Most Unfortunate Manufacturing
I have been and probably will always be a big fan of the Leatherman tool. I personally use the Juice line, as it is smaller and easier for me to deal with as a computer guy.
I took a good deal of pride in these tools, since they're pretty damn tough, extremely useful and an example of something good made in the USA. Unfortunately, it appears that this has changed at some point since I bought mine. The reason I deduced this is because on the hinge of the pliers, there was a little "USA" on it that gave me the warm feeling I needed of supporting my fellow countrymen. I recently bought a new tool as a gift for a friend and looked at the same spot to find nothing of the sort. While it doesn't say, "China" on it, I'm sure they must be made somewhere overseas now.
My big question is, why? How can it be that much cheaper to manufacture this outside the country when shipping must add a great deal to the cost? How can it be that they made a great line of tools here in the US for so long and (even after searching all over their website) it appears they must make them somewhere else now?
Undoubtedly the quality is going to go down as it always does. One change seems to lead to another with items that started out good here. It's just so sad to see. I'm really curious if it really is the case that these aren't made here anymore, since there is[was?] nothing else like them. The day when mine has finally had it will be judgement day on whether I buy another, knowing what I know now.
30 04 2006 0 comments
Phantom of Opera
The weirdest thing was happening to me as I was working on a new version of the Hudin Family Tree. The new design is not up yet, so that's why there's no link. I've got the new look together however and have been coding up the CSS and changing the background PHP code to work with the new layout. Everything looked fine in Firefox and even the two evil browsers of Explorer and Safari. No problems I thought, let's just give it a whirl in Opera to check out everything. And there it was, this extra bit of margin or padding space from the top that was mucking up the whole design. What the hell was this? I've never seen this problem before.
After messing about with various things for an hour or so and finding little information on the web in general, I finally came up with this for the body definition:
body {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
That fixed it for Opera and didn't affect the other browsers. It's a pretty simple fix and in general, I always use the margin attribute to make sure that's standardized across all browsers. What's getting me is why Opera is doing this though. I don't have this problem on any other sites with similar code. Overall, I also find Opera to be a pretty good little browser. My first preference is for Firefox, but Opera does pull up a damn good second. I guess things like this happen and in reality Opera is at most 1% of the web viewing audience if that, so I could have ignored the issue, but that's just not my style.
29 04 2006 0 comments
Make it Stick
I stumbled on this People's Park article about the nefarious Free Box over there. Typical crap really. I have also always wondered if it was because of this event in history that both, "people's park" and "peoples' park" are considered correct grammar.
CW Nevius does a really good job summing up the problem and the history. I'd just like to add that in the three years I lived in Berkeley, anytime I had to walk by this thing (which is basically an anchored dumpster with a "lovey" name) I would always see a pile of dirtbags haggling over the junk that was there and getting in fights about it.
The Free Box is an outdated concept. Like most things in this country, scope has gotten out of whack with actuality. Such as the fact Berkeley thinks its this little hippie commune, when really its one of the larger cities in the Bay Area with a big traffic problem and a group of people running it who have no business in civic government. Such is also the Free Box. A central, one stop shop for everyone in the area. This doesn't work. I know this because in my apartment building, we have a couple of "free" areas. I'm sure this is the case anywhere. Someone has something they don't really need and they set it there. If it goes unclaimed for some time, it gets tossed. The concept is good, but like most things in Berkeley, the implementation is bad. I remember joking for awhile that the city council was working on a "Hardware for the Homeless" program to outfit anyone on the street with a laptop. People actually thought it was something they were doing there. That's how close to being derailed the thought trains are in Berkeley. Of course, most folks don't realize that they would never call someone homeless in Berkeley. I believe something along the lines of "structurally displaced citizens" would be where they would go.
I'd also like to add that in searching through this site for info on this, I came across my Monkey Dog article I wrote in 2004, which I find really funny and you should too. If you don't, I'll come and picket your house you shoddy capitalist!
28 04 2006 0 comments
The Media is Apple's Bitch
If anything else if true about Steve Jobs, he has definitely managed to slay the media and make it his. They may not love him, but they sure love Apple. Somehow the harsh reviews they give others turn in to awe with Apple. The basic services that Apple provides cause those in the press to wax poetically. What a load of crap.
As is the case most of the time, this "article" which is nothing more than an opinion piece, has set me off. If you read between the lines, Jon Carroll is actually unhappy. He is not a stupid guy and I tend to like what he writes, but it seems that he has somehow been subconsciously forced by the rest of the media and perhaps something in his morning Peet's to take what would have been negative press and put a positive spin on it. Why? A lot of the things Apple does are pretty damned annoying. Just state your piece with an honest opinion and be done with it. But oh no, we can't do that. Apple is amazing. They are incredible. Really folks. They make pretty plain products that everybody keeps drooling over due to the "simplicity of design". Yeah, sure. You ever try to lift a PowerMac G5? That design simplicity weighs a ton and you can't carry it due to the malformed handles. I actually think that Sony has better design in their laptops and I say this being a rabid Thinkpad fan, but lets face it, the black slab is pretty boring.
One big thing in Carroll's article that I'd like to counter is the Apple Store. They are idiotic dolts just like any store. If you know what you need, they argue with you. If you just want to browse things, they get in your face. And then there's the Genius Bar. Yeah, the "genius" bar. I think that the genius bar is an actual bar that Apple has set up at the stores which only geniuses walk in to and it stops them from getting hired.
"Okay, so what's the problem?"
"It doesn't power up."
"Okay, let me just put a power cord in to it."
"Genius, it doesn't power up."
"Alright, found one, let me plug it in."
"Dude, it doesn't power up. How much more clear do I need to be?"
"Okay, I'm turning it on... and... I'm turning it on. Hmmm, it appears to not power up."
"Yeah, genius at work, watch out, you might lose an eye."
So, why do I know so much about Apples when I obviously don't like them and appear to be a Windows guy? Simple, there's a lot of money to be made in their repair because they break down and they break down often. Normal folks can't fix them and so guys like me are around to provide the illusion of functionality to these things.
By the way, it was nice to be in European countries where seeing an Apple computer is about as common as seeing a supporter of Bush. Yeah, they're there, but no one likes to talk about them.
27 04 2006 0 comments
Celje, Slovenia
I only spent an afternoon there, but this is a really pleasant town in Slovenia. It's maybe a half hour to the east of Ljubljana and something of a midway point between Maribor and Ljubljana. I could be wrong on all of this as I didn't do any of the driving over there, but it's still a nice place and not far from anywhere.
They seem to be doing a lot of renovation on it right now and are really pulling it together. There is a lot of history there, including the fact that there was royalty in the area that rivalled the Hapsburgs in strength until the Hapsburgs cut a deal with them that whomever didn't have a male heir first would get the other's lands. It doesn't take a historian to guess who won.
There are a couple of museums in town, including a medieval arms and armor museum that was unfortunately closed the day I was there. Stupid Saturday before Easter. What good are you to me?
So, while not the blitz of multimedia that my bit on Split, Croatia was, I have a few things assembled from my trip there. Here is a shot of the Dali Cafe along with the Celje Stari Grad. The real gem is this one minute video I did with my cousin Marko at the wheel, which is the five cent Celje City Tour. I hope you can enjoy.
26 04 2006 0 comments
The Issue of English
I think I have finally reached the saturation point of being the big dumb American, running around Europe, asking people if they can speak English. Yeah, it's true, many people can. It's also true that many other country people (Germans, Italians, and English) will just start speaking in their native tongue to people and not give a rip. But I, I want to be better than that. I want to have conversations that don't revolve around what size beer or pizza I am ordering.
There are some countries where the people realize that due to their size and rather isolated language group, they need to learn other languages. For instance, I met a Hungarian girl in Vienna who spoke German, English, and a bit of French in addition to her native tongue. Maybe some others as well. The Hungarians know that having a language loosely tied to Finnish isn't going to get them anywhere in the world and they deal with it.
It's also the case in touristed areas of Slovenia and Croatia that people will usually always speak German or Italian or both and then a good deal of English as well. I respect that. But then, I also respect the fact that the Austrians (who speak a Germanic dialect of course) seem to learn French and English quite casually. I know that these are small countries surrounded by those speaking other languages, but still, there's a pretty damn big effort to learn all these languages and learn them well.
So that is why I, the twiddly American really wants to learn at least one other language really well. I learned a good deal of Spanish in school and am reviewing that as I can, but honestly, very few people in Europe speak Spanish readily. I should probably learn German as I can read it quite well already, but not have any idea what I'm saying. This would be the practical way to go, but I have always been anything but practical. No, I think I'm going to go back to my alma mater and learn Serbo-Croatian. Yeah, it's not a language that a ton of people speak, but it has strong linguistic ties to Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Russian to name a few. This makes it a bit more useful when you think about it. It is true that almost no one learns the Slavic languages in Western Europe. They all learn English, which I think I done got well nuf in my head at this point.
25 04 2006 0 comments
A Major Export
Family in Slovenia told me this fact, but I couldn't believe it. I mean, it makes sense on a certain level of course, but you gotta read about the fact that Slovenia exports bears to other countries like France to believe it. I'm not against it of course, although it seems stupid to export them and still allow people to hunt them in the country that is importing them, but I don't live there.
Now, if only we could get some of that wicked Slovenian Pinot Noir from Movia then we'd be talkin'. Man that stuff was good. Their Cabernet Sauvignon is too dry for my tastes like just about any European Cab, but everything else is lovely.
24 04 2006 0 comments
Heritage
Having been to Europe and seen a few places on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites I thought I should point folks to the entire list.
It's kinda silly really, since I've been to more of the listings in Europe than those in the US. How's that for being a "world" traveller? Can't even see crap in my own country. Silly.
This list is pretty cool really and I almost think it should act as a tour guide for people wanting to see good stuff in the world. Everywhere I've been, has been a good time.
Here's my list:
24 04 2006 0 comments
Flat Out Stupidity
While I don't want to continually bang the drum of how Europe does things better than the US, I still gotta bring up some items and points from my last trip. One such thing is basic stupidity.
We are a country that seems to constantly enable complete unaccountability for our citizens. It's as is people are not required to have any responsibility for their actions because that just isn't how it's done. Naturally this is in part a big reason for our over zealous use of the lawsuit. But when I see articles about the issue of train-related deaths in the Chronicle, I shake my head in sad wonder. It's a god damn train. Why do people tangle with it and when they do, why do we make such a commotion when they die?
If someone wants to end their life, let them. If someone tries to cross the tracks when a 450 ton vehicle is coming at them, don't make a shrine to them. These things take at most 30 seconds to go by. Can you not wait 30 seconds for this thing to go by?
While I was in Europe I saw one mention of a death of the train tracks. The only reason was because they wanted to notify family members (if there were any) of the inccident. They weren't going to conduct studies and put of barricades to stop it from happening again. They don't even make their trains safer. You can jump off a train at pretty much any point you want to. It seems as the Euro consensus of thought is that as long as you don't hinder others, have at it.
Another great example is the coastal highway in Croatia from Split to Dubrovnik. That thing makes Highway 1 in California look like Interstate 5. It is sketchy. There are little shrines to people who have died along it. Are they putting up systems to stop people from passing? Are they installing warning signs that there is a sheer drop off on one side of it? No, of course not. If people can't understand something so basic, let 'em plummet. Of course, they are building a newer, straighter stretch a few kilometers inland, but that has much more to do with getting tourists down the coast faster to make money easier. In other words, common sense.
I wonder if we're going to hit some point of saturation in the country and go back to the days of my grandparents when this complete and untter sense of entitlement just goes away. It ain't helping us at all and while I blame the hippies for getting the ball rolling on this whole thing, we've certainly done nothing to stop it in my generation.
23 04 2006 0 comments
Vienna Photo Update
While it wasn't the favorite part of my last trip, I did manage to take a few pictures of Vienna. They start here in the photos section.
The tricky thing about taking pictures there is that every place is a grandious manor and you would probably end up taking pics of the whole place if you wanted to see impressive buildings. Me, I got a little bored with it all, especially after being in Ljubljana and Zagreb where a good portion of the towns were built up during Hapsburg occupation.
