In some episode of Lois & Clark, The new adventures of Superman we see Superman type super fast to finish an article. Now, I haven't seen this episode in a long long time, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't copy from paper. This poses some interesting problems.

 

In order to type that fast (his keyboard nearly melts) he also has to think really fast... Otherwise whatever he is typing is just random gibberish. Now I'm not the greatest writer in the world, but I do know that creating a good article takes some time -- Finding the right words, etc.

 

So, if he can think so fast, why does he appear to be relatively slow in figuring some things out (plan X to save person Y, etc.)? This does not make sense. If he could really think that fast, he would be able to process all variables, situations, etc. before a normal person could even say gabberwocky.

 

Also, could he possible be faster than the CPU of a modern computer system? If so, I know of some people who could use a hand. Also, if he is, then I very much doubt the computer he was using would be able to process the insane number of keystrokes per second.

So, I like to watch to the Eurovision Song Contest every year. For those who are not familiar with it (i.e. those who are not from Europe), please check out the article on Wikipedia. The last couple of years however, the contest has been more and more about show than song, which bothers me, and begs the question: should it be Eurovision Show Contest?

 

Until 1997 an official jury (per country) gave points to the various participants, which were then added together, etc. In 1997 however, the jury system was abandonded, being replaced with just televoting (and more recently voting via SMS as well). The last 3 or 4 years however the contest has seen a lot of crappy songs however, with just a really 'good' show. Unfortunately these kinds of songs were often rewarded for their show -- Too much so.

 

This is very annoying, especially because a lot of countries that have recently joined have strong ties with their neighbouring countries (think: the balkan). The majority of the votes from those countries are simply because country X is the neighbour of country Y, not because the songs are good or bad. This sucks, badly.

 

The resulting situation is that now over 42 countries compete. First there is a semi-final among the countries which did not end up in the top 10 last year. Countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, etc, no longer stand a change to go through to the final (all neighbouring countries already went through to the finals, so who is going to vote for us purely based on the song quality?). Only balkan and ex-Soviet countries (including Turkey) went through to he finals this year (10 in total).

 

Another crappy idea is that the four major contributors, which are the UK, Germany, France and Spain respectively, go through to the finals automatically. This is completely unfair, seeing as lot of other countries often help out the hosting country as well (the Netherlands usually provides a lot of help with camera work).

 

Meh.

Recently I wrote about my bad experience with Windows Update, and now I'm back with more.

 

After my rant about the way Windows Update did updates on Windows Vista (and probably other Windows version as well) I turned off the automatic updating, and let Windows only notify me. That way I could best pick the moment when I want to install the updates. So, this morning I received a notification of updates.

 

Just now, I left my laptop unattended for several hours (I was playing Gears of War). I come back, and all of the sudden Windows is prompting me when I want to restart because it has applied updates. SAY WHAT NOW? It applied updates WITHOUT my consent (probably because I didn't look at it in time -- but that's MY problem, right?), even when I had the "only notify me" option ticked!

 

This is so annoying, and is really bad product design. Sorry guys, but Vista sort of is turning out to be the next Windows ME.

So like 2 weeks ago I made a quick post about the new Home feature of Windows Live Spaces. I dislike the URL they have given it, as it reminds me of the horrors the first versions of Windows Live Spaces had (http://spaces.msn.com/members/alias, ugh). Joost Bon, a Microsoft employee who is a PM on the Windows Live Spaces team commented on my blog entry with the simple question: "Why?"

 

Personally, I think the URL is way too long to just type into your browser, so now I either have to make an entry in my favorites (which I admit I hardly use, and are often not available on other PCs) or go to my own space, sign in and then perform several more actions before I get there.

 

I like the idea of having a small URL that points directly to your "Home". Something I can type in my browsers address bar, hit Enter and be done with it. Even something like "http://home.inkysblog.spaces.live.com" or "http://inkysblog.spaces.live.com/home" would be better than "http://inkysblog.home.services.spaces.live.com/". Why is there a "services" part in there for example? I don't care whether it's a service or not -- I just want my Home. Also, why does the "home" part come AFTER my space alias (to me that gives the impression my blog is "hosted" on my home, while it should be the other way around!).

 

As an aside, when does that "Welcome" message dissappear? It says "P.S. This welcome message will go away after a few days.", but it has been more than 2 weeks now and it's still there. As a second aside, why is there no freaking way to make text go to the default formatting without going into HTML mode? The default font (grayish) and font size (9pt?) aren't available via the picker buttons.

 

Sigh.

 

Right now I am in the process of obtaining a visa for my internship next summer. Unfortunatly, before they can send the me appropriate documents, they need to do God knows how many background checks. Social Security Numbers, previous addresses, previously used aliasses and other names, counties (not countries) I worked in, etc. Now normally I wouldn't make much of a problem out of it, but so far they had to ask me for the same (or equally similar information) stuff like 3 or 4 times.