AC/DC

Classic songs like “Highway to hell”, “Thunderstruck”, “T.N.T.”.. Also the fact that these guys ain’t getting any younger, the sure did impress me. I would serious consider attending to another concert with these guys, even it means I have to put my arse on a plain to another country.

Jeg tenkte å ta for meg et voksende problem innen utveksling av dokumenter rundt omkring i Norge (og resten av verdenen). Etter at MS Office 2007 kom ut, og med det innførte et nytt filformat (docx, pptx, xlsx, ..), så har folk som tidligere har benyttet MS Office 2003/XP (og eldre) ikke vært istand til å lese dokumentene lagret i disse formatene. Enda verre er det for de som benytter OpenOffice (et gratis verktøy av tilsvarende funksjonalitet som MS Office).

Så, problemet ligger i at MS Office 2007 lagrer som default alle dokumenter i disse nye formatene. Og som kjent så tenker ikke folk flest over dette, og derfor vil mesteparten av produserte dokumenter bli lagret i slike obskure formater. Det skal nevnes at formatet er svært lik OOXML (dog oppfyller den ikke helt spesifikasjonene). Uansett, dette innebærer problemer for folk som benytter andre tilsvarende programmer.

Jeg har selv erfart å få e-post med slike dokumenter, da jeg konsekvent svarer at formatet er ukjent for meg og at de enten skal lagre i det (gamle) “doc” formatet eller ODT (OpenDocument format for tekstbehandling), eventuelt PDF. Sistnevnte byr på problemer dersom du er avhengig av å redigere dokumentet dog.

Hovedpoenget er at folk må slutte å benytte formater som er svært dårlig utbredt, da de innsnevrer mulighetene for andre å lese dokumentene. Inntil det faktisk er mulig for andre enn MS Office å lese og skrive i de respektive formatene, så anbefales det sterkt å unngå dem.

Allow me to share a rather embarrassing episode I had yesterday that resulted in the doom of my laptop screen. So, I was on my way home from another hard-working-good-lookin day at school, and as always I was kind of stressed. The “walking” part was to the parking lot not far from the school, and I was talking to a friend at the same time as I had my brother on the phone. (You know, we boys can’t multitask things). When I was about to unlock my car from the passenger side, I had to drop my backsack on the ground infront of my car. Unlocking my car from the passenger side and then open the driver door from the inside is the algorithm to unlock my car (quite old car). The idea was that I was suppose to fetch my backsack when walking around the car. However, in all the mess and stress, I take the other way around the car.

Jumping into the car thinking everything is OK, igniting the car, adjusting the stereo, need the right moood and sound before driving you know. Then, shifting into 1th gear and flooring the throttle. I was soon to discovery a rather unusual sound from the front of the car. Hmm, what could it be? Hitting the break a millisecond later, I came to realize that I was missing my backpack. WTF?! Backup up the car I find my backpack rather flat and dusty. The first thing that goes through my mind was the laptop…. Was it OK? Taking a quick physical check tells me it survived, so far so good. But, what’s that next to my laptop? Noooooooo, my coffee cup is broooken!! So, I drive home rather grumpy, but thinking it went OK since my laptop survived. I keept that thought to the next morning. Sitting in the reading hall at the university I suddenly realized that my laptop screen was big time fucked. Unable to read a single character.

Now, you may have your bad mornings, but this as so far been my worst..

EDIT: I’ve now added a photo of my laptop.. I haz proof!

Okey, so this post is somewhat special since its not geeky in any way, it is much more an observation from my side.

At NTNU there is several lavatories around, and there is one observation in the gentlemens lavatory thats been bugging me. In most lavatories at NTNU there is two urinals pr lavatory, and here’s the case. You know when you’re just let the “water” flow and there is one “spare” place besides you and there is not much space between the urinals? Well, for some reason many people find it natural to occupy the urinal right next to the one you’re using. Those people are wrong! The available urinal next to another one in use is not meant to be used, its purpose is only psychological.This behavior is only allowed in cases where there is at least more than a half meter between each urinal!

So, to summeraize, if you find yourself in this situation and you’re that poor person already in action at the urinal, then you’re entitled to take verbal action. If you’re that other horrible person, then I would urge you to think twice before you use the urinal.