erroneous thoughts

Emphasis added:

$ telnet -z ssl gauthma.wordpress.com 443
Trying 76.74.248.251…
Connected to lb.wordpress.com.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
HEAD /index.php HTTP/1.1
host: gauthma.wordpress.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx/0.6.29
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:22:11 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Connection: close
Vary: Cookie
X-hacker: If you’re reading this, you should visit automattic.com/jobs and apply to join the fun, mention this header.
X-Pingback: http://gauthma.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php

Connection closed by foreign host.

From Kris’ blog I found what some measurements can say for my life:

    66.1/100Rate My Life
RateMyLife.net – Rate My Life

I wonder how better I’d be doing if take back some crappy college years… but oh well, speaking of college, most of friends would be somewhat amazed to see that, at least according to a test similar to the previous, I’m not a computer nerd! (emphasis on the computer part). Here’s the result (I think I finally found my calling ):

Having just finished reading Michael Crichton’s Prey (might post about that later on), I went to wikiquote to see if I could confirm a quote from Winston Churchill there mentioned. While at it, I found another one, dating back to the 30’s, and that yet remains so sadly up to date.

• Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
  • Roving Commission: My Early Life (1930)

It’s curious to note that this was written in between both World Wars. But still, how different the world be if Americans (or even just GW Bush!) actually bother to learn from history (if from nowhere else). Keeps getting ever stronger, my belief that those who forget (or that don’t even bother to learn) their history, are truly doomed to repeat it.

First, here’s an inside description of the “democratic” and “impartial” process of OOXML approve in Norway, told by someone that witnessed it first hand:

The process which led to Norway’s Yes vote on OOXML was so surrealistic that it deserves to be recorded for posterity. Here’s my version of the story.

It’s small and direct to the point. It shows how the “Norwegian” decision to vote Yes was actually a one man decision. In the author’s own words, it was surreal… Just repeatedly dismiss all those who don’t agree with you, until you can overrule the remaining miscreants… surreal indeed…

Next, you might remember that one of the (many) arguments against OOXML was that the “standard” left details unspecified, and the one and only reference implementation is—that’s right—Microsoft’s Office 2007. But it appears that things are actually worse than that. In fact, it has now surfaced that not even Office 2007 generated docx files conform to the spec. You go M$oft!

Let me share with you a recent work experience: we develop a product that has a (rather complex) web interface, which has to be rendered correctly by Firefox, and both Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. During the development phase, we use mostly Firefox, because (to my knowledge) it has tools to aid developers that are light-years ahead those of IE. So once the web interface was finished, we tested it under IE to see how it worked. It did so rather poorly. It took us quite a while to figure things out, a consequence of not only the aforementioned lack of proper tools for development, but also cryptic error messages, the helpfulness of which can be quantified as a round hollow nought.

Almost inevitably, some of us, myself included, raised the question if support for IE was really really necessary. After all, it’s a crappy ahem, browser. My boss’ answer was simple and swift: IE6 and IE7 together account for more than 50% of the browsers currently in use, Firefox has 37% (ibid., March 2008), so it’s next to pointless not to support both IE’s. These plus Firefox account for almost 90%, a respectable market share. We knew then my boss was right, we had to support IE.

Unless, PEOPLE STOP USING THAT DAMNED THING!! And there are plenty of good reasons to do that! It’s a long read, and some things maybe outdated (there’re some rotten links), but overall it still paints a fairly accurate picture. If you use Internet Explorer at all, do yourself and the rest of the world a favour, and read it.

Of all the good reasons to ditch IE once and for all listed in that page, authored by a co-worker, I want to point out the one that most affects me (right along everyone who ever has had to write pages for IE):

Internet Explorer is bad for people using it. But it’s also bad for people who make Web pages — imagine having to program for this monster!

For those of you who have never built a webpage before, you may not know what this means but imagine you wanted to build a house and you hire a construction company for that end. You would hand them the blueprints and tell them exactly how you wanted it built but then they’d build it their way and not the way indicated by the blueprints or by you. That’s sort of what Internet Explorer does.

So here’s a small way you can contribute for a better web! Oh and if you’re thinking something like “but everyone uses IE, if just I change, it won’t make a difference”, well, as Gandhi said: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” And he was able to ditch the then all-powerful British, so …

Descobri hoje um site (em português, criado por um português e orientado para a realidade portuguesa) que tem como objectivo «ajudar todos aqueles que trabalham com instituições bancárias, através de fazerem valer os seus direitos.». O endereço é simples o suficiente para ser facilmente decorado: www.acabem.com. Aí se pode ler uma descrição mais detalhada dos objectivos:

Pretendemos fornecer informações úteis e ajudar as pessoas a não cruzarem os braços, perante situações abusivas praticadas pelos bancos. Um cliente que reclama com conhecimento de causa, só tem vantagens.

Fazendo uso das novas tecnologias, a ACABEM pretende ajudar, informar e colaborar em situações fraudulentas que os bancos possam estar a cometer.

É nossa intenção, transmitir todo o tipo de informação sobre bancos, utilizando um tipo de comunicação simples, directa e acessível. Pretendemos ajudar a esclarecer termos técnicos, bem como situações menos claras que os bancos utilizam vulgarmente.

Espero que isto seja útil a todos, especialmente para aqueles que como o autor, são recentes ingressados no mundo do trabalho.

If you’re thinking the answer is something along the lines of “for a lot of things”, well, there are those who would say that sentence is quite the understatement. I liked the first comment:

Engineers make good terrorists….. so what? Engineers also make good cooks, carpenters, problem solvers and even doctors….whats your point? Politicians on the other hand…well lets just say the phrase “a good politician” is an oxy-moron.

Of course, this has been slashdotted.

I wanted to post this yesterday, but oh well, better late than never, right?

The same can of course, be said of gravitation, that finally entered the realm of personal computers!