Madness

Don’t Open Attachments!

I nearly fell victim to another virus. See I got a nice little email from what looked like my hosting company. I have been having trouble with my email, so I thought they were trying to fix it. But luckily I didn’t open the attachment, unzip it and type in the password that’s in the email. But obviously people out there are. How do I know you may ask? Every 10 minutes, there’s another email from someone I don’t know with the zipfile.
Why people why?

Now what’s funny is that the message along with the file is getting more and more rediculous.

“I won’t bite” – yeah right.

“For your eyes only. Just use this password:” – ooooo someone must have sent it to me accidentally, I wonder if it’s secret, ooo let me see….puh-leeze!

“M~^^^mmmwm” – They’re not even trying now.

Perhaps MS has to implement something that asks “Are you really, really sure you know who this email is from before I open the attachment? Because you will lose everything on your computer if you don’t. Yes/No?” Then they should ask it about 5 times just so that I don’t wind up getting a sick computer.

Madness

Quote of the Month

“I think people should do whatever they want. As long as they don’t try to marry me, I’m fine with it.”
~Andy Howse, San Mateo
Mountain View Voice

San Francisco’s decision to perform gay wedding ceremonies has sparked a huge debate. Technically, they shouldn’t be doing it because the state law says they can’t, but if they want to perform an act of civil disobedience protesting the law then don’t they have a right to do so?

If the constitution says that everyone must have equal protection under the law, well then it’s illegal to say that a couple cannot be legally bound to each other and have the same benefits that other couples have who are legally bound to one another. One couple who has been living as spouses for over 25 years should have the same benefits as another couple who have a piece of paper saying they have been spouses for 25 years. And in order to bring this to the forefront of people’s minds, allowing same-sex couples to be legally bound under the law would do that.

Historically, it is up to the individual states to determine the laws governing marriage and divorce. And one state does not have to honor a marriage granted in another state. This was an issue back in the 1960’s in Loving v Virgina when an interracial couple was told their marriage in Washington D.C. was not recognized, and they had to leave Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional in 1967 and 16 states had to change their laws. However, if it hadn’t been for the Loving couple, would that law still exist in some states? And there was no need to add an amendment for it since it fell under equal protection under the law.

Interestingly enough, the proposed amendment’s wording could leave the gates open for heterosexual polygamy. Nowhere does it specifically state it must consist of just one man and just one woman. And that opens a whole can of worms that opponents to gay marriage keep bringing up. Also, those who have a common law marriage may find themselves running to the altar so as not to lose any benefits that they currently may have.

FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT (H.J.Res. 56)

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.

So we must remember, it’s up to judges to interpret the spirit in which the law was written. However, it is when the spirit in which the law was originally written is wrong that is the time that we must amend the constitution or when we have to set in stone how the government operates.

Amendments initially added spelled out and clarified how the Constitution protects the rights of the people. If it weren’t for the first 12 amendments, the Constitution would never have been ratified by the original 13 states. Then later on, we added more amendments to further clarify the Constitution because citizens still weren’t getting the whole everyone is equal idea.

For example, the 13th Amendment, ending slavery, had to be added to clarify the phrase “all men are created equal”. The 13th Amendment had to be added because half of the country had not accepted the “progressive” idea that blacks (or other minorities) are equal and should not be bought, sold and treated like animals. The other amendments were added to ensure a balance of power within Congress and to make sure that the President doesn’t get too full of himself if elected more than twice.

So with this in mind, does it make sense to add an amendment to clarify who can and cannot get married in this country? Does it further clarify a previous ideal set forth in the constitution? Does it help to ensure that the government runs smoothly in the long run? No, no and no.

If we were to add an amendment that would make the religious right happy, it would be that all laws in the land should reflect the laws of the predominant religion in the country. And that would be Christianity. And well, you just can’t do that because of that whole separation of church and state thing. And in some way, isn’t that what this is all about?

Stuff

Apple in Computer History

Brendon and I checked out the panel discussion/presentation The Macintosh Marketing Story: Fact and Fiction, 20 Years Later.

Remember when the Mac came out? I do. And I was only 7.

I remember watching this rather scary commercial for me that started off in what must have been Russia or at least East Germany. A true child of Reagan’s 80s. I hasdno idea what 1984 meant to adults, so it must have had something to do with the “bad” people in the world. Then enters this Olympic champion (the Olympics were that summer in LA), who came in and showed those “bad” people what she thought of them. And of course subsequently overthrew them, saved the world, etc. At 7, I wanted to be that woman! And of course, my parents went out and got me an Apple soon after. I was going to save the world!

So needless to say, I was intrigued to find out about the people behind this commercial that made such an impression on me at such a young age. It was pretty cool to hear the stories behind the scene. And yes, there was a reason the commercial was scary. The skinhead-looking men in the commercial, were actual skinheads from London. And one of the guys from the marketing agency hid on the set from them. I don’t blame him.

Soon the evening turned into a sort of reunion for the original Mac team. The people who developed the GUI were there, the people who worked on the operating system, the people who worked the long hours to get this little Macintosh thing off the ground were there. You hear about Jobs, but these are the people who made it happen. Yeah, Jobs could have gotten other people on the team, but would the product have been the same? Probably not.

Well, I just sat back and listened to all the personal stories from the team. I sure hope they’re writing them all down. It could help the next team of innovators who inevitably will face similar challenges that these people did.

If you have a chance, Brendon has pictures of the original Macintosh team on his site.

I never did get to ask why they chose a woman to hurl the sledge hammer. I’m sure glad they did.

Writing

Maintaining The English Language

If you’re a language geek then you’ll like this. If not, you might as well skip it.

My History of the English Language professor Whitney Bolton at Rutgers University sparked my interest in how our English words evolved from other languages and continue to evolve today. No word’s spelling or meaning is ever set in stone. It slowly changes over time according to how people speak and use those words whether its in slang, business or academia.

What keeps this in my mind nowadays is the whole backlash against gay “marriages”. I’ve heard many people say that they just don’t want them to be called “marriages”. “Union” is okay, but not “marriages”, which makes me laugh. Because at the heart of them, they mean the same thing. The meaning marriage is already different from what it was when my grandparents were my age. Even the OED lists that “marriage” is now used for “long term relationships of people of the same sex”. So I’m sorry to break it to the religious right. Your battle to police the English language is already lost.
As for the spelling police, it’s a lost cause. There are at least four different ways to spell certain words depending on which English speaking country you are in: England, USA, Canada, Australia and all the other English speaking former colonies of the Empire. So I had a good chuckle today when my mother-in-law, also an English major, sent me the following email.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza.

Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

So if we’re not careful will this mean that our language will devolve into its basal form? I think not. It ain’t so easy as that. 😉

Stuff

Typical Vancouver Summer Weekend

Despite the sketchy weather (would it just rain already!), the weekend turned out to be quite interesting and fun.

Saturday was the annual Yaletown Days. And it was definitely Yaletown in all it’s glory – expensive cars and cute dogs. There were some pretty cool vintage cars, everything from what were originally called horseless carriages, to 1950s convertibles to 1960s Minis to low riders to 2000 Minis. One thing that was obviously missing were SUVs, not that I’m complaining.

Then came the doggie pageant – Yaletown’s Cutest Dog. And on a slow day Yaletown is filled with cute, spoiled, overly pampered pooches. You had your familiar cute doggie faces that you see everyday and some new ones that came out just for the show. And their owners. Now they’re not as bad as stage mothers, but you did have ones that brought their pooches dressed in costume and pushing them to perform. After the first dog did the first trick, some of the owners got a bit catty. “If I knew we could perform tricks, MY puppy would have gotten into the final round”…bitch, bitch, bitch. But in all honesty, it was a cute pageant, and I don’t know how the judges could have made a choice.

After a bag of mini-donuts it was on to the fireworks!

Armed with a bucket o’K-n-F-n-C, blankets and a flashing l.e.d. dolphin, we sat back along the coastline in Vanier Park and took in the Celebration of Light (Symphony of Fire is a much better name). The Czechs were pretty dead on in their syncronisity, Canada blew, and China, well they have been blowing things up the longest, they were the best in my opinion.

Then after waking up very late on Sunday, I poured over Mists of Avalon. Then we went to a BBQ that Farshad organized since his DJ friend Ludo Llorca was in town. For a world famous DJ, Ludo was nothing what I expected – down-to-earth, sweet and very friendly. Anyway, we BBQ’d at Spanish Banks well into the night, accompanied by the primal sounds of a local drum circle.

All in all, your typical Vancouver summer weekend.

Stuff

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix? Wicked!

I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I must say it’s bloody brilliant. I won’t go into any details here in regards to what it’s about. However, you know it’s good when I spent the entire weekend on the couch reading it cover to cover. That or I’m just a tad bit of a Harry Potter fanatic.

Brendon and I bought it at the witching hour on Friday night / Saturday morning. I managed to squeeze in a chapter or two before crashing to sleep.

In other Harry Potter related info, I found a wicked site where we wizards in training can pick up house scarves, wands, brooms and even a Sorting Hat – Alivans. Of course, this may be common knowledge that I have yet again not been privy to as I do not watch most morning talk/news shows. But since they do not have a wand made out of Ash, I will not be buying one as of yet. But I may give in around Halloween time.

So now Brendon has started on the book. I can’t wait for him to finish it so that I can finally talk to someone about it!

Happy Reading!

Stuff

Reality Bites?

What is it with this hunger for reality shows nowadays? I’m as guilty as the rest of them for wasting precious evening hours killing brain cells watching who’s going to be the next silly girl to get ousted from Joe Millionaire, but I can’t stop!

Perhaps we all feel a little better by watching them. It’s like watching that cocky so-and-so back finally get their comeuppance and falling flat on their face. Or it’s the fact that if you start flipping through the channels you inevitable fall upon CNN, MSNBC, FOXNews, Headline News, C-SPAN, even PBS at times, fear mongering and telling us that we’re all going to die either by terrorists, super bugs, Iraq, North Korea (or the latest axis of evil member), the crumbling economy or the latest Cancer causing food. It’s just too much to take 24×7. Imagine if CNN had been around during WWII everyone would have committed suicide with the coverage they would have been doing of Hitler!

So instead, Americans turns to things that we can handle: Are you Hot or Not?,The Bachelorette, Survivor, and Living with “Wacko Jacko” Michael Jackson. Americans are tired of listening to the warnings, the conjecturing, the what ifs. If I see something that looks a bit odd, I’ll call the police, FBI, anyone that will listen. I think the government has gotten through to us that we must be on alert. If there’s a man walking around with a giant winter coat in the middle of summer, trust me, I’d tackle him myself. Just stop the incessent fear-mongering.

Give me the time when it was just the Russians that were the enemy, we had to beat them to space, to the moon and in the Olympics. There was not talk of all out war. But that ain’t gonna happen. Instead, I’ll happily live in my own little la-la-land, watch the crap on TV, and forget about the world for a little while.

That or just turn it all off completely and start reading.

Writing

It’s a Christmas Tree!

A Christmas tree by any other names does not smell as sweet. Political correctness has gone too far. So far, in fact, that I’m incredibly offended.

I grew up vaguely Catholic (church on Easter and Christmas Catholic). So Christmas was as religious as the Fourth of July, but just as fun, if not more so because of the presents. My own sister went into a religious store this week to buy a present for my grandmother and asked for “rosemary” beads (not rosary). So that shows you just how religious my family is.

Well, over the years in our society’s attempt to be politically correct and sensitive to non-Christian religions, we’ve secularized all Christian holidays. And this year’s Christmas has lost any sense of being Christmas here in Vancouver. Christmas is on its way to extinction.

Vancouver decided that the large pine tree decorated with colorful lights and a star on top will be called the “Seasonal Tree”. They should have also changed the name of the giant candelabra that holds 8 candles standing directly across it to the “Seasonal Candelabra” instead of a Hanukah menorah. But secularizing anything Christian seems to be awfully in vogue. But both name changes are incredibly insane and completely wrong.

This year, I can’t even wish other Christians a “Merry Christmas” without being told that I should say “Happy Holidays”. Give me a break! What’s next? We can’t put up Christmas lights on our homes?

Most people I know that aren’t Christian don’t mind it because they get into the spirit of the holiday. They don’t think about the fact that it celebrates the birth of the Jesus. The holiday has pretty much lost it’s meaning for non-Christians. It’s become this one time each year where we strive to be good human beings and treat each other nicely for just one day. Why do we have to alienate and deny Christians their holiday by demanding that they don’t make any mention of it what-so-ever?

Next, we’ll be told that no one can call December 25th Christmas, and instead, it’ll be called Festivas. This is not tolerance and acceptance. It’s downright discriminatory. And I will go on saying that those two huge things on the front of the Art Gallery lawn are the Christmas tree and menorah. Otherwise 10 years from now, there will be no Christmas celebrations at all. And we’ll all be longing for the good ol’ days when people decorated their houses with lights, we had the annual lighting of the Christmas tree and children and adults were good for one whole month in hopes that St. Nick would bring them the presents that they wished for.

Writing

Web Writing Tutorial

It always amazes me at how little people know about writing for the Web. But that’s probably because I live and breathe it day in and day out. So I’ve decided that I’m going to write an extensive online Web writing tutorial.

What made me think of doing this is that I’m going to be holding a training session in December specifically on this topic. So why not just write it up and put it online so that they can reference back to it? There’s so much that I take into account when I write that it’s hard to convey in a 3 hour session.

So if you check back here in the new year, I’ll have it up ready to go! Once it’s up and running, I’ll update it with links to the best Web writing (and writing in general) sources out there.

Stay Tuned!

Stuff

So Many Books

So many books, so little time. I’ve started up an Amazon
Wish List
because I can’t keep track of all the books that I want to read.

This past week alone I heard about 4 different books that are supposed to be
must reads:
Life of Pi
,
Fall on Your Knees
,
The Lovely Bones
, and
Unless
. I used
to devour books left and right and would know which are the must reads that
just came out. I suppose its because a) I drive a car to work and b) I’m surrounded
by computer geeks who’s idea of a good book is the latest edition of a fantasy
series. Not that there’s anything wrong with fantasy books, its just that there
is so much good fiction coming out that it would be a shame to miss it because
your reading the next great saga of a fantasy soap opera.

I’m guilty of that myself. I got into the Diana
Gabaldon

Outlander
series and that’s also part of the reason why I haven’t read anything
else. These books are becoming at least 1,000 pages long and just when you think
the action is slowing down, something happens and you can’t stop reading. Well,
at least the first 4 books were like that. This last one I had to trudge through.
I think she’s just writing everything that comes to mind rather than choosing
what is good for the story. It’s a sign that perhaps you as the author can’t
keep track of what you’ve already mentioned in the book when you remind readers
3 times in the story about something that happened in another book. Mentioning
it once will suffice, unless you as the author can’t remember what you’ve written.
Makes me wonder if her editor is doing her job. Isn’t this something that an
editor should catch?

That’s enough of that series for me. I must get back to reading contemporary,
thought provoking literature. Well, until the next one comes out or until the
next Harry
Potter
.