jarmin.com

katlalog

070727 00:22 Web development

AAArgh! The WC3 really pisses me off. What is the point of a standard if there are several. Here's what Userfriendly has to say about HTML 5.

070716 23:27 Browsers / Open Source

Great news for the open source faction: Mozilla's Firefox (FF) web browser has made dramatic gains on Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) throughout Europe in the past year...

070716 23:17 Internet

Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom gets credit as the first weblog in an WSJ article marking December 2007 as the 10th anniversary of blogging.

[Update 070726 00:44] There is no "first blogger".

070715 12:54 Language

One should be really careful when complaining about the erosion of one's language through the influence of foreigners. (Gosh. Nice sentence. I hope it's grammatically correct ;)

A forum post titled "Speak English, Your In America Now" provides plenty of bait for linguists. If this post hadn't been about language they would have left the poster alone. But you can't complain about immigrants destroying your language and then make mistakes like that.

I would never complain. I'm not a native speaker. I speak two languages equally bad now. Or should that be badly? ;)

070715 12:12 Games / Commercialism

It might soon be safe to return to Second Life: Virtual marketers have second thoughts about Second Life.

070714 16:12 Intellectual property

The optimal copyright period, designed to encourage the best balance of incentive to create new work and social welfare that comes from having work enter the public domain, is 14 years, says Maths student.

070711 00:11 TV / Movies

Real Springfields are competing for the honour to screens the Simpsons Movie premiere. The have to submit a short film arguing their case for why they are the most likely blueprint for the ficticious Springfield.

And the winner is: Springfield, Vermont.

070625 22:30 Comix

The perfectly reasonable thing you should check for when looking for a new home.

070625 22:15 Freedom of information

Neo-conservatives have scored another victory in promoting intolerance and ignorance: Threats Force SC Library to Cancel Summer Program.

A South Carolina library system has closed down its summer programs for young adults after receiving threats and allegations that it was trying to promote "witchcraft" and "drug use." [...]

The astrology program was labeled as "witchcraft" by callers, while the Zen garden and yoga programs were objected to as "promoting other religions." The t-shirts workshop? "Promotes the hippie culture and drug use," callers said.

070622 00:42 Festivals

Poor sods: Glastonbury 'set to be mudbath'.

After many many muddy Glastonburys I gave up on it in 2000 and went into the desert instead. And guess what? It actually rained. It rained in the desert.

Glastonbury features a Left Field stage, which promotes political activism this year. And a John Peel Stage. Cool!

070618 23:08 Movies

Via boingboing i just came across the 40 things that only happen in movies. My favorites (all for obvious personal reasons) are:

6. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

8. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to learn to speak German. Simply speaking English with a German accent will do. Similarly, when they are alone, all German soldiers prefer to speak English to each other.

13. If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.

20. All single women have a cat.

Another crazy bastard actually maintains a list of all 555 phone numbers used in movies and tv series. The list would actually make some sense if you could (and were nerdy enough to want to) search for all numbers used in your favorite tv episode.

070609 23:17 TV

And the Oscar for funniest campaign to get an axed tv series continued goes to the fans of Jericho. The last word of the season 1 cliffhanger finale was 'Nuts' (for what reason is too difficult to explain). So the fans started sending tons of nuts to CBS who'd announced they'd discontinue the show.

The fans' creative protest was successful. They are getting 7 more episodes and a promise for more, a strategy on how to increase viewer numbers, and a plea:

P.S. Please stop sending us nuts :-)

But it gets weirder. The NUTS for Jericho website also carries the following announcement:

Save the real world Kansas, too!

Jericho is set in Kansas, which was hit by a series of devastating tornadoes during the same week that the season finale aired. An EF5 tornado destroyed about 95% of the town of Greensburg. For every pound of peanuts shipped in this campaign, we're donating 10 cents to the Greensburg Rebuilding Fund.

The world keeps baffling me.

[current]
[archive]