Friday, December 30, 2005
Would you install software made by these people?
Every once in a while I hear about people who have gotten a bad haircut and were offered another one as a compensation. I always wondered about it: if they fucked it up the first time around, why would anyone get another haircut from the same hairdresser, considering that the damage is cumulative? And what happens when they fuck up again? Sounds like a sure recipe for the hairstyle of the Russian Civil War hero Kotovsky, which I suppose is OK if that's what you want, but which in any case is not a thing people normally want to pay for.
Well, turns out that hairdressers are not the only ones who are offering such "corrections". Our old friend Sony BMG has reached a tentative settlement with the customers who are suing it. It is offering a new normal CD instead of the "Cd product", another downloaded CD from a list of more than 200, $7.50 (or alternatively three downloands and no $7.50), a promise to stop making CD products with XCP and to provide a software to uninstall that, ahem, technology (I think the proper term is malware).
Somebody please explain me: considering the fine quality of the software that originally came with the CD product, and the even finer quality of the software that they then provided to uninstall the software that originally came with the CD product, is there still anyone in the world who would voluntarily install or use any kind of software provided by Sony BMG?
Well, turns out that hairdressers are not the only ones who are offering such "corrections". Our old friend Sony BMG has reached a tentative settlement with the customers who are suing it. It is offering a new normal CD instead of the "Cd product", another downloaded CD from a list of more than 200, $7.50 (or alternatively three downloands and no $7.50), a promise to stop making CD products with XCP and to provide a software to uninstall that, ahem, technology (I think the proper term is malware).
Somebody please explain me: considering the fine quality of the software that originally came with the CD product, and the even finer quality of the software that they then provided to uninstall the software that originally came with the CD product, is there still anyone in the world who would voluntarily install or use any kind of software provided by Sony BMG?
Thursday, December 29, 2005
"We support freedom of speech as long as you are saying nice things that do not offend people"
That's what a guy from Singapore told me sometime in 1993. He was quite serious about it, too. At that point I figured it must be some cultural difference between Singapore and the West. Guess not:
The Council of Europe has criticised the Danish government for refusing to take action against Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons of prophet Muhammed. Franco Frattini, the Deputy EU commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, said that the cartoons will cause hostility against Islam and foreigners.
No shit, Sherlock? Let's take a look at the background of the case: last summer a Danish writer has complained that it's hard to get anyone to illustrate a book about Muhammed, because everyone is afraid of a retaliation by Muslims (it is forbidden to draw the prophet). In order to test the current state of freedom of speech in Denmark Jyllands-Posten asked a number of artists to draw Muhammed cartoons, and 12 did. The freedom-of-speech test: Danish government passed, Muslims failed, the Council of Europe sort of passed but does not look good.
Silly me. I thought that hostility against Muslims might have been caused by riots, threats to bomb Denmark, and guys like Imam Raed Hlayhel saying that democracy is worthless to Muslims and that women who go to hairdressers will later go to hell. And maybe - just maybe - by a perception that Muslims might overreact to anything that offends them by, say, issuing fatwas against writers, stabbing film directors and having violent protests in Pakistan and Kashmir over depictions of the prophet in Denmark. But now I know that it must be the cartoons. You just look at a cartoon and immediately start doubting that Islam is the world's most peaceful religion.
Egyptian Grand Imam Muhammad Sayid Tantawy also condemned the Danish government for showing such disrespect towards Islam. Wait, is that the same Tantawy who said in April 2002 that Jews are "enemies of Allah, sons of apes and pigs"? And later during the same year called for intensifying the "martyrdom operations" against Israel? Yeah, just the guy whom you want to lecture you on the subjects of respect for other religions and freedom of speech.
Seriously, though, I think that freedom of religion has already pretty much died in the West, and freedom of speech is under attack, and not just from radical Islam.
The Council of Europe has criticised the Danish government for refusing to take action against Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons of prophet Muhammed. Franco Frattini, the Deputy EU commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, said that the cartoons will cause hostility against Islam and foreigners.
No shit, Sherlock? Let's take a look at the background of the case: last summer a Danish writer has complained that it's hard to get anyone to illustrate a book about Muhammed, because everyone is afraid of a retaliation by Muslims (it is forbidden to draw the prophet). In order to test the current state of freedom of speech in Denmark Jyllands-Posten asked a number of artists to draw Muhammed cartoons, and 12 did. The freedom-of-speech test: Danish government passed, Muslims failed, the Council of Europe sort of passed but does not look good.
Silly me. I thought that hostility against Muslims might have been caused by riots, threats to bomb Denmark, and guys like Imam Raed Hlayhel saying that democracy is worthless to Muslims and that women who go to hairdressers will later go to hell. And maybe - just maybe - by a perception that Muslims might overreact to anything that offends them by, say, issuing fatwas against writers, stabbing film directors and having violent protests in Pakistan and Kashmir over depictions of the prophet in Denmark. But now I know that it must be the cartoons. You just look at a cartoon and immediately start doubting that Islam is the world's most peaceful religion.
Egyptian Grand Imam Muhammad Sayid Tantawy also condemned the Danish government for showing such disrespect towards Islam. Wait, is that the same Tantawy who said in April 2002 that Jews are "enemies of Allah, sons of apes and pigs"? And later during the same year called for intensifying the "martyrdom operations" against Israel? Yeah, just the guy whom you want to lecture you on the subjects of respect for other religions and freedom of speech.
Seriously, though, I think that freedom of religion has already pretty much died in the West, and freedom of speech is under attack, and not just from radical Islam.
A tiny minority of extremists
Norwegian NGO FAFO has conducted a poll on the political attitudes of Palestinians.
50% support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, 33% support Al-Qaeda's bombings in Iraq, 65% support Al-Qaeda bombing in Europe and the US, 12% support Al-Qaeda bombings in Jordan.
For a second I wondered: why Europe? What did Europe ever do to the fuckers? But then I figured: what's not to like? Four assholes blow themselves up on London subway, and immediately G-8 give $3 billion to Palestinian Authority. Hey, if I got $3 billion every time somebody bombs somebody else, maybe I'd support the bombings too.
50% support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, 33% support Al-Qaeda's bombings in Iraq, 65% support Al-Qaeda bombing in Europe and the US, 12% support Al-Qaeda bombings in Jordan.
For a second I wondered: why Europe? What did Europe ever do to the fuckers? But then I figured: what's not to like? Four assholes blow themselves up on London subway, and immediately G-8 give $3 billion to Palestinian Authority. Hey, if I got $3 billion every time somebody bombs somebody else, maybe I'd support the bombings too.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Hanukka: who celebrates it?
First of all, who celebrates it? I don't know any Jews who really celebrate Hanukka, or in any case they don't invite me (which might have something to do with the drinking game thing). My guess would be that it is mostly celebrated by Jews in Western countries who have kids and need to have something to show the kids instead of Christmas.
Just checked out the Hanukka customs on the net (the traditional ones that do not, as I just found out, involve drinking games) and they are all very Ashkenazi and Central European (a Yiddish-language game, potato pancakes, etc.). I wonder what do the Sephardi do for Hanukka, and what was everyone doing before potatoes were invented.
Those potato pancakes are evil, BTW. More evil than gefilte fish. I have always had a feeling that most Jewish food (or most Ashkenazi food anyway) was invented by an antisemite. Or else by Jews who had to defend themselves from antisemites, although I am not quite convinced about the efficiency of gefilte fish as a defense weapon.
Just checked out the Hanukka customs on the net (the traditional ones that do not, as I just found out, involve drinking games) and they are all very Ashkenazi and Central European (a Yiddish-language game, potato pancakes, etc.). I wonder what do the Sephardi do for Hanukka, and what was everyone doing before potatoes were invented.
Those potato pancakes are evil, BTW. More evil than gefilte fish. I have always had a feeling that most Jewish food (or most Ashkenazi food anyway) was invented by an antisemite. Or else by Jews who had to defend themselves from antisemites, although I am not quite convinced about the efficiency of gefilte fish as a defense weapon.
Christmas
Christmas was good. We went to Maija's and JP's place on Christmas eve, to Ville's and Leena's on Monday, and on Sunday I just stayed home and watched Buffy and Amazing Race. There was wine and ham and the potato thingie and riisipuuro and chocolate cake and good company. Tried to make a raspberry cake which turned out ok but had way too much raspberry in it. Maybe will try it again with less raspberry.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Dreidel-dreidel-dreidel!
Upon realizing that Hanukka is today I also realized I lost my dreidel (a four-side die used for a Hanukka game). I looked around at the Net, and, sure enough, found a virtual dreidel.
I also read up on Hanukka and realized that dreidel is not a drinking game as I always thought. Bugger.
I also read up on Hanukka and realized that dreidel is not a drinking game as I always thought. Bugger.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukka!
Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates Christmas, and happy Hanukka to everyone who celebrates Hanukka!
It's kind of weird that they are on the same day this year. Never seen this before.
It's kind of weird that they are on the same day this year. Never seen this before.
Friday, December 23, 2005
The Great Infidel Holiday
The Great Infidel Holiday is here again. The general panic in stores has to be seen to be believed. I always tend to forget during the year, and then sometime in mid-December I start wondering why the stores are so overrun with frantically shopping people. And then I remember that Christmas is coming and bugger off to Stockmann's chocolate department to see what they brought us for Christmas.
I always feel faintly guilty about liking Christmas, because almost everyone else is panicking and shopping and cooking and whatever, and I just come and eat everyone's riisipuuro. It's easy to like holidays that you don't have to do anything for.
Mmm, maybe should make some riisipuuro by myself just for the hell of it...
I always feel faintly guilty about liking Christmas, because almost everyone else is panicking and shopping and cooking and whatever, and I just come and eat everyone's riisipuuro. It's easy to like holidays that you don't have to do anything for.
Mmm, maybe should make some riisipuuro by myself just for the hell of it...
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Mark Steyn on self-delusion
A couple of the current conversations in my blog and elsewhere reminded me of this article, written by Mark Steyn in Telegraph.
A quote:
These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.
Maybe all these Mohammeds are victims of Australian white racists and American white racists and Dutch white racists and Balinese white racists and Beslan schoolgirl white racists.
But the eagerness of the Aussie and British and Canadian and European media, week in, week out, to attribute each outbreak of an apparently universal phenomenon to strictly local factors is starting to look pathological. "Violence and racism are bad", but so is self-delusion.
A quote:
These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.
Maybe all these Mohammeds are victims of Australian white racists and American white racists and Dutch white racists and Balinese white racists and Beslan schoolgirl white racists.
But the eagerness of the Aussie and British and Canadian and European media, week in, week out, to attribute each outbreak of an apparently universal phenomenon to strictly local factors is starting to look pathological. "Violence and racism are bad", but so is self-delusion.
Pyrophobia
I wonder why pyrophobia (fear of fire) is quite uncommon in humans while it is fairly common in other mammals. A few friends suggested that maybe most people who used to be afraid of fire simply got weeded out by evolution, which seems like a good theory. I wonder if there is anything else to it, though. Are monkeys afraid of fire?
Antikiller
Watched Antikiller at Ville's and Leena's place on Tuesday. It's a Russian movie about criminals. The movie was otherwise fun, but the uneven-slow-motion scenes (of the kind filmmakers usually use to hide bad martial art choreography) were quite annoying.
The characters were so disgustingly realistic that half of them could have been my former schoolmates.
The characters were so disgustingly realistic that half of them could have been my former schoolmates.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
The terrorist-in-chief
What have we learned from Iran's First Terrorist this fall:
1. Israel is a cancer and should be wiped off the map.
2. Holocaust never happened.
3. A supernatural light surrounded him while he was addressing the General Assembly of the UN.
4. The main mission of the Iranian Islamic revolution is to pave way for the reappearance of the 12th imam.
5. Israel should be moved to Germany and/or Austria (which begs the question of whether they should be wiped off the map, too).
6. Israel should be moved to United States, Canada or Alaska (which begs the question of whether he owns any map published after Alaska became a part of the USA).
7. Iranian nuclear program is totally peaceful! We swear! Yeah, and we have just coincidentally bought 29 Russian TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile systems, and 18 North Korean BM-25 missiles, too, and we want missiles whose range will extend to 3500 kilometers.
(3500 km is enough to hit Vienna, Berlin and Rome. And Helsinki, too, although it is unlikely that he knows about it. And Israel is only 1500 km away.)
Yesterday the terrorist-in-chief banned Western music on state TV and radio (do they have private stations?) and banned all officials from travelling abroad without a prior approval by foreign ministry. All in a day's work.
The world is mostly laughing him off, just like a lot of people laughed Hitler off after the publishing of Mein Kampf. OK, so it's not exactly the same thing, what with one of them being a ridiculous clown and the other being a president of a 70-million country that is currently building nukes.
1. Israel is a cancer and should be wiped off the map.
2. Holocaust never happened.
3. A supernatural light surrounded him while he was addressing the General Assembly of the UN.
4. The main mission of the Iranian Islamic revolution is to pave way for the reappearance of the 12th imam.
5. Israel should be moved to Germany and/or Austria (which begs the question of whether they should be wiped off the map, too).
6. Israel should be moved to United States, Canada or Alaska (which begs the question of whether he owns any map published after Alaska became a part of the USA).
7. Iranian nuclear program is totally peaceful! We swear! Yeah, and we have just coincidentally bought 29 Russian TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile systems, and 18 North Korean BM-25 missiles, too, and we want missiles whose range will extend to 3500 kilometers.
(3500 km is enough to hit Vienna, Berlin and Rome. And Helsinki, too, although it is unlikely that he knows about it. And Israel is only 1500 km away.)
Yesterday the terrorist-in-chief banned Western music on state TV and radio (do they have private stations?) and banned all officials from travelling abroad without a prior approval by foreign ministry. All in a day's work.
The world is mostly laughing him off, just like a lot of people laughed Hitler off after the publishing of Mein Kampf. OK, so it's not exactly the same thing, what with one of them being a ridiculous clown and the other being a president of a 70-million country that is currently building nukes.
Monday, December 19, 2005
No rest for the wicked, or säätö on ikuista
Finally installed everything on my computer: got skype with well-working sound, even got it to mount my cameras without much whining. Now the work computer is giving me shit: xorg eats 97% of the CPU.
Googled it. Turned out to be a common problem with ubuntu breezy, and nobody knows a sure solution. There is a million of homemade solutions each of which work for some people.
Anyway, edited the dri and glx modules from xorg.conf, booted. So far so good, don't know for how long.
Googled it. Turned out to be a common problem with ubuntu breezy, and nobody knows a sure solution. There is a million of homemade solutions each of which work for some people.
Anyway, edited the dri and glx modules from xorg.conf, booted. So far so good, don't know for how long.
Nightmare
For the first time in many years had a nightmare that was a continuation to another nightmare a few weeks ago, and it was quite horrible and frighteningly real. I woke up and immediately had to check out the Wikipedia to find out whether or not it really was a dream (yes, if it were true it would be in the Wikipedia). Yes, it was a dream. I also had to concentrate for a while and remember that no, really, I haven't been to Frankfurt in the last few weeks, or indeed in the last 9 years.
I am rarely so disoriented.
I am rarely so disoriented.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
It's official: I am a moron
Next time I try to install anything at all on a buggy shit of a motherboard somebody should run after me with a whip screaming "remember the noapic option, bitch!".
ASUS A8N-VM CSM, if somebody cares, and what finally got installed was Debian testing, complete with a scary Nvidia video driver, a 3com ethernet card (could not get the motherboard's own integrated ethernet device to work and the great-grandmother of all Ensoniq audio cards (got the integrated SoundMax audio working with the newest ALSA and great effort, but the sound was truly terrifying).
Almost gave up and started torrenting the latest SuSE, feeling like a fallen woman, but then remembered the noapic.
ASUS A8N-VM CSM, if somebody cares, and what finally got installed was Debian testing, complete with a scary Nvidia video driver, a 3com ethernet card (could not get the motherboard's own integrated ethernet device to work and the great-grandmother of all Ensoniq audio cards (got the integrated SoundMax audio working with the newest ALSA and great effort, but the sound was truly terrifying).
Almost gave up and started torrenting the latest SuSE, feeling like a fallen woman, but then remembered the noapic.
Now it's official: I am a pervert
Just spent a while wondering how to synchronize sex life and kernel compilation so that the kernel would be ready as soon as I come.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Iran's religious leaders oust Ahmadinejad, claim he was a Mossad agent
Iran's religious leaders, lead by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have ousted the democratically elected president Mahmud Ahmadinejad. He is currently imprisoned and accused of being an Israeli agent whose assignment was to tarnish Iran's image in the international community.
OK, just kidding. The man is on the roll. He denied Holocaust again, and suggested that Canada and the US might be good places to move Israel into. He did not explain what Canada and the US have to do with the Holocaust, except that they know that it in fact happened. I reckon that he thinks the further from Iran, the better, and next candidates will be Chile and Argentina. If Iran prefers that Jews move to Argentina it is not quite clear why they arranged that bombing in a Buenos Aires Jewish community building in 1994, but hey, that was before Ahmadinejad's time.
The president of the EU's administrative body, Jose Manuel Barroso, said Iranians "do not have the president, or the regime, they deserve. It calls our attention to the real danger of that regime having an atomic bomb." Hmm, I thought they elected the fucker.
This is not funny anymore.
OK, just kidding. The man is on the roll. He denied Holocaust again, and suggested that Canada and the US might be good places to move Israel into. He did not explain what Canada and the US have to do with the Holocaust, except that they know that it in fact happened. I reckon that he thinks the further from Iran, the better, and next candidates will be Chile and Argentina. If Iran prefers that Jews move to Argentina it is not quite clear why they arranged that bombing in a Buenos Aires Jewish community building in 1994, but hey, that was before Ahmadinejad's time.
The president of the EU's administrative body, Jose Manuel Barroso, said Iranians "do not have the president, or the regime, they deserve. It calls our attention to the real danger of that regime having an atomic bomb." Hmm, I thought they elected the fucker.
This is not funny anymore.
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