Adam Luke

Archive for November, 2009

Things People do that Annoy Me

This post is the first in what may well become a series, entitled “Things People do that Annoy Me”. Without further ado, here is a list of the sorts of people who annoy me on an almost daily basis:

  • People who stand in the way on escalators: There’s a general understanding/unwritten rule that if you’re standing still on an escalator, you stand on the left side, with the right side free, so people can walk past you. On an almost daily basis, people will block me by standing right next to someone, so there is no way to pass. I know, I should be more confrontational and tell them to get out of the way, but they’re often pretty aware of what they are doing. For instance, I’ll stand close behind someone blocking the path and glare at them. Often, they look around, see me, and continue to block the path. Sometimes they’re unaware, so instead of confronting them, I’ll make some sort of noise, such as stomping loudly up the steps as I draw near.
  • People who stand in the doorway of trains and trams: Instead of moving into the carriage, some people will stand directly in the doorway, making it hard for people to get on or off the train, or, especially, tram. I understand this if the carriage is filled beyond capacity, but it’s a bother otherwise. Especially when they could easily stand in the opposite doorway, i.e., the side of the train or tram on which the doors don’t open.
  • People who lean on the rail you hold onto, on trains: Again, annoying train commuters! There’s a pole near doorways that one can hold onto. Most people who have to stand will grab onto these to avoid falling over. But sometimes, someone will be standing there leaning against the pole so no-one can use it. Again, I just glare instead of rudely/politely telling/asking them to move.
  • People who write “slash” instead of actually using a slash: This often occurs on Facebook. Why don’t they just use a slash?! For example:

A Facebook wall post saying 'Boo Yeah!! Im so not going to miss this town...don't enjoy yourself too much while i'm away slash we are going to have so many random adventures when i come back!!! '

A Facebook comment saying 'Hahahaha god I'm good! Slash we definitely have IMPECCABLE taste in music'

This is slightly more understandable, as starting a sentence with an actual slash doesn't seem appropriate, just as how I wouldn't start a sentence with numerals, irrespective of how big the number is, but I'd just end up re-writing the sentence to avoid that. Also, their music taste involves Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears. Is it impeccable? I shall leave that up to you.

It is entirely possible that I’m just whinging about trivial things here. Do you have any such annoyances?

On Anonymous Blogging

No-one I know in Real Life knows about this blog. I don’t want anyone to know about it, either. I suppose there are a select few, who I would be semi-OK with knowing, though.

I have a bunch of friends I met in Real Life from a VCE forum, and one who I met via LiveJournal. The people I met on a forum would be more likely to “understand” blogging, and many of them are the typical “Internet person”, who knows all the Internet memes and such. Some of these who I actually see quite often at uni, I’d be OK with.

Still, I don’t plan to tell anyone about this blog. I know I’d feel pretty self-conscious if I knew my friends were reading it, although when there’s “mutual blog-reading”, such as with the friend I met via LiveJournal, then that’s fine with me.

I am occasionally worried that someone I know offline will actually find this blog, but then I realise that’s a pretty ridiculous idea. The information on my “About” page is pretty much a dead giveaway to my real identity, but the chance of someone I know actually getting to that page is extremely slim. Other people in the blogosphere read my “About” page (I know because that page gets a hit when I get a referral from blogs I’ve posted a comment on, or forums where the majority of people have a blog). But people who come to the site via a search engine do not click the “About” link (presumably because my site is never what they’re actually looking for), so I figure people I know offline aren’t easily going to find out about this place. There was a time where I thought it would’ve been better if I was blogging under an alias, but I figure that won’t be necessary. Although it would still be cool.

That said, having a blog and not telling your partner (I don’t have one), seems a bit dishonest, so I’ll have to reconsider what I’ve said here, one day.

What I’m interested in knowing, is do you tell offline friends about your blog? If not, why not?

WordPress and Captions II

A few months ago, I complained about the image caption system WordPress implemented in regards to making alt text the same as the caption for any image inserted. I am now back for round two of complaints!

Last night, I encountered a problem. Whenever I tried to insert a hyperlink into text contained in an image caption, it disappeared when I posted or edited the entry, or when I switched to HTML view. I had realised that WordPress does not allow you to insert hyperlinks into captions! Although this is bothersome, it is fairly easy to work around.

The following is an example of what you might see in the HTML view if you use WordPress’s “insert image” feature and add a caption (note that I had to replace square brackets with curly brackets):

{caption id="attachment_000" align="aligncenter" width="100" caption="This is the caption below the image"}<img title="Further information" src="http://domain.com/image.png" alt="A description of the image" width="100" height="100" />{/caption}

When WordPress formats like this, it is impossible to insert hyperlinks into captions. There is quite a simple fix, however, which involves looking at the actual outputted HTML in the posted/previewed page’s source and manually coding the image and its caption:

<div id="attachment_000" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 100px;"><img class="size-full aligncenter" title="Further information or description" src="http://domain.com/image.png" alt="A description of the image" width="100" height="100" />
<p class="wp-caption-text">This is the caption for the image. <a href="http://domain.com">Look, a hyperlink!</a>.</p></div>

Pretty simple, but I do wonder why WordPress doesn’t allow you to insert a simple hyperlink into a caption. I mean, really…