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Awesome Krzr phone

My new Krzr K1 cell phone has arrived. I bought it on ebay for a lot less than I would have paid if I’d gone through tigerdirect. I didn’t want to extend my contract with my cell phone service provider either although that would have gotten me a deal. Other reasons for going ebay: the phone was Read more

Firefox Plug-in for Tiny Url

I want a Firefox tinyurl plugin to save me from having to go to the tinyurl site every time I want to share a ghastly url. It’s a pita every time I want to post a longish link in a forum or email. I found TinyUrl Creator so I’ll give it a try. If you’ve got a better one let me know.

My Cubicle

Did you get the memo? A parody of James Bunt’s “You’re beautiful” with lyrics by MorningSideKick.com, performed by Jym Britton and footage from the Fox film “Office Space”.

Cell phones, data, and power

I recently washed my cell phone. I left it in the pocket of my pants and by the time I remembered it had been lathered, rinsed, and repeated. I left it in the sun for a day, then on top of my computer monitor for another day, then charging for another few days. There was hope because the screen would light up Read more

CSS Get Naked Day

What happened to the design?

Today is the 2nd Annual Naked Day, when people everywhere disable the styles on their websites.

The idea is promoting Web Standards. It’s a good time to see how your site loads (i.e. how far down the page is your real content?)

I tested to see how it would look first in Firefox with the web developer toolbar by simply disabling the CSS ( CSS > Disable Styles > All styles). I was mostly happy with what I saw so in header.php I commented out the call to the stylesheet. There are a few things I see that I need to tidy up but for now, here you have it: my naked blog.

Enjoy.

For more info and a list of sites that have gone naked for the day check out the Annual CSS Naked Day website for more information.

Casey Froese, hockey player: are we ready for girls in the boys’ room?

Front page of the Windsor Star today:

Casey Froese (age 11) is a minor hockey player in Windsor, Ontario. Recently it was discovered that she’s been suiting up all season in the boys’ (ages 9-10) locker room. Since then, she’s been told to suit up somewhere separate from the boys. Glenn Froese, her father, says this is sex discrimination and that she has a right to suit up with the boys.

The Windsor Minor Hockey Association Bylaw says that girls aren’t allowed in dressing rooms until 10 mins before game time. After games, girls have to leave the room before players remove equipment.

Yikes.

Dad brings up issues of of team bonding and how important it is that the players stay together. All the kids wear shorts and tshirts underneath (though this is not mandatory), that no one is showering or getting naked (although they could). From this angle, it seems like the question to ask is “what’s the harm?”

Well Mr. Froese, I agree with you. I think it would be great if everyone could get changed together and that gender didn’t matter. I think it would be great if everyone could just be team players and if no one cared whether you were girl or boy, gay or straight, cisgender or transgender, or every other possibility. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew for certain that everyone would be safe no matter where they went or what they wanted to do, regardless of their gender, sex, religion, skin colour, ethnicity, class, ability, etc? Wouldn’t it be great if 50% of women in Canada weren’t victims of physical or sexual violence at some point in their life (StatsCan)?

But we know that’s not the case. We know that women are victims of violence on much too frequent a basis. We’re talking about your daughter. She has a one in four chance of being a victim of sexual violence (Stats Can). You are gambling with the chances of whether or not she’ll be safe here. You think yes. Others say no. Can you guarantee that your daughter and every other girl will be safe at all times? You hope so but can you guarantee it?

How about we take all the kids out of the boys locker room. Have them change in the lobby. Or create a gender-neutral change room. As long as girls are in the boys’ room, the boys have the power. And I don’t think we’ve made that much progress yet. Maybe someday, but not yet.

Restoring Feeds in Opera

I like Opera. I really do. I haven’t found anything better for reading feeds which means it’s open on my desktop almost all the time. Or at least it was until I switched from Windows XP to Suse 10.2. Because I’ve been busy with school and life it’s taken me awhile to copy over my bookmarks and other profile settings, including my feed subscriptions. Since I backed them up before leaving Windows I knew eventually I’d get around to it, but it’s been long enough now and I feel totally out of the loop with the blogs I used to read regularly. It’s also the end of the semester crunch and there’s nothing better to support procrastinating than reading blogs. Naturally this morning I’ve decided to finally set up my feeds.

It wasn’t that hard really:

By opening Opera > Help > About I found the directory Read more

Another idea for dealing with .docx files

Another idea for dealing with the .docx files that Does Not Work!

It’s still bothering me that a user cannot simply and easily open these files and work with them. I had another idea: Gmail now includes the option to open some files as Google documents — would this work with the dread .docx?

I tested it out by ‘gmailing’ myself some attachments and here are the results. While I was at it I tested out a few other formats Read more

John Jay High School

Wasn’t it just International Women’s Day? Couldn’t we celebrate instead of attacking women?

Update: Contact phone number for John Jay High School in NY: 914 763-7200 Leave a message with the principal in support of the Megan Reback, Elan Stahl and Hannah Levinson.

I got a link to the censorship taking place at John Jay High School in the mail today. Seems women’s bodies are still dirty and unsuitable for children (er well, it’s okay if we give birth to them — lots of them in fact). It doesn’t matter that these girls defied the order not to say the word “VAGINA” — that order was Wrong. There is nothing wrong with what these three girls did, nothing at all. I’m glad to see support from the community, and how it’s crossing borders into Canada and soon will go beyond. Hopefully it will come from far and wide and this school’s admins will realize that rules like this try to make women feel ashamed of their bodies. I’m especially glad to read this quote from Dana Stahl, Elan Stahl’s mother, “To me, they were reciting literature in an educational forum and they did it with grace and dignity.” Way to go Elan!

I wonder if there are other words associated with women’s sexuality that are not allowed at this school? Like rape? Could you imagine a school where girls are not allowed to talk about rape? Scary scary — what we do not hear does not exist, right?

I’d like to see the principal apologize to these girls and the community and tell us that he does not think women are shameful, sexless, dirty and offensive. I’d like these girls to organize some mandatory workshops for staff about the importance of a healthy attitude towards women’s bodies and how this is directly linked to women’s position in society (i.e. the end of misogyny). The staff could get a special certification at the end of the workshop (which includes writing an essay on the topic) — maybe “Gynophile”? or how about this classic: “Teacher”? These workshops would be adapted for the students at the school too because they’ve all been told now that “vaginas” are a problem. I’m not looking forward to seeing how that plays out in their futures. What do you think Megan, Elan, and Hannah? Actiongirls would be happy to help!

Here is the entirety of principal’s statement. He’s insisting that the girls are not suspended because they said vagina but because they said vagina when they were told not to say vagina. This is sooo not cool. Mr. Leprine, really, it gets easier the more you say it. And as for kids hearing it — it wasn’t that long ago that they were sliding through their mothers’. They’ll be okay. Maybe even better than okay.

March 6, 2007

Dear John Jay Community Members:

I appreciate the concerns expressed by students and parents over the monologue issue that occurred last Friday night at the “Open Mic Night.”

John Jay High School recognizes and respects student freedom of expression in the context of the school setting. That right, however, is not unfettered, particularly when an activity or event is open to the general school community where it is expected that young children may be in attendance. The challenge is to balance the rights of student speakers and the sensitivities of the community. The School’s response to that challenge was to pre-audition the students before several faculty members for the “Open Mic Night” and to determine the suitability of the intended presentations for the audience. In many cases, younger siblings, often elementary age, attend these types of events. This event was also being videotaped for the local cable television channel.

When a student is told by faculty members not to present specified material because of the composition of the audience and they agree to do so, it is expected that the commitment will be honored and the directive will be followed. When a student chooses not to follow the directive, consequences follow. The students did not receive consequences because of the content of the presentation.

There is a clear difference between putting on a production of a play such as “The Vagina Monologues” and an open performance at the microphone of an excerpt from the play before unsuspecting parents and their children. In the first case, the community would have been aware of the nature of the production and could have made an educated decision to attend or not to attend based upon that knowledge. In the case of the “Open Mic Night,” the community was invited with the expectation that the pieces presented would be appropriate for the general community, including younger children. Parents and community members did not have the ability to make an educated decision about the appropriateness of the content of the presentations for younger children.

There is also a clear difference between what is read and discussed in the classroom and what is presented in an activity open to the entire community. Our judgment was guided by the forum, the audience and the students’ commitment. Our decision was made in a considered, careful and thoughtful manner.

Sincerely,
Rich Leprine,
Principal JJHS

Viewing .docx in Suse 10.2

Jeff wouldn’t give up so I guess I couldn’t either. He saw my last post and has had suggested several solutions for opening a .docx but without Word 2007 it’s a major challenge for now. If I had Word 2003 there’s an update but I’m an OpenOffice user on both my Linux and Windows machines so for now I’m stuck — or so I thought. Eventually OpenOffice will have a translator but for now I’ve found this workaround. Read more