Revealing Anonymity

I don't get the whole point of finding out who some random anonymous blogger is. OK, what if we find out one blogger is called Desmond? Does this validate whatever he says more that if his name would be Charles? And after someone has searched the whole net and driven to the person's house to take pictures and finally gets his reward by revealing Charles' or Desmond's identity, then what? What did you gain? What are you going to do with that information?

Dalai Lama was in USA recently. Does it matter if one point is made by either George or Dalai, if you agree with the point? Or do you need to have a person behind your opinions? Is this to say, that people rather agree with people they like, rather than make their own opinions and valuate other opinions based on their own values and morals?

For example, I do not agree with Hitler's idea of the world. (Oh no! Godwin! Godwin! I lost!) But I do agree with his idea of social security. I do agree with the maternity leave. I do agree with highways instead of horse carriage paths when there's lots of traffic. (Although the amount of cars we have now is not so good. Especially if China starts to promote "2 cars in every household" theme...) But see, even Hitler did things I agree with. And I don't like that person. Not one bit. I agree with those points, not with the person. I'm that strong of a person, I can do that. Easily. Can you? So for me it doesn't matter who invented social security or maternity leave, I think those are good ideas.

I am able to process information and draw my own conclusions. I do not need an authoritative figure to tell me how to think. Therefore I can take any idea, any opinion, and decide whether I like it or not regardless of the inventor of that particular idea. It doesn't matter whether the inventor lives in Ohio, USA or Goa, India. It's the message that matters. Even if I know the location and identity of someone who's blogging, it doesn't matter for me unless I know the person in real life or plan to meet with this person. Being anonymous is a sign of "no, I don't want to know you in real life" so I leave those people alone. Yes, they are my dancing monkeys while writing the blog, but their private life is private.

But if you still get some satisfaction of finding out people's identities, don't worry. Just start to promote subcutaneous RFIDs and TCPA. If we manage to get both mandatory, you don't need to go through all this hustle just to find out Alfred Russel's real name.

Of course, exclusion. If someone tells me that something is a fact, I want to check it. If someone writes an opinion, I don't need to know the authority behind, but if someone writes "the speed of light can be exceeded" I want to see some proof and I want to know who is this guy and what makes him think this is possible. If someone writes "I think the speed of light is stupid", I don't need to know who that person is. It's an opinion. I can process this information regardless who this person is. It's not a hard fact we need to accept so I can take it as an opinion, instead of a study of facts.

Yet, the biggest questions remain: Why and so what?

Why would you find out who is this man of mystery?
What does this give you?
What difference does it make if you know the identity of someone?
Why do you need to know someones identity to agree/disagree with any given idea?
Can you agree with an idea if you don't like the person who came up with the idea?

Holiday Pictures For Me Mum And Dad

I was recently in Germany for a week visiting an old friend. Used to share a house in another country with him.

German forests are beautiful, but one very interesting this is the witch-circles. Mushrooms that grow in circles.


A strong stream.


We found a psychedelic looking treestump.


...had to take a posing picture too. What a loser!


We were actually looking for Steinpilz (Herkkutatti, Porcini, Boletus edulis) mushrooms. And found them!


All images are his copyright, but he wishes to stay anonymous.

I'm Honoured By A VA Fansite

As I've mentioned earlier, I read Violent Acres. Sometimes I write to Violentacrestalk.com (which includes the word stalk, by the way) and just noticed, they have honoured me with a quote of mine.

Thank you, the admin of Violentacrestalk.

A T-Shirt Idea

A T-Shirt idea. Just need to find a print shop and print it for meself.

(Hope you get it.)

More info, added 12th of October:

Close up of the image to see the colors:

(Click on the image for larger view.)



Incredients:
Photoshop
Illustrator
Some small clipart of couple dancing tango (livetraced).
Some small clipart of a palm tree (livetraced).
The font is a free Partridge with a bit of extra italics.

Objects done in Illustrator and brought to Photoshop for composition. Objects are Smart Objects, so they will retain their vector properties for scaling. At the moment the orig. image is A4 landscape size with 300dpi, but can be scaled to any size. (Ah, the beauty of vectors.) I know I could've done it solely in Illustrator - but I like Photoshop.

Watchmen The Movie

Among other things I enjoy comic books and comic-book-to-movie conversions even if those are comic-books I don't read meself. But there's so many movies coming, especially after Spider-Man & X-Men, when all the Marvel comics are being filmed. But I found a comic-book-to-be-a-movie worth advertising!

Watchmen

One of the best super-hero comics I've read. (And I normally prefer Marvel over DC...)

But my comic book taste is more towards European comics, Belgium of course, but others as well, like Italian, and Eastern-European - say, like Enki Bilal. (Who's movie Immortal was quite a disappointment.)

Hindi Sign On US Navy Building

There is an old Hindi sign when you look at Google Maps...

Especially in US Navy's Amphibious Construction Battalion ONE (ACB-1) at 2524 Eniwetok Road, Coronad, CA...

There was a slight conflict in the Europe in the first half of the last century, which made this sign quite a no-no in western countries... Funny they still built it...

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.12

I was just watching Demetri Martin. Person. and in that one he has a joke about half-full and half-empty glasses. It reminded me of my old post. And then I remembered a thing I like to repeat often...

"The life of a pessimist is full of happy surprises."

GMail Vulnerability

Found couple of posts about a vulnerability in GMail. Read. Apparently it should be fixed, but at least check your filters in GMail, just in case.

Bedford (24th of Sep.)
GNUCitizen (25th of Sep.)

Like they say, get FireFox and NoScript. Among the three addons I use anyways.

Narcissism Quote

"The relationship with the Narcissist was too good to be true. They want something from you. When you finally wake up and confront them on their bad behaviour, it's something you do, for yourself. You get it off your chest. When the Narcissist asks how you are doing, they are taking your emotional temperature to see if you are reacting, because they are looking for that reaction from you. When you finally give them a piece of your mind, they're not even listening. It goes in one ear and out the other. They sit, rather impassively, appearing like they are taking it in, but if you do a test, you find that they were not listening at all, because they can not quote back to you, anything you said. So consider that action as an exercise for yourselves. Nothing you will ever say to that person will make a difference."

and

"Narcissists sniff other people's emotions the way hound dogs sniff blood."

I see this so much. Sometimes in me, too.

More narcissism quotes in Narcissism Book of Quotes by Sam Vaknin.

Why Is It So Difficult To Puke Where It Won't Bother Other People?

We moved in to a new house couple of weeks ago. This Saturday morning someone puked in our lift. We were out with friends this Friday and were home around 5AM, and the lift was clean. So it was someone who came after us Saturday morning, since Saturday day it was there - right there - on the floor of the lift. Small, non-ventilated space. Why this happens?

Now, you can be a prick and say "you shouldn't drink too much" but this won't solve anything. Accidents happen, people don't know how to handle alcohol. Adults, who have been drinking for years still sometimes have a little bit too much. It's how we handle the overindulgence. I couldn't care less if an adult drinks so much that he/she gets an alcohol poisoning and dies in a pool of vomit. It's your choice, and if you want to kill yourself with alcohol - go for it. It's the common areas I care about.

People who drink too much and feel sick try to keep it all in. This is wrong. If you feel sick because of too much alcohol, your body is saying something to you. It's not healthy to have that alcohol in your stomach. Get rid of it before it's too late. Go to a bush, go to a gutter, go to toilet in the bar, but for the love of Pete, do not puke on the street, floor, bar, driveway, my shoes or the floor in the lift. "But it's not appropriate for a lady to puke in public." Yeah, right. And it's completely appropriate for a "lady" to drink herself so stupid she actually needs to puke? If you drink too much, just go to someplace more quiet where your puke won't bother other people and let it all out. Help with your fingers if nothing else. If you try to keep it all inside until you're safe in your home, these things will happen.

If you overdo it, just empty your stomach. That's exactly what they do to you in the hospital if you pass out and they have to call the ambulance. It is not shameful to puke when you drink too much. It's already shameful enough that you drank too much. Puking is peanuts compared to the 5 promille drunkenness you are experiencing.

Besides, if you drink yourself completely stupid, have to leave the town to go home, and you feel sick. Now, instead of going to the toilet in the bar or outside behind some bushes and puke, this person actually left the bar feeling sick, took a tram or a taxi and felt sick the entire way home. Then walked from the tram a fair bit of a walk home or less from a taxi, and felt sick the entire way. Found his/her keys while feeling sick, got in to the lift feeling sick and then it was too much. Puked right on the floor. This is quite a long time to feel sick. If that person would've just gone to the toilet or behind a bush and puked his/her guts out, he/she could've just gone back inside the bar and drank little bit of ice water and felt much better. The whole way home would've been way more enjoyable. And my Saturday and Sunday would've been less smelly.

And if you do puke on the floor of the lift, have the decency to clean up after yourself the next morning.

Do whatever you want with your body, but try not to annoy other people.

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius died 20th of September, 1957. Exactly 50-years ago. To remember him I made a desktop background image for meself, but I guess I can share it with the rest of the world. Here it is...

It's quite quickly made and rough, but you'll get the idea...

More info about Sibelius.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Yarr! Ya landlobbers and scallywags! It be the "talk like a pirate" day!

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Shiver me timbers, I need to collect me swag! Drink rum and grog in yer local tavern tonight.

Turn yer sails towards Venganza.org today to get more info about pirates and what they did, you blue blistering bell-bottomed balderdash! More info about the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Forum discussion about the international talk like a pirate day.

Link To A Random Blog

Happened to find an interesting blog. Unfortunately for non-Finnish speakers, this blog may not provide anything usefull.

Plenty of random rantings in http://enitenvituttaakaikki.blogspot.com/

Aphorism Of The Day Pt.11

This might be quite difficult to get, but this is my opinion about those three...

If you let your soul fly against you, it will never arise from even beneath the remains of you.

Directions To Dell Offices

I saw these directions to Dell offices. There's a construction site next to it.

I guess this works as an idiot lock, preventing too dumb people from entering the area...