Mathias Bank

Law and order is a strange thing, some people wants to define everything, other wants to define only, what is absolutely necessary.

In America, most people belong to the first part. You don’t agree? Well, look at americanet.de:

New Orleans, Louisiana:
Frauen dürfen nur Auto fahren, wenn der Ehemann eine Flagge vor dem Auto schwenkt

Baltimore, Maryland
Es ist verboten, einen Löwen mit ins Kino zu nehmen

Morrisville, Pennsylvania
Frauen benötigen eine Lizenz zum Tragen von Kosmetik

via [brainblog]

Wikipedia is always a good medium if you don’t know surely, what a word means. Today: geek.

If I would be asked, if I am a geek, I would say “yes”. In my opinion, a geek is a person who is fascinated by a special topic and who is very good in this topic.

Well, let’s look at Wikipedia:

Das englische Wort „geek“ leitet sich von dem angelsächsischen Wort „Geck“ ab und bezeichnete im frühen Mittelalter Menschen, die auf den Jahrmärkten lebendigen Tieren den Kopf abbissen.

Ouh…..

Today, the meaning of geek has changed:

• Eine Bezeichnung für eine Person, die sich bevorzugt und in gewisser Weise obsessiv mit Themen, Ansichten oder Kleidung auseinandersetzt, die abseits des Mainstreams liegen. Häufig findet die Bezeichnung Anwendung für eine hohe Intensität und Beständigkeit im jeweiligen Gegenstand oder der Tätigkeit des Interesses (vgl. Gothic, Cyberpunk, usw.).
• Computer-Geek ist die direkte Bezeichnung für eine Person mit stark gesteigertem Interesse an Computern und neuen Medien, häufig mit einer intensiven Beziehung zum Internet.

puh….

I found a very interesting page, which compares the browser speed – depending on your platform. There are a lot of criterias:

• cold start
• warm start
• Rendering CSS
• Rendering table
• Script speed
• Multiple images
• History

It is a really interesting comparison, because the author attends to browser specific problems. P.e. he attends, that a table must be fully loaded to display it. So you have to use your cache. Really good work!

It is although very interesting, that IE is not the fastest browser in cold and warm start although it is integrated in windows.

Opera looks very good at all platforms. I think, Opera is a really great browser, but I miss my firefox plugins. If there would be a solution for firebug (for me, that is the most important plugin), webdeveloper toolbar, … I would switch instantly.

Today, heise reports about a statistic which should prove, that children with paddle console or own television are less good at school than children without own paddle console or television. To prove this statement, they asked 17,000 children.

Well, that’s an interesting finding. But there is one important point you should not forget: The report also says, that parents with lower education buy paddles consoles more often than parents with higher education. Of course, that has nothing to do with the first chapter….

Statistics always say what you want.

Today I have written about the dubious way, how GEZ is getting their address-lists. In this way, I have compared the working methods with working methods of the Mafia. Well, it seem’s that ca. 163.000 other people are thinking the same thing . It is really a great feeling, if you know: you are not alone.