Internet Explorer

This is why Internet Explorer sucks and Microsoft is guilty of false advertising.

http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_dim_max-height.asp

The above is a link to the w3c's website explaining a particular CSS2 element - "max-height"

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/compare/default.aspx

This is Microsoft's page comparing the major browsers. Notice how their own product, of course, has more ticks against it than the other browsers.

I could go through each one of those explaining why the missing ticks should not be missing, or why the tick should actually be a cross, but instead I will just focus on the claim that it supports CSS2.1 - admittedly it does not say it supports all of CSS2.1, but the w3c site says that IE supports the property. As do other sites I have visited.

These sites are wrong. IE does not support max-height.

I did a little experiment to prove this. The following pictures are cropped screenshots comparing Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 8. They compare how they render a div with the following style settings:

width: 50px;

max-height: 50px;

overflow: auto;

border: 2px solid blue;

Now, what results would you expect from this?

A box with a 2 pixel thick blue border. It will be 50 pixels wide. It's height will be dynamic up to a maximum of 50 pixels. When the content of the box extends beyond those 50x50 limits, scrollbars will appear.

Now, lets look at the results:

Google Chrome

Firefox

Internet Explorer

That's right, Internet Explorer fails to do what it should, completely ignoring the max-height property.

So, Microsoft, you claim that your browser supports more CSS2.1 than other browsers, but that other browsers support more HTML5 and CSS3 (the things that make CSS2.1 redundant)

All I can say is [citation needed] - perhaps you should focus on supporting the features your developers will need rather than, at most, obscure features no one who's competent in web design cares about.

Disdain for world... growing

This morning on the news it was revealed that hospitals that take in the same patient twice in a month, where the second time they come in is a direct concequence of being discharged too early, the hopsital will be "fined"

Now, why does this annoy me? Think about what a fine is - it is a cost. You park in the wrong place, you get charged money etc

Now, in this case, the word fine is wholey inappropriate. Here is how it was explained to me:
When someone enters a hospital for treatment, the NHS pays the hospital a lump sum. The same pateint gets discharged early, comes back in because they haven't fully recovered, and the hospital gets another lump sum.
What is being suggested is that in such cases the hospital would not get the second lump sum. Essentially, because the patient hadn't finished being treated adequately, then their return to the hospital is still part of the first treatment.
This is not a fine, just an extension of the rules as they stand to prevent abuse. For it to be a fine, they would have to have the second sum (which they don't) or be entitled to the second sum. Which they are not.

Now, I want to extrapolate this to the idea of piracy. Large companies claim that when their product is pirated, that it is a loss. Now, ignoring that the assumption that 1 pirated copy is a lost sale* it is like claiming they had money which has now been taken away, or that they are entitled to the money. The latter is, at least on the face of it, fair enough, but the first is utter rubbish.
The Hurt Locker cost $15 million to make, and has grossed $150 million. Ten times their investment. 1000%.
Yet they are chalking up every download as a loss. I cannot see how a company that has managed to make a profit can claim a loss. It doesn't make sense.

*As a direct counter example, I downloaded 20th Century Boys part 1. I watched it. I have now bought the DVD twice. That is only one example, I have several.