This is because I’m curious and want to know what the people I interact with like, more than anything else, but here goes:

The blog* that,
- entertains me is BoingBoing.
- educates me is GrokLaw (’educates’ in the loosest sense) and Nihongo.3yen.com.
- impresses me is GrokLaw (again).
- concerns me is JJ Sutherland’s (NPR People).
- yowls the loudest is SixDay’s (in Swedish).
- isn’t, is Darby’s.

*) Replace blog with “RSS-enabled site” if you want to be picky. I know most of the ones I mentioned aren’t actually blogs.

What about you?

One thing I’ve noticed that is degrading over the years, is the fact that certain email applications are catching on on the translations. To put it simple…

Just because I prefer a certain language, does not mean everyone that I will ever ever email in my whole full entire life … prefers that same language. Let’s take an example. You write on a mailing list, I reply. I have Swedish language preferred. You see…

“Sön den 23 april kl. 08:13 -0600 skrev George:”

So much for a useful quoting header. I mean, sure, “Sön” might probably mean Sun(day). “23 april” isnt’ that hard to figure out. And at that point, you have it, but why would you have to? Isn’t this logic sorta flawed? This reaches a point of ridiculousness when you start using a language which does not use the regular alphabet, such as, say, Japanese, where most readers don’t know a single letter.

Conclusively, translating apps is a very good thing. Not that it ever really affected me as I always preferred English. But translations have to be logical. Translating something that will very likely be read by people with different language preferences than the user is a bad idea. I don’t care about the level of political incorrectness stating that English is the universal language right now, but there you have it.

Fighting for the rights of semi-translation since 1980.

(Yea, I admit this is more of a rant than anything else.)

Interesting article (found at boingboing). It does make you wonder, though. Personally, I’m doing surprisingly little piracy compared to most of my friends, and their friends, and theirs, and so on. This has more to do with me using linux since a decade ago than anything else. I do wonder though. Will the entertainment industry and the common man meet at some point, and find a common ground where both benefit from the resolution, where neither party feels compelled to become a criminal. Noone likes being a criminal. But almost everyone is. I’d like to see comments on this blog from anyone reading it, who has never ever committed software piracy in their lives.

From the GPL:

“This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General Public License instead of this License.”

Well, that answers that.

I’ve been quiet lately, for many reasons. The biggest reason is probably that my main computer died on me. Luckily I had two more to contend with, though I despise working from the laptop when I’m at home.

The second reason is that I’ve been inspired recently. That, too, has several reasons and is cause for some surprise in my neverending search to figure out what I am. One of the reasons is the weather. Being in Sweden, where nice weather is a luxury, I always get inspired come spring. In fact, I love spring. I love spring more than any other season, but that is not the only reason why I am inspired. Another, big reason is that whenever I face certain types of difficulties, I tend to struggle the hardest. Unfortunately, this is only a particular type of difficulty. I would have loved to be able to say that when I face difficulties I struggle and fight back with nail and tooth, but that is usually not how I am.

It is hard to describe this type of difficulty that does “boost” my inspiration. It is especially hard as I haven’t realized it even existed until last night (well, I have, but I hadn’t put words to it until then). But it has to do with the sense of indifference I feel when everything is okay. The lulling certainty and everyday aspect of “normal”, that tends to take the edge out of my inspiration even at the best of times.

I remember when I was working at a candy store, a few years ago. I loathed that job, and every day as I returned home, no matter how tired I was, I would sit down and work my ass off on code stuff, because I needed it. If I hadn’t, I’d have gone bonkers. That is the kind of difficulty I’m talking about.

My main computer died on me, as I said. Having two others, that is not a big issue, really, but it is. I tend to save my todo list as email entries (since I receive most of my “do”’s via email anyway) and these are now utterly gone until I’m able to get things back up and running. (In fact, I believe they are gone, period, but that’s for later to find out.) My “day-to-day routine” is also completely skewered on a 2×4. I initially told my boss that I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to get back in the thick of things, as I honestly had no idea how well I’d be able to work without things being normal, but to be honest, I’ve worked harder since my computer crashed than I have in months.

What would cause such an odd, seemingly illogical behavior in a man, I wonder? Where the presence of difficulties seems more beneficial than their absence, where inspiration shines the brightest under lesser conditions. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s an important part of me that I’ve neglected to think about. It may not seem as big a deal. In fact, I’m sure I am not unique in this aspect. I think this drive that I feel is what makes people face great perils to do what they believe in, but that may be farfetched and self-glorifying (not that I ever said I would face great perils to do what I believe in…). In any regard, it is a part of me, and as such it is something I am going to think about. I am determined to get to know this guy that I am better and better.