Since last weekend, I have the most perfect view on the recent moments of intimacy at the other side of the street. While looking out of the windows in our office, I noticed a change of behavior of my (indirect) neighbors. I’m not going to write a psychological analysis, but just what I saw. The window of the empty appartment was usually filled with a few bottles. Some lad was constantly sitting in the room next to the empty one – he was always occupied with gaming and whatever else he had to do. He is a smoker and turns up on the balcony above the street a few times the day.
But now the free room of the appartment has been rented to a blonde girl. Its the neighboring girl! What a lovely coincidence, it is a shared appartment. She must have moved in this saturday, and the new mystery in our street began to develop.
First of all, I can set the clock after these two smokers, at least every 1.5 hours they need to have a chatter on the balcony. Usually the girl is the one who’s starting it by climbing out of her window (she has no door to the balcony) and by banging her fingers against his door. He moves towards her, haha, they’re having a small chat and of course one or two smokes. On Saturday, their distance was about 3 meters, on Sunday they came closer to 2 meters, and today it was even more close. Is there a new relationship being made?
Secondly, whenever he’s inside, he’s occupied at the computer and hardly moves out of his four walls. She’s usually relaxing in her couch with her mobile phone, calling whoever in the world while reading a book. Nothing special yet, I know. But that’s for starters, this is nothing new, this happens all day long.
I’m not stalking them, but it became a very funny event to check the clock and watch their show. What else can I do than looking away from the monitor to adjust my eyes to normality? But today just after having a small chat with Kat, I saw them both standing outside again. Sure it was dark, and my room is filled with light. They can see me here inside, or not? Well it was around 10.30 p.m. as they had the last smoke of the day. He left, closed the door and that was it on his side. But she shook her head and climbed back into her room – of course through the window. Then out of my usual habits, I looked down to read a small part of a book and looked back at my monitor just to notice her suddenly undressing in her couch.
Now wait. There is no private porn. However, all out of a sudden she undressed and made a public strip. Next time, dear neighboring girl, close your curtains and don’t do that stripping with a rush. Sadly, I saw everything of her in that second as she jumped up to close the curtains. Dear neighboring girl, please keep your body to yourself. It didn’t make me sweaty to see you giving away all your secrets. Now this is ruined. There’s nothing special about you anymore. Imagine you’re all alone, feel comfortable at home, and just prepare for the night. And then this happens. What should I do but blog about it to free my mind? But wait, is this real? Sadly yes.
9 Days until Firefox 1.5 Beta
WebFor myself, Firefox has become an essential to web browsing again. This happened basically because of the loss of confidence of Netscape, and I began using MS Internet Explorer again for another two years of time. By now, I’m regularly switching the browsers, and the more news and info I see about Firefox, the less I’m interested in the free-of-update MS IE. On another note, I guess I have my „tech days“ here at the MikeSchnoor.com. First the new Microsoft Keyboard, then Opera as a highlight, and now Firefox. What comes next? ;)
[via Golem | read more | digg story]
High Definition Television in Germany
MedienIn the case for Europe‘ and especially Germany, HDTV is hardly a competitor for the currently used technology. Most broadcasting networks do not rely on HDTV or simply ignore the possible advantages for the consumers‘ experience. The concept of ProSiebenSat.1 includes to combine efforts with both the technology branch and the media producers. CEO Guillaume de Posch explained in their recent press release:
Prior to today’s press release, the company already tested HDTV with special screenings of „Spiderman“, „Men in Black II“ and „Panic Room“ during the past, and received some major positive feedback from their viewers.
[via Golem]
Opera 10th Birthday – Download Free Ad-Free Version
WebUpdate:
You may generate your own free codes with this web formular as long as their anniversary party lasts!
[via Golem | read more | digg story]
Website Owners click on Adsense
Blogkultur, MarketingHowever, Markus Klöschen explained in his recent article why he chooses to click ads. As a website owner, one may not violate against Google’s Policy of Adsense by clicking your own ads, but we can choose to click other people’s ads whenever we like it.
Relevant… yes, I saw various ads coming from the Google Server and I felt obliged to click and read the advertiser’s website. I found a few things on Business Ethics and some other nice gadgets, added the URLs to the bookmarks and had a good day. One can argument that this does not help the advertiser and is just another cost factor if people click their own Google Ads or are motivated to click ads, but if it’s relevant? I don’t click „Sexy Voice Chat“ ads, but rather those that keep my curiousity engaged, those that keep me interested. If ads are being relevant for me, I will click them on other people’s blogs. That’s what I see as some sort of honorable mission in order to say „Thank you for all your free content.“
Update: Edited due to Markus‘ comment – that’s one for the morning and the lack of caffine. ;)
[via Light Within]
Blogspot – The Spam Domain
Blogkultur, SpamThis is one of the most ridiculous ideas ever. You are a spammer and try to get money, but you’re being spammed because you’re too dumb to install counter-measures on your own spam blog. But here’s the deadly trigger for Google’s Blogspot domain. With approximately 7,500,000 individual blogs hosted on their domain, approximately 4 million spam blogs exist because of them. However, a second test of another 100 blogs changed the numbers, estimating 42% of the blogs are solely spammers. I wonder how the Blogspot users will react to this…
[via The Blog Herald]
Microsoft Leaks New Ergonomic 4000 Keyboard
Social MediaSomeone at Microsoft must have had a bad day for publishing content without approval. Fortunately, the web has its own regulations and such news can be digged up quite fast.
The keyboard is rumored to have the following features:
The first idea for a price is around $55, since this is no official information and since Microsoft has not yet released the product officially.
[via Everything USB | read more | digg story]
The Neighboring Girl
LebenSince last weekend, I have the most perfect view on the recent moments of intimacy at the other side of the street. While looking out of the windows in our office, I noticed a change of behavior of my (indirect) neighbors. I’m not going to write a psychological analysis, but just what I saw. The window of the empty appartment was usually filled with a few bottles. Some lad was constantly sitting in the room next to the empty one – he was always occupied with gaming and whatever else he had to do. He is a smoker and turns up on the balcony above the street a few times the day.
But now the free room of the appartment has been rented to a blonde girl. Its the neighboring girl! What a lovely coincidence, it is a shared appartment. She must have moved in this saturday, and the new mystery in our street began to develop.
First of all, I can set the clock after these two smokers, at least every 1.5 hours they need to have a chatter on the balcony. Usually the girl is the one who’s starting it by climbing out of her window (she has no door to the balcony) and by banging her fingers against his door. He moves towards her, haha, they’re having a small chat and of course one or two smokes. On Saturday, their distance was about 3 meters, on Sunday they came closer to 2 meters, and today it was even more close. Is there a new relationship being made?
Secondly, whenever he’s inside, he’s occupied at the computer and hardly moves out of his four walls. She’s usually relaxing in her couch with her mobile phone, calling whoever in the world while reading a book. Nothing special yet, I know. But that’s for starters, this is nothing new, this happens all day long.
I’m not stalking them, but it became a very funny event to check the clock and watch their show. What else can I do than looking away from the monitor to adjust my eyes to normality? But today just after having a small chat with Kat, I saw them both standing outside again. Sure it was dark, and my room is filled with light. They can see me here inside, or not? Well it was around 10.30 p.m. as they had the last smoke of the day. He left, closed the door and that was it on his side. But she shook her head and climbed back into her room – of course through the window. Then out of my usual habits, I looked down to read a small part of a book and looked back at my monitor just to notice her suddenly undressing in her couch.
Now wait. There is no private porn. However, all out of a sudden she undressed and made a public strip. Next time, dear neighboring girl, close your curtains and don’t do that stripping with a rush. Sadly, I saw everything of her in that second as she jumped up to close the curtains. Dear neighboring girl, please keep your body to yourself. It didn’t make me sweaty to see you giving away all your secrets. Now this is ruined. There’s nothing special about you anymore. Imagine you’re all alone, feel comfortable at home, and just prepare for the night. And then this happens. What should I do but blog about it to free my mind? But wait, is this real? Sadly yes.
Commenter Police
Blogkultur, SpamThe recent SEO case is basically the reason for introducing the comment policy here on the MikeSchnoor.com. The question is – who creates comments that may disturb others resulting in a) a law suit and b) the installation of counter-measures for your own blog’s protection?
Spammers
Of course, none of the spammers will ever create scandalous or pesterized comments, instead they’re interested in increasing the pagerank for their sites and of course lure visitors to their grounds. That for sure, the only help against them is an automated process like BadBehavior for WordPress and the idea to put every incoming signal (comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks) into the moderation queue before auto-approving the sender. As example, the Angel Blog just wrote about their own attempt to fight the comment spam.
Real People vs. Trolls
This leaves us with comments that are usually written by real people with a brain to think. The vast majority of blog readers know how to behave properly, and most blog authors hate to censor their readers. I have censored two times in the last years for a good reason. But who knows what may happen if people are commenting about whatever is on their mind including their emotional break-thru of anger and hatred? Or their thoughts concerning something else which was mentioned in the blog? As example, I write about the XYZ-ABC company and review their website, but one commenter explicitly makes sure that he/she does hate the company for a reason. While loving the idea of free speech, does this mean I have to delete it in order to prevent myself from the XYZ-ABC company and their legal machine? And what about myself as blog author – what if someone has the urge to pull a plug and unleash their personal hatred towards the blog author for no real reason but the birds in blue sky?
A blog is not the place to read a comment filled with hatred, and the decision about deleting or leaving it untouched is even more difficult for the blog’s author. Leaving it untouched will disappoint other readers as they see the poor comment and wonder why such crap exists on their daily read. Deleting it will only anger the one who got deleted – resulting in even worse comments from that person.
Its a thin line to walk on, and by informing the reader about what to do (writing comments!) and what not to do (the stuff explained the comment policy), you minimize the problem – I think. Of course, things can turn out wrong and even worse, but isn’t this what makes life interesting?
For example, German law requires one to declare that the website owner / blog author is not liable for external links. This is done via the classic disclaimer, which has to be of course in German within the Impressum or contact area of a site. I even declared that authors of comments are liable for their writing. As result, by German law, I am apparently not liable for that what you, dear reader, write. Now there’s the idea of the Commenter Police: Wouldn’t it be best for a blog author to get the comments being rated by the commenters themselves in order to create a mini-social-network? Leaving it up to the commenters to fight among themselves, and not the blog author? But on the other hand, a comment policy is still the best to use to keep everybody informed.
Wahl-O-Mat
PolitikThe upcoming elections in Germany appear to be quite a festival of political stubbornness and illogical reasoning by each party. But this time the politicians don’t play a major factor. The Wahl-O-Mat (in German) offers all citizens the opportunity to check their conformity with the major parties BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN, CDU/CSU, DIE LINKE.PDS, FDP and SPD.
Of course I had to give it a try – twice! After deciding about my point of view on 30 topics from the entire political spectrum, I was surprised to see the result: Yesterday, my choice was meeting the SPD’s positions, and today I was in for the FDP? I probably changed my opinion on one or two thesis which I answered previously with „neutral“ and today with a more yes or more no answer. By now I really don’t know what to vote for, because all major parties don’t really offer me a solution to the things I’d like to see being solved in Germany. They are anti-students and somehow anti-me.
Google Syndication Problem
WebIs it just me or the feistiness of Germany’s telecommunication backbones? I’m unable to reach pagead2.googlesyndication.com and receive a timeout error.
Update: I guess this was just another evil glitch of the backbone network. I couldn’t ping through… thanks S A J Shirazi for checking it with me.