terrorists : hire women with infants (or hire women AND get infants), and women wearing bras. White women preferably, with plain Western sounding names, so rather a Mary, Judy, or Hannah than an Ayisha. Who will also pass the ATS screening while they carefully do not ask to get a window seat, don't order any specific meal ever, pay always with their own credit card issued in the same country their passport was issued and they have lived all their life in, have never had a no-show on any flight they have purchased, have never got any one-way tickets or paid their fights in cash, and have a car of expected price range...

Eating worth a million euros of coke to become famous

2006-12-29T21:04:00.000+01:00

UPDATE : There are TWO models with the name Mercedes Brito... one from Venezuela who is innocent, and one from Dominican Republic, who was the one trying to traffic the coca. My apologies for the Venezuelan model for a wrong picture previously, I should not have believed some of these worst newspapers. You look gorgeous - all the best for your life and career. (See the comments)

Way to go. Way to get famous... in fashion like in every other business where becoming famous matters, every possible way will do for some people...
At least it was so for the Dominican model Mercedes Brito, who in less than a week has got her name all over news in Europe.
First, there was a small story in La Repubblica on Christmas eve, they didn't even mention the name there. And days later, the details leaked out .. or the detail that matters : the name. Daily Record : Julissa Mercedes, 24, who has starred in cosmetics and clothing campaigns, had nearly 3lb of the drug inside her, which police claim was worth up to £1million. [..] "We believe that this cocaine was destined for local Mafia and it would have been sold in the run-up to the New Year's Eve festivities." Flying the deal from Belgium to Sicily does not usually make much sense ... that's not the usual route for the drugs.
It hit also sawf, The Sun (how could it not? That smells like The Sun first page news right there), Mirror, even Aftonbladet in Sweden, T-Online news...
Well well. Famous on these The Sun type newspapers for less than a week, and then shrunk to the oblivion. Of her agency, Max Models, there is already no sign of her left... as there is nothing left on L'Oreal.
Mercedes who in other sources gets even a full name, Julissa Bianela Mercedes Brito, at least got famous ... Seriously. With the salaries a model that looks decent gets, why on earth would anyone risk their life and everything for a few thousand euros? Greediness, or just incredible stupidity?

Stupid Spammers: Beautifulswiss.com War on Spam

2006-12-26T23:35:00.000+01:00

Beautifulswiss.com Part I
Stupid Spammers: Beautifulswiss.com War - Part II

... can get quite anal when the spammers use innocent people's email addresses in their reply-tos.
Grr.
Ever had your inboxes invaded by these undeliverable mails?

Small steps on catwalk

2006-12-26T14:56:00.000+01:00

The reaction to the death of the young models that died of anorexia recently caught my eye a few weeks back. This autumn or winter, two South American models, Ana Carolina Reston and Luisel Ramos both died of anorexia complications.

So at least there is something good coming out of it...
Madrid bans waifs from catwalks
Is ultra-thin going out of fashion? : Action may have been prompted by the death of a 22-year-old Uruguayan model who collapsed after a catwalk show in August. She had reportedly eaten little but leafy vegetables for months in order to lose weight.
Commentators have also questioned the negative impact of underweight models on ordinary girls' and women's body image, amid concerns over anorexia.
Of course, whether the move away from the super-skinny gathers weight will not be down to the models - it's the modelling agencies, designers and fashion magazines who hold the clout.
The question is, will the powerhouses of the industry listen to the chorus of concern - or argue they are simply meeting the desire of the buying public to see clothes on waif-like women?

Italian designer Giorgio Armani, writing in the UK's Independent newspaper before London Fashion Week, admitted he preferred models "on the slender side" because "the clothes I design and the sort of fabrics I use need to hang correctly on the body". [...]
However, there is some evidence of a shift away from the current trend for American size 0 (British size 4) women, among them one of the UK's most successful models, 18-year-old Lily Cole. [...]
And the Clothes Show Live, a high-profile UK fashion event, has said that from December no models smaller than a British size 6 will be used.
But observers warn it may take a long time for attitudes to change.

She points to studies showing that over the past 30 years models in magazines have grown steadily thinner, so that now they tend to be about 15% underweight.
"There's a growing disparity between the bodies women have and the ideal being displayed to them," she said.

Italy's fashion capital, Milan, has announced a new catwalk code of conduct to protect young models vulnerable to anorexia and exploitation - Under Milan's new code, which is due to come into force in time for the next fashion week, in February, models will have to carry a medical certificate showing they are healthy.

Almost every teenage girl hates the way they look, a survey suggests. One in five is so unhappy they suffer from anorexia or bulimia.
The survey of 2,000 girls for Bliss magazine found six out of 10 would be happier if they lost weight.

Small steps to change. At least the society talks more about those things now. Then again I don't understand why it has taken so long time for the media and the public to find out a few very basic things .... like teens and pre-teenagers dieting and being weight obsessed. I remember being in the elementary school ... at least then doctors and nurses were looking at the book definitions of anorexia. And if those kids that were skinny, who had ALWAYS had a sick attitude to food .. they could continue being skinny as they were too young to comply with the criteria they had on their books .. or on their notes from their study time, when they dealt with the eating disorders maybe half of a lecture years back...

It will take a lot longer and more than having a doctor write a certificate to a model to show they are healthy.
It will have to be the designers to change what they think is pretty, or how they design.
It's a lot easier to design to insanely skinny people.
And enough many people buy their ideology and clothing.
And enough businesses and industries make money out of products sold for losing weight, slimming, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery ...

What if ... women (and men) were happy right now and here with the shape they are now? Screw the dieting products and weight loss this and that.
That would be the ultimate change, from inside.
Not many people, of ANY age, are comfortable with their body.

Creative Commons Christmas music

2006-12-26T12:58:00.000+01:00

A great find on Uwe Hermann blog : 235 songs which are all explicitly released under a Creative Commons license - so get your free christmas music from there and enjoy. :)

Holier than thou people

2006-12-25T19:05:00.000+01:00

Why is it that some people have a constant air of holier-than-thou attitude?

The coffee they drink is better than the coffee you drink, because they think they have so much more eclectic taste of coffee. They bring their own espresso machine to work, and they get violent and aggressive if anyone touches their home edition of the industrial strenght coffee maker.
Or the ones who are holier than you because they don't drink coffee. They are so much better than you as they don't have to drink coffee, or they find some weird reason that shows they are so much better than you anyway. They so have to rub the reasons why they are so much better, and why they don't drink coffee.

Their camera equipment and their photographic skills are so much better and holier than yours. They carry their Nikon SLRs to work and to all parties, never mind that at work one isn't allowed to take pictures... they blog obsessively about their camera experiments, they flickr whore, .. and all their color, composition, style, photographing skills are just so much underlining how much better they are than you are.
Their blog contains the superprofessional opinions of something they want the world to think they know everything about (as the world doesn't know that widely that the closest to professional part of what they want to be known as experts of, was and is a phone monkey, and not a particularly skilled one).

Their wine or other alcohol taste is so much better than yours. They read the wine magazines, and subscribe to the opinions of the famous wine tasters.
Or they make such a big thing about why they don't drink alcohol.

They are fashionably vegetarians, or vegenazis, because that fits their manga artistic emo look, their better than everyone else attitude and look...
Or they have a fashionable eating disorder, wanarexia, wannabe-bulimia, or they are on atkins because that's the fashionable thing to do. And they are so much better than you because of that.

They are fashionably ~~metro~~ bisexual.
And fashionably buddhist or other fashionable religion.

.. and it goes on and on, in every single bit of the life you observe. They are so much better than you, and they make sure you know it.
If they find someone to tolerate them, I am sure we will know how much better their spouse or significant other is.
They paint the clouds on how the next year they will be a professional photographer. move to Australia or other different location, or become this and that at work.

Maybe it's the overgrown generation G or Z .. or whichever was the latest, one or two after the X. They move abroad like the generation G, if by doing that they can show how much better than you they are.

When they are sick, even their sicknesses are better than yours. They are more sick, or their medicinal needs are so much better than yours. Just like their grandparents talked about their ulcer and kidney stones and overweight just as it was their beloved child, the better than you person's health stories get a lot of love and attention in their description. And when you have just a normal asthma, their asthma is so much better and so much more special than yours.

They are the disposable income and the marketer's dream... they buy the toys because with that fashionable toy they can prove they are so much better than you and the other neighbors and workbuddies they have (but as a difference to the usual get a bigger car to show your neighbors you are better and richer than them-kind of person, the holier than you person chooses way more eclectic items to brag with, and rather ideologies than cars or house decoration kitsch). They buy books about Buddha's life and add their Buddha statues on a pretty display hosting also all their South Park and manga dolls and plastic figurines.

Sometimes it would be fun to crush them and their better than yours dreams in their better than yours coffee grinder like the better than yours coffee.

Xanax for allergies, malaria meds for flu - Ireland sure is creative

2006-12-19T10:13:00.000+01:00

Here, in Leprachaunland, once you've seen someone been put on xanax for her allergies, you will be wondering wtf ... until you see that everyone approves it completely fine, as if it was the norm. Maybe in this country they cure allergies with xanax which in other countries is reserved for uses like OCD.

Somehow to that same category of very weird medicine uses is getting malaria and malaria prevention medications for a simple flu.

It will take quite a bit of innovative medicine use to surprise me at all in this country.

Nomarriage.com isn't that much about hating women than it's about making money

2006-12-16T22:03:00.002+01:00

Today there was need for finding dummies in the net and discovering all or enough about them. So nomarriage.com isn't that much about hating women than it's about making money

Nomarriage.com seems to be about ranting about women, why the American women suck ... well, it's better analyzed just about selling. Selling the websites' contents, the book that isn't even published at a paper form .. it's about selling. Since people have a bigger need for love than they have for buying and paying for religion, his business idea for sure will not run out of potential clients.

At least I hope it's only hating American women for the sake of selling that guy's unpublished books and his websites, and not for the sake of hating women.

Tags:

websites

The gayest, straightest, sexiest - or just the most boring cars

2006-12-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

There was somewhere a few days ago something about the most sexiest, straightest and gayest cars in the net. I had to rush so I forgot where I saw it so I tried to search it again...
So I found different versions.
You'd think they have something in common.

About-site's gay section lists these as the gayest cars of the year:
1) 2006 BMW 5 Series Sedan
2) 2006 Saab 9-5 Wagon
3) 2006 Kia Sorento
and lists after these in the top ten also 2006 Chevrolet Impala, 2006 Mini Cooper, 2006 Honda Element, 2006 Chrysler 300C, 2006 Pontiac G6, 2006 Subaru Outback (for the lesbian moving van), and the budget queeriest car, 2006 Ford Focus.

Straight sites name the gay cars a lot different. Finally I found the site I had seen the article too, gizmodo.
Personalbee and gizmodo both take the results of wheels24. So, the straight rich car magazine reading people in New Zealand think that these cars are gay:
1. Peugeot 207 (pictured above): 7155
2. BMW 3 Series Coupe: 3378
3. Jaguar XK: 2571
4. Honda Civic Hatch: 1776
5. Alfa Romeo 159: 1293
which, if we compare the list to what the gay review site had concluded shows NONE of the "gay" matches be the same. Maybe in this second list the gay was used as a synonym for not very nice design instead.

This wheels24 voted these as the most straight cars:
1. Audi RS4 (pictured above): 9824
2. Toyota Fortuner: 2629
3. Dodge Caliber: 1808
4. VW Jetta: 979
5. Lexus IS250: 936

And the sexiest rear-end votes:
1. Alfa Brera (pictured above): 6608
2. BMW Z4 Coupe: 5722
3. Opel Astra GTC: 2270
4. Renault Clio: 1071
5. Nissan Tiida: 505

There is something just plain wrong with these results.
First - there are no sexy cars in the sexy cars list. If they want to go voting for not so budget cars, why limit the results with any budget? Top sexiest cars rear-end list that doesn't contain Lamborghini Diablo, any Ferrari, old Fiat Cinquecento, Cadillacs from 1970s among others is just plain wrong.

Second - all these cars in the gayest and sexiest list of wheels24 are average looking. The straightest cars list is way boring - hopefully no one will boost their family valueness or straightness facade by choosing a car voted straight from the list. Volkswagen, Dodge, Toyota, Lexus.. meh. I would choose gladly any non-straight car over those.

Third - I could not vote for the gay cars since my gaydar isn't on the wave length of cars. Gay car would have to not look like a family car, and sure be with style and elegance. And it's not what you have but how you use it.. On my version of the straight cars list there would have to be SUVs, just because I can't imagine any gay driving a SUV ... so I leave my votes open.

What would your version of the gayest, straightest, and sexiest cars be? Please tell.

Enough of bad music industry again

2006-12-13T09:58:00.000+01:00

Simple Rich has had a less than nice experience with audio CDs of BMG.

That mentality of the music industry, treating its end users as criminals is what made not buy any audio CDs any more - this decided in 2003. I have put a few singular dollars to music since, but those were from iTunes store, and concerts (like the best ever Public Enemy concert).

It does not play with iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp ... it wants its own software installed. ... it makes the end customer pay for the thieves.

There was one more reason why I quit buying music - audio CDs cost as much as movie DVDs. To produce a movie normally costs at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. To make an audio CD does not. You can use the same recording studio and the same exact audio mixing software for hundreds of CD productions.

Either the audio CDs are overpriced as when the CDs first came out they cost more than the LPs and cassettes, and when those were phased out ... the prices never came down even though the cost of production came to a few cents per unit.
Or because the music industry makes that much money itself, or because it has to pay still so much to the radio DJs to play the top 40 music, like the major cost was in the 1950s, ...
Or suddenly they would have started to pay enough for the musicians, which I don't think would be the case ...
Or because music industry feels the need and justification to develop more rootkit kind of software to screw the music fans and end customers, or ... or ..
Well, music industry is just greedy.

Time for more iTunes store, in limited amounts, and some open source music. Or something like it. A end user silent revolution...

Spam fajitas...

2006-12-10T17:49:00.000+01:00

Click to view bigger - any wider version of that image kills the right column...

Spam fajitas and a lot of spam recipes ... interesting how the google ads work. When ever I look at my spam folder (which, despite cleaning regularly tends to look like in the screenshot above right now), I get some cooking recipes how to use spam for this and that recipe. If only they would make vegan spam ... something soy based and no msg.

So much for the Irish - American relationships being special

2006-12-09T11:23:00.000+01:00

The bureaucracy here is driving me insane. At least the insane bureaucracy is not in everything so I can mostly live without it, but there is one piece where they made it just very annoying.
So, the EU citizens that are resident but not originally local (Irish) who marry a non-EU citizen which will then move with the EU spouse to Ireland have fun time to expect.
How this worked before was the non-EU spouse would go with his documents to the local garda (police) station which would check the documents and give the residency stamps and card with a maximum of a few hours or days wait and maybe few days to check the documents' being valid.
How this works since May sounds in theory good for whomever decided to change this : now the non-EU spouse has to send his or her valid passport, their original copy of marriage certificate, a proof of address which sometimes may be the EU spouse's driving license to the inspection at Department of Justice. First Ireland didn't want to impose any time limits for how long this would take, allowing the DoJ an unlimited time to be as slow or fast as they want. EU legals made however that there would be a time limit for this original documents inspection, so it was set to "up to six months". and which the applicants would be able to shorten in case they would need their passport back urgently by contacting this Department of Justice by mail, email, or phone.
This if the marriage didn't take space in Ireland... well, the obligatory 3 months waste of time of 'notice' in Ireland bwfore being able to marry plus the great options of having a religious or a religious ceremony don't appeal to everyone. It didn't appeal to us, so we did it in another EU country where the paperwork took less time, and where we also could choose a minimum civil ceremony.
Back to this "up to six months". It was dictated by EU legal people, the Irish didn't want it to have any maximum time. I guess they were fed up with all these new people migrating here in the past few years. If you now walk in a bigger city like in Dublin, Cork, or Galway, often you can hear way more people speak Polish than Gaelic, and there are a lot of European and non-European languages that are a lot more often heard than the leprachaun mytical Gaelic. Even when the Irish do their best to look comfortable with the non-Irish, you often see a dislike in them. I don't know if it's for not wanting any changes to occur, or for wanting a slower pace in the immigration grace, of if those people are just grumpy with everyone that they don't know, but you can see it. Fortunately it doesn't go to the levels of the Japanese reacting on the non-Japanese in their country.
During these six months, the non-EU spouse has the right to stay for his or her marriage, but they can't work before they get residency, which should occur after those six months, or if they get a company to sponsor their visa or get another type of work visa.
During these six months, in case there is an emergency need for the passport - funerals, travels for job interviews etc - send in a request and they will send the passport back. In the papers it didn't say when. We asked for the passport back in early October as there was the need to get to a few job interviews in London. We have yet not received anything back.
After this annoying six months, the paperwork should arrive back in mail (in case you change your address it will be another piece of paperwork to send in... so I don't even want to think about changing my place to live in), and the non-EU person should be allowed to get his or her documents back, the residency, the PPS number for the social services and tax office, and the needed paperwork to be able to work legally.

This occurs not just to the third world people, but also to Americans and Canadians.

Six months without passport. Six months without the right to work, forced to leech off the EU spouse with their less than great Irish salaries. Six months when you can't travel, even if there were funerals or job interviews or any given reason, since they don't send any acknowledgment that they would have received your request in mail, email, or phone (just trying to get thru takes minimum hours). Or you can travel as far form where you live until you would have to have a passport, so that means no flying, no trains, no car renting (and the one of you that can drive manual has their license sent in for the same process to the same place), no staying overnight at any hotel, hostel or B&B ... Great six months.

This experience is not over yet but it has felt annoying all the time the papers are there, and I get more and more anxious every day. I want to travel, go to a weekend in London, Amsterdam, visit Germany with out friends, get out somewhere where there is sun for a week, go visit the parents, and start the Green Card process. If only it would have been me without the job last spring, we would have chosen the other side of the pond, where for being married the EU-spouse would have been working in a month.

Someone told that to an Irish married to a non-EU person it would take at least 18 - 24 months of leaching off the Irish spouse before getting the residency.

This process is getting on the nerves of both of us every single day. We want two incomes, to be able to do short trips (to afford to with the incomes), to start slowly the process of moving to the other side of the pond. The one that is not allowed to work after the first few weeks has been annoyed daily isn't any less stressed at least. The only thing that feels like a victory on the darkest days is that there is no more of that 90 days, out of country and back-life. It's not breaking only my balls but also UN human declarations points 13)2 (since no passport), 21)2, 22, and 23)1.

If it was a private company doing all this process, there would be these "how are we doing", "how could we improve our services" and "how was the person serving you like?" surveys. Since it is government, there are none.

Duct tape DIY shopping bag

2006-12-05T00:39:00.000+01:00

Duct tape shopping bag.
A way to reuse the lying around USPS envelopes and Apple store bags...
Inspired, obviously, by Thinkgeek duct tape wallet.
To be obviously accompanied by a RFID blocking duct tape wallet and passport covers.

Most useful and useless mac os x applications

2006-12-04T22:27:00.000+01:00

The most and least useful OS X applications

I tried to make for a long time a list of the most used and least used applications in Mac OS X. Not the easiest task since everyone's needs are different, and even I have way different needs at work and at home, but here comes both sides considered one version.

The useful ones that are either OS X supplied or come from Apple :
1. Terminal
2. Network Utility
3. Apple Remote Desktop
4. iChat (Jabber for internal networks) - or AppleScript for it's allowing anything to be done.
5. Safari (Can't get the move to next or previous tab in Firefox as in Safari or in Shiira; Command-shift-arrows left/right)
6. Preview
7. Stickies (for selected notes)
8. Keychain access
9. Aperture (I can't stand iPhoto 6), Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro (the same goes for all consumer apps)
10. Mac OS X Server (with all the applications in it)

Most useful non-Apple softwares :
1. SubEthaEdit for editor, OnyX for the system maintenance point of view.
2. Adium for the messaging needs, Delocalizer for removing what you don't need in the system.
3. Skype for phoning needs, VLC for video, for replacing DVD player and QuickTime.
4. Dokuwiki with its additions, including ACL
5. Smultron for SubEthaEdit alternative; Hallon for notes for KeyXing alternative
6. NVU for quick edits
7. Flickr Uploadr
8. Xjournal not just for Livejournal needs
9. Camino, Firefox, Shiira
10. StreamRipperX
Those obviously excluding the specific work related rare applications.

Since the list of non-Mac OS X supplied list of pointless or useless applications is pretty big -- there are over 10,000 Mac OS X applications in versiontracker, it is probably more useful to concentrate in the applications that I don't find any use in Mac OS X itself. This is again just me - so if I find no use for one application does not make it bad, it just makes one user to not find any use for a particular application.
1. Chess - never used, and it has been there since 10.0.
2. iWeb - I refuse to use web editors that don't show the HTML. That would be approximately like showing a word program that doesn't allow you to edit or see text.
3. Automator. Just learn to use AppleScript and you can do more.
4. Dashboard. I want a way to disable it when I don't want to use it - hopefully OnyX allows me to do it.
5. Garageband. Spoiled that I am, why bother when Logic is an alternative?

Flights accidents search engine

2006-12-04T21:53:00.000+01:00

And as a show of total randomness in the geek world, not switching as far as thinspiration to fibrechannel card analysis and comparison but equally close - the next randomness being Flight accidents search engine

Ana Carolina Reston and Luisel Ramos - two too many dead for anorexia

2006-12-04T20:50:00.000+01:00

Anoressia: pericolo di complicità su Internet (also pasted here) is what concerned me today -- for having had on and off eating disordered life since before I was a teenager, the topic isn't something that I would run to rarely.

Ana Carolina Reston, ayoung, talented, beautiful (pictures of her), Brazilian model (her agency's RIP page) died 15 November 2006 because of anorexia. She weighed only 40 kilograms (88 lbs.), measured 1.72 m (5'8"), and had been hospitalized since October 25 for kidney malfunction due to anorexia nervosa and bulimia, which included a diet of only eating apples and tomatoes. Her condition became more serious and deteriorated into generalized infection that led to her death at the age of 21. After her death, her mum will not keep quiet.
Viviane Setti, the mother of Miss Reston's boyfriend, said: "Ana's death should serve as a wake-up call to all modelling agencies about anorexia. There's nothing glamorous about an ending like hers."

She was the second anorexic model reported to have died in 2006. Luisel Ramos, 22, suffered a heart attack in August after living on lettuce leaves and Diet Coke for three months.
A young Uruguayan model died of heart failure while participating in a fashion show during Fashion Week in Montevideo (Uruguay), according to officials at the hotel where the show was held. 22 year-old Luisel Ramos felt ill after walking the catwalk, fainted on her way to the dressing room and died in spite of the medical attention she received from a mobile hospital unit.
The doctors who treated her diagnosed her with heart failure. The young woman’s father told police that the model had gone several days without eating. In Uruguay’s close neighbor, Argentina, more and more women are struggling with body obsession. The USA leads the world in deaths caused by eating disorders, followed by Japan and Germany.

Survival of the thinnest and This is the model who sparked size zero debate are both about Luisel Ramos.
These two young models are two too many dead for eating disorders.
Hopefully the result will be slowly forcing the model and fashion industry to look at its sick standards, and slowly change them. Madrid fashion week has already added a minimum BMI to be applied for the models. One fashion show is a good start, then to have Milan, London, New York, Tokyo, Paris and the rest. And needless to say, fashion magazines still have way too many girls in the pictures that are way too tiny. Even if the tinyness was a result of just good photoshopping skills, it isn't sure promoting the young women's and men's acceptance of their body in its natural form and shape.

Ten reasons why I've quit reading a blog

2006-12-03T14:13:00.000+01:00

Why is it so hard for people that consider themselves so professional and godlike?
To keep the topics separate that is. If a blog is about technology or gadgets or something specific, the last thing I want to read about regularly in that blog is about the author's kids, attempts to conceive, or any gross personal health issues for that matter.
There are a few blogs that I quit reading for that matter.

That made me analyze why I have quit reading blogs that I like, and the conclusions would be more or less as below.

1. The topic or topics blogged don't interest me any more. Maybe I was reading searching about something specific of for work or other reason my interest has expired. I found out what I needed to find out about a particular subject, so it is done now. I no longer care about a certain brand mobile phone details, Apple rumors, body hacks, transgender issues, or cooking. The topics have been replaced by something that interests me now.

2. The bloggercentric, godlike view of everything. I know everything, look, here are my professional views about everything. And after that know it all entry about how to improve ssh the god know it all blogger posts about his kids or what he ate. Did I already mention blogs about anything professional and kids don't mix?

3. Professional blogs that mix content of private life, such as their kids or reproductional status.

4. Blogs that don't have content. In this category there are a bunch of the digg whorers. Look what I found in the Internet, here is this cool link about this and that, here digg it, and here youtube. Umh, no. I tend to prefer the sources, so if I find the source, I may follow the source for a while, if there are no other interesting stories there I'll ignore that source, but most likely, the copy paste of 'look what I found in the internet' isn't going to keep me for a while if it's only purpose is getting dugg.

5. Blogs that I am supposed to like. Just because boingboing or tuaw authors, Bruce Schneier, or Guy Kawasaki or someone else regularly brings contents of a blog that they like does not me make any more interested in every topic they blog about. Just because it's about macs, it does not make it any more special than the 20,000 other blogs about macs out there.

6. Blogs of which the authors are not teens but blog teenager style. Includes examples of people who complain openly in the internet that they are in US illegally and try to get theur bride over .. needless to say, unless those blogs are very bad, they don't normally even get a second visit. If they are very bad, then it's a different story again, it may even become more entertaining than these too serious blogs. This would in some cases include those that have a really ugly layout or colors, but normally that deficit is bypassable using an RSS reader.

7. Blogs that repeat all the same buzzwords of the day and week they read. The US blogger that refused to give his video materials to police and got in trouble about that, the Jesus appearing in the cheese sandwich on ebay, all the special children doing their star wars kid dances in youtube and so on.

8. No sense of humor. I may take my job seriously, but there is no reason why I would take my private life without humor. Unfunny things don't generally interest me.

9. Over repeating the political, religious, or any ideological points of view about everything and all the time.

10. Blogs that update too often or too rarely. Updating the personal blog 20 times a day can be worse than when you update your personal blog once a month.

What does that leave?

Blogs that have fun content and no heavy material.
Blogs that are of the people who write on a way that I like.
Blogs of my friends - how was your day, what pissed you off today, what got you excited recently and how is your love life. It's way more likely to matter than your 'professional' views about everything and all the time.
Blogs that are of a specific matter, including kids. The blogs about kids and family life should be kept separate about the rest of the blogging topics - so I don't mind seeing every now and then how is little Lucy doing out there, as long as the Lucy posts are not in the middle of your technogodrambling.
Blogs that have information that matters to me. How to get something done that I don't bother to waste more time than every now and then read a post or two.
Blogs that contain good quality rants often enough.

This is a rare entry where I don't feel it to be appropriate to give examples of URLs of the offenders.

Getting Windows Vista or MS Office for free legally

2006-11-30T23:02:00.000+01:00

So free Windows Vista or free Microsoft Office sn't such a bad deal at all, when you have time to watch a few annoying advertising videos.

However it is funny that the page gets an expired certificate error, then when it has finally after a long time loaded, another expired certificate error, ...

[whois.MelbourneIT.com.au]

Domain Name.......... powertogether.com
Creation Date........ 2006-10-03
Registration Date.... 2006-10-03
Expiry Date.......... 2007-10-03
Organisation Name.... Philip Colebrook
Organisation Address. Flat 13, Inner City House
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. London
Organisation Address. SE14 6QP
Organisation Address. -
Organisation Address. GREAT BRITAIN (UK)

Admin Name........... Philip Colebrook
Admin Address........ Flat 13, Inner City House
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ London
Admin Address........ SE14 6QP
Admin Address........ -
Admin Address........ GREAT BRITAIN (UK)
Admin Email.......... pcolebrook@gmail.com
Admin Phone.......... 44.2086915308
Admin Fax............

Tech Name............ CBS Registry
Tech Address......... Box 3396
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Stockholm
Tech Address......... SE 103 68
Tech Address......... -
Tech Address......... SWEDEN
Tech Email........... registry@melbourneitcbs.com
Tech Phone........... 46.855340200
Tech Fax............. 46.855340201
Name Server.......... ns1.msft.net
Name Server.......... ns5.msft.net
Name Server.......... ns2.msft.net
Name Server.......... ns3.msft.net
Name Server.......... ns4.msft.net

So somehow I will believe this freeness when I see the free copy. My other half has time to test this, so let's see what comes...

Ever wonder why all these million $ lotteries use hotmail addresses?

2006-11-30T22:31:00.000+01:00

.. have you ever wondered why all these lotteries that have millions of $ as the first price that you just won have always a hotmail, lycos, or yahoo email address?

Time for something new

2006-11-30T22:29:00.000+01:00

A new blog ... new clothes, new thoughts.
You wouldn't always finish your analog diary or writing that book either.
Sometimes there is just need for something new, and why not in the digital life as well.
The old blog just starts to feel bleh, if not for the template then for the features.. or because everyone else does this and that, because blogger is more trendy than livejournal.

Or because the life changes so much that you'd really want to change everything in the life. Job, continent, wipe away the past memories of the people trying to shoot you in your dreams, all your exes and so on.

Last week it was time for doing an erase and install on my mac. Now everything is fresh on the computer side.
And I can't do the same thing in the real life.

What to expect here? Entertaining little stories and links, dumb little news found in the internet, everything weird that didn't make it to boingboing, laughing at dumb people every now and then ...