Why can’t Microsoft make Internet Explorer web standards compliant?

Did you know that many websites require special conditional CSS to coerce IE into displaying the content correctly? After all these years, they still haven’t gotten it right!

First you design your site for a standards compliant browser like Firefox or Opera, then you re-design all of the elements that IE doesn’t handle properly, save the hacks in a special CSS file, and then insert conditional code to load the hacked CSS, overiding the corect code, if your visitor happens to be using IE!

Then there’s the constant stream of security holes that allow all kinds of malware to get into your system as you browse the web. From a security standpoint, IE looks like swiss cheese! Sloppy programming at its finest.

For the love of Pete, does Microsoft ever code anything that works right?!

AAAAAAUUUURGH!

There are few things in life that have given me as much joy as the marvelous invention of Radio.

This love affair goes way back to my childhood when I would lay in bed late at night with my first transistor AM radio playing softly under my pillow. Tuning around the dial I would listen to dozens of different broadcasts from all over the western US while the rest of my family slept.

For me, it was truly amazing to learn about the world outside of my tiny little home town in rural Utah. I could hear traffic reports from Los Angeles, talk shows from Denver, news from places I’d never seen and thought I never would. Broadcasts from distant places streamed into my pillow with amazing messages from afar. So many things I heard and learned about on those nights.

There were no internet connections back then. Hardly anyone had a computer — my radio was my connection to the rest of the universe. And it was a good one!

In my early teens, my favorite broadcast was the KNX Drama Hour, which I would try to catch from 2:00 – 3:00am. I absolutely loved it! They would play old radio shows from years gone by, including my all time favorite, “The Twilight Zone”.

It was a magical experience being a part of this strange and exotic world. With my eyes closed, I could see everything in my mind with incredible special effects! Nothing on TV or in the movies would ever come close.

Years later I became a licensed Amateur Radio Operator (Also known as a “Ham” radio operator), and along with my ability to listen to many interesting things, my new Callsign gave me permission to transmit my own signals with substantial power. In fact, on many frequencies I am allowed power levels as high as 1,500 watts. That’s enough to cook a turkey dinner on my antenna, and allows for worldwide communications without any dependence on any infrastructure of any type!

If you’ve never experienced such a thing, it is an amazing feeling to talk with a new friend in another country using your own gear and antennas. Most hams are able to do this without any dependency on commercial power, phone lines, internet connections or anything else. It makes us very valuable during emergencies when commercial services fail. Hams can still get their messages through.

Without fail, other hams have the same interests. We can talk for hours about electronics, radios, antennas, amplifiers, recievers, atmospheric conditions, weather, sunspots, and other things of interest to pretty much all hams.

Throughout my life, I have loved radio. It’s as close to real magic as anything gets. If you really think about it, it’s truly amazing. We have an ability to create something that travels as fast as light, goes through solid objects, and travels across huge distances instantly. It is invisible. You can’t feel it, or touch it, hear it, or taste it. Without a receiver, you would never know of its existence. But it’s there, and it carries pictures, sounds, voices, and information with incredible speed and efficiency.

Doesn’t that sound like magic?

If I could go back in time to explain the miracle of radio to people of old, who would have believed it? I’m sure they would think I was crazy. If I were to produce a working radio to prove my claims, they might have declared me a witch and burned me at the stake.

And yet today, radio technology is something that nearly everyone takes for granted — but not me.

Today, you don’t have to be a ham to participate in this amazing world. There are hundreds of shortwave broadcasters all around the world who broadcast to the public.

With a relatively affordable shortwave radio receiver you can tune in the universe. You can receive foreign broadcasts from all over the world. Radio Moscow, Radio Taiwan, the BBC (Not BBC America, but the real one!), China Radio International, Voice of America, Radio Australia, SW Radio Africa, Radio Canada and many, many more.

You can listen to coded messages intended for foreign diplomats and spies, or learn to speak a new language. Many international broadcasters broadcast in English at certain times of the day, and some offer special programs which are intended to teach their language. You can learn many things about other cultures and peoples, listen to their music, or hear about their way of life.

Sure you could use the Internet for many of these things, but the experience is not the same. The information takes on a unique and surreal property when you hear it directly. The signal fades and strengthens with the ionosphere, strange phase distortions give voices and music an ethereal airy sound. You hear static crashes from lightning strikes hundreds of miles away, and sometimes you can’t hear a thing. Other times, the band is wide open and it seems like the whole world is on your doorstep. It’s the greatest thing ever!

The world is at your fingertips — all you need is a radio!

Okay, today I’m going to be lazy and post some quotes — because I think they are pure and brilliant truth.

These are two quotes by Steve Wynn, CEO of Wynn Resorts (Las Vegas) taken from a recent interview with Chris Wallace on Fox:

“Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization’s history. For some reason that simple truth has evaded everybody. The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor — whether it’s you and I, Chris, or anybody else. The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America.”

“…And soaring rhetoric and great speeches with or without a teleprompter aren’t going to change the truth, and the truth is: The biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle that working middle-class America has is government spending.”

If only people could “get” this. I’m afraid that by the time people in America wake up to the truth (if they ever do), it’s going to be too late.

I used to believe that inside of every human heart there is an innate desire to be free.

I used to think that each one of us wanted to be in control of our destiny and potential — to fly with the glorious wings of liberty that our forefathers and brave soldiers bought for us with enormous sacrifice and with their lives.

But today, we’re a nation of infants — liberal, dependent, foolish, perfectly content with endless regulations, controls, systems, and laws. The cost of which is huge! It limits our potential and breaks our spirit.

There is no freedom in this. The government doesn’t fears us (like our founding fathers intended), it runs us. And the most abhorrent thing about that is: no one cares.

But I do.

I read a “Public Forum Article” (letter to the editor, I guess) today on The Salt Lake Tribune website. I should have known better — The SL Tribune has a knack for making my blood boil with rage and I am usually smart enough to keep away, however the headline pulled me in, and against my judgment I read it, and now I’m mad.

The “Article” complains about the LDS church, specifically the decision to post new signs on Temple Square informing the public that Temple Square is privately owned property.

The signs were posted in response to a previous incident in which a church security officer forcibly escorted two homosexual blockheads from Temple Square because they were drunk and refused to stop being romantic with each other on the temple grounds in front of God and everyone else.

The church was criticized for being hostile and overstepping its authority. Editorial reporting by biased media outlets (Tribune included) didn’t help matters much.

So in response, the church has thoughtfully decided to remind the public that they are on private property while visiting Temple Square and that being there is not a right.

The so called Article in the Tribune — clearly written by someone of limited intelligence, attacks the church (yet again), calling it laughable, deplorable, arrogant, and hypocritical.

Of course, the article inspired a litany of rude comments from mindless antagonists and morons of epic imprudence who’s sole desire in life appears to be to publicly attack the church. They complain endlessly about how the church runs everything, discriminates against everyone, and preaches fairness and acceptance while practicing the opposite, blah, blah, blah… Oh give me a break! Somebody call the whaaaaaaaaambulance.

It’s interesting to note how much hatred and intolerance is directed towards the church by people who are supposedly champions of tolerance and acceptance. Talk about hypocritical.

So here’s my take, and what I wrote in the comments section for their filthsome, loathsome article:

“It’s one thing to be homosexual, it’s another thing to go into a place and act in a way that offends and upsets those around you and then expect to be welcomed with open arms.

If I came into your house and behaved in a rude and disrespectful way, offended your family, and displayed a total lack of sensitivity and a brazen disregard for the sanctity of your home, you would probably throw me out, and rightfully so!

The LDS church has been forced into this position by the acts of an inconsiderate few. If you don’t like the traditions of the LDS church — which settled the SLC valley and was here long before you — then stay home or find somewhere else to go where people don’t care if you act like a jerk.

But, if you insist on being a thorn in the church’s crown, then don’t expect to be welcomed. It’s as simple as that.

When I come to your house, whether or not I agree with your beliefs and traditions, I will be respectful and behave myself. Can’t you do the same?

All it takes is a brain, folks! (…short supply around here…)”

I’m sure I’m being flamed at this very moment, but hey: when evil hates you, you’re on the right track.