Lets try to warm up my blogging skills with a little bit of bitching...

Have you ever heard anyone mention something called top posting vs. bottom posting? Chances are rather high that your answer is «No». That is if you live in the real world...

Did you know there is a whole little world of super geeks out there that have religious rules about what is right and wrong when it comes to how you should reply to e-mails? Did you realize that you might have made someone see red and shout at his computer screen that you are stupid because you replied to their e-mail in the "wrong" way?

I am pretty sure that when you reply to an e-mail, that you simply hit reply and type your response at the top. And that if you get a long e-mail and there is no text in black at the top that you might wonder if people accidentally hit the send button before they had written their response. You might maybe start a long, half-hearted, annoying scroll to the bottom...

The main e-mail fundamentalist commandment is: Thou shalt not post your response at the top of the e-mail but rather in between old content and at the bottom.

Just like any other "good" religious fundamentalist, the e-mail fundamentalist will try to force feed their views on you. They will first start out by making hidden condescending remarks on how stupid and ignorant you are. When that isn't understood they will tell you right out that you are pissing them off by being ignorant about e-mail manners. A normal person might at first simply lift their shoulders and respond "but it is so much simpler to just respond at the top and then I don't need to scroll". This is when the e-mail fundamentalist will give you an example that explains to you that you cannot easily read the old e-mails in order. The normal person will give them a blank look and respond "why would I want to read the old stuff again?" The e-mail fundamentalist will start explaining how much mail he gets and how many mailing lists he subscribes to and how much easier it is to read his e-mails this way. Half way through this long explanation the normal person will start rolling their eyes and thinking "what a dork, he needs to get a life!"

I know some of you e-mail fundamentalists. This might come off as being a bit harsh and rude, but I am getting a bit tired of your tyranny. Just like with any other religion I will try to be respectful and do as you wish until it becomes forced. When I see you again and again harassing other people in an impolite, arrogant manner I see no reason in respecting your wishes because you quite obviously do not respect other people's preferences. What you are demanding in the first place is a special preference that isn't particularly user friendly. Just like some other non user friendly things religion has demanded of people in the past ;)

Ronald comes running into the living room and shouts:

- Mommy, mommy grandma gave Harold a new baseball bat and I didn't get one.
* But Ronald, Harald got it for spending all weekend helping her clean out her basement. You didn't want to help.
- It is boring! I wanted to play the Wii and not drag dirty, ugly stuff around.
* Well grandma gave Harld the baseball bat because he worked hard all weekend. You can't expect to get one too when you don't help. I am
sure though that Ronald will let you play with it too.
- That is unfair! I want one too. If I don't get one, he shouldn't have one either! Take it away from him, take it away from him!!

Childish huh? Or is it unfair that Ronald didn't get one?

Yesterday I read the following in a book:

"The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read" Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)

It summed up everything I have been feeling towards my blog since I started writing again. I must have either grown up or become a coward but in any case I no longer have the guts to write the things on my mind. I am not exactly sure what it is that is stopping me but I think it is a mixture of political correctness, people around me that disagree with my views or possess the flaws that I want to critizise, and/or that I find the entries I have started make me sound like an arrogant person that thinks to highly of herself. So maybe I am all that but I would hate to make it too obvious by putting it into writing :) .

So instead of blogging I upgraded my drupal installation. Hmrfm I am really becoming a boring mediumgeek.

Working with usability is just like being in politics. If you try to make everyone happy you end up with something that nobody likes. If you try to work towards the greater good there will always be a group of people that would vote for someone else :) .

Ever since I spent some hours at the Paris airports I haven't been able to forget about lines and how rude the French were sneaking in line. It wasn't really the first time this happens either. The same thing happened while waiting at the airport in Iceland few years ago. A bus full of French people barged ahead of us and conveniently didn't understand a word of English (or sign/pointing language) when you tried to point out to them that there was a line. I remember being furious and daydreaming about kicking one of the lady long time afterward, but that is another story :) .

I have been wondering how someone can actually be so horribly self-centered to think they have the right to getting ahead of people that were there before them? During lunch we discussed this a bit but there were no conclusions. Up until now I simply thought people that snug in lines were rare, rude, ignorant, self-absorbed bastards but now I have started doubting my belief. I cannot remember when I learned to stand in line but I can remember it as far back as I can remember. There was never any question, you either get there early or waited your turn. I would feel horrible pangs of guilt if I tried to sneak in line. I don't understand how anyone can do it on purpose...

That lead me to explore the option whether these people were simply so absent minded that they sneak in line unintentionally? I have seen that happen at the canteen when people are busy talking they sometimes accidentally skip a spot or two. I might have done this myself at some point. But the airport cases can't have been accidental. There was pushing and obvious sneaking. Do those people feel it is their right, that they are more important than the people in front of them? Or does the concept of lines not exist in some countries? I have heard rumors of such things, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how things can function there. It must be a major disadvantage to be polite and proper there.

Does anyone reading this come from a non-line culture society that can shed some light on this before I either got nuts, or back to thinking the French are the rudest people on Earth? :)

While I am at it, can anyone teach me how to say, "I was here first, please get to the back of the line" in French? Oh, and maybe to add "you asshole" in case the first one doesn't work well enough?

I can feel the blogging cloud coming over me...

Summer has been so great that I simply haven't had the need to blog (nor time). This has made me realize that I usually blog because I either have to complain about something, or if I feel like airing my opinions. It just doesn't feel right to blog about happy stuff to much:-). Sure I have had things to complain about this summer but only so much that I have been able to relief my brain waste on friends.

This summer has probably been one of the best summer I have ever had but now when it has become gray and rainy outside, the bitter, frustrated, opinionated me is re-emerging. To spare my friends from having to listen to all I need to get out of my head I think it is time to dust the keyboard and start blogging. At least then they can safely ignore what I am saying/writing without me noticing that they don't give a damn. Aren't I nice:-)?

I might need few more days of rain to brew some frustrations to blog about or maybe I just need to think up some ways of disguising few of my recents frustrations...

The biggest scam in history...

Not knowing something does not make you ignorant. What makes you ignorant, however, is not seeking knowledge when given the chance.

Last entry I wrote might have been misunderstood by some people and in a way I deliberately left it a bit open ended to get people thinking.

I would first like to clarify that I am making no assumptions about the accuracy of the statement the little boy made. I just brought it up because it was the case that got me thinking about this, and I decided to make it a hypothetical example since I had it at hand.

The point I am trying to make is that it should not be a complete taboo to point out problems even if it might involve something sensitive such as a minority of some sort. Keep in mind though that with this comes responsibility! We shouldn't just make inaccurate statements to try to blacken and spread hatred about other people. It should, however, be possible to say that maybe something is a problem and start an investigation to verify its truth. If you are wrong, then you should apologize and make sure it is known that you were wrong.

Lets make an example case here. What if we had a group of immigrant kids from Iceland which were causing a lot trouble in a Norwegian school. They are repeatedly beating up the other kids and harassing them. One of the Norwegian parents becomes aware of the situation and goes to the school authorities and says is straight out that the Icelandic kids are beating and harassing the other kids. The school authorities investigate and find out that this is true. There is really a gang of Icelandic kids which are terrorizing their school mates.

Would it be prejudiced to say that the Icelandic immigrants kids are causing problems? In my opinion no, but I can imagine that there might be people that start shouting out that this is prejudiced or even racist. Ignoring the problem will only spread more hatred towards the Icelandic kids. A hatred that could potentially last generations. I see the solution being open about the problem and addressing it as soon as possible.

Why am I writing about this? Because I feel like I live in a society where people constantly get called prejudiced or racists because of the wrong reasons and it is only causing more problems. Those two words are extremely powerful and some people have learned to use them as weapons to defend themselves from taking responsibility for their actions or to make themselves look superior. The only thing that it accomplishes is hatred, and something that is more serious, hidden hatred which is much more difficult to uproot from society.

This is not to say that you can openly go out and say whatever. Looking back at my example, it would for example be wrong to say that “All Icelandic kids beat up and harass their school mates”. It should however be perfectly fine to say that “The Icelandic kids at that school beat up and harass their school mates”. In that case it would be the truth and when did it become wrong to tell the truth?

Few of the blogs I read regularly have brought up the subject of prejudice lately in one form or another. That combined with a continuous discussion in the media got me thinking. It is a difficult subject and has many aspects to it which are going to be impossible to cover in one blog entry. Let me try to make one point here that I have thought about a lot. Here is a little thinking exercise.



Try to imagine:

It is Norway's national day. A parent is watching their kid in a parade and a TV reporter walks up to the parent and starts asking few questions. One of the questions is the following: “Almost half of the kids in you kid's school are immigrants. Do you see it having any cultural effects on your kid's school”. The parent answers: "Yes, there is a lot of fighting because of that".



If you were watching this on TV, what would your reaction be? Shocked? Would you say that the parent was prejudiced against foreigners? Maybe even a racist?



Now lets imagine something else:

Lets say it was not the parent that got asked but a little boy in his school's parade. He answers the same way. "Yes, there is a lot of fighting because of that".



What is your reaction to that? Still maybe a little shocked by the boys bluntness? I doubt that you would call a little innocent boy a racist. After all kids are just being honest and don't have the filter we start imposing on ourselves as we grow older? Or?



The latter case with the little boy is actually the true case and was shown on national TV on Norway's national day. My reaction was a little surprise and then I just brushed it off as a little boy being innocent and honest. Only later did I realize that I would have reacted differently if this had been the parent.



Whether what the little boy said is true or not I have no knowledge of and don't wish to make any guesses. That is not the issue I am trying to point out here but rather how differently we tend to react. Lets just make this an hypothetical example and say that the little boy was telling the truth. Why would it all of a sudden be such a bad, prejudiced thing to say if said by a grown-up? Shouldn't you still be able to state a fact even if it doesn't necessarily paint the prettiest picture of something.



Can anyone tell me how we are ever going to solve any problems if we aren't even allowed to say out loud that something is a problem?