Hotashi - Jack’s Blog

I recently read an article about how the new generation of kids are replacing e-mails with facebook messages and text phone messages. Has it really come time for the e-mail to be retired in favour of the more “hip” alternatives? I think not.

Text messages and facebook (or any social network) are not replacement for e-mails. Yes, people use e-mails for a quick message here and there, but it offers a lot more than that. Have you ever tried to CC or BCC people on a facebook message? What about forwarding or including more people in future replies? What about sending a message with an attachment? You get the idea. IMO, what people use facebook and texting for now is more like what instant messengers (IM) does than what e-mails do. They’re fine for sending a quick message here and there. But if I’m starting a conversation that I might want to search for later on, I’ll stick to my Gmail with its awesome search engine. Even with my IMs I can archive chats on the filesystem, which I can use Google Desktop to search through later on.

I finally got around to installing Greasemonkey and Stylish for my Firefox. For those that don’t know, Greasemonkey is an extension that allows you to run custom Javascript scripts for pages that render in your browser. Stylish is basically the same thing, but for CSS not Javascript.

I haven’t gotten around to doing anything with Greasemonkey yet, but I’m pretty sure a week from now I’ll have a bunch of scripts running. :P The very first thing I did with Stylish is to hide all ads on the website. I think the social ads was a horrible idea for facebook. I’m so tired of seeing an ad in my newsfeed that tells me so and so is a fan of x and y. This little script below will eradicate all known ads on facebook!

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain(”facebook.com”) {

#ad_0, #ad_1, #ad_2, #ad_3, #ad_4,
#ad_5, #ad_6, #ad_7, #ad_8, #ad_9,
#ssponsor, .advert, .ad_body,
.ad_capsule, .ad_media,
.comments_ad_image, .sponsors,
.sponsor_absolute, .social_ad,
#new_stuff_content, .nextstep { display:none !important; }

}

Quick and dirty does it! Goodbye facebook ads!

I found this image while going through old files on my harddrive. I can’t remember where I saved it from, but a Google search yielded this page on boingboing, which isn’t the original source but whatever.

I was reading through today’s Globe and Mail paper, and saw this post left by a reader.

Allan C. Hutchinson’s letter (Obama And Canada - Jan. 7) complaining about the absence of ”visible minorities” among Canada’s political elites is misguided for several reasons.First, the use of the term ”visible minority” has been condemned by the United Nations and it is time Canadians stopped using it.

Apparently the UN warned Canada last year that the term “visible minority” is a racist term. The UN believes that the term is used to discriminate against people. According to the quote above, it seems the writer thinks that distinguishing white people from racial minorities is racist. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem like he has a problem with the lack of visible minorities in Canada’s “political elites.”

I’m not entirely sure why the UN thinks visible minority is a racist term. But I’m tempted to think that the UN, like the vast majority of Canadians, view all races as being equal now, thus any racial labeling is inherently a form of discrimination — by the very act of labeling. How then can we help those that need help if we don’t even have a vocabulary to describe them?

Proof that Bill Gates is cooler than Steve Jobs!

Okay, that was a joke so don’t flame me. But the video was pretty damn funny, and shows that Bill isn’t afraid to embrace his geekiness.

Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip