Year: 2012

If you have the data, use it!

Spending quit a bit of time on the web, I’ve boosted my tolerance levels to bad design, horrible user interfaces, and twisted logic.  However, there are still things that annoy the crap out of me.  Among the two most frequent are these:

  1. Google throwing me into Greek language.  Yes, I do live in Cyprus, where Greek is an official language.  However, Google knows damn well, that I don’t speak it.  Every single time I was given a choice, I’ve switched back to English. I have automatic translation of Greek to English set in Gmail, Google Reader, Google Chrome and Google Nexus, all of which are linked and synced to my one Gmail account.  Why do I still see Greek as the default language every other week?  This is getting retarded.
  2. Facebook can’t figure out the gender-specific language.  Even though it knows the gender of the user to be female, it still sends me notifications like “Olga commented on his Wall post”.  English is not even my native language and I am getting annoyed by this.  How you guys can look at this every single time and not catch is beyond me.

The steam is out, I feel better now.

Russian for a president in Cyprus, really?

Cyprus Mail is a lot of fun today.

CHIEF Returning Officer Demetris Demetriou yesterday confirmed that a Russian businessman had shown an interest in running for February’s presidential elections.

“Yes, an interest has been shown, but we can’t release any details as the application for candidacy has not yet been made officially,” Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail.

He said the businessman’s lawyer contacted his department to enquire about how to apply. It was reported on Tuesday that the Russian in question had acquired Cypriot citizenship. Only Cypriot citizens over 35 years of age can stand in the presidential elections.

… because Russians are doing so well in Russia now, that they should be running for presidents all over the world.  WORLD DOMINATION!!! Mua-ha-ha-ha.

What are they thinking?

Cyprus Mail reports that Cyprus Airways expands its operations in Greece:

“After the positive response from the Athens-Thessalonica-Athens route, the airline decided to start new regular flights to the country’s most important airports,” CY announced yesterday.

Starting on October 28, there will be twice-daily flights between Athens and Heraklion, one from Athens to Rhodes and back; one a day between Heraklion and Thessalonica and another between Rhodes and Thessalonica three times a week.

My first reaction after reading this is – what are they thinking?  Cyprus Airways has been in a lot of financial troubles lately, getting lots of help from the Cyprus government, including the kick out of the competition – Ryanair (here and here).  But at least Ryanair was working with Cyprus, bringing lots of people in and out.  What does Cyprus Airways do?  Yeah, right, instead of trying to help the Cyprus tourism a bit, they go to Greece.  Which, given Greece’s troubles, is questionable as well.  What’s the point of having Cyprus Airways in Cyprus at all then?  And why does the government spend the money on them.  Let them go to the other side of the world, if they want to, and help Australia’s tourism, or something…