Rule 34

OMG Ubuntu reports on an Ubuntu Unity lens that allows searching for porn. Big deal, eh? Well, apparently, the world is in such a sad state that people have to post this stuff with a bunch of warnings and unnecessary remarks that are really stating the obvious (such as "whether it offends you or not", in bold), and people are still whining in the comments about how freedom somehow has to be magically equated to "not offending".

If porn offends you - it's your problem. Freedom is exactly that - freedom. Including freedom to do and say what others might not like or find offending.

KDE is the most Linux desktop

This article has caught my attention, mainly because it appeared both on Planet KDE and on Slashdot. The comment section of Slashdot was particularly fun to read, because it sort of reminded me what i have seen back in the day of KDE 4.0 release.

Basically, we have loads of users whining about how GNOME changes things in a way that they aren't where they used to be any more. And then there's Unity. Unity is another topic altogether, and while it may seem that its arrival was completely uncalled for (what? another Linux DE choice?!), that is actually not true. The real reason for Unity to appear is that GNOME2 sucked and the GNOME dev team is a bunch of assholes. Mark Shuttleworth embraced the coming of netbooks and understood that the touch-enabled desktop devices' arrival is inevitable, and he simply didn't want to wait for GNOME developers to pull their head out of their asses and look into the future, not into the past. So while Unity may or may not suck (earlier versions of Unity definitely sucked, didn't try later ones), it may or may not look like Mac OS X (latest versions definitely do share a lot of similarities), it may or may not be necessary after the GNOME Shell arrival, it was necessary in order for those GNOME dumb fucks to realize that backwards compatibility is not the only thing that matters.

And finally - thank God! - GNOME guys started thinking, and they pulled their heads out of each others' asses, and they started moving, and they released GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell. I didn't get my hands on them yet, but from what i see on the screenshots, they look pretty cool. No more Windows 98-ish look, GNOME 3 looks more like a mashup of Mac OS X and MeeGo. Which is good, because these are the interfaces people consider both beautiful and usable.

But what is it? Why GNOME users are whining? Aaaah, the desktop behaves differently from they are used to. Welcome to KDE 4.0 guys, now it's your turn. Pull your heads out of your asses (i like this phrase!), change is necessary. Face it - GNOME 2 has all but stagnated. It wasn't fun, it wasn't configurable. Some people confuse GNOME 2 limitations for minimalism, but whatever. Man up, idiots, if even GNOME dipshits decided that it's time to change - that's for your own good. Remember, GNOME knows exactly what every user needs. That's why they leave out so many configuration options, isn't it?

The problem here is that people are not against GNOME 3. They are against the change. Back in the day when KDE4 was introduced, it changed everything. It was practically rewritten from scratch. Why? So we could enjoy so many great software today. I think the real KDE 4 will be KDE 5. KDE 4, while being a major rewrite, has only laid the foundations. Hell, KDE PIM got Akonadi support only on KDE 4.6/4.7 - that's more than halfway through the development cycle. Despite it being a rewrite, it's still pretty much a long ass transition to the integrated, semantic future. GNOME guys are finally moving that way too with their Zeitgeist thingie. So essentially, things change. And people don't like it.

Look, here's one for ya. You know why GTK and GNOME sucks? Look how much time it took to write Unity. After two years it's finally usable. How long did it take for KDE guys to write two (!) releases of Plasma Active? Three months? Five? Moreover, Plasma Active is practically a project of a couple of weekend hackers. Unity has corporate backing of Canonical. Plasma, KDE and Qt in general are far superior in terms of getting working (and fast!) code as quickly as possible. KDE architecture enabled writing Plasma Active in so little time. KDE architecture enabled Calligra guys to write a backend, on top of which interfaces for both desktop and mobile can be built very quickly. GNOME doesn't have nearly as much power both from user and developer point of view, and because GNOME developers are idiots, GTK will never have that power.

But as much as i despise GNOME, i have to give credit for finally growing some balls and doing GNOME 3. Also, Vala is a terrific idea. Having a real object-oriented language which translates itself into native C code? Brilliant. Now developers can have the speed of native C and experience the full glory of ass-backwards GTK and GNOME architecture. The only thing i'm not sure of is how to debug this thing if it translates to C code? It sorta reminds me of Google Dart, only in case of Vala it actually tries to solve a real world problem of trying to write object-oriented code in a language that is more suitable for low-level system programming than for GUI stuff. Time will tell though.

KGet fucking sucks

Seriously, guys, is this what you call a download manager?

First of all, the why having two plugins to do the same thing? Yes, one of the KIO-based file downloaders is multi-threaded, but why keep the single threaded then?

Second, the behavior is destructive by default. Why does it delete everything instead of leaving the files and deleting just the download job? I've just lost 20 GB worth of downloaded data, thank you very much.

Third gripe is that not only we have two KIO plugins, they also both suck big time. I mean, no matter how much i hate the thing that Firefox has become, there's still a couple of things it does best in class. One of them is download management, with help of DownThemAll extension. This is hands down best download manager available in a cross-platform manner. JDownloader sucks and will always suck 'cos it's Java. Others either don't work on anything but Linux, or don't work on Linux, or even work only on Windows. And they all suck anyway. KGet can't download for shit. It can't parse download.php-type files and rename the files afterwards, so whenever you download practically anything which is not from FTP, you're pretty much fucked, because you'll end up with a bunch of download.php files.

And final complaint is that torrent plugin sucks fucking greasy nigger monkey balls. It can't even scan files if they weren't downloaded by exactly this instance of KGet. Try to continue download with another KGet from another Linux? No luck. Delete everything. Try to transfer your torrent files from KTorrent to KGet? No luck. Delete everything, start from scratch. This isn't even funny.

Thankfully, KTorrent is one of the best torrent clients available. God bless KTorrent developers, KGet developers - burn in hell, you fuckers.

Firefox fucking sucks

I use Linux as my everyday operating system. I love KDE, i love the developer culture of Free Software, i love lots of things about KDE, Linux and its ecosystem. But there are some areas where it not only lacks - it sucks monkey balls. One of these areas are web browsers.

What the fuck?! Web browsing is just about everything most people do with a computer today, and you still can't come up with a decent browser?! Let's see what we have. Internet Explorer? Only old ass versions, only on Wine, and they suck anyway. Safari? No Linux version, and Safari is probably the most inflexible piece of software ever written. Chrome? Hands down fastest rendering and fastest Javascript, no desktop integration whatsoever (looks and feels alien on ANY desktop), extensions suck, and Google is trying to do batshit insane crap with it, like pushing to make it a gaming platform, or allow it to execute native code, or other less than useful stuff. Opera? Bloated proprietary piece of shit (i don't know what do they need extensions for - they already have everything and the kitchen sink in there), sucks at rendering and sucks at Javascript, and hipsters love it. Firefox? Piece of shit with an asshat development team.

Don't get me wrong - there was a time when i was a fan of Firefox. It was a new kid on the block, it had tabs, it was small and fast, it blew IE out of the water, and it was cool to like it because it was all open source and ideologically correct. Yes, Opera had tabs too, but Opera, while being a proprietary piece of shit, sucked then, and it sucks now. Firefox 2 ruled with all its glory.

Things started to go south about the time of release of version 3. Firefox started sucking big time back then. The most unnecessary and idiotic "feature" ever introduced was the "awesome bar". Firefox developers were saying shit like "give it time", "you'll get used to it", blablabla. Well guess what, i didn't. I still despise this fucking "awesome" bar, i still haven't got used to it, and i still miss the old address bar. Sadly, with all the addon flexibility Firefox has, no one is still able to replicate the old address bar.

Firefox also started to be a memory and resource hog. Every time a new version came out, i was pleasantly surprised that it was faster than the previous one, only to discover that it was faster due to some addons being disabled out of compatibility issues. And it got all the bloat back by the time the next release was on the way. The development team was bragging about how they work on memory problems, how they optimize startup time, how they do this, how they do that - but Firefox only seemed to get slower and slower.

Another problem with current Firefox is the development cycle. No, seriously, what were you thinking?! You want to have a rolling release? Fine, but why inflate version numbers? Why not do 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 etc.? Current alpha (Firefox 10? 11? 28?) looks exactly like Firefox 4. So what was the point of all these version numbers? Firefox management didn't just shoot itself in the foot here - it blew out both its legs with a fucking bazooka. Sorry guys, rocket jumps only work in Quake. Not to mention the whole "user is an idiot" mentality that plagues Chrome developers. Admit it, Mozilla, Firefox 4 looks like Chrome.

The main problem with Firefox though is its complete inability to integrate with KDE desktop, which is largely fault of using this piece of shit toolkit GTK+. I still can't understand why those Chrome and Firefox idiots picked GTK+ instead of Qt. Maybe back in the day Qt wasn't a viable alternative, and Firefox being so old ass and having lots of legacy code would find the transition to Qt too expensive, but Google, why?! Why?! Why did you choose a toolkit that looks like ass on my desktop?!

Complete lack of visual integration is not the best part of it, though. The best part is, since i want to have my passwords stored in my KWallet, whenever the new shitty Firefox version comes out, it breaks the KWallet addon. I just can't live without KWallet integration, and this is the only thing that breaks on every fucking update!

It's been a while since i started looking around for better browsers, but they all suck. Chrome lacks DownThemAll, which i can't live without, and is not well integrated into KDE and looks and feels like ass. Konqueror just plain sucks. Doesn't render websites correctly, no extensions, Flash crashes, and due to its swiss army knife nature, whenever you press the wrong button, some lame-ass panel or viewer shows up which i don't know how to turn off.

Rekonq? I have high hopes for Rekonq. It already has KGet integration, which is sorta like having DownThemAll, but it's not nearly there yet. It doesn't store passwords in KWallet, which is really strange, given it's a native KDE project. It also lacks extensions. Some time ago, Chrome extensions were promised, but they didn't materialize. It also promises some interesting ideas like ownCloud sync, but again, it's not ready at the time of this writing. With KGet and KWallet integration though, i can live without most of the Firefox addons (and some of them are available as Chrome extensions as well), but unfortunately some extensions i would strongly prefer having, Ghostery being the prime example (as far too small amount support the Do-Not-Track option). Greasemonkey would be good to have too.

Update: Nope, it does indeed store passwords in KWallet, it just does it differently from Firefox, which is why i couldn't locate them in KWallet Manager - they're stored under Form Data. This makes rekonq barely viable an alternative to Firefox. I wish i could import passwords though. I might look into writing a password import script either from CSV, or from KWallet itself. Probably, CSV/XML would be a lot more useful for the community. I still miss extensions though, and while rekonq has its own flavour of AdBlock, i would really love to see something like Ghostery or Scrapbook.

So, what does it leave us with? Some lame-ass half-assed slow-ass unbranded-ass browsers like Arora, IceWeasel, Namoroka or whatever their names were? Or a semi-usable extension-less rekonq?

It's really simple guys. I just want a browser that integrates with my desktop, and that is reasonably fast and allows at least some degree of flexibility. This is what i'm not getting.

Have your cake and eat it too?

Yes, bitchez, i'm back! Just had some changes in my life that required my full attention. This one will be a little short as i still have stuff to do, but who cares. Oh, and wow, a couple of weeks ago i kinda had this blog's one year anniversary! I missed it but again, who cares.

Anyway, this time, the bullshitting will be about having your cake and eating it too. For example, copyrights. Media and software companies now insist that piracy is theft. It is a very convenient way to equate analog world with digital world, but it's misleading. When you sell a physical CD, you can't sell it again later. With digital distribution this is not the case - you can make as many copies as you like and sell them.

In fact, in the simplest case, to "sell" digital copies you just need only one copy, means of receiving payments and some form of distribution, be it a rapidshare account or a personal website (both of which don't require any effort whatsoever). To sell analog copies, you need... Well, you know what you need - a distribution platform, a place to store all these CD's and loads of other expensive stuff. So selling digital copies is in no way analogous to selling analog copies, and thus downloading a song for free from elsewhere does not equate to stealing. If anything, it's more like getting it from another retailer, one that has a better price, more convenient delivery and DRM-free format.

You insist that it is stealing? OK, you want to equate digital copies to analog copies. Fine. Then give back our rights of first sale, rights to share it with a friend (like you would share a hammer for example), returns and refunds in case of bad product and loads of other things that are associated with physical goods. Oh, you're now insisting that selling digital copies is not actually selling, but "licensing", so those pesky consumer rights don't apply? OK then, if "selling" isn't actually selling, then stealing isn't actually stealing.

And no, rent analogy does not apply here. After all, you don't have to upload back (read - return) your song after some time passes, do you? So how is that renting? OK, not renting, licensing? Fine, but then piracy is not theft either, it's simply a license violation - kinda like driving without a license. While license violations could have serious consequences, it's still in no way similar to stealing. So shut up and fuck off.

Legalize!

I've been hanging around Slashdot (yes, i'm a nerd, fuck off), and i came across the story about Anonymous threatening Mexican drug cartels for kidnapping one of their members. Now, aside from the fact that this is a highly unlikely and unusual story in the first place, the comment section quickly descended to the whole "War on Drugs" thing. I admit i might be a little biased on this matter, but i always was pro marijuana legalization. Well, not always, but you get what i mean.

So, one of the commenters wrote a lengthy post that is so true that i will just quote the (almost) entire post here. Have a nice read, folks.

As for your "less incentives for the drugs to come here in the first place" plan, I agree wholeheartedly. Legalizing marijuana would be a phenomenal step in social management, as well as reducing the financial support we give to entities we can nearly all agree should not be profiting from us. I don't think it will "drop the value of all those illegal [drug] runs to zero", since we have pharmaceuticals crossing both the Mexican and the Canadian borders on a daily basis - apparently, it's orders of magnitude cheaper to ignore the patent-based monopolies in the US and acquire (supposedly) the exact same chemicals quasi-legally over the border; at least, that's what the spam in my inbox seems to indicate. Not just for "V1@GR@", but a wide array of prescription medications, everything from pain pills to antibiotics.

Marijuana has been clinically proven to be less physically damaging than either tobacco or alcohol (both of which are legal, albeit age-restricted), even with long-term usage. It keeps the (consuming) population docile, and it's incredibly cheap. Taxing it sounds like a great idea, but even just decriminalizing it would hit the drug cartels harder than sending 100,000 troops down to shoot at them, and it would hurt them where it matters: in the wallet. Why import it from Mexico, when it's so much less expensive to get it (literally, even) from your own back yard?

Marijuana grows in just about any conditions, that's part of the reason for the nickname "weed". Outlawing it is akin to outlawing carbon dioxide; how do you stop it? It has taken decades of strenuous effort to get rid of most of the "naturally occurring" cannabis growing alongside our nation's highways, never mind in a planter on someone's back porch. Criminalizing marijuana has simply given the cartels a (in effect, government-granted) monopoly on its production and distribution.

Patty Hearst and the paper industry were responsible for outlawing marijuana in the first place, because it was an economic threat - it's cheaper to make paper from marijuana than from trees. An acre of cannabis produces more paper than an acre of trees, because you can harvest every month instead of every few years. An acre of cannabis also produces more oxygen per year than an acre of trees - and it grows faster than the trees, with much less maintenance required, making it a much more renewable resource with a smaller carbon footprint. Add in the fact that you can grow hemp in a field with other plants, whereas trees pretty much exclude anything except grass, and the hemp seems (from an objective view) to become much more economically viable and environmentally friendly than many other products.

Hemp fiber is extremely versatile, and can be used to make all kinds of things that are currently made from less renewable resources - paper, clothing, rope, and even plastics and bio-fuels have been made from hemp. For example, replacing cotton with hemp would increase production by several orders of magnitude - cotton requires an entire growing season to become usable, whereas hemp is mature and ready for harvest in a much shorter time, allowing multiple "growing seasons" in the same amount of time; in addition, the cotton is confined to boles, whereas nearly the entire hemp plant is useful for its fibers.

As for its use in "self-medicating", it is interesting to note that "industrial" hemp has so little THC in it that it's barely measurable - you could smoke an entire industrial hemp plant and only receive a headache and burning lungs for your troubles. I don't recommend requiring that property in the legalization, mind you, because I believe that its medicinal properties far outweigh any negative arguments. While I have heard of people smoking too much and passing out, I have never read a news article claiming someone died from an overdose of marijuana. Ever. I have on my refrigerator a newspaper clipping where a man was arrested for walking into a convenience store to use their microwave to dry out his stash, but I have never heard of someone smoking marijuana and then robbing a liquor store. Alcohol leads to more domestic violence in this country than one would think possible, yet I have never heard of someone getting stoned and then beating their wife to death because "her" dog peed on the living room carpet. Again. Potheads do some really ridiculously stupid things, but I've never encountered one who could be said to be violent due to their use of marijuana. Poor judgement? Sure. "Obtain twinkies" rates higher than "pay electricity bill" sometimes, you know how it is.

Violent anti-social behavior? Not so much. Hitting people takes effort, man.
Voted "most likely to sit on the couch"? Absolutely. Hey, dude, you got any potato chips?

Better still, if we had a legal option for "getting high", one that doesn't come with an annoying and debilitating hangover the next day, then people might choose not to pursue the illegal options (read that as "the dangerous ones") such as cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin - you know, the ones that make people violent, or that kill the users outright. They might also choose marijuana as their "legal drug of choice", instead of (for example) alcohol, leading to comparatively healthier and less violent recreational drug usage (Go ahead, tell me alcohol isn't a recreational drug, or that it doesn't cause violence. I have a truckload of reading material for you; why don't you start with Googling "Correlation of Alcohol and Domestic Violence").

Why bother with the expensive stuff that can kill you and/or get you arrested, when you could use an inexpensive, legal, and relatively safe alternative? Why risk being being arrested for domestic violence, when you can toke up with your spouse, sit on the couch, and giggle while discussing deep philosophical issues such as whether anything would happen if you were driving your car at the speed of light and then turned on your headlights?

Speaking of driving, I'm not suggesting that we get rid of any of the safeguards we have in place - operating a motor vehicle should be done while clean and sober, full stop.

If it weren't for the legal issues, and the fact that pharmaceutical companies can't patent it, marijuana would be hailed as a wonder drug. Despite these perception issues, it is used in several states to combat cancer (or more accurately, the side effects of cancer treatments), AIDS, and mental illness.

So, with all of these positive things to say about this plant, and very few negative things associated with it, why has our government spent absurd amounts of money trying to not only criminalize, but actually demonize it? Perhaps it is a matter of being "too cheap (or too prevalent) to tax"? Or perhaps the government employees making all that money "fighting the war on drugs" just don't want to find new jobs. Despite this, this drug is still amazingly prevalent in our society; I defy you to name somewhere in the US that one cannot simply buy a bag from someone within a few miles of any given urban location.

Why criminalize something that pacifies its users, making them less likely to commit violent crimes? Why criminalize a substance whose users are more docile and easier to catch if they do break a law? Most importantly, from a capitalist viewpoint, why grant a monopoly to organizations outside our control, allowing them to amass power and wealth because of senseless and puritanical regulation on our parts?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Boycott jewels and bubbles!

These two games, while seemingly innocent, in fact promote racism and holocaust-like activity. Just look at this!

These two games both share the same principle - start on a board full of diversity, cobble together similar items and destroy them once you have enough of them together. Therefore i advice anyone and everyone to boycott these two games on the grounds of being racist abominations that should not be.

Gaddafi is dead

OK, guys, it's now official - Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is dead. Hillary Clinton screamed "wow!" and laughed out loud. I bet lots of people don't really have a clue about who's the real villain here.

You fought a good fight, Muammar. You weren't always right, but you are a warrior, and you died like one. Shame on your cowardly enemies. Shame on us all for allowing this to happen.

Steve Jobs gave god no glory

I rarely see such stupidity. Seriously, this is way beyond what i would consider ridiculous. Some Baptist bitch claims that Steve Jobs had a huge platform and didn't use it to "give God glory".

You know what, Mrs. Margie J. Phelps? Boo fucking hoo! I wonder how many people will find your sentiments not inducing a metric fuckton of laughs. First of all, if God is so great and all - why the fuck he needs to be given glory in the first place? But that's beside the point actually, because i'd also say that you're not giving God any glory either. You're a disgrace on the face of Christianity. You're making a farce out of somewhat sane religion. Of course, having baptists, protestants, orthodoxes, catholics and a million of other Christians is already a farce, but, to their credit, there are some good people involved. Sometimes. Those people, are, however, sane despite, not because they appear to serve God. I already had a big rant about religion, and this "woman" is exactly the kind of pitiful idiot that doesn't get the religion at all.

Also, there's this another thing. Steve Jobs was a Buddhist. He was under no obligation to give your god glory. Apparently, that escaped the poor bitch. She just keeps whining about how God created iPhone for the purpose of her telling the world that Steve Jobs will burn in hell. Uh-huh. Pride comes before the fall, bitch, you should know that. In fact, she had already fallen. At its roots (that is, in a Bible), Christianity is a peaceful religion - thou shall not kill, thou shall love your neighbor and all. But apparently, the more "blessed with God's will" the individual becomes, the more killing and hating on people becomes negotiable. Yea, that's a direct quote from George Carlin, i know that. I love the guy.

But that's not all, folks! We have another winner! I've never mentioned this guy before, but i've always found him a bit... well... strange sometimes. I mean, to his credit, he is the father of what is now considered a big movement towards liberation of our computing, and he continues to work towards that goal, and has come to very notable achievements. Yes, i'm talking about Richard M. Stallman. The weird bearded guy who invented GNU and GPL. Unfortunately, somewhere along the ride he became an enemy of common sense. Well, he wasn't a very good friend of common sense to begin with, but his recent antics are way beyond what i consider passable.

Basically, he said that Steve Jobs, the creator of computer jail made cool, is gone. And a bunch of other stuff. In short, he wasn't very fond of Steve Jobs. Now, i kinda agree with what he said. Apple is computer jail made cool. I once had an Apple iPod, and the only reason i was using it was because i could install Rockbox on it. I am going to buy me a MacBook soon, but only because i can install Linux. I will never buy another iPod, and i will never buy an iPhone because recent iPods and all iPhones don't let me install whatever i want on them.

But the thing is, Steve didn't just bring anal slavery to whatever he touched. His company, while being a fanboy breeding center, while bullying and trolling other companies with bogus patent claims and trademark infringement suits, while locking the fuck down their own OS and their devices, still maintains or contributes to numerous OpenSource and Free Software projects like WebKit, Darwin, CUPS, Bonjour (aka Zeroconf), GCC and a bunch of other stuff. It also made Free Software better by showing that "look, you fucking stupid freetards - usability matters!". It's mostly because of OSX being so pretty we now have all glossy and slick Windows, GNOME and KDE. Apple's iOS is mostly what's made Android happen - the innovations iOS brought into mobile scene greatly influenced both Android and other projects like Maemo/Moblin/MeeGo/Mer/Tizen/whateverthefuckelseLinuxbased.

Don't also forget Steve's Pixar and wonderful cartoons they made - starting from Toy Story and upwards to Wall-E which literally made me cry. Steve Jobs was no angel, that's true, and i despise every single bit of his software, his ways of locking everything down and many other things - but you've got to admit that 1) it wasn't all bad, and 2) the guy was genuinely one of his kind in that he had a clear vision, an idea, a world he imagined and then built, and made fucking billions off of it you cheapskates!

So, to conclude, Margie J. Phelps - you can suck my dick. You're probably doing this to get some money out of Steve's remaining family and to bring some attention to your church of idiocy. In other words, you're an attention whore. And RMS - you can suck my dick too. True, you have achieved something that wouldn't be possible without you being such an asshole, but you're still an asshole, and you can suck my dick. Just because.

Why GPL doesn't suck

I have recently stumbled upon quite a few blogposts bashing GPL for being "less free" than BSD/MIT/whatever licenses.

The main argument is almost always the following: basically, GPL forces developers to release the source code. Whatever modifications they make, they must release the source "so the whole community benefits". This is somehow presented to be an argument against the "freeness" for GPL and GPL ends up being accused of hypocrisy. I see this as complete bullshit, and here's why.

In GPL, developers don't matter. It doesn't matter who wrote the code, and why did he/she wrote it. It doesn't matter whether they did or did not make money off it, it doesn't matter if they did it as a hobby or professionally, it doesn't matter if they existed at all. What matters is the code. It's not the work of developers that gets licensed, it's the code that gets licensed.

How does that possibly make sense and what implications does it have? The BSD/MIT/Apache/whatever license is aligned to the interests of developers. Ideally, a developer doesn't really care if his code gets seen, used, forked, relicensed, whatever, as long as he is attributed and given credit - in other words, developers often look at their work pragmatically. However, the GPL license is not aimed towards developers, it is aimed towards the code. The code itself, whatever the modifications, should exist and should be freely accessible, freely modified and freely used.

All the people that bash GPL for being "unnecessarily" restrictive, miss the point of freedom. There is no freedom to do whatever you want. There is only freedom to do anything you want as long as you don't infringe on other people's freedom. You have your rights, but you have no right to take away rights of others. Thus, when you close the source code - you take away my right to read, copy and modify the code. And while you as a developer might want to take away that right from me (or allow others to do that), that doesn't mean that you can have that kind of freedom.

If Steve Jobs was Michael Jackson

What if Steve Jobs was Michael Jackson? If Apple was his band, and iPods, iPads and other iDevices were his albums?

Would there be any "1st generation iPod reissues" and "remasters"? Would there be collector's editions of all the iPhones, conveniently packed in one box and costing hell of a lot more than they would normally cost? Would there be any "complete box set" of all things Apple?

Would the sales of Apple IIe boost because of Steve's untimely death? Would there be people who hunt down second-hand and "unauthorized" iPhone sales? Would there be people who prevent people from giving you iPhone to your friend?

And why do we allow this to happen to our music? Why are we allowing to collect royalties for something recorded 20, 30, 40 years ago instead of giving it away and sharing the beauty of the works of art? Why are we holding on to Beatles instead of moving the fuck on with our lives and embracing new stuff?

Steve Jobs no more

Rest in peace, Steve. I hate your gadgets, i hate your bullying of other companies, i hate the mindless consumerism and gadget objectification that you have inspired... I hate a lot of things about you.

BUT! I have never ever seen a person like you. A person, of which i hate just about everything, and still have a deep and everlasting respect for. A visionary. A brilliant technologist. A man capable to make religion out of a smart phone. A man capable of surrounding himself with the best of the best. A man capable not of fulfilling the markets, but of creating the market. A man capable of not listening to the customer, but of telling the customer what he needs and why he needs it. A man capable of making the whole world to listen to what he says. A man capable of thinking different.

You are my hero.

Rest in peace, Steve. You deserve it.

Get your own cloud!

I've become involved with an awesome ownCloud project recently. Well, not really "involved", just hang around the IRC, report problems, suggest ideas, help other people to set it up (as i've set it up myself on my home server already) etc. Basically, ownCloud is a project aimed at those of us who doesn't want Google snooping around, who is reluctant to post stuff on facebook and who basically wants to have his/her data in his/her hands.

So? So. I have to admit that ownCloud is awesome. Though it is currently in its early stages of development, it already is pretty functional. I can upload stuff, access my files via WebDAV (natively supported by KDE's Dolphin), i can keep my contacts and calendar there via CardDAV/CalDAV, and listen to music. There are other, more advanced options like LDAP authentication but i haven't yet tested it so i can't comment on that one.

What i can comment on is how easy it is to set it up. The ownCloud setup itself takes a minute - in a sense, you don't really have to "set it up" - it just works. Setting up an environment to run that shit is also as easy as it can get. I admit that for some people setting up an apache/php server doesn't sound like it's easy to do, but trust me - anyone running Ubuntu will be able to set it up, given the right step-by-step guide. Hell, i never had a webserver before, now i'm running one.

Anyway, i've liked the ownCloud so much i actually already ditched Google's contacts and calendar altogether. I have installed a calDAV/cardDAV on my Android, also setting up Akonadi sync on my computers and now i have fully integrated, synchronized and backed up calendar and contacts, without ever giving up my rights to that data. Plus there's file sharing, so i'll start uploading stuff like my photos there at some point. I never liked the idea of music streaming so i didn't even bother to test it. However, i might change my mind later too.

With all that praise i'm giving it, it wouldn't be me if i never said something inappropriate about ownCloud. So here's the gory details. First of all, the settings area is a bit illogical. Why the fuck the admin section only contains LDAP? I'd expect to find all kinds of stuff there, like user management, installed apps, database backend settings and whatnot, but instead i get sections for "Apps", "Users" and a section for "Admin" that contains LDAP. Name it LDAP, for fuck's sakes!

Another gripe is that you have to go to IRC channel to ask for paths to use for CardDAV/CalDAV - there's not a hint in the GUI about that (at least i didn't find it). The "Help" area is bullshit and doesn't really help with anything. The "get more apps" link leads to a dark void. Overall, a lot of good ideas, but unpolished in these little things.

However, my final NERD RAGE dose goes to web browser developers. You're all fucking assholes. Firefox 6 renders like shit (funny thing is, Firefox 3 does a better job). Rekonq has some Javascript problems. Opera is completely and utterly unusable with this website. Google Chrome rules them all. As much as i hate Google for their decision to make their fucking browser use that abomination of a toolkit GTK+, it still blows everything else out of the water when it comes to rendering.

So, to conclude - will i use ownCloud? Definitely. Will your mom use it? How the fuck would i know. It's good enough for me.

In before the lock

Here we go again. Microsoft is known for pushing for dubious technologies to take over the world. One of those is this idea of "trusted computing" (implying that we ought to trust Microsoft). They were once pushing this TPM chip idea, and was planning to include ungodly DRM into Windows Vista (thankfully, they backed up from that). Now they're coming back with another "initiative" - lock down the boot process.

Now, i can understand the need for "trusted computing" in some environments. You might want to have locked down machines in government organizations or secure environments such as military computers. You might want your computer to prevent you from running anything that isn't blessed from high above. But what does it have to do with us, ordinary users? I want to run whatever the fuck i want on my computer! No matter what these people think, i will rip CD's and DVD's, i will share my music and videos with my friends, i will run whatever software i want to run, and i will boot any operating system i choose to boot, regardless of what Microsoft, MPAA/RIAA and other idiots think about that.

But what does it have to do with "secure boot"? Well, you see, the "trusted computing" is legacy entertainment industry's wet dream, allowing whole new level of DRM that is not easy to avoid. Again, i can see DRM being a valid technique in protected environments and generally in some niche markets, but it's got nothing to do with us, consumers. If Microsoft chooses to lock everything down instead of properly securing their OS, it shouldn't be my problem. As one of the commenters on Ars Technica has pointed out, this is Microsoft basically admitting that no, we can't secure the OS enough to prevent userspace from taking over the bootloader, so we will lock everything down instead. Brilliant approach.

I can see the general trend towards locking everything down. We are losing our freedom and control over the hardware for some fancy bells and whistles. You know what? Computer is a tool. It should not tell me what to do.

GMail sucks

Yeah, i said it! GMail sucks balls.

Now don't get me wrong. I am a long time GMail user. I use it since 2008 without any problems. I used it with web interface, i used it with POP and then IMAP accounts (via Thunderbird), and i am now using it with KMail. It always worked perfectly, until i decided that i am tired of having three different "sent" folders and sought to unify my devices.

And so, here we have it. I have a desktop with KMail2 on it, i have an Android phone with K9 Mail on it, and i have a web interface. I want to be able to see the sent mail regardless of whether it was sent using the web interface, KMail or K9 Mail. Previously, it wasn't possible, because webmail was stored in "Sent" folder on GMail, while the SMTP-sent mail was apparently stored in [Imap]/Sent folder.

Why the fuck would i want to have separate "Sent" folders for webmail and SMTP in the first place?! Well, i could understand that it might be some corporate needs or whatever, but why on earth would someone want that behavior by default, on a personal mailbox that is usually accessed from multiple devices by the same person and thus should have everything unified?!

Anyway, i managed to set it up the way it should be, but i encountered a few quirks. First of all, "[Google Mail]/Sent Mail" just looks ugly as fuck. But OK, that might be a fault of client software - after all, nothing stops programmers from giving folders arbitrary names while still retaining the "link" to the original SMTP/IMAP folder.

Then we have these labels. I can get the concept, but i can't get through my head their absolutely idiotic approach to labeling. Why "archiving" means removing all the labels? How can i restore the "Sent" mail from archive? Why is there an option to "archive" sent mail in the first place, because obviously sent mail can't really be archived (it still stays in "Sent Mail" folder)? Frankly, it took me whole evening to set everything up.

And finally, i would like to have an option to actually delete a message. Since my inbox becomes very bloated over time, i decided to archive my old email to my cloud. Naturally, if i archive the mail - i would expect it to disappear from GMail inbox entirely. But no! If i delete it from a folder - it stays in the mailbox! The only way to actually delete the message is to put it into trash first (so that it removes all the labels and excludes itself from GMail archive) and then delete it from there.

Frankly, i wish i didn't pick GMail as my email provider of choice. Yes, it's convenient, fast, reliable and spam-free, but so what? If it makes me jump through hoops just to set up a proper IMAP account - it's not worth it. I understand Google's desire to tie me into its web services, but i'm afraid it's not going to happen any time soon. I hate web apps, i always hated them and probably always will. I use Akregator to read my newsfeeds. I use Blogilo to write my blog posts. I use KMail to check my mail. I use KDE-Telepathy to handle my Google Talk and SIP accounts. Call me an old fag but i'm extremely uncomfortable with using a web browser to do something other than web browsing. The only reason i'm writing this in web-based editor is because apparently Google has changed its API again and Blogilo won't work with Google Blogger until they fix it.

Don't believe the truth

This is a follow up and a spitirual successor to my last post. I am now listening to the recent risky.biz podcast about Wikileaks, and hearing all these talks about untrustworthiness of the mainstream media and the power of the Internet i recalled a curious bit of behavior i have observed in the wild.

Basically, when all this Bin Laden killing crew thing happened (you know, the part when all but one of the members of that operation died under mysterious circumstances), i conducted an experiment. I went to Omegle (stupid, i know) and asked the question that was vaguely constructed as follows: did you know that all but one people participating in Bin Laden elimination died in a recent helecopter crash?

Most people simply ignored the question. Some people started whining something along the lines of "aw, geez, not politics again". Some were making jokes about conspiracy theories and even totally unrelated stuff. However, one guy's behaviour striked me as extremely odd. He said something like "without proof, i'm not buying it". He said it five or six times in different wording - i'm not buying it, where's the proof, this is bullshit, yada-yada.

I got only one question - whatever happened to fucking research?! It was clear that the guy wasn't your usual office plant, it was pretty clear he was capable of questioning things and critical thinking (which is what most people lack). So why the fuck didn't he just go and research the fucking thing?! It's there, all over the Internet, all over the news! Well, news outlets didn't put it as clearly as i did, and most people would have difficulties translating "a helicopter crashed, people participating in earlier operation in Pakistan died" to "wake the fuck up, people, 22 out of 23 people participating in Bin Laden's supposed elimination are dead!", but the information is still there! There are forums, there are websites like Democratic Underground who could count as a semi-official news source, there are people, for fuck's sake!

Now, one can argue that reading shit on the Internet is the same as asking a bum across the street - you can't trust shit you read on the Internet. This is, of course, completely false, and people's opinion and "enemy" websites could be just as reliable source of information, and in many cases even more truthful since it's often unredacted, uncensored, raw intelligence waiting to be collected by the ones who is capable of connecting the dots, or is targeted directly towards what mainstream news fail to pinpoint or feel uncomfortable talking about.

And you can't trust official news outlets, because we know all too well that they're controlled by government and corporate interests. They can be hit with injunctions and super-injunctions (complete idiocy), they can be bribed or threatened, or even physically destroyed for what they could do (loads and loads of journalists were murdered for their stories).

The problem with such people is that they use this denial of validity of information as an argument. You tell them "hey, soldiers who killed Bin Laden are dead!", you get "i'm not buying it, it's bullshit, where's the proof". You tell them "hey, soldiers who killed Bin Laden are dead! It's in the news!" and you hear something like "nah, bullshit, don't watch the news - they're lying" in return. You go "hey, soldiers who killed Bin Laden are dead! Here's the link!", and get "nah, i don't trust any unofficial news sources or internet sites, it's propaganda" as a reply. Now what am i supposed to do in order to make this kind of people just look and see for themselves? Obviously, there's that alternative of not caring at all but that's not an option since not caring about shit is what got us into trouble in the first place.

So who do we trust? What do we believe? Not official news outlets. Not "enemy" websites and blogs. Not web forums and personal blogs. What then? I think the answer is pretty obvious. The answer is - don't blindly trust anything. Research your stuff, connect the dots, analyze, think through every detail. This is the only way. And this is exactly why the society needs things like free speech, whistleblowing and, most importantly, free (as in freedom) Internet. Many people are capable of connecting the dots (yeah, i still believe in humanity despite hating it so much), but not everyone is willing to do research, to question things and even to think - and that's why you have to force feed them with facts and information, or leave it where they can clearly see it (on web forums, in blogs, in news sites comments, everywhere they can be seen).

 

P.S. Oasis sucks.

Opinionated

Everyone has an opinion these days... Or do they?

I believe otherwise. Most people are dumb fucks. Yeah, that's right - even if you're reading this, there's a good chance that you're a dumb fuck.

Isn't it kinda sad that there's a big chance that you don't have your own opinion? That you believe everything you see, everything you hear and everything you think is true? Millions of people don't give a shit about anything. That's not to say not giving a shit is a problem in itself though, becayse face it - there's always something that you don't give a shit about - such as history of Ancient Greece, or inflation in Bolivia, or food prices in Mongolia. What really matters is what you actually give a shit about. And this is where it becomes complicated for most people. Millions of people care about shit that is completely useless from the grand perspective, such as football, or some Hollywood whore's love affairs, or the latest Cosmopolitan issue (you know, the dumbest magazine ever, with SEX in every headline). This is sad. But even more sad is the fact that these very people pretend to "know" shit, that they have an opinion.

Much of this so called opinion is often based on some stereotype, like oh, Muslims hate us for our freedoms, or shit like oh, women in society are being oppressed, or even something as crazy as if you're not gay - you won't get AIDS. This is what is dictated by mass media, stupid magazines, official news sources and society people live in.

But for fuck's sake, why is it always that having an opinion involves disagreeing with general public? Am i crazy for having an opinion that goes along with facts instead of bullshit, or is general public really so dumb? How can you even be so dumb?

Another interesting thing about having an opinion is that you rarely see people that can change it. Have you ever did so? Let me give you an example. I was a great unbeliever in official explanation of 9/11. I thought that the buildings were demolished, and planes are just a cover for invading Iraq. Now, i don't believe that the buildings were demolished. I still believe that it was a government-authorized operation and it really was used as an excuse to invade Iraq and erode freedoms all over the world, but at least i changed my opinion about the demolition thing. Have you?

Having an opinion also involves some sort of bias. When you believe in something, you selectively ignore and selectively hype the facts that are either uncomfortable or prove your belief. Problem is, you rarely hear an actual opinion from the "officials", because what you usually hear is "believe that, motherfucker". I wonder what Bush, Obama and all the others REALLY think about stuff.

Tim Cook - the most gay in Silicon Valley

Yeah, that's what i read today at Ars Technica, who in turn cites another source. And you know what? I applaud Tim Cook. Whether he's gay or not, this is of no concern to me or anyone else. Why do most gay people today feel the urge to make sure everyone knows they're gay?

The article makes a point that hey, gay people, look - there's a gay man, and he is the CEO of Apple - and you can do it too! Now i argue that this fact makes entirely different point - that you can be a CEO of Apple without waving your gay flag and instead just doing your fucking job. Tim Cook shows you faggots how it's done. You better learn from him.

Even if he isn't gay (after all, he didn't either acknowledge or deny that, which i admire immensely), i don't care. He's an Apple CEO, and you faggots shouldn't try and use successful people to justify your existence. Elton John isn't Elton John because he's gay - he's Elton John because he's Elton John. Tim Cook didn't make it to CEO's because he's gay - he made it because he's a brilliant guy and Steve Jobs trusts him enough to replace himself.

Lybia

You didn't think i'm going to pass this subject by, did you? Yeah, yeah, i'm just like all the others - writing on the hot topic to get pageviews, the soulless twat that tries to capitalize on other peoples' suffering, yada-yada - well, you get the idea.

Anyway, most of you might know that there's an armed raid going on in Libya. Yeah, yeah, civil war, uprising, oppressive regime - cut the bullshit, please. There is no uprising, there is no oppressive regime - all there is is a country where petrol is cheaper than water and lots of stuff is for free or very cheap because the man in charge actually cares about his people. However, that doesn't please the USA and NATO, so they decided to once again force a democracy into a sovereign country.

Unfortunately for them, things are not going as well as they thought. Since no one is oppressed, no one is willing to stand up against the evil oppressive dictator Gaddafi, hence NATO has to hire mercenaries from nearby countries/states, mainly from Qatar. And since this is really a NATO operation, a bunch of NATO soldiers are at it too - the US Navy Seals, some french guys, SAS (unconfirmed) etc. And of course, this whole "revolution" is happening with the financial and military help from NATO.

Does it? Well, how many people you know keep new and shiny FN2000's at their home? Even in USA, i doubt there are many, let alone Lybia. And yet, we clearly see the pictures of rebels with those babies right here:

Yeah, i find it strange too that these guys just happen to have the NATO guns. Kinda reminds me of the russian revolution, only there is USA instead of Lenin and co. The russian revolution of 1917 was financed from the west, the poor factory workers suddenly ended up walking the streets with shiny new german Mausers, and Lenin, while being caught by foreign intelligence somehow misteriously ended up in Switzerland shortly after, and with loads of cash in gold that he used to finance the revolution. Sure, USA doesn't need to finance anyone besides the rebels.

So yeah, this whole situation is a joke. Of course, most probably Libya will fall in the end, because Gaddafi has limited resources, and all his frozen bank accounts are now in the hands of the rebels. After all, you just can't stop USA. This time, they don't even try to hide the fact that they are in it for the oil - the rebels are already declaring that whoever helps the "revolution" gets the privileged access to Libya's resources.

However, USA/NATO will not win because of its military power. They win on the other front - the information war. There's a shitload of falsified news floating around. News agencies refuse to work with independent reporters, indie news are cut off air for telling the truth about this whole thing, the photographs get photoshopped, the videos are made in pavilions, in Qatar - everywhere just to make the illusion of being in Tripoli. This is a nice roundup on this. It also mentions NATO bombardments that aren't in the "official" mainstream media but are covered everywhere else.

Anyway, speaking of photoshopped pictures and fake videos:

This doesn't need any description. Then there's this obviously fake "report":

Then there's this fake photo of dead Gaddafi, broadcasted by the BBC:

There's lots of it really, just look around the internets.

What surprises me the most is the support/silent consent of fellow Muslim countries and frankly any other country in that region. Do you really think you will end up differently?

Oh, for the desert, some real serious shit. War is ugly, everybody knows that. But it's a different story when you actually see how ugly it is. I wonder what would all those people supporting Lybian intervention say when they see this (WARNING: EXTREME VIOLENCE, REALLY SERIOUS SHIT, I MEAN IT!).

Apple no more

Today, Steve Jobs has announced that he's leaving his CEO position. And although he said that he'll stay in Apple and will rule it for some time, i think this is a beginning of a decline for Apple. Tim Cook will replace Jobs as a CEO, but while Cook is a brilliant guy who helped Apple become what it is now in terms of overall infrastructure, he isn't Jobs. He isn't a visionary. Just as Ballmer, while being a great guy in his own right, is a poor replacement to Bill Gates, Tim Cook will never replace Jobs.

Microsoft is having a bit of identity crisis now - it was a PC software company, and it tried to expand itself into IM, search engines, mobile phones, gaming consoles, lotsa stuff really, and never really succeeded anywhere. The dominance of Microsoft is still a remainder from its PC software era - everyone depends on Microsoft, because everyone depends on Microsoft. If it wasn't for DirectX dominance on the desktop, i doubt that a lot of developers would flock to Xbox.

Anyway, the point is - Microsoft isn't what it was when there was Gates. And though Jobs is not yet leaving the company altogether, he is clearly preparing for his retirement - after which Apple will never be the same. Remember what was Apple when there was no Steve Jobs to guide it? It was all but dead. He came around and brought it into relevance again. He built a religion around its products. Can Tim Cook do that?

I must admit - i despise Apple products. I hate the lock-in, i hate these gadgets constantly spying on me, i hate the inflexibility and inability to look to the guts of the system and do advanced stuff. They look and act awfully pretty, but that's about all i like about them. However, i have a very, very, very deep respect for Steve Jobs. He is a one-of-a-kind guy. I wish there was more guys like him in the technology world.

The biggest question right now is - will Apple end up like AC/DC, or will they end up more like Lynyrd Skynyrd? Will they find their new leader, who will continue to push the envelope (well, AC/DC weren't exactly pushing the envelope...), or will they lose their momentum and become a barely relevant, once great company?

You're just jealous

How many times have you said something like "Justin Bieber sucks!" and your opponent goes with this dumbest reply ever - "Justin Bieber is hott, you're just jealous"? I think it happened to all of us. Doesn't matter if it's Justin Bieber, Lady Ga Ga, Kurt Cobain or any other hyped-up "celebrity".

Really? Am i jealous? Am i jealous of the guy who spends all his life on camera? Hell, he can't even take a shit without a million cameras pointing at him! How can i possibly be jealous of this guy? I want to take a shit in privacy, thank you very much.

This whole "celebrity" thing is just stupid. I'm not jealous of these people, i just can't get through my head why are they so famous. Did they make some important scientific discovery? Did they cure cancer? What did they do in their miserable lives that makes them deserve their fame?

You know who deserves fame? Stephen Hawking. If you don't know who that is, look him up. Forget Justin Bieber - he's just a big marketing campaign. Even his hairstyle is trademarked. Forget Lady Ga Ga - while she's a genius at selling herself and incorporating bizarre fashion into her persona, she's pretty mediocre in terms of actual music talent. She should've been a fashion designer, not a singer.

Burn, burn, yes you gonna burn!!!

Can anyone tell what the fuck is wrong with UK? I mean, with all those riots in London and all. The best part is - what the fuck? They don't give any messages, they don't seem to act in response to some tax increase, job cuts or whatever - it seems to be just a bunch of niggers (of all races) suddenly deciding to go on a rampage. I can't picture myself seeing riots outside my house and going all "hey let's crash and burn everything, it's party time!". I know for a fact that area is full of low-life assholes, but still it's not like they go out and loot shops on a daily basis. There must be some reason for this to happen. I remember some shit was happening in France a year ago, but it started out as protests as far as i remember i.e. those guys actually had a message to deliver. What do these guys have to say?

On a side note, team poison hacked Blackberry blog and posted a message threatening RIM with actions if it cooperates with the police. First of all, RIM?.. Didn't know they're still relevant. How much market share do they have now? Three percent? Second, all those poor bastards have Blackberrys? A phone that is positioned as a business/enterprise solution? Oh, how low you have fallen, RIM. Third, threatening message. Clear demands, clear (although somewhat dubious) goal (of protecting innocent bystanders from police intimidation). Yay! The real cyberterrorism! It's not on a big enough scale, probably looks more like a misdemeanor, but still, people finally recognize how it's done. You know what, i might as well take back my statement about Team Poison being lame. They might not be the most prolific hackers in the universe, but they certainly bring good share of entertainment.

Terrorists win: part deux

Seriously, who would've guessed? Bunch of guys kill You-Know-Who, and then suddenly they all die in a helicopter crash under mysterious circumstances! Nothing unusual?

I call bullshit. 22 out of 23 people that were directly participating in a highly dubious operation in Pakistan (which sort of resulted in Osama Bin Laden's death, whos body they sort of threw out in the sea... yeah, right) are now dead. Does that surprise me? Nope. 1 person is still alive, but i think he got the point the US government was trying to make - shut up or we shut you up. Anyone else has doubts that there was no Osama Bin Laden, and this operation in Pakistan was something of entirely different nature? We know something happened there, but now that all witnesses are gone forever, and the one remaining will never talk, we will never know for sure. Anyone still believes the terrorists are guys wearing turbans and praying to Allah, and not that nigger USA has for president? The nigger who promised transparency and accountability, and whos administration actively prosecutes or trying to prosecute more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined?

Truth to be told, i had high hopes for Obama. Well, he's black, yada yada, he looked different from others. Turns out that he isn't any different. Thus, he's not black. He's a nigger. He's an asshole nigger president. He betrayed trust of people who voted for him, he betrayed the world, who expected him to be different from Bush family.

Consumanity

Yep, you're right, another age-old rant about consumerism. But this time i think i actually have a point here. Not that every other guy didn't have a point too, but i think this... well... ah, fuck it, here it is.

I'm tired of everything being geared towards consumption. And when i say everything, i mean literally that - everything. Do you know anyone who can make something with his own hands? Here's a surprise for ya - not only people don't do stuff anymore, they're not allowed to do stuff. Fuck, i can't even install a DSL line myself, i am required to call a "certified specialist", who is usually a recently graduated (probably indian) asshat who doesn't know his STP from his STD. I can't do anything without "voiding the warranty", i can't open my laptop, i can't install new RAM - i am required to pay 50-60 bucks to do what i could do in 10 minutes. Warranty was supposed to be about things not breaking, not about "don't touch anything or you're SOL".

I am also tired of the devices moving into consumption-only mode. Have you seen mobile phones recently? Tablets? New GUI's from Microsoft? Big-ass icons optimized for touch screens? All these bells and whistles, gazillion ways to "socialize", to "share media", to play music, to get on facebook, twitter, myspace, lastfm and chat with your gazillion friends, in-app purchases... Every app wants you to buy something. Stream a movie, buy piece of music, buy new levels for some stupid game, buy more news, buy more this, buy more that. Everything moving to HTML5 and Javascript, "immersive" applications, "rich" media and the likes. Now who needs that? Certainly not me. Guess what - i use my devices to do work. And when i'm working i don't need these bells and whistles, these big-ass icons, immersive and rich bullshit, integration with gazillion of social networks and all that jive. I need them to work. To work fast. And to do what i need them to do.

The problem is, we developers are part of general public too. We are more important part of general public. Without the developers there will not be any "immersive", "rich" and "integrated" applications for those Joe Sixpack assholes to use. You can make this shit all you want, but please don't leave us developers in the cold. Visual Studio is now moving to HTML5/Javascript, Windows 8 will supposedly drop .NET in favour of HTML5/Javascript... What if i want to write a C app? Like if i want it to work fast and on low system level? Do you want me to write drivers in Javascript?

Binary > source

I am currently using Linux (more specifically, Kubuntu 11.04) as my primary OS. I think it's a brilliant distro. Everything works out of the box (for me), wireless surprisingly works even better than it ever did under Windows 7. However, over and over i see this stupid argument every once in a while - (K)Ubuntu is bloated, binary distros suck, apt sucks, Gentoo/Arch/Slackware ftw etc.

Regarding bloat. My KDE/Kubuntu installation with a whole lot of shit on it works faster than my almost virgin Windows 7 ever did. I don't know what happened to it, honestly - at first it was pretty snappy and i was really happy with it after Windows XP (i skipped Vista). But over time it began being slow. I don't know what is the reason, since i usually turn off all that BitLocker, indexing and other useless crap that comes with Windows 7 Ultimate. KDE, on the other hand, even has full-text search enabled (Strigi), not to mention Nepomuk, Akonadi and countless other apps that are constantly running in the background. It still outperforms Windows 7, even with half-baked no-3D-acceleration nouveau driver.

As for apt - i can't really comment on that, since i only seriously used apt. I did try Gentoo at some point and have a slight idea of what emerge is, but i probably have no more experience with emerge than i have with RPM (i started out my Linux way with Mandrake 8). However, i can say that i never ran into any problems with apt. Of course, all the graphical package managers still suck balls when shit gets real and i have to resort to aptitude every once in a while (which isn't Ubuntu's or apt's fault anyway, should have fucked with alpha repos in the first place), but still apt rules. At least i can't say anything bad about apt.

And now to my core argument. Source distributions suck. Compiling from source sucks. Binary is the way to go. Why? Let's see.

I saw many people saying something like "i don't see what's the problem with running configure && make && make install". However, there are several major problems with that statement. First of all, having a compiler on my system is a potential security risk. Even on a desktop. Second, why do these people assume that every Linux user is a software developer? Why do i have to have a compiler, a gigabyte of development libraries and a version control system installed? It's fine with me, i don't have a problem with that, but your average Joe is not a developer, nor he wants to be one. Compiling from source sucks. It really only makes sense for the developers, because they can check out the fresh code, compile it, test it, debug it, whatever. It doesn't make any sense for the average user.

Finally, source-based distributions. They suck. I remember installing Gentoo on my old crappy laptop in hopes that the legendary "performance" and "customizability" will make enough of a difference to breath in a second life in that laptop that used to run Windows 2000. You know what happened next? I started installing software. It's really fun, you know. Open Office was compiling for 10 hours. 10 fucking hours!!! After i installed Open Office, XFCE, bunch of other stuff (another two days of compiling shit), you know what happened? The distribution just worked. It worked no better and no worse than, say, Xubuntu. Same shit. And believe me, i took my time and learned a lot about optimization flags, compiler flags and all that shit that Gentoo users fap to. It made no difference.

However, the worst thing was still ahead. I received an update notification. For OpenOffice. Another 10 hours of compilation? Thanks, but no thanks. And you know what i did? I said "fuck it". No more Gentoo. No more compiling. Binary distributions rule. You know why? Because they tend to work without spending endless hours compiling and optimizing to squeeze those extra 2% of performance. Of course, someone might find appealing to live on the bleeding edge of FLOSS, but i just want my computer to work without hickups. I am somewhat of a software developer, i have no problem reading source code or even compiling from source, but seriously, if i wasn't a developer - why would i have to have a compiler and development libraries on my machine?!

Security of your shit

I've been recently watching this whole LulzSec, Web Ninjas, The Jester etc. hacking theater. And i must say i'm impressed how much bullshit is there just waiting to be uncovered.

First of all, you guys don't get any of my respect as hackers. LulzSec are just script kiddies. "The Jester" is no less a script kiddie than LulzSec, and he has a dumb alias. Web Ninjas, Team Poison and all those "doxerz" trying to uncover each others identities... Same. Lame attempts at trying to prove the world that they have any meaning. All in all, classic case of unwarranted self importance.

However, LulzSec do earn my respect as human beings. IIRC they didn't claim that they were uber-cool hackers. In fact, their actions show quite the opposite - the security of the guys they "hack" is SO lame that even a moderately motivated script kiddie can hack it. This mass "hacking" spree happens not because they are good at what they do, but because the security on the other side of the wire is so incredibly poor that even a script kiddie can "hack" it on a daily basis. They show that people don't understand the implications of Internet, and underestimate the importance of online security. In fact, i know first hand that managers are often very reluctant to provide additional funds for anything related to computers, thinking that it's a complete waste of time and money. Security? What security? Get back to work, asshole. Hell, a lot of system administrators, programmers, web designers and the like are doing what they are not supposed to do (fixing chairs, cleaning toilets etc.), because management doesn't understand that if a sysadmin does nothing - it's because he's a brilliant sysadmin and everything works as intended.

These hacks also show how reluctant are people to change passwords and engage in basic online hygiene. I think part of the reason is because it's not convenient. I mean, there is no easy way to remember the passwords and share them across multiple devices. Yes, many people hate the very idea of passwords and use words like "madrid" or "1234" for passwords, but those of us savvy enough to know about the risks still don't do that - because there is no easy way to do that. Only recently, when i switched to Kubuntu instead of Windows i started to employ these techniques. But anyway, back on topic.

The Jester is a narcissistic idiot suffering from severe delusions. You know, your typical "MERIKKUH!!!" guy, which just happens to have some rudimentary "hacking" skills. American patriotism my ass. OK, so waging completely pointless wars is OK, but uncovering people who help americans fight against their own country is not acceptable? Yeah, right. Somehow i think that "the jester" isn't really a hacker, and is not even a real person. Everything about him looks too "hackerish" for him to be a real hacker (or even a real person). More likely it's a media bait, something to newspapers to write about and Joe Sixpack to read (sure it sounds scary for a dumb fuck to read about the mysterious hacker which calls himself The Jester).

And did you read his blog? Yes, the dude actually has a blog! And an IRC channel dedicated to his precious self! Well, twitter account goes without saying, although this "JESTER ✔ Genuine" looks incredibly lame. All in all, lame blog full of graphics and formatting (incredibly hard to read, dude, srsly, get a real web designer!), self-admiration, narcissism, narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness and pretty much all the things i hate about people. Real hackers don't ever do that. Take a look at personal pages of ANY knowledgeable person in IT - FLOSS project participators, software developers... Take a look at kernel.org - does it look like Christmas? It doesn't. Because these people don't have time for narcissism, they do actual work and they know their stuff. So yes, "jester" is just another script kiddie, coupled with your typical redneck american patriotism attitude and a desire for (undeserved) fame.

And all these "doxing" attempts by both The Hamster and other idiots (Web Ninjas etc). Do you really think gathering a bunch of ratted out IRC logs, tweets and whois entries isn't lame? It is lame. It's what Anonymous were doing for years without calling themselves "hackers". You gotta do more than that to impress me.

Norway Terror: the Aftermath

Pretty cheesy title, i know. I love cheesy titles. Cheese is good.

So, some time have passed after the viking attack. I've been watching Euronews for past two days, reading blogs and overhearing stuff, and i honestly can't be bothered to prooflink every statement i make in this post. Now, there are still differing reports on how many he actually managed to kill, who did he kill, how did he kill them, and of course why did he kill them. With how many it's pretty much a technical issue - the numbers differ between about 60 and up to 90. This will be settled eventually, so we'll leave it aside.

Now, who did he kill is an interesting question. Did he kill only muslims? Did he kill everyone in sight? There's still not much concrete information about that. Some say he killed only non-white people (that is, niggers, sand niggers etc.), some say he killed non-white people but preferred to start with beautiful girls first, some say he killed everyone he was able to kill. This still has to be layed out properly before any conclusions can be made. Also, there is a report that he was actually going to kill a politician, former someone of Norway. I take it as a "good" sign, because turns out the guy has some dignity after all, and through some perverted logic those 70+ dead can really be seen as "just" collateral damage, contributing only to weight of his statement, not to the actual message. His target, however, "luckily" didn't make it to the island and thus remains alive and well.

How did he kill them remains to be cleared up too. Some say he had just a pistol with shitload of ammo, some say he had two pistols with a shitload of ammo, some say he had a rifle, or a machine gun, and of course a shitload of ammo. Some reports say he ran out of ammo and just sat there waiting, some reports say he still had shitload of ammo and sat there waiting. One detail is in common, and that is - he done shootin', and just sat there waiting for the police to come and arrest him i.e he didn't do the Marvin Himeyer thing. But all in all, same here - things need to be cleared up before we can say anything meaningful.

Finally, the question of "why". Now this is where all the fun is. First of all, whenever something like this happens, there are plenty of folks who try to use this to further their stupid and potentially harmful agenda. Let's pick out some of those folks. First, some say that he was playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 to prepare himself, and is said to be using World of Warcraft as a cover for his seclusion. Aaaaaaand, as one can expect, violent video games are the root of all evil again. The anti-game agenda people even disregard the fact that he never actually played World of Warcraft, and Modern Warfare 2 arrived long after he started his preparation for the attacks. But anyway, facts don't matter to these guys. There are also reports that he was listening to "Lord of the Rings" original soundtrack while he killed people. Now that's a welcome difference from the usually demonized heavy metal music. At least the anti-metal guys are confused.

However, when people talk about why he did what he did, they usually say something along the lines of "he's a nutcase", or "he's a nazi", or "he's a terrorist", or something like that. Nobody wants to associate him with something better than things that are almost universally condemned. That's understandable, because under no circumstances such big pile of corpses is justifiable means for the cause. But still, people, as usual, look in the wrong place. The guy is perfectly sane (just overly political), and he is not a nazi. In fact, if you read his manifesto, he actually makes a lot of valid points (though so far i made it through 40 pages only) which are not nazi or insane in any way. What people don't look at is the message that he delivers, and the problems that he's indicating.

That reminds me of the Colombine High School incident, which i already referred to in my previous post. Again, people blamed video games, heavy metal, Internet, USA firearms policy - everything in the world, really; however they completely missed the point of why did it actually happen. I like how Marilyn Manson has laid it out: when Michael Moore asked him what would he tell to those children, Manson responded that he'd listen what they have to say, and that is what no one did. People, listen to what the guy has to say. It's useless to concentrate on the symptoms of the problem. You have to look deeper. Find the cause of the problem. This is where it is appropriate to look for the answer on the "why" question.

And don't tell me there's no cause and no reason, and the guy is just a nutcase, because apparently he's completely sane and the problem is really there. Why is it so much people secretly agree with and support what he did (even if they never admit that in public)? Because we have a nazi society? No. Because people see the problem, and they want government to do something about it. And it doesn't, and in fact does quite the opposite.

I would also like to make some remarks, related to the story. First, there are reporters. Funny thing is, they just fly above the island and film how Anders kills people. Why didn't they do anything? I don't know, like taking a police officer on board and landing him on the island? This is seriously fucked up. Another question is regarding policemen. Why did it take so long for them to just get to the island? As multiple reports point out, they just didn't have a boat big enough to carry a SWAT team, and the nearest heli was 50 miles away. Well, actually the nearest heli was right above them, it just happened to be the helicopter of reporters who don't give a fuck. Why SWAT? Well, turns out the Norway police just doesn't carry any weapons. With 29 murders per year that's understandable.

Another thing is that politicians immediately said that despite this happening, they will respond not with tightened security (which isn't a good idea anyway) and more control, but more openness and "more love". Now correct me if i'm wrong, but this policy of accepting everyone is what got them into trouble in the first place. Statistics show that in about 50 years, non-europeans (muslims mainly) will outnumber the white population of Europe. And then it's only a matter of time when Kosovo happens again - "we are the majority, so fuck you, Europe is now under Islamic law and we want to separate". These people just don't know what they're stepping into. I'm all for immigration, but i don't want Europe being the trashcan of the world.

The Canadian or Australian system seems way more reasonable - in order to emmigrate, you need to match a certain criteria. That is, immigration is only good when there is a necessity. Europe doesn't need people who live on benefits and contribute only to crime rate and the number of unwanted children. Accepting everyone without filtering is a BAD idea. Especially from problem zones.

Yet another remark - today Anders's father spoke up. He said something about him being ashamed of his son, and that he'll never go back to Norway for that reason. Now, i'd like to take a stand here, and say FUCK YOU to the old man. Yeah, he better shut the fuck up, the asshole he is. He's ashamed of being the father of a man, whom he shamelessly left as a child? What kind of a father is that? And he has the nerve to say that he's ashamed of being his father?

And finally, an important (and funny!) thing to note is that at first, when these attacks happened, numerous US news channels claimed that it was another act of Islamic terrorism. That's what you get for being so islamophobic, i guess. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the million dollar question: was it an act of terrorism?

And the answer is - yes, it was. Lotsa corpses, political motives and a clear political statement. It was a definite act of terrorism. You muslims better learn from this guy - this is how it's done. And USA and my fellow americans, take note - this is what terrorism is, and this is how it's done. There is a clear goal - murder big number of people, and leave a clear, precise political message of why you are doing so. He didn't do it for the Allah, or because of Jihad, or because he hates us for our freedoms, or some imaginary god, or whatever other bullshit USA is feeding people. No, he did it to send a message to Europe - and that message was to stop mass immigration from bad parts of the nearby world before it's too late. He acheived his goal (though he didn't kill his initial target), and he is indeed a successful terrorist. This is a welcome difference. Finally, a real act of terror.

Kill muthafuckas!!!

A peaceful Norway, where there's only 29 murders per year on average (29 per year). And then...

SUDDENLY

A guy picks up a machine gun and goes on a rampage. If it happened in USA, that at least would be understandable - that sure happens once in a while even in schools, let alone places where us grown ups hang out. But Norway? Possibly the most peaceful country on the fucking planet? Something's not right here.

But, turns out, it's not that simple. He wasn't just a disgruntled employee, or some trenchcoat mafia dude. No, he was a normal-looking guy. In fact, he doesn't look like a terrorist at all. He kinda looks like Julian Assange, but that's beside the point.

So anyway, what happened there? Official version is that a radical nazi dude has gone nuts, picked up a gun and shot a bunch of people. Unofficial version is a little more elaborate. A dude, who was peaceful, nice and everything, over time has become more and more radical, seeing the disgrace the Europe is turning to with help of their too-liberal government and its policies on accepting immigrants, and has become so outraged with their behaviour that he devised a plan, and slowly but surely implemented it. It wasn't an act of rage, it wasn't an outcry for something. It was a well-planned, politlcally motivated action. Yes, horrible, but still he had the balls to do what he believed was true. Not many people could have done it.

What was the reason? As i already said, it was all about immigrants. What's wrong with them? Well, according to some radical websites, the problem was that the government was acting against its citizens in favor of alien culture and alien people. Muslim-related rape had spiked, muslim-related crime had spiked, blablabla, the usual nazi stuff. What is different about myself is that i prefer to listen to both sides of an argument, and try not to pick a side unless i really believe i should do so.

And i did. And i pick a side coherent with this guy. Now, don't get me wrong - i am not a nazi, i'm far from being a racist, i'm anything but a radical. If anything, i was always actively against any kind of discrimination. But the way i see it - this had to happen. It may not be the best way to do it, but it's certainly is the most effective. What could be more alarming than a mass-murder in a safest and quietest country in the world? He was definitely the right guy for the right time. He did it all on his own, and for that i admire his courage in pursuing his beliefs. I am yet to see that kind of courage in the rest of humanity. I have also got hold of a copy of his manifesto, and i'm sure i'll have a read to see what this guy has to offer.

But anyway, back to the point - why did it have to happen? Well, for starters, just come to London and look around. How many actual englishmen will you see? Probably not many. The only area they will prevail is richer parts of London like Baker street. I don't equate poverty with moral qualities, but i think i can safely say that the poorer the area, the more crime rate it has. If you add inter-cultural frictions in there, the problem becomes orders of magnitude higher, because now there's more to disagree with apart from whose dick is bigger.

Also, the problem with another culture is that, well, it's another culture. Something that is considered normal in our culture (like eating pork) is viewed upon as a deadly sin in others. And while this is clearly a problem of muslims (if we take pork as an example) not having enough common sense to view it as an archaic tradition that should go away rather than a requirement for making it to heaven, it is still a problem (don't bother telling me that eating pork isn't a deadly sin, that's not the point). And bringing muslims into Europe makes it Europeans' problem too, because muslims don't like it and try to tell Europeans that it's supposedly bad. Of course, Europeans don't have a problem with muslims disagreeing with them, but that still leaves muslims disagreeing about that. In fact, some view it a disagreement enough to hate on people, or commit crimes, or do other things people won't normally do.

Some muslims even go as far as saying that for a woman walking around with her hair uncovered is asking for rape. Seriously, what the fuck? They come into my country and tell me what i should wear in order not to get raped by foreign immigrants that really shouldn't be there in the first place? See, that's another problem. In the western world, we have all these notions of humanism, feminism, equal rights and all that stuff that tires to make us civilized. Muslims are mostly living following the Sharia laws (well, at least, these are the laws they are demanding to introduce in the whole Europe). There are many documentaries about how muslims treat women (a guy even got killed for such a documentary), and these things surely point on the mentality of these people. They think the woman who doesn't cover her hair somehow deserves to be raped. Now i'm sick and tired of that European promisciousness and half-naked girls walking around everywhere, but seriously, raping a woman for not covering her hair? That's exactly the problem. They don't have a problem with certain things we consider being "bad". I know there's no absolute "good" or absolute "bad", but for fuck's sake, if you come to Europe, better respect local culture and what Europe considers "good" and "bad", or get the fuck out.

Why is this so much of a problem? Because they invade. There are growing numbers of muslims in Europe, and USA, and even places like Russia. They don't come to Europe, they invade it. They surely have a reason to get the fuck out of their poor countries, right? So why make Europe another Albania if they fleed from there in the first place?

Another problem with all these small and hot-blooded nations is that they don't seem to be able to hold a dialogue. They can't just say stuff in a civilized manner. They have to kill you, rape your wife, slaughter your family, curse all your ancestors and all your descendats and piss on your grave if they disagree with something that you say or do. They don't accept the fact that there can be an opinion and belief different from what they have come to know, believe and understand. We have a free society, but freedom of one man ends where others' freedom begins. Somehow they miss that. Bear in mind that i'm not talking about Islam exclusively here, i'm talking about a pattern of behaviour of many alien cultures.

For fuck's sakes, we don't come to Japan and tell them how to live. We don't come to UAE and tell them to dump their stupid Sharia laws and implement European laws instead. We don't rape women that wear these stupid ninja suits. Why should we? It's not our land, it's not our culture, it's not our fucking business what they do or don't do in there.

Now, someone might argue that we actually do exactly that, but the reason "we" (the white population) invade Iraq and tell all these other Middle Eastern countries what to do and how to live is not because we want them to have democracy, or because we somehow care for oppressed people. No, the reason is, and always was, money, oil and power. This has nothing to do with "telling them how to live". This is an unauthorized, unreasonable and absolutely fucking wasteful and bullshit military action that should go away.

Another someone might also argue that there are good people, and there are bad people. I don't see how this is an excuse, but at least our position is understandable - we built our world, we have our own scum, and we don't want any foreign one contributing to scum numbers. It's like as if you're going to a wedding and shit on the wedding cake - not only you disrespect the fact that it's a wedding, it's also not your wedding.

The main point of this whole chaotic piece i just wrote is the question - is it feasible to have a multicultural society? My opinion is - yes, it is possible, but with a big big big limitation. Cultures should be compatible with each other. If i was a european, and i went to USA - i would perfectly blend in, because i won't be so much different. I can have certain disagreements with how USA deals with copyrights, i might originate from some obscure place like Russia or Canada and thus have some cultural heritage in that area, but otherwise i'd still be very much a potentially well-behaved US citizen. Why? Because we share common values.

But what if i come from a culture, in which it's OK to rape a woman, or slap a woman in a face in case she does this and that? What if i come from a place where having several wives is fine? What if i come from a place where killing the whole fucking family just because one of them said a bad joke about my mother is considered normal and is encouraged? Would i have a place in the Western world? As much as i would like to say otherwise, no, i wouldn't. That ain't happening. In order to integrate well into the Western culture you have to thing the Western way, or at least learn not to interfere with whatever cultural surroundings you are living in. That means you have to be well educated in the first place, which isn't happening as long as these "other" cultures remain so fanatically religious.

Suicide solution

Ah, the drama. World economic crisis hasn't really ended, it has only started. Why? Because nothing really changed. Bunch of people received bailouts, whole lot of people didn't and lost their jobs, houses and lives, but did anything really change? No. Because to really change anything, you have to change the entire system instead of trying to patch up gaping holes in one that is already present but is inherently broken and will crumble sooner or later anyway.

But what is the problem with global economy? It's not really a problem with economy per se, it's got more to do with the trading system. The thing is, the very system encourages greed and actively discourages any kind of long-term thinking. Thus, in order to cure the problem and not the symptoms, one has to entirely replace the whole mechanism of global markets. And to be honest, the solution is really simple and consists of a really small number of things.

And no, before you start flashing your MBA's and economics doctorates, telling me that this thing is not that simple as i try to portrait it, i tell you - it is. If you think of it, any system, however complex it is, has a few core principles in its base, and if you change those principles - the system will adjust accordingly. There's no need to make a lot of adjustments, they will follow naturally as the market will try to adapt to new mode of operation. So fuck you and fuck your economic degrees. Here's what we gotta do:

• Kill the derivatives

Yes. Kill the derivatives. This is just legalized gambling, only difference being that really powerful players can actually influence the outcome. One can bet on Microsoft's stock falling and then assasinate Steve Ballmer - and win a whole lot of money on that. This is just not right. Derivatives are just money out of thin air.

• Kill the money market

Trading money for money is the worst kind of thing you can imagine. The money itself does not have any value, it's just a convenient method to exchange goods. It isn't a commodity. Again, money out of thin air.

• Forbid stock sales for 1 year after purchase

This will be a little confusing to most people, however it's really easy to explain. Stock was meant as a way for companies to make money by inviting investors to buy a part of a company. Investors will get some kind of rights, too - governance of the company, dividents etc. So basically, it's a win-win situation both for the company, and its shareholders - company gets shitload of money, shareholders get return from profits. However, nowadays no-one buys stock as an investment and as a way to make money. They buy stock to sell later sell them at a bigger price. In other words, the long-term nature of stock market has been overshadowed by narrow, short-sighted thinking nature of human greed. If it was forbidden to sell shares until a year after the purchase - there will be more healthy, long-term decisions made and way less market bubbles.

• Forbid money-making machines

Let the humans run the show. No, really, that's ridiculous - we now have machines that automagically make money, thereby making any human trader inherently on a losing side in short term decisions, because the machine is able to analyze and do stuff way faster than normal human can. The real advantage of human lies in the long term, because the machine has no way of knowing the outcome of this or that decision made by a company. It will, eventually, but anyway, the market should be run by people, because coupling infinite mental resources of a machine with human greed will result in disaster - with humans we at least can limit the impact of our greed.

These four simple things need to be done. The rest of the market will follow. If you boil it down to one basic principle, here it is - encourage long-term thinking and limit the impact of our greed.