Ubuntu

Well, actually i didn’t care much about Ubuntu the first time – just another attempt to push Linux, i thought and while i love and respect the concept of Open Source and bet, that the progress in IT in the last years only, really only depends on the power of Open Source and the “Swarm Intelligence” of many good and idealistic programmers and their playground, the Internet, i couldn’t warm to Linux “just for fun”, much too much to get to know the ropes.

So, now and then, i installed the next “easy going Linux” with the same result – too much to read to be able to use it. But then, somewhere along the way, i stumbled across the meaning of Ubuntu...

and got hooked.

Nelson Mandela:
"Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to improve?”

But daily life goes on and i forgot it. Then i looked for a good interactive debugger for Ruby/Rails and got Feisty Fawn – extremely annoyed with my Windows®, which seems to make life hard for the Open Source products, i decided to do it again: to try.

And now? Actually, it is fun to work with Ubuntu, even if you are a beginner...

so excuse me please, i have to go exploring ;-)

The Battle on Global Warming

Expectedly…

the „real scientists“ now come and play down the human impact on climate change...

and different from the “doomsayers” they are “sure” and so can offer tangible results for politicians to decide what is best for you and me. And the politicians are glad about them, because the “doomsayers” are never able to give certainty like them.

So it seems, that neither politicians nor “real scientists” have ever thought about risk management – at least not, as if they themselves are involved.

We talk about changes in climate of a magnitude, never witnessed by the human species and none of our scientists really knows what that could mean (remember all the surprise in so many articles about how fast change happens?) And that simply means that a probability greater than zero of human extinction exists. Even believers in the Rich and Wealthy know that (Our Final Hour: “Rees is an advocate of the free market solution, and believes that the wealthy will push back the frontiers of space”.)

But when death threatens you – what do you do? Is there really anything too expensive for you as long as you can afford it – to avoid death?

So how can it be that our Rich and Wealthy don’t care about the (rising) probability of human extinction – aka their own death?

Only explanation is that they do believe that they can avoid death – even in times of mass deaths, even when Earth changes from Mother Earth to Kali, they believe to be able to buy life.

They pay for survival for a while (at least Mr. Edgar Bass) – but seem not to have learned from the results, because the Divine Dollar must be mightier than Physics.

Isn’t it?

Biosphere 2:
”In a 1983 interview Prance said "I was attracted to the Institute of Ecotechnics because funds for research were being cut and the institute seemed to have a lot of money which it was willing to spend freely. Along with others, I was ill-used. Their interest in science is not genuine. They seem to have some sort of secret agenda, they seem to be guided by some sort of religious or philosophical system"”

Honni soit qui mal y pense.

How to Kill Memes…

Remember Math beats Faith?

That’s how to kill memes – by not allowing them to spread. And to prevent them from flying through history you do not have to stop them everywhere. You just have to find the “critical fraction p(c) of nodes”, but even “little knowledge of the well-connected sites is sufficient to strongly reduce p(c)”.

That’s the reason why the governments spy on their citizens by just counting phone calls and the time spent for.

So if you want to attack a meme, say something like “dark-skinned persons are less valuable than light-skinned ones”, don’t waste your energy by convincing followers. They may seem to agree, but when they meet their master, they will change their minds again like weathercocks.

You have to find the “opinion leaders”, the “critical fraction p(c) of nodes” by something like counting – because many people quote them or refer to something they said. Then you have two ways to continue: first) convince them, second) isolate them. Easy to see, that the first way is the most effective one, because you do not only prevent the meme from flourishing, you can use the “connections of the node” to spread the opposite, say “all people are equal”.

But alas, opinion leaders often love “the power to rule the spirit” and are not convincible – so the next advice given by the math of the scale-free network is: destroy their connections.

You see that all the time in politics or business, when they try to defame opponents.

And you can see the risk in this – if you want to kill memes just to better the world, you cannot act like governments or careerists, you cannot pretend, that your “divine end justifies the means” ...

oh, and not just because of some “moral considerations” – it is just about plausibility. To attack memes you have to attack their “plausibility”, their inner strength and coherence, and that inevitably means, that you must be able to offer “more of that”. Memes can only be spread due to their own inner logic. So “evil memes” you spread with evil persons, thoughts and actions and the “good memes” require good persons, thoughts and actions.

That is, how it works.

Innuendo – From Death of the Bees, Democracy and The G8

Hooray – Free Speech Zones everywhere! Democracy in chains and walls – finally the Divine State of the Middle Age has triumphed, where the Noble Men, so far above the average Hoi Polloi like you and me, are no longer forced to watch us offending their beautiful eyes and minds. Hooray, it is done!

Germany wastes so much money to protect “The Mighty” – wastes millions of bucks to build walls, to pay bodyguards, to lock out the common people, as if they are less worth than “The First Class Persons”...

that’s what they call “democracy” – but as long as you have two classes of men, you simply don’t have understood the principle...

oh, you say – they were needed, they have to protect us all, so they have the right to demand more than others?

my reply? No, they don’t. They are poor losers, not worth a cent.

Look what is the most important thing today – the fight against Global Warming. And look, what they are able to do? Pure nothing – Nil, Nada, Zero.

They waste our lives, futures, children, health, EARTH...

they are part of the problem, not part of the solution, let alone “heads” or forerunners of the solutions...

so we allow our democracy to be killed for losers, people, paid with incredibly high power to do, what incredibly high power should be used for: to save the world...

but what do they do? They take what they can grab – and fail...

Losers, miserable losers, big fat maggots in the bacon...

they just save their own day, not able to care for their own future, too stupid to understand, that even “The Mighty” have bodies, solidly tying them to a working biosphere...

the bees – look at the bees. Think of all the previous mass extinctions – we only could reproduce what we can find. But how about “key species” like the bees? When they vanish plants will not be pollinated, fruits will not ripen, animals will not find their food...

how could we know that, if something like that had happened before? Bees don’t leave marks...

but maybe they leave deserts behind.

So we waste money to pay for dispensable people – because the one thing that would allow to prefer them is when they do preferable things...

like save our world...

but they just waste our time – not even knowing if there is time left...

to be wasted...

Innuendo (Queen):
Just passing our time
While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the eons, and on and on

(In memoriam Freddy Mercury)