Internet Apartheid

Continuing with an old rant.

I was installing a new computer at work. VISTA operating system.

Note: If you are a VISTA user, please turn off your computer, go to a Mac store and buy a Mac. You are a Mac user, not a PC user.

I have been using PC since MS-DOS 3.36. I have used to have every command in English. I think I had Finnish F-Prot back in the day, but otherwise I have used to have all the applications in English. One language in one computer. I like to have it neat. I have if my right-click menu (the shell commands) are in n+1 different languages.

99% of all programs are first in English and then translated into local languages. All updates come first in English, then in other languages. Therefore it is also more handy to have all the applications in English.

Today, with beautiful Internet Exploiter 7 I tried to download FireFox, update drivers and such. Of course our Führers of the internet have decided for me that I speak fluently the language of the country I happen to be currently.

It was impossible to have Live Messenger in English from MicroSoft webpage. It was difficult to find English FireFox from Mozilla site. It is virtually impossible to have English in any huge company's webpages. They think for you and rule that you need to be fluent in the language of the country you are currently in.

What if I visit China and need to reinstall my FireFox? I do not even recognize the letters, little alone find where to change the language, since there is no link saying "English".

All the big companies limit your internet experience to the country you are currently visiting thus creating a new form of apartheid.

International pages are verboten. Everyone should stay in their own countries. No travelling allowed before we have one-world language.

Look at your application window. What is the link/menu on the top right-hand side? Correct, it is Help. How is it impossible for these people to have a simple link "English" on the top right-hand corner of their webpages - right next to the search field?

Since English is the major language in IT business, there should be an option to see the page in that language. At least that way the person who does not speak any of the pre-decided languages well, that person can at least stagger towards his/her own native language.

I can hardly wait to install FireFox and NoScript. At least that way some of the less-sophisticated pages get fooled and show the page in default language (English). But the more sophisticated pages, MicroSoft webpages in the lead, decide the language according to ISP, methinks. Not according to my preferences.

Oh yes, Google has some sort of simple single-search option to change the language to English. It just every now and then decides that hey, you should search pages only from local Google, not the international Google. What if I want to have as wide search results as possible? Can I please search webpages outside the Netherlands?

Google.nl and Google.com do return different results.

And no, I do not want to buy that Dutch product you are offering me.

Ossetia - Last Straw on the Camel's Back?

War broke between Georgia and Russia! For quite some time now they have been ruffing their feathers. When it is Georgia saying they shot down invading Russian planes, and when it is Russian planes shooting down Georgian planes. The latter was already very scary; Georgia was laying down some serious accusations.

Soviet Union, and before that Russian Empire was already uniting those areas. They have lived so long as one, which has made them so intertwined, they cannot possibly fight each other without fighting also against themselves. One could almost argue Georgian and Russian people are the one and the same people. But that is not completely true. There are very unique areas and people, but as I said they are very intertwined.

However, I try not to have strong opinions on international incidents if it doesn't affect global peace. Especialy if the countries who are violated bow down even if they are not too weak to defend themselves. But there are areas of the World that nobody cares about. Most likely because there are no merchandise, power or money to be made.

It is kind of a good thing USA is fighting war in Middle-East. USA might be hesitant to give military aid to Georgia and open one more front. The Bear of Russia still got big paws. Plus USA - Russia relationship has been a bit tense because of the missile shield. Sometimes USA makes an offer Russia must refuse. Sometimes it is Russian's turn. Even UN has had its share of gnashing of teeth. Hopefully that makes UN to try to keep NATO off from this.

I would not like to see UK joining this thing. Especially when UK has demanded something absurd from Russia already in the recent past. Not that it would not be right for UK to get what they wanted, but when it means one country must bend their own laws to do so, it is just too bold to demand.

You see, the incident might cause global unrest. I hope USA will not send troops to Georgia. Even if they would like to, in this case it is a positive thing they are already fighting a war and their currency is in decline. There must be a peaceful way. I hope UN can find a diplomatic way for this. And hopefully USA and UK keeps a low profile. And perhaps if USA announces they will delay their missile shield project Russia might calm down a bit. The power Russia and USA have behind them, I do not care who is right. If they clash, it only matters who is left.

Where's My CDs?!

XPSP3 stable version is out. Decided to download and install it. Then I though, why not integrating the SP3 with my XP CD with no SP.

...copied XP CD to HDD. Fine.
...extracted the files from the SP3 .exe file. Fine.
...extracted the boot image from the CD. Fine.
...slipstreamed the SP3 to the XP files. Fine.
...created an ISO file of the package. Fine.
...opened CD burning software and chose to burn the image. GODDAMN! ¤*&#§¤%€#! I'm outta CDs!

I'm even out of DVDs. Haven't burned a CD in couple of years. I guess it's time to go to a CD-r shop.

My Human Right to Doubt

The Great Ape Project has a good point. More humane treatment for our relatives.

But there is a humangous risk in it. The way I think about every new change is to think a way to abuse it. The way to begin to understand security is to awknowledge the risks. In order to be safe, you have to understand how your rights could be abused.

I do not know, whether they mean they should have the same rights to live freely as we do, or same kind of right to live freely as we do. Is it human rights, or 'human rights'?

If this indeed becomes a landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos, and we are still free to capture great apes and put them in the zoo, what stops me to capture you, dear reader, and put you in a zoo against your will? If they enjoy the same human rights as we do, I should be able to do the same to you as to our fellow human chimpanzees. Or are you more equal than a chimp in front of the law, if it is the same human rights law?

Don't get me wrong, I am not against animal rights. I am against demeaning our own rights.

There is a declaration that you can sign at the Great Ape Project webpages, but I will not sign that before I know for sure what kind of lawtwisters we are talking about. Same kind of rights, no problem. I am all for that. The same rights? No way. We can barely respect each other. I do not want to give anyone a chance to compare my rights to any non-Homo Sapiens Sapiens for as long as we treat any animal the way we do.

I want to know more about this, as this should be a step forward for animal rights, and not a step backwards for human rights. If you know better than I do, or do not care to read the fine print, feel free to sign the declaration here.

Few More Hours Of Waiting...

The polls have closed. 9am GMT they start the counting. Then we will know whether Ireland will become the newest state of the proud United States of Europe.

Flickr & Deliberate Self-Dumbing

O hai. I has a flickr account. It spiik lolspeak nau. If flickr offer me an cheesburgar me quits flickr an put computar in mai bukkit. K thx bye.


What is wrong with people nowadays?! Ok, I understand that in chats you want to communicate quickly, hence the short abbreviations. But this lolspeak is just dumb. Why would someone deliberately practice to become dumber and write crappier than before? If that is "cool" (sorry, don't know the 'hip' word what to use nowadays instead of 'cool') just make it easier for you. Next time with q-tip, when you feel resistance, don't stop.

What a Waste of Bomb Threath

Today I finished my work and was planning to take the train, go near Amsterdam Arena and go to see Indy4 (No, not the Fate of Atlantis, but the movie. Crystal skull thingie... I guess there's 13 of them. Ssssh... don't tell me anything about it. Don't want to know before I see it.) Of course the train was late. So was the next one. And one train had stopped right after the station. Something was wrong.

Then I heard there was a bomb threat at Central Station of Amsterdam. I got all exited. To the city centre it is! Panic, chaos and most likely a false alarm! And I had my camera! (Plus, if something would happen, I know first aid. And as a medic in the army we kinda learned how to quickly temporary fix big holes in people.) But how to get there? Bus to Schiphol? Naw, too full and how to get to centre from there?

Finally, after 30mins of waiting, got to train that goes to Amsterdam Zuid, where I was not going. But good enough. Can switch to metro and then to tram and go to city centre. And to Central Station. My ticket wasn't towards there, but that was the only train that wasn't gonna go through city centre, thus it was moving. Got off at Zuid.

But the Dutch are sometimes so Dutch that I have hard time describing how Dutch they are. Of course there was absolutely no information why the trains were not going. But that's normal. If a train is 20 minutes late and another train comes, it is usual not to inform about it and daily there are people in wrong trains. This time it was even more Dutch than that.

Got off from the train, and of course they had put ticket check on the station. Three passages, two guys in each passage, except one of them had only one guy. I though I just explain to the guy that the trains were not going so I took a wrong train. As I was going, the guy in front of me had the same story. Boy that ticket inspector had a devilish smile when he started to ask the guy's ID. But, just the right moment for me to just wave the ticket of mine and pass. The guy was so concentrated on ... ehm ... making the other guy bend over and giving it to him unlubricated that he didn't pay any attention.

I thought that was a bit odd. Considering all trains were on halt because of a bomb threat. But I still paid my metro ticket and was going to the stop. Of course there was the metro company's inspectors! Are you friggin' kidding me? During a friggin' bomb threat they make sure no-one explodes without a proper ticket! Lucky me, I got the ticket.

I saw police officers on the pier where I was waiting, so I asked them what was going on.
- A delay, but it's over.
- Yeah, but what's the reason.
- Just a delay.
- Ok, I heard a rumour that there was a bomb threat.
- Oh, that one... yeah, just a small luggage that was left unattended but it is gone now.

Yeah, thanks for informing the public. Especially if it was a false alarm, and I would read it from tomorrow's paper anyways. I guess you can't trust anyone who's title starts with "Poli". Got to my metro, and surprise, surprise! Ticket inspectors came from the next stop! To a packed metro! Do they enjoy pain? Just what I need when I am crammed into a sardine-tin and have some lady's elbow, size of a Christmas ham, in my mouth.

And all of this because some tourist forgot his luggage on the friggin' pier when he jumped to train to Schiphol. And so very Dutch, who think they are a world-wide power, to think that someone really would like to bomb Central Station. Who? Terrorists? They friggin' live in Amsterdam and their families need the train to go to work! And what kind of message would that be? Dutch soldiers in Middle-East, so we kill a lot of tourists and our own people? Get serious.

Den Haag would be more suitable target anyways for political attack. It's not like there is any separatist movement in the Netherlands to whom an attack on civilians would be of any help.

So:
* Was late coming from work. (But that's more of a rule anyways with NS.)
* No info why the trains were late. (That is their code-of-silence at NS, so it's normal also.)
* Three friggin' times I was checked for the ticket during a friggin' bomb threat.
* And there wasn't even a bomb, but Dutch egoism since they can't see they are not as big and bad as some other countries who are the invading hordes in the Middle-East.

Plus it feels like thunder is coming, so it's moist, hot, pressurised and sweaty.

But I guess it was a good thing the threat was a false alarm and no-one was hurt. I still wanted those pictures.

Children As A Tool Of Control

I read from the news today that Kate and Gerry McCann plead for European 'amber alert' on abduction. Is this the step one?

This post is not about the abduction of Maddy. Abductions should not happen. But the horror scenario I've been ranting about on forums and in real life might've taken the first step.

Here is a quote of my post on a certain forum on 2006:

This is so beautiful way to make people to trap themselves - children. We can introduce a (RFID) chip which is 'only' a passive one, that can be activated to locate a missing child when radio signal hits it. (You can already have this kind of chip on your dog.) Just to protect the children from being lost, kidnapping, etc... The children grow up with the chip in the hand and it is easier to introduce a similar chip, but with credit capabilities. It is easier to get a parent to get a chip on child's arm to protect the child than to get the parent him/herself to get a chip to pay his/her bills.

We are used to having chips in the products we buy, that trigger the alarm should we nick the product from the store. If you buy any program, you have to nowadays register yourself in order to get any support. Windows checks wether your copy is legal when you enter their website. More and more small invisible/transparent control and tracking devices are introduced into our lives, some of them to prevent illegal activities, some of them to make our life 'easier'.

Before all of this we first got a bank card, then a credit card, a library card, Tesco-card, AH-bonus card, a driver's license, a social security card, an ID-card, what have you - this is the situation today. When we get introduced a combo-card (perhaps approximately at the same time as the passive chip), with all of this in one, it will make it easier to handle. Only, this will bring an issue. What if someone steals it or if you lose it? How about that chip? Then you can pay your bills, borrow your library books, open your doors, start your car, etc. with just a touch of a finger. And why not? You are used to have the passive locator chip in your hand anyways.

Now, with either active or semi-active chip, which draws the power from either kineticly from your movements or directly from your nerve system, you can even set up a little electric field around your skin. You cannot see, feel or notice it in any way. It doesn't interact with your current electrical devices, but what you can do is you store the data you want to show to other people. To connect into someone's chip, you just simply need to touch the skin of another person. From your reader, which can be for example your watch, you see the data the other person wants to give out. For example in a club you touch a pretty girl's hand while walking by and you can read what languages she speaks, is she single, what type of guys she likes, etc.. (Less human interaction and less 'failures' in it, you can see if the girl can potentially be interested in you even before you say one word to her.) Of course for police or doctor, who would have higher authorization to view more detailed information, the doctor could see your medical status and police could see your prior criminal offences. This field, or the RFID in combination of your thumbprint could be used to pay, borrow, open, etc. with just a touch of a finger.

Not only they can see where you shop, what you shop and when you shop, it will be possible to see and even control where a person is at any given moment. Control - if you have your personal ID embedded into you and you can open your car door, why wouldn't be possible to lock a door (even just) for you as well? A similar system for cars is in use today in few places. You have your chip on your windshield and when you drive past a toll bridge, it automatically detects your card, charges your bank account and opens the gate. This means that for example in Singapore they already know where people's cars are at any given moment.

Effective control is disguised as security. Most effective control is the type people demand upon themselves.

Ok... I will stop now and go to put one more layer of tinfoil into my room...

I was a bit agitated while writing this, so nevermind the all out crazy stuff and the parts that are figment of my imagination. Just think about the core-point.

And if that Amber-Alert comes to UK, where pets already have to have RFIDs, it takes only one media campaign where any famous person blurts out "but our pets are better secured than our children"...

Although I am not trying to say that this Maddy case wouldn't be horrible, I am still saying that this can be abused. If this kind of Amber-Alert turns into Red Alert and RFIDs go under the skin, with this media hype no-one is going to say anything against in the fear of being labeled as a supporter of child abduction.

A Fit(na) Over Nothing

Geert Wilders has now released the anti-islam infomercial "Fitna" on his political party's, PVV, webpage. I watched the Google video version and I must say that is a disappointment.

The muslim nation is of course angry. Geert has repeatedly said the Islam religion is violent and demands blood of all those who oppose them. To show Geert is incorrect, the muslim nation has calmly and peacefully burned Dutch flags, treathened the Netherlands and EU with punishment and has put a death-penalty on Geert.

How can Geert publish such lies that Islam is a violent religion? Islam is the last one to come from the three branches of christian religions. Israel has never killed anyone who doesn't deserve it. In Christian-God's name there has been no killings over nothing. The crusades were just peaceful recruitment rallies. Therefore it would be amazing if Islam as the youngest of them all would all of a sudden turn into violence.

Although the rest of the movie is muslim people - including imams - calmly explaining that muslims should peacefully kill non-muslims, there is one thing that might justify even some anger. He has no respect towards copyright laws!

In the beginning and in the end there is a picture of Mohammed by the Danish artist, Kurt Westergaard. It is the original artist who has the copyright in the first place. Therefore this is something that might enrage Danish.

Other than that, the movie contains basically parts of Quran and what some imams and other muslim-leaders have said. This cannot be why muslims are burning flags. This is their religion. Maybe not all of it, but at least a part. Geert was careful even with the ripping of the pages. He does not show he rips a page off of the Quran. And the ripping sound, he explains, is from a telephone book. If this would've been anti-christianity infomercial, he probably would have no problems ripping, peeing on and finally burning Bibles.

The movie was a bit American infomercial-like. People who do not like Geert's ideas might say it's propaganda, but I don't see any specially different from every other point of view made nowadays. For me it was a big disappointment. I've read the news and I've seen the responses from some extremist-muslims to many many things so there was nothing really shocking and nothing really new. The movie itself probably doesn't make people think that much. I hope the media hype and the reactions do. But I doubt that, too.

I would recommend that Geert removes the picture of Mohammed. Although there are several images of Mohammed in arab-worlds, it is clearly blasphemy for a western-pig to make or show an image of the prophet. If a picture of Mohammed has to be there, rather use a picture by a muslim-artist.

Most importantly we must stop Geert. He is a constant reminder that there are people who dear to think even those things that are not allowed for us to think. And foolishly he even excercises his right of an opinion. If this goes on, people might start to think there is something called "freedom of speech".

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Author, The Friends Of Voltaire, 1906.

Liquid Ban Explained

The reason for the strange liquid ban on airplanes may be explained now.

ThruVision has developed a camera that can read the electromagnetic radiation of objects and can show shapes through clothing as far as 25 metres.

A small bit at the end of the article mentions:

This electromagnetic radiation is a form of low level energy emitted by all people and objects.

These are able to pass through clothing, paper, ceramics and wood but are blocked by metal and water.

The system works by collecting these waves and processing them to form an image which can reveal concealed objects.

They are blocked by metal and water? There's already metal detectors at every airport. The liquid ban starts to make sense. They must have developed that for years, so the knowledge of a device-to-come has also been there.

Walkers Contain Trace Amounts Of Alcohol

Apparently some Muslims have criticised Walkers' crisps when they found out it may contain trace amounts of alcohol. Walkers use alcohol during the manufacturing process to extract some flavours. Crisps themselves most likely do not contain alcohol anymore, but in trace amounts.

They claim that even if it is trace amounts, it has to be printed on the package.

What kind of hypocricy is this?

If we count trace amounts, they themselves sell alcohol to muslims every day. Trace amounts, but I've seen it done.

They sell bread. How do you rise bread dough? Put some yeast in it. What does yeast do? Expands the dough. How? By fermenting sugars, producing carbon dioxide. And as a side product, also alcohol.

They sell cheese. And I've seen a muslim eat cheese! When cheese is aging, there's a trace amount of alcohol produced in the cheese.

They use vinegar in salads. Um... D'uh... Vinegar is produced from ... wine. And where do they get their vinegar from? Can you even have halal-vinegar?

Is eating ripe fruits also forbidden? Although it takes a long time for a fruit to ferment, even just ripe ones may contain trace amounts of alcohol.

I've seen muslims buying xylitol and sorbitol chewing gums. Which alcohol are we talking about? Ethanol? Sorbitol? Methanol? Xylitol? ...any alcohol with -ol? Or is it only ethanol which is bad? If so, why only that alcohol? Didn't their book only prohibit drunkenness, not alcohol itself?

Do they brush their teeth with western toothpaste? Have you looked at the ingredient list? How many -ol ending chemicals can you count? (Mouthwash and aftershave can be found alcohol-free. Difficult, especially mouthwash since they put sorbitol and/or xylitol to most of them.)

I haven't seen even one sign on halal-shops where they warn about bread! And it is clearly rised with yeast.

Western Cencorship

(Continuing/summarizing an on-going rant from few Finnish forums... Those who are familiar with my rants about modern media, there's most likely nothing new for you here.)

In west we have tried several ways to cencor information. Total block has worked before, but in the age of satellite television, internet and the possibility to purchase newspapers from all over the world makes total block ineffective. Silent agreement between media works somewhat and blocks thought-triggering news in most parts.

The best solution, the new opiate for the masses, is the overload of information. I read today from Violent Acres about the problems of choosing what to do if you are given a choice-galore. Read her post, so I don't need to give so long introduction to the issue I'm about to address.

In a nutshell, making choices is difficult when you have an unlimited amout of them. Just choosing your breakfast or a drink in a bar seems to be the most difficult thing for some people. We haven't been coded to understand so many. In the course of our evolution, our brains have evolved too big, too quickly. We can't cope with them.

According to Desmond Morris hard-wirings in our brains are mainly evolved to ensure the survival of the species. (I will not go into a debate wether the meaning of life is the survival of the species or the gene. Read Richard Dawkins if the latter interests you.) We do not need to know wether we eat sweet & sour chicken cantonese style with fried rice, or salami pizza. We need the nutritiens. Our brains are not ment to deal with these kind of questions. Our brains are ment to determine wether something is edible, if the member of the opposite sex is a good mating partner, if the member of the same sex is a competitior and/or threath and wether other species pose a threath. All aiming for the survival.

Herd behaviour our species demonstrates makes the herd stronger. Like lions who hunt in packs to ensure there's zebra meat for the cubs. A group hunts more efficiently than a single hunter. And like the zebras who have the stripes - while they stand out against the brown background of savannah when they are alone, in a running group the stripes makes it difficult to see where one zebra ends and another one starts. Like them, we have small herds. You recognize your friends in a group photo quicker than you can determine that you don't know the person who is a stranger to you. Even in a city of millions you have your small "village". Your gym group, your friends, your colleagues... they form your "village" and you'll recognize those quicker in the mass. It is virtually impossible to teach your brain to recognize everyone in your city.

How does this relate to something I call "western cencorship"?

Like Violent Acres was saying, multitude of choices confuses us. Puts our brains to sleep. Workers do not take retirement plans from their companies when they have too many options. Cancer patients give up treatment because of the multitude of treatment plans. Brain can't cope with it.

Best place to hide things is right in front of your eyes. I do it deliberately in the art I make and in most of the texts I write. They are full of hidden references and usually the art I create tries to look normal at first glance, but there's something odd when you look closer.

If newspapers won't print something, people will find it out from somewhere else. It is much more efficient to post the information among a hundred non-consequential entertainment news. We are being emotionally dulled with the correct behaviour and way of speech and our senses and ability to make choices is impaired by the multitude of choices.

Due to the vast amount of lawsuits by idiots, companies have developed technical jargon to disclaim all responsibility from what is part of natural selection. You all know about the infamous hot-coffee-in-lap -lawsuit. Just read the EULA of the company-x desktop manager that is free and is included in the other download of the free software you are about to download. There's some weird stuff in some of those EULAs. If I invent something and file a patent for it, no, your company will not get the patent just because I did some background research with your company's search engine. Do you know what specific program I'm talking about? Didn't think so. Who reads EULAs anyways?

Same goes with media. You go to movies, see 25 minutes of commercials, 20 minutes of trailers, and the standard 90 minutes of Rambo IV with mindless violence. You go home, watch news with less violent images of war, hijacks, robbery and cruelty, again commercials. Buy this or your lawn will be grayer than your neighbour's. Then a sitcom about some random people living life where their biggest problem is which shoes to wear. Buy this product or your face/hair/nose/lips/whathaveyou is ugly and you won't get laid. Now it's time for some Reality-TV! Get this plan or your future life is in jeopardy. And now the latest news of your favourite pop-star! Ah... brain needs rest. Watching people live their lives in TV is easier than living your own.

Hiding the important news in between the commercial brakes, sitcoms and enterntainment news is very efficient way to cencor.

When you overload the brain with 8 types of breakfast müsli, 52 different ties to go with 12 different suits and figuring out which shoes to wear wears you out before you even leave the house. In city you cannot escape the bright ads, catchy commercials, out popping stands, colorful billboards and flashing displays.

You're exhausted before you are even at work. In corporate world you have to suppress all your emotions, be professional and talk this synthetic language so you won't offend anyone. You notice you start to listen to the individual words people are saying and how they say them instead of what they are saying. You have 8 memos waiting in your inbox when you arrive, you read 20 of them during the day and there's 6 left when you leave at the end of the day. One of them was important. Which one? Can't remember what any of them said.

In this kind of world it is very easy to get confused. Product you buy has not only instructions how to use the product, but also what you should not do with the product - accompanied with legal information in the language of law jargon. Even your microwave popcorn has several steps how to make the popcorn, illustrated - just in case if you don't know how to read.

All the instructions everywhere is confusing, and make brains obsolete. You don't even need to know how to use a lighter anymore. Not using your brains will dull them down and you are incapable of making your own thoughts. The little free time you have consists of useless information and it is difficult to find the usefull among them.

We are being dumbed down so we can process less and at the same time we get more and more information about everything. We cannot see what is important anymore. More importantly, we cannot sort the data anymore. This combined with the fact that we expect kids to behave as rationally as adults should behave is making this more effective. Just recently I ranted in my Finnish blog about schools. The behaviour of kids is scrutinized for anything abnormal. In United States it is concidered abnormal for kids of 6-years old to hug or to show any kind of affection.

In Finland there's a huge debate about bullying in school. All kinds of quarrels are concidered as bullying. Testing the limits and finding the hierarchy is part of growing up. It gives tools to handle bullies in corporate world. Kids in Finland are not getting this due to the fact that even the smallest school incidents are headline news after the 7/11 school shooting. Not that bullying should be tolerated. But instead of making a local, separate incident a nation-wide debate it should be dealt with within the school. Teachers cannot teach the kids how to handle bullies nor should they tolerate it. But over protecting is working against the kids. When the kids don't have tools to handle the "real world" it is more easy to control them and make them virtually slaves.

When these kids grow up they have no tools to handle negative sides of life and they are unable to show affection, but they've been forced to make multiple decisions affecting their lives even from ground-school, they are overwhelmed by the real world.

Not only it is easy to control people, they won't find the relevant information even if you put it plainly in front of their eyes.

Stalin would be amazed by the efficiency of our cencorship and method of control.

Fear Of Fellow Men

I was having a walk around a lake yesterday. I saw two small islands, and decided to visit them. As a Finnish person I'm used to freedom, which is difficult to understand in modern western society. As many countries advertize themselves as "the land of the free" although they are anything but, we have to redefine freedom, or invent a new word that has the same meaning as the old word, "freedom".

Without giving it much thought, I started to walk straight forward to the shore and after few trees and bushes I bumped into a fence. With barbed-wire on top. Ok... I go around it. After 300 metres, there was a prison complex. They don't call it a prison complex, but a combined gym and swimming hall. People pay for someone to imprison themselves in a small room where they walk in this device without moving at the same time when I walk around the prison complex completely free, and can enjoy the little nature Amsterdam can offer. Same physical effect, but mental effect... that's different.

I went past the prison, following the barbed-wire fence. Saw a double-fenced area for children. The bastards should be locked in, I guess.

After a long walk I managed to get to the end of the fence. And saw a small plank, about 150 metres long, going to the nearest island. And the fence was going through the water to the island. From the prison complex's yard there was a bridge going to the island, I saw. Although it had a gate at both ends. Walking the plank wouldn't be smart either. Not only because I could fall into the water, but the fence also blocked the way.

I came to thinking. What are these people afraid of? That I break in to the gym from the back door and use their facilities for free? If I could walk the plank, swim around the fence, hike through the island, climb over the barbed-wire, swim to the shore and break in, would I really need the gym or the swimming hall?

Why was the water fenced? Do they think I'm gonna nick the water? And why the planks were placed that far away? So that I cannot take a boat, load in a propane tank, go next to the metal fence and cut through the steel pipes just to get to a gym?

Why all the security? Why the fences? These people are not going to use the acres and acres of land anyways. They prefer to imprison themselves into small rooms, instead of any resemblance of nature. The gym doesn't need all that space.

I'm sure these people feel safe only when they go from the gym to their anti-theft cars, drive home to their prison, close the steel vault-door behind them, go to their sleeping chamber, lock all the five locks and barricades the chamber door.

The lack of nature makes Dutch fear anything natural. Shallow country makes what kind of people?

Somebody Put This Guy To School!

I was having a walk yesterday evening with a friend of mine. I don't have a watch, and my mobile phone is configured that I have easy time to put my alarm and I still make it to work, but it's nowhere close to the correct time. He got a bit hungry, so I suggested these filled sandwitches. But the shop closes at 20:00. We were late. Of course. For couple of hours, in fact. In front of that kiosk was Ali and Silent-Ahmed leaning to the wall. (Names invented.)
Silent-Ahmed stayed leaning to the wall silently, but Ali jumped forward and started to push drugs. "Coke, coke... Good quality. Some coke?"

I said naw, me no use drugs. "You can test. Look, good quality." He started to push the bag with some white stuff inside into my face. No man, I don't do any chemicals. Get away. "You can test. Look look." He started to bite open the bag.

Damn. Somebody get this guy to school. He was a teenager. He shouldn't be pushing drugs on the streets in nights. And waving bags of drugs openly on the street is not smart anyways. I'm a total stranger. How did he know I wasn't an undercover cop?

Where are this guy's parents? Do they know what this guy does in the nights? Do they care? Why isn't he doing his homework?

...Ach... This morning they had the ticket inspectors at Metro and of course I had to search for my ticket and missed my metro because of that. Mass transit should be free anyways, and higher tax on people who own a car within city limits. And now my snuss is leaking.

At least I got couple of nice pics in the morning.

Addiction Does Not Automatically Mean A Problem

I smoke cigarettes.

I have an addiction to it. And I have a problem with tobacco. But they are two different things.

I have an addiction. I probably will be the nastiest person you know if I don't smoke the whole day. But it is not a problem for me. I smoke this special tobacco. Rolling tobacco. And smoke it with these certain papers. It's a hustle to go around the town to find that brand of tobacco that has no chemicals. After a while the other brand available (which would be cheaper but doesn't taste as good) would be suitable, but can be found in even fewer shops where I buy mine. Yet, I always go to the shops, buy about 5 pouches of it, and smoke for one and a half to two weeks from it. I always have a lighter and papers. Never run out on me own.

And since I do enjoy smoking, too, I do not wish to quit. At least, not yet. So smoking is not a problem for me. Sorry, I know this is completely wrong thing to say, since in the modern society I should be ashamed of smoking and all the time repeat the mantra to my friends "I'm going to quit next week." No, I won't. And yes, I do know they are bad for me.

But I also do have a problem with it. The people close to me have not yet grasped the idea, that they actually sell these in shops. I do not have a Tobacco Fairy waving her magic wand and all the tobacco I need just magically appears in my pocket. I actually have to pay money for the tobacco and the accessories. Still every day I have quadrillion people coming to ask for papers and for tobacco. My lighter can't be found after 4 people have asked to borrow it when they go for their cigarette break. If I'm in the smoking break, I don't mind. If I'm working, and you borrow the lighter for your break, and never return it, and I don't remember to ask it (never have to - I have my own!) back, and I go for my break and have to wait until someone comes in I get very annoyed. I do have a problem with that. A huge problem.

And don't comment that I am too nice to lend everything and people will abuse me if I'm too nice. Don't, because I can't come and whoop your donkey. And I haven't hit anyone since I was a minor.

Today it seemed that everyone was out of everything. Suddenly the whole World was depleted of tobacco and related accessories. When I got home from work, I had no papers, small crumbs at the bottom of my bag, and no lighter. No one person is abusing me. But little streams make rivers. I always have, so people must've noticed that and they know that if they are in need, I always have. When a hundred people come, then I am abused. Not by one, but by many. I don't care if you smoke weed while you work. As long as it doesn't affect my work. I do not do that. I'm there to work. But I want my cigarette breaks. The stuff you do with several of my papers is your business, but don't depend on me every day. Get your addiction sorted. Mine is. And I want my lighter back!

A side note: I just put my MP3 player in. I had it at my friend's place a while ago. I do not update my player, since it works, so I do not need a wall charger for it. I forgot my player to a friend's place. Got it back and it has been played with. Had to format it. Lost my music. Then had to put it in a wall socket. Which I don't have. And none of the shops close by. So I bought one. Plugged it in. Got it working. Or so I thought. Now my fruit company program forces me to update before I can put music in it. Thank you. I have all the automated things off, but with this one particular fruit company no automated thing is ever completely off. So after the update I need to put it in the wall socket again. And I just started to write this, because I was planning to put music on it and go for a walk to cool my head. After wasting time for getting the tobacco, because it was the fifth shop that had the brand I smoke, I hoped to go home and get my tripod and go. And during the copying I was planning to write this. So even longer delay. Who wants to walk when there's light anyways?

Google Doesn't Like Foreigners

I wrote about the new language thing in programs. Where programs determine for you what language you want to install your programs in. Google has been very very annoying, but they have at least that "In English" button that you have to press constantly. It's missing and/or not working in Blogspot.

Now I was writing a post and was unsure of one word. So I decided to press the spell checker. I don't do it often, but when you need it, it's helpful. Have been working fine. Now almost all words were wrong? Ah... It's checking it in Dutch. Let's change the settings. Blogspot always changes my preferences to Dutch for no apparent reason. What? My settings are in English.

I'm Finnish. I live in the Netherlands. Google doesn't support that. They want that people stay in their own countries. They are very socialistic towards people who stay in their own countries and do not even try to write in foreign devil's language and lose their nationality.

I have no option to change the language. People move around, you know. People may still continue to write in the language they started the blog. I should have some option to choose the language I speak, write and read.

I checked the help. "spell checker wrong language" - three hits. Two contained no replies. One had a link to a blog where there's major changes in the settings of the browser. I do not do that for Blogspot. I want to choose my language with settings inside Blogspot.

Can I friggin' please speak English?

Can I Please Install My Programs In English?

I usually don't do automated stuff. Automated updates, express installs, etc.

Today I got home, opened my computer and opened something from Stage6. My Divx player wanted to update itself. I don't do automated updates, but this time I though, why not? Every end-user is using automated updates anyways and they have no clue what they are doing. And the amount of automation means that it probably works nowadays. I do the old way and actually read every Windows update technote and decide what I want to update, but what the heck. I guess it won't hurt to try the normal ID: 10T way. Wrong! Mistake! Error! You fail!

New Divx player went to 97% in downloading. Didn't even start to install yet. ...stayed there. Stayed some more. The clip was playing on the background with no possibility to adjust anything. No pause, no stop, no nothing. Very good updater that doesn't allow me even to pause what I'm doing while it's working on top of the friggin' clip. After about 15 minutes I pressed cancel and thought I do it the sensible way. Download the installation file, stop every other process and install the update manually. Wrong!

Took half an hour to cancel the download. How is that possible if it's not installing yet?

Then it made my whole system to not respond Mouse was moving, but right-click opened some weird menus from programs in my system tray. Regardless where I pressed. Couldn't even get to Task Manager with CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. Couldn't quit programs with ALT+F4. Couldn't open my Start menu. Pressed power button and waited for shutdown. It seamed like it's not gonna come. Then all of a sudden my screen went gray and it finally started to shut down programs.

Got my computer back on, but I have to remove and reinstall Divx Player. What do I learn from this? Never, ever ever trust automated updates. The first one I used and it messed up my player.

This brings me to a thing I have been meaning to rant about for a long time already.

If you code a program and you are so kind that you translate it in several languages, could I please choose the language I want to install it? When XP came, the automated language guesser and enforcer is so very annoying. I have been using computers when the operating system and all the programs were only in English. My operating system is still in English. I do not want to have some programs in Dutch, some in Finnish, some in Swedish, some in English, etc... I want that everything in my system is in the same language. Can I please, friggin' please do that?

If you are a programmer and come from English speaking country, fine. And your operating system is in English and your programs are in English, and your input locale is in English and your regional settings are in English you'll never have this problem. But I've noticed that if you have a Swedish keyboard (same as Finnish, but with a different name), Finnish regional settings and Dutch time-zone, it is a random thing when you install a program.

iTunes checks your regional settings. It would install it in Finnish in this case. Some other program checks your time-zone and picks the most common language in your zone. Another one, like Quark Express will check your default keyboard layout. Not the currently-in-use one, but the default one. This means if I don't have the option to change the installation language, that I would have four different languages in my computer.

If I have my operating system in English, please suggest that language first! Or at least let me choose. iTunes lets me choose after 5 clicks. If, because of my current location, my regional settings were Dutch, I would have to learn that language first, in order to know when to change the language. Ok, I know Dutch enough to know where to change it, but suppose I was in Guang Zhou, China.

Some programs let me choose and some programs just guess what I would like and rule out every other option.

Why do XP have the preferred installation language option anyways? What point it is to set it in English, if no software manufacturer know it exists?

If I am capable of operating English Windows, I think I am capable of changing the installation language to any other language I wish if English is not the language I want to install my program in.

And some of the braniacs (including Google.com, but they do have the "In English" link there) code the language options drop-down menu in a way that all the options are in the current language. If you would have to have regional settings as Finland, because you are on a business trip in Finland or send documents to Finland, but are, in fact a German. And if you would install a program and the braniac who coded it translated the names of the languages. And it would recommend the options in that language the installation is currently on. Would you know that you should choose "Saksa" from the menu? German and Saksa sound so alike.

Many webpages, by the way, guess your language preference according to your location. It's cool that you can nowadays make a script that checks your location and displays the page in that language. But give me a clear choice, not a hidden small link and if I choose to view the page in English, remember it. If I visit Milano, I don't understand enough Italian to download latest drivers from Italian site. I want the page to remain in English, if I have so chosen.

So please please pretty please with sugar on top, let me choose the language myself.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! I must stop now.

Bishop of Teneriffe's Frog May Have Been Misunderstood

When I was 13 I was horny like... like... Come to think of it, the only time I know anyone/anything was hornier was me when I was 15. If Pamela Anderson would've come to the same premesis where I was taking a shower and carefully washing my privates, she would've had to pull me off from her, not vice versa. Yet, legally, she would've raped me if that would've ever happened. (It did, in my dreams, often.)

As I seem to be the only adult who has been horny when I was 13, I am going to write another point of view of Bernando Álvarez's comments.

Bishop of Teneriffe, Bernando Álvarez said:
"There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you."
How true that is. I would've provoked almost any even remotely attractive girl to have sex with me back then, given the chance.

Yet news articles, blog responses and comments on the frog that leaped out of Bernando's mouth say he is blaming the children for being abused. Nah-uh. I don't think all children would provoke this kind of behaviour. And if I did dream of ripping Pamela's old blue overalls or new red swimsuit off, it doesn't necessarily mean I would've sat on Mr. Bishop's lap. And it wouldn't justify Pamela's actions if she would've ridden my matchstick. But people are unable to think with their brains when it comes to this kind of issues.
Brains switch off, and the "thinking" comes from the heart.

His comment in a nutshell is: Some kids feel horny.

Period.

From his comment, I interpret he's just stating the obvious.

Even the news article I read stated:
A later statement from the Bishop's residence on Tenerife explained that the Bishop did not intend to imply that ‘an event as condemnable as the abuse of youngsters’ could be justified.

The same news article that begins: Bishop of Tenerife blames child abuse on the children

Trying to fish some readers with shocking scoops, eh?

No. Abuse can't be justified. An adult should have that much self control to keep him/her from abusing children. He said nothing in the opposite direction. A 13-year old kid doesn't necessarily have enough self control for that - I know I didn't. What I gather, that's what he tried to say.

But of course, Bernando is Catholic, and Catholics have a bad reputation in this field. Which, by the way, started because of society's strict social behaviour rules. Homosexuality has been illegal in many countries, including Ireland. Even Oscar Wilde was living in staged marriage. Child abuse is still illegal. (And should stay illegal. Stating the obvious here... Disclaimer... Brains vs. the heart, you know.) When in the society it is a norm to get married and a man's sexuality is challenged if he is unmarried, of course he wants to be left alone. Church is one good place. No-one wonders why a priest is unmarried. And who would know from 10 exactly same looking priests which one is the gay one. It is a statement from the practical point of view, not "how things should be".

To recap - I try to keep the sentences short so everyone can understand - and these are all so obvious things I am surprised how everyone missed them:
Child abuse - bad.
Some children may feel horny.
An adult should still refrain from abusing children, regardless of the horniness of the child.

Clinton Murder Clinton Murder

I just noticed that Fox news has not one, but two articles about Carlos Perez-Olivo. But the titles are:
Clinton Neighbor Arrested in NY Killing
Clintons' Chappaqua Neighbor Charged With Murdering Wife
First article mentions the word "Clinton" seven times, the second one only five times.

How is Clinton related to this? He has a house 3 doors down! Maybe we should blame Woody Allen, too! He lives in the same city!

Why do they have to link the word "Murder" and "Clinton" together so tightly? Carlos' case is actually quite irrelevant for the whole story. What's the purpose?

...Oh yeah... Elections are coming.

Pet Peeve Day Pt.2

Again, I don't normally have pet peeves. I have major malfunctions. Best way to get me agitated is to talk about oppressive politics.

But again, today, pet peeve day. I bit my tongue. Not bad, happens. But I bit a piece off. Small, but painful. Mouth was bleeding like an emo listening to Cure. And now it feels like I have a stone in my tongue. Those who have had a tongue piercing knows what a sliced up tongue feels like. You know the numbness and stiffness I mean.

I slept long enough last night, but I think I was sleeping on a hedgehog. Back is killing me.

In the morning I noticed my housemates had drank all of the juice in the fridge.

Outside was minus decrees. I didn't move this south for minus temperatures. (Yeah, for me Netherlands is waaaay south.) So cold that my iPod ran out of battery after 2.5 songs, even when it had 50% battery when I left home. Why can't they make cold-resistant batteries?

Of course our new system "up"grade made working more difficult and because of the slowness I fouled up the morning reports I have foolishly volunteered to take care of for our team in the mornings, since I start one hour earlier than everyone else.

And when I managed to save the other half, the remaining half could not be saved, since when people turn their computers on and log in to the network, the reports give me only time-outs. (Nice network. Lucky us, we are going to "up"grade our system to cheaper and heavier tools...)

When I get a job assignment, I do it from my head, using my skills. This is not the company policy. We need to use our help-files and templates for this. The help-file system is slow and it's getting slower by the day.

Just in case, we have a new procedure that requires us to fill in this assignment closure report, which they changed last week. Not the interface, but the code behind. Before you could just give the keyboard shortcut commands in a row and when our slow system decides to respond, it fills them in. Now it doesn't work anymore. I need to fill in every part separately and after selecting any option sends the info to our U.S. based server and returns with an OK. So we have managed to tenfold our network traffic across the continents. Plus you need to wait 5-10 seconds between every option. Even when you type any text it sometimes needs time. Most annoying system I've ever used.

I can't wait for the next "up"grade...

Our E-mail system (which they changed from low contrast colors to bright-blue and white recently) was just not working today. Sorry... wrong word. It was working, but it was on Italian-strike. (Italian-strike = You do all the work, but so slowly that not working at all would be more productive.)

Every friggin' person was saying today "oh, and if I don't see you before Christmas - Merry Christmas!". F your Christmas™. Santa Clause is the same as Easter Bunny and Mr. Stork. It's only your neighbour, drunk. So I just replied: "I'm Jewish." - Sorry for all the Jewish people, by the way. Nothing personal against you. Lots against Christmas™, though.

When I went for my ciggie break, everyone was avoiding me in the ciggie room. They haven't seen me not smiling - ever. Of course they were worried.

I asked my boss if I could take a half a day off, as my head's not right today. Not happy and tools are not working. He said: "Is it the system that's not working, or you? Heh, heh." The F are you laughing at? End of discussion, apparently. I guess that was a joke that was ment to make me happy?

Luckily my boss saw from my face that I wasn't happy and when I asked second time he took me seriously. I don't really have any bad days normally, but if I do I say it straight. There's no point sitting angry at my desk. Better to say it out straight and fix my head.

So I got the rest of the day off.

And with the help-file/template tool we use, I foolishly though I get away by using my head, as the help-file/template system is reactive, not proactive to any given issue. It doesn't know any new issues that might arise. It is updated "as required", not when we have a solution to any given problem. Just before I was leaving I got a talking to by my boss who said I should stop using my head and start to use the no-brain-required-tool of ours. Fine. I wrote a note on top of my computer: "Don't use head. Use system." Problem solved.

Got to the metro (subway) and when I was stepping out I saw a tram going. Just my luck. So I walked to the bus stop. The buses go every 7 minutes. So right after 24 minutes the bus came and I went to buy beer.

I don't drink that much, unless it's a company party or something similar, but today it is required. Went to shop to take a case of 0,5 litre beers and I noticed something. There's no unopened case of beers there. Figures. Some over-enthusiast shopkeeper had removed all the plastic covers from the cases. I can't carry 24 cans of beer on my shoulder unless there's something tying all of the together.

Went to pay and of course there's line as long as Charles Manson's criminal record. Do Dutch people work during the days? Howcome so many was not at their jobs?

Got out of the shop with a plastic bag, and saw that my tram went again just in front of me. Walked home (only one kilometre), killed two cans on the way.

Now I'm home. Closing all the doors, shutting down my phone and not answering to the doorbell. Why did I buy only 5% alc beer? Would need something stronger to delete this day from memory.

Suomisaundi Psy-Trance won't do now. Current playlist:
Deicide - Once Upon A Cross
Slayer - Decade Of Agression
Amorphis - Privilidge To Evil
Meshuggah - Chaosphere
Hin Onde - Some demo before their first album
Vintersorg - Till Fjälls
Impaled Nazarene - Vitutuksen Multihuipennus -song
Frontline Assembly - Corroded Disorder
Ministry - Psalm 69
Cat Rapes Dog - Moosehair Underwear

I hope my neighbours are not unemployed, like everyone else in the supermarket.