In order to live in this world and enjoy rights which ought to be guaranteed to every human being regardless of their birth, we unfortunately need a passport or equivalent piece of paper. The value of these documents is judged according to what they confer. Mine comes from a country I’ve hardly ever inhabited, and of which I am not particularly proud or enamored. But I’m aware of my good fortune in possessing a document that, compared to those of many other countries, is considered high value. Today its value seems to have shrunk a little, which is a pity. I wonder why anyone would vote in favor of devaluing their own citizenship? Anyway, until the happy day comes when we can choose to belong to any nation we like, this is the passport I’m stuck with. Goodness, so many are stateless and have nothing at all.
June 2016
Gender in forms
After googling for a while and not really finding any answers, I realized that the simplest way to deal with gender issues in forms is to change from binary M/F radio buttons to a text field and make response optional. Yawn.
Dead or dying batteries swell
Noticing that my Dell laptop was becoming misshapen, I remembered what happened recently to an old cell phone. This was the same. I extracted the useless swollen battery and saved my laptop. Now it works just as well, as long as it is plugged in.