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.

Change?

What Frogthroat hopes for:
Obama 322 electoral votes.

But what Frogthroat fears is going to happen:
McCain 51.3%

Google Fisting Japan

Checking something from Google maps. But hey, what's that? ...Do I see correctly? It even has the thumbnail a tad North from Palau! Go check it out.

Greetings from Africa

A friend of mine, Mr. Y went to East-Africa. He brought some souveniers from there:

After applying some vaseline, that little bulge opened up and this one came out:
Tumby fly larvae is apparently not a myth, but actually real. And it left a nasty hole:
A picture of another larva, this one is a big one:

A family portrait:
If you go to Africa, remember vaseline.

Pictures by Mr. J. All rights reserved.

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.27

People are like rubber bands.
If you push them, they bounce back.
If you pull them, they will stretch.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day (again)

Ahoy there matey!

It be a fine day today, for it be the International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Oh aye, stop swabbing the deck, hoist yer Jolly Roger and join me in the local tavern to wet our whistles with grog, or are ye yellow bellied mutinous scurvy son of a dog scared? Arrr! Me throat is dry. That be it.

Blow yer man down!

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.

Autovorarephilia

I got it!

It has been bothering me for a long tiome. What the heck Bernd Jürgen Brandes was?

Train of thoughts: Carnivore... vore... eater... vorare... in Italian it is "to eat" methinks. No! Munchare is. Vorare is like ... devour? Must be in Latin something more extreme, methinks... I guess it means to "hotkaista*" um... to "wolf" down something... Vorarephilia ... eaten-philia. ...devouring-philia... A person who likes to be eaten or eat someone. What was Herr Brandes then? Vorarephile, yes, but also Autovorarephile! ...Is that a real word? And thus I managed to label even him.

* Hotkaista is a Finnish word for ... um... eat in greed? How do you translate that?

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.

Why does it have to rain today?

Rains. On a day when I would have nothing else to do, except to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Figures.

I guess I'll order in. Cannelloni e birra. And watch the Godfather.

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.26

Q: What becomes of a person with borderline disorder if he/she eats a wrong kind of mushroom?
A: Shamanic-depressive.

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.

George Carlin: Another Dead Hero

22. June, 2008 George Carlin was taken to a hospital for some chest pain. He died at the age of 71.

I will miss him.

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.25

Good girls go to Cannes.
Bad girls go straight to video. (Or AVN Awards...)

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.24

With Lockhart Dickens you can Freud Jung Kant.

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.

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.23

If your life is like dancing on roses, remember to wear shoes.

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.22

Popped into my head today:

Q: When you take the trashbag from under your sink to throw it outside, what do you call that gooey stuff that drips from the bottom of the bag?
A: Naples-syrup!