I guess I registered on www.inter.it at some point, could have been to watch their video clips or something, I don't remember at all. Obviously, when I register for bs sites, I give them bs info. But it seems that inter.it goes the extra mile to make their members feel special and today I got an unexpected surprise:

I signed up for an account on developer.berlios.de back in June sometime, kinda because I always wanted to be a developer, think of myself as one. It's taken until now to actually have a project that could go up there and the other day I opened an account for galleryforge.berlios.de. When I logged into my account a few days ago to do this, there was a survey for members to take. Well, a short one. When I saw the question, I stared at it for about 2 minutes and finally decided that I couldn't decide between "yes" and "no". The other question was trivial. So I left that page, did something else, I come back to it and I stare at it again. In the space of 2 days I did this about 4-5 times. By now I had registered my project, had it approved by Berlios and been given an account for it. Knowing that this question would haunt me if I didn't get it over with, I reluctantly decided to say "yes". *click Submit*

The question was "Are you a professional software engineer?" Well, barring any unforeseen event, I will have a diploma to prove that within a couple of weeks. But what about "professional", what does that mean? That's a bit strong, isn't it? I don't have any proper professional experience yet, I'm just out of school. I've done some minor projects on the side, but that doesn't count as "professional". It's like asking if Doug Murphy is a doctor.. fair enough, he's not an amateur, he's not in his pyjamas operating on his stuffed bear, but is he a professional?

Sorry, that's just my policy..

I've discovered an alarming trend, there are more and more places now that won't let you in with a backpack. Since they're complete nazis about it, I think they deserve the appropriately chosen Backpack Nazi tag. If you walk into a store, there's a chance they have a security guard guarding the entrance (from god knows whom) who will insist on you leaving your backpack at the counter at the entrance of the store. And it's impossible to reason with them "look man, I have valuables in here that I won't trust just anyone to keep for me" "please leave your bag at the counter, sir". Nazis. So what do people do? They stuff their pockets with everything in the bag that they consider valuable, WHICH IS THE FUCKING REASON THEY NEED THE BAG IN THE FIRST PLACE, and then leave a sweater in the bag and go in the store. Then after you come out, it always takes a few minutes for them to find your bag, verify that it's yours and you can leave. So add 5-10 minutes for every store with a Backpack Nazi policy and it slows you down considerably.

Just a few days ago I was in a museum in Warsaw where I witnessed a 20 minute discussion a visitor had with the staff about taking his bag into the museum. He actually had tons of stuff in there that wouldn't fit in his pockets no matter what and the bag was a small backpack that couldn't possibly do any damage. Finally, the security guard went over to the gift shop, got a plastic bag for the guy to keep his stuff in, and the backpack of course had to stay in the coat room. Before you ask why a plastic bag is incomparably safer to carry and is worth a 20 minute discussion I'll go ahead and tell you that I don't know.

Isn't this an infringement on our civil rights or something? I know I barely walk into Backpack Nazi stores anymore, when they tell me to leave the bag I just walk out.