Thursday, March 13, 2008

Lotus Notes Spell Check is Anti-Semitic...

Total credit for this discovery goes to SnowDog....

Apparently, IBM's Lotus Notes e-mail software is anti-semitic.

If you type the word(s) "non-phase" in an e-mail and spell check it, here is the suggestion:

Lotus Notes Anti-SemiteIs there any context where someone typing "non-phase" might actually mean "non-Jews"?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Your Jesus fish should be revoked.....Part II

So now that we've covered how much I hate it when people cut in line, I'll get to the subject at hand.


I commute each day into work, and it takes slightly longer than half an hour each way. That being said, I see lots of different people driving around town. Granted I do commute to work each day in Oregon, where the best drivers in the country reside. Still, idiots are everywhere.

So when I see the lady from White Van Shuttle going about 65 in a 30 zone weaving in and out of traffic, I wonder if she's really doing her company a service. (this happened yesterday) I know that if I ever need to get to my hotel incredibly fast and haven't gone on a roller-coaster recently, they'd be my best bet.

The real question I have is about the people who have bumper stickers, emblems, or other stuff on their cars. If you see someone with an Obama 08 sticker on their car and they cut you off, do you vote for Hillary? Or what about the people with the Jesus fish? They're doing stupid stuff all the time on the road, but I notice it probably because they're the most common of all car decorations. Isn't that unfair to the rest of the flock, if not Jesus himself? Shouldn't there be some roving Jesus fish wardens who can taketh away from the idiot who always drives up to the front of the on-ramp and swerves in front of the 55 of us who have been waiting to get on I-205?

I expect that type of behavior from the guy with the "Lost your cat? Try checking under my tires" sticker (or the Wal-Mart driver), but not from the van filled with Code Pink protesters.

I fear the day when the cereal and cookies truck with the wikipedia bumper sticker cuts me off. I'll starve to death both intellectually and physically.

A case for blogging (tumblr)...

Bijan Sabet makes a great argument for blogging.

In a post on his tumblr blog, he points out that any e-mail with a subject like "check this out" shouldn't be sent.

Instead, whatever the person is going to send should be entered into some sort of social web platform. Ok, all the web techies would probably correct my language, but my point is still the same.

Bijan suggests using a tumblr blog to aggregate links, photos, music, video, quotes, etc. People with tumblr accounts can subscribe to each other's tumblogs and go nuts with the sharing. Integrate a Disqus comment system into your tumblog and your group of friends that would normally e-mail each other stuff will transcend into an online community.

I also suggest a tumblr blog as an excellent communication medium, but if that's too intense for you, you can try out something a little simpler:
Del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Ma.gnolia - social bookmarking with a bit more emphasis on the social part
Twitter - I couldn't resist...

This way, your friends can follow your links through RSS feeds or a social feed aggregator like Friendfeed.

If you do decide to join one of the above or any other site, feel free to add me as a friend. My info is on the right side of this blog.

Believe it or not, this sort of thing can save you time, although you are more likely to waste spend more time due to the increase in information. It will just make you a more knowledgeable, web savvier person....

Your Jesus fish should be revoked....Part I

Let me start by saying that one of my biggest pet peeves is people who
cut in line. (Wal-Mart is not a pet peeve, it goes much deeper)


One of my favorite stories is the time when I was in an airport in a somewhat out of the way Chinese city. After paying the various random airport taxes and wading through the regulations, it came time for me to go through security. When I arrived in China I quickly realized that lines were a microcosm of "who in this general vicinity is the most important/powerful." As the only white person within a 5 mile radius, I unexpectedly won every contest. So, as I walked up to the security checkpoint and got in the back of the "line" I fouled up the hierarchy of the whole gate area. You see, the "line" in front of me looked more like a big mass of people. The businessmen in nice suits were up front, on the edges, cutting in front of everyone. The older people were in the middle, close to the front, using all the dirty tricks they'd learned from decades of Chinese "line" formation. In the back of the line were the young kids and the families who were obviously less well off.

My arrival didn't pose a problem until the first businessman/old person tried to push up and cut in to try to take their normal place in the Chinese "line". One by one, they hurried toward the front, only to see me standing at the back of the line. They couldn't pass the skinny white guy because it would break some unwritten rule, so they all began fighting for position directly behind me. I absolutely loved it. I couldn't help giving the cheesy businessmen/party bosses a quick look of "what the hell do you think you're doing" every time they tried to walk by me. So, for the next
fifteen minutes I relished the fact that I had changed the organizational paradigm of a Chinese airport.

Tomorrow I will explain what this has to do with the title of the post, although you can probably figure it out. Now I have to go get in bed before the "you have to sleep on the couch rule" is invoked.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

McCain/Clinton ????

McCain/Clinton USOh, what a clever joke someone has come up with:

http://mccainclinton.us/

Seriously?

Start buying up other domain names now:
mccainobama.us
ronpaulrudygiuliani.com
obamaclinton.us

Monday, March 10, 2008

Barack Obama gets cocky on Twitter...


Do you think the Barack Obama on Twitter is really the presidential candidate?

This is what he just said to his (at this moment) 14,648 followers:

BarackObama: In Columbus,MS & wondering how somebody who's in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who's in first place. Vote Tues!

I guess it really doesn't matter if its going to less than 15,000 people. I follow him and it is doubtful I will vote for him....