Bad browser lag?

Am I the only one whose Firefox started lagging pretty badly after the last minor update?

I am waiting several seconds for the menu drops to show - if they ever show at all. Maybe it's a broken add-on...

Second place, aiming high

Yesterday, I got turned down for a project manager position with Vestas - the world's largest maker of wind turbines.
I finished second which, on second thought (ha-ha), is fairly nice - considering that I have no immediate experience with that line of work. I was through a long process with Mercuri Urval with interviews and testing. I really learned a lot about myself from those events, so I'm confident that the characterization of myself in applications to come will be much much better.

It's quite a new thing to suddenly have to market myself and not the entity or field of work that I am a part of.

Work aside, we also got the final verdict on our housing project. It's been a while since I last described it but recent events made us aware that about half the roofing on the huge house is badly constructed. A few years ago, the owner had taken it upon himself to isolate the roof and did not do his homework properly, according to a carpenter we brought in as an expert. He said that there was a big risk of damp and related damage to the roof.

Naturally, this was not acceptable and we could foresee big trouble getting the insurance companies to cover future damages. So, after having provisionally signed the deal, we went back and demanded a further price cut - based on the carpenter's estimated costs. A whopping 550.000 Danish crowns.
So, yesterday the owner reacted by telling us to fuck off, once again. I was more or less certain of this outcome. He didn't bother to negotiate, he just cut off. Just like the last time we pointed to bad faults and asked for some compensation.

Time will show if he comes crawling back, again. As I've understood it, the real estate agent must tell other buyers of this roofing fault. The buyer may well need to comply in order to sell the house. But for now, we're trying hard to forget about it and get on with our lives.

Publicsquare launch

My buddy Lars Pind has launched his social web editing system, Publicsquare.

In short (as far as I know), it is a community-driven CMS that makes collaborative blogs and webzines easier to handle. Through various rating and voting functionalities your webzine automatically sifts and publishes posts and stories, freeing the authors to concentrate on the actual content.

I have no experience with it - but I talked to Lars a couple of weeks ago and it sounds intriguing. It's a social networking offspring but it's narrowed down and focused towards webzine editors. Looking forward to experimenting with this - if I only had a purpose...hm...

Brilliant tagging concept

I love the tag cloud system they have implemented here.

They have superimposed a key word filtering process to the regular tag cloud. That way you can refine and incrementally expand your tag search. I think it's a stroke of genius.

Not only do you circumvent the inherent weakness of the tagging method (the subjective forest of tags pointing at similar things), you also exploit the whole logical, googlish search paradigm. When I do a good Google search - and in all modesty I feel that I am getting pretty good at that - I define whatever I am looking for in 2-5 different terms that either relate through syntax or semantics, preferably both. The syntactic coherence ensures that I hit articles/pages that mention the same word combinations or, if lucky, match on entire sentences - the semiotic coherence gives a better chance of hitting anything remotely similar to what I want. People speak in different terms, especially in English - so the ability to come up with 5 different names for the same concept is vital to googling.

I think the tag system above is a brilliant mash-up of mental tagging efficiency and logical search methods. It is itself a product of many subjects, but it provides the user with a logic tool to navigate through all this uncertainty. I can use my sense of semantics (not sure about the syntax yet) to find what I want much faster.

I'm bugged @ Threadless

I have a bit of spare time at the moment so I've been doing a few very basic t-shirt designs to put up on Threadless.

It's a fun concept - relies heavily on the social networking hype but has clearly been heavily commercialized. In fact, you might say they exploit people that do casual design by offering "only" the chance of prizes but gaining shitloads of creative ideas and making money off the most popular prints.
I don't mind at all...they're just smart...and I am happy to be able to channel my creativity a bit.

I've started a series of small iconic insect designs and submitted 4 so far. The ant got axed...which is ok...it wasn't all that good. The millipede was the first to get through, and the spider and wasp are still pending approval.
Go score the millipede...it's not great art, but I sensed a niche in some more simple stuff. Other designs in there are really talented and complex. They, of course, deserve much more recognition :) Although I'm not sure I'd wear all of them....too boombastic, mon.

We promise...

http://postrapturepost.com/