Randakar's contemplations

2:58PM - Speed cameras kill.

The best reason for banning speed cameras I've ever heard:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/19/gatso_deaths_link/

The summary: More speed cameras == more road deaths. There is a direct link in the numbers.

Of course part of the source is "Motorcycle News" and "the Sun", so I'd like some confirmation from a more neutral observer, but given the fact that a more well-respected research institute and the Britisch government are seemingly coming to the same or similar conclusions I'd say there's a decent chance of this report actually being correct.

Especially since it matches my own experiences on the subject.

Now if only somebody managed to drive this point home with the Dutch government ..

Still, there's lies, damned lies and statistics. It's possible the report or the representation of it is flawed. I'd love to be able to get my hands on the actual report to verify it's methods, measurements and conclusions.

11:26PM - Rest in peace, oortje

Today, Oortje, the weakest of Maddie's kittens, died of an infection. She(*) was just two weeks old.

Oortje was named that way because when she was one day old, Maddie, her mother, accidentally bit her when she tried to move her back to the nest. The resulting wound just above her right ear wasn't noticable until about a day later, when it started festering. We took her to the vet, gave her antibiotics, cleaned up her wound regularly and finally the wound closed up and she recovered.

Or so whe thought.

Two days ago she stopped gaining weight. We were worried. She had always been behind the others on the growth curve, but she looked fine and was active and alive. She opened her tiny eyes before any of the others did, and was well on her way to walk. She was doing great - until then.
Yesterday she crashed. She stopped drinking, became gradually less and less responsive, and she lost weight fast. Kaetje tried to help her, feed her with an improvised nipple and catmilk, tried to keep her warm and come monday morning we took her to the vet again.

None of it mattered. When she started crashing yesterday she was beyond anyone's ability to help her. She was obviously in serious trouble. She suffered. In the end, I am relieved her death was quick.
Still, it was a terrible thing. I loved that little creature. I'm sure Kaetje loved it even more. And now she's gone.
Let's just hope she went to kitten heaven.

Requiescat in pace.



*) We're still not sure if Oortje was a he or a she. For convenience, I'm refferring to the creature as a she. This however will never be cleared up, considering her body was cremated already.

4:24PM - Pictures of the kittens

For those who haven't seen them yet:

Pictures!

12:28AM - Kittens!

Maddie, one of our two female cats gave birth today. We woke up at 3 am to the tune of loud, undeniable squeels coming from under the bed. At first I thought it was some kind of bird or something but birds generally don't get into the house, much less underneath our bed! When we peeked underneath we found her and two helpless heaps of kitten, just sitting there squeeling whilst mother was preoccupied with something else - giving birth to more of them, we presumed.

A few minutes later the presumption proved correct, as a third voice added itself to the concert of squeels. Boy, are these creatures loud. They don't even sound much like cats either - their vocal cords or something aren't fully developed yet. Neither are their legs - they can't really walk, as such - or their eyes. They can't see and won't open their eyes until another week or so.

Kaetje got out of bed and fetched a big cardboard box we had ready for the occasion, and we moved the entire circus there presuming Maddie was done. She wasn't though, and kitten nr. 4 was born about a minute later.

As a hardcore gamer, I have to give them stats, of course.

weight: 120-130 gram
size: diminutive

str: 1
dex: 3
con: 6
int: 1
wis: 1
cha: 42

:-)

As you can imagine, these creatures are immensely cute. And red, by the way. Their mother is red with white spots, and it seems all of them are following the pattern. We named them Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma for the time being. They don't have enough character yet to give them real names and besides we can't keep them apart yet anyway. They are too much alike. Little red noses, cute little closed eyes, the umbilical cord that's still attached to their bellies (it should fall off at some point)..

Maddie is hungry all the time now. And tired, from the looks of it. No wonder. However she seems satisfied as well, and happy. She doesn't mind us approaching or handling her kids either, as long as they don't scream too much. All in all I'm quite happy with it.

Now, all we need is some people to take them off our hands. We have some people lined up already, but some of them might decide against it after all. I'm not worried though, the little muppets are too cute not to get a home.

We made some pictures, too. Once they're developed I'll post them here.

10:31AM - The Great Internet Porn-Off

Is porn an addiction? Good question.

Somebody tried to answer that here.

I'm not sure I believe the result though ..

3:54PM - En dit is democratie ..

In een democratisch land zou je denken dat mensen in ieder geval het concept 'stemmen' behoorlijk serieus nemen. Het mag niet mogelijk zijn de stemmen te manipuleren dus stemmachines horen betrouwbaar te zijn, de manier waarop ze tellen is volledig openbaar en makkelijk met de hand na te gaan achteraf en niemand mag met z'n foute fieze vingertjes aan de data prutsen.

De stem is heilig.

Niet, dus.

Zie hier:
(van: http://www.parlement.com/9291000/modulesf/fyakie4j?key=gp5k45oy)
Let vooral op de laatste zin. De laconieke houding van de minister in dit geval is op z'n zachts gezegd surreal. Pure struisvogel politiek.



"Risico op fraude is groot bij Nederlandse stemmachines"
2 april 2004


Ierland zal waarschijnlijk afzien van de aanschaf van het type stemmachines dat de Nederlandse stembureaus gebruiken. Ierse technici achten de kans op fraude te groot. Het bedrijf dat de machines in opdracht van de Ierse overheid onderzocht, constateerde dat:

- de vellen, waarop de namen van kandidaten staan, makkelijk te manipuleren zijn,
- kwaadwillenden de backup-cartridge, die voor controledoeleinden in de machine achterblijft, relatief eenvoudig kunnen wissen of - erger nog - wijzigen.

Bovendien bestaat er tegen de Nederlandse stemmachines een fundamenteler bezwaar. De leverancier, het Nederlandse bedrijf Nedap/Powervote, weigert de broncode van de stemmachinesoftware openbaar te maken. De Nederlandse overheid weet dus niet op welke wijze de software de stemmen telt. En hiermee wordt een fundamenteel democratisch recht aangetast, namelijk het kunnen controleren of de stemmentelling wel goed wordt uitgevoerd.

De affaire krijgt in Ierland veel media-aandacht. De huidige discussie spitst zich toe op mogelijke verbeteringen van het systeem. Zo zouden stemmachines een bonnetje kunnen afdrukken, zodat de kiezer de garantie heeft dat hij op de kandidaat van zijn keuze gestemd heeft. De kiezer moet het bonnetje vervolgens deponeren in een verzegelde bus, zodat de verkiezingsuitslag na afloop getoetst kan worden door de bonnetjes te tellen.

bron: Automatisering Gids, 26 maart 2004

De Ierse regering heeft de introductie van Nederlandse stemmachines voor de Europese verkiezingen afgelast, na een negatief oordeel van de commissie die de betrouwbaarheid van de machines onderzocht.

Naar aanleiding van de commotie in Ierland stelden de CDA-kamerleden Spies en Haverkamp vragen aan minister De Graaf, om de bevindingen van de Ierse commissie ook in Nederland te evalueren. De Graaf antwoordde dat de stemmachines naar zijn mening betrouwbaar zijn.

11:01AM - The Time Traveler convention

This is so cool. Some folks at MIT decided to organize a Time traveler convention!

Of course I highly doubt any time travelers show up ;-) but the concept is brilliant. It could 'prove'* time travel is possible - or lend credible evidence to the notion that it is not.

*) How does one prove one is from the future? Stating X will happen is a possibility, but then a timetraveller telling us some world-shocking event X will happen at time T might cause event X not to happen at all, or be significantly altered. Showing us nifty not-yet-invented tech is another possibility, but there some clown could try tricking his audience with nifty stage 'magic' that isn't new tech at all.
Delivering proof the other way is not possible with this method; If no timetravelers show up that doesn't mean timetravel is impossible either.

Personally I am of the opinion timetravel is distinctly not possible in any other direction than 'forward' (for human beings at least)

Either way it sounds like this convention is going to be a lot of fun ..

5:03PM - The bloody boxes

Kaetje is a strange person sometimes. She's afraid she'll spend too much money if she goes into town to buy clothes, so in order to prevent herself from buying things she doesn't need she orders things from mailorder companies, fits them, and sends about half of it back afterwards. This is all fine with me. It might be a little more expensive in the money-for-product kind of sense, but it's cheaper in the less money thrown away by buying useless stuff sense.

The result of this practice is that at some point the things she didn't decide to buy have to be send back. Which is where things start to go wrong. For starters, the postoffices near our home have the annoying tendency to be open at the most impractical of times. Weekdays from 9.00 till 17.00, and saturdays from 11.00 till 15.00 to be exact. Weekdays are thus out of the question for me and I have the car. So it's either a) Saturday or b) Kaetje has to do it. The latter is not preferred by Kaetje (of course), since she doesn't have a car and bad ankles; Walking is out of the question. She could use public transport - the tram - but that one has the difficulty that these are some big boxes .. not TV-set sized big, but big enough to be unwieldy when walking down stairs, for instance.

Still this not a real problem; We can bring the boxes to the postoffice on saturday, right?
Except when somebody forgets/doesn't realize the strange opening times of the post office on the last day they could feasibly be brought away and still be within the official return period.
Saturday we arrived at the post office at a magnificent 15.30. 30 minutes past closing time, in other words. Damn.
No biggy. Kaetje would just bring the boxes to the postoffice monday, and the problem would be solved. They might arrive outside the return period but with luck the mailorder companies wouldn't be difficult about it.
Right.

Today I opened the trunk and found the boxes just sitting there, waiting to be mailed off.
Yikes. I totally forgot about them and so did Kaetje.
This needed to be solved *today*. And with my work schedule* I had no chance in hell to drop them off at our local post office before or after work, so Kaetje had to do it. Following that bit of logic I proceeded with carrying the lot up the stairs in order to give them to her.

Kaetje objected. She kindof freaked out actually. She came up with a bunch of objections.
* I don't have time!
- Well, it's 8 o'clock now, you need to be at your studyfriend's at 10 and the post office opens at 9. Sounds like plenty of time to me .. and I don't have time either.
* The boxes are big and clumsy!
- Yes, well. That depends. They're very light (featherweight, actually. Less than a kilogram for the lot is my best guess.) and if you stack them you can hold the stack with two hands and walk around easy. They're a bit on the large side but it's not that bad ..
* I will fall down the stairs carrying them! I've fallen down the stairs a lot in the past!
- Uhhh.. be careful?
This one is one of the hardest things to counter. It's totally based on an irrational fear that she is
convinced isn't irrational at all. Trying to convince her otherwise .. I totally had no time.
* I won't fit through the tram doors / fall down when the tram is driving away!
- You will fit, and you won't if you just put them down and are careful..
* I can't do it!
- You can..

She made a stampede out of it and in the end I gave in. I drove the damn things to a nearby postoffice during my lunch break. She was so convinced she couldn't do this without incidents I just couldn't talk reason into her...

The problems here are:
- She was offloading her own responsibility (taking care of the boxes) onto me. Worse, she threw tanthrum. Reasonable or not doesn't matter. If I'm going to have children their mother getting things done (her way) by going into fits isn't going to be a good example. It's not behaviour I want them to learn.
- She genuinely believed she wasn't capable of doing this. It's just a matter of carrying the boxes down two sets of stairs, up another set of stairs outside, in and out of a tram and then into the post office. She may have her physical handicaps but this was just a matter of being careful. I *know* she can do it. In fact I believe that if she had tried - seen it as a challenge - she would have learned that for herself. And gained a bit of confidence in the process.
- I caved. I shouldn't have in hindsight. If I had walked out the door after telling her my arguments there was a chance she had been convinced and tried it. This way she learned nothing. Well, nothing that I can see. Worst case it would have cost us a bit of learning money. It would have been worth it.
(Well, worst case it would have turned into a big fight. I'm an avoidance expert. I hate fights. Which is why I shouldn't have caved in the first place ..)


Or am I just being unreasonable?



*) I have volunteered to play victim during a fire drill in the morning. Fun, and I definitely was NOT going to miss it. Which I didn't, for the record. In fact it was a lot more fun / I was a lot better at it than I expected. I feared I wouldn't be able to do it but it was easy!

6:33PM - Silly quizzesss

6:10PM - 21minuten.nl

Somebody send me a link to 21minuten.nl.
This site presumes to gather the opinion of the common dutch man/woman and publishes the result.

However I am critical. The questions asked show typical form of bias shared by most of the dutch media and politicians. Not that I think this is intentional; I merely believe people have been thinking in about matters in a way that impedes their ability to make correct decisions.


After doing the questionairre anyway (A chance to voice your opinion is a chance to voice your opinion after all) I mailed them this (sorry about the Dutch):

---

Even een paar opmerkingen.
(Deze pasten niet binnen het 'commentaar' vakje van de vragenlijst,
dus doe ik het maar zo)

1) Onderwijs. De beste manier om de kwaliteit van onderwijs te
verbeteren is door de beloningsstruktuur op de schop te zetten. HBO's
en universiteiten krijgen van de overheid geld aan de hand van het
aantal 'afgeleverde afgestudeerden.' Er wordt niet of nauwelijks
gekeken naar de kwaliteit van de studie. Het gevolg is dat de markt
overspoelt wordt met HBO'ers die helemaal niks weten. De kwaliteit van
het onderwijs is bedroevend. De enige manier om deze beweging naar
beneden om te zetten in een positieve beweging is door HBO's en hogere
onderwijsinstellingen niet meer af te rekenen op het aantal
afgestudeerden maar door op basis van kwalitatieve maatstaven te gaan
rekenen.
Zoals het er nu voor staat kan de Nederlandse overheid geen
kenniseconomie creeren. Er is geen kennis, en zeker geen kennis die
kan concurreren met het buitenland.

2) Deze vragenlijst is zo gestructureerd dat het lijkt alsof er geen
andere mogelijkheid is dan sociale zekerheid en sociale gelijkheid in
te leveren om een grotere economische rijkdom te financieren. Ik ben
het daar pertinent mee oneens. De maatstaven waarmee economische groei
wordt gemeten zijn zo gestructureerd dat het hebben van veel bizar
rijke mensen (economisch bevoordeelden) heel erg goed voor de cijfers
is. De burger echter schiet met die zogenaamde 'economische groei'
helemaal niet op. Zij ziet niets terug van al die zogenaamde
'welvaart'. Integendeel, de burger blijft pertinent geld inleveren om
de rijkdom van de rijken te financieren. Daarom zijn de vragen vaak
misleidend; Ja, gemeten als geld per inwoner zal men er op
vooruitgaan; Echter, de grote bulk inwoners heeft minder geld voor
dezelfde hoeveelheid werk terwijl de 5% meest rijke inwoners degene
zijn die van die economische groei geprofiteerd hebben. Er is echter
geen mens die op die manier naar de cijfers kijkt.

3) Als het op 'beloning naar prestatie' aankomt heb ik zo m'n
twijfels; Het grote gevaar van zgn. 'prestatiebeloning' is een
werkcultuur waarbij enorme druk ontstaat op de werknemer om 'beter' te
zijn dan de werknemers om zich heen, ongeacht hoe het bedrijf er bij
staat. De belangen van de werknemer moeten echter ten alle tijde zo
veel mogelijk overeenkomen met de belangen van het bedrijf of de
organisatie waar hij/zij werkt. Als dat niet zo is krijg je scheve
verhoudingen, politiek gekonkel en andere inefficienties die niet
wenselijk zijn. Daarom zou ik een betere beloningsstruktuur vinden in
een struktuur die direkt gekoppeld is aan het bedrijf als geheel; De
onderlinge beloningsverhoudingen tussen de verschillende werknemers
liggen vast en de beloning fluctueerd met de prestaties van het
bedrijf of de organisatie. Op die manier bereik je betrokkenheid op
alle lagen van de organisatie.

---

I doubt this will have the desired result. I am considering submitting an opinion piece on the matter but I am undecided on what the piece should tackle first.
Either way I'm not done making up my mind about any of it yet.

10:25PM - Feeling like writing.

I'm feeling like writing today. I have felt like that before but for a while it didn't overcome my recent gaming addiction.

So what should I write about?

The beard?
Well, it's a bunch of hair. It's hairy. It itches. Kaetje loves it, maartje abhors it and for the rest people seem to be kinda divided on the issue.
The fact is that I don't look at myself so much. When people ask me if I like things like clothing or footwear or a haircut I go, 'whatever' and just ignore the issue. I have better things to do with my time than fuss about how I look.
I know people think it's important. In my heart I just can't agree.

I've been thinking about why I have stopped posting. It's a lot of things, I guess. For starters, in all honesty I started writing for two reasons only;

1) To get chicks.
2) To lay down my evil plans for world domination and subvert my adoring audience into obeying my every whim.

Ahum.

I was not entirely kidding though ;-)

So I guess goal #1 has been accomplished. Some people think I could do better (and of course, I could just continue pursuing goal number 1 - after all, two chicks > 1 chick, right? Except that 2 chicks is 2^2 more trouble than just one, but hey) at the moment I seem to have at least managed to fulfilled the minimum requirements.

So, on to goal #2.

Right.
Evil plans aside, there is one thing I have wanted for years; To be able to lay down a plan to change society in fundamental ways and execute it. Of course my high-flying dreams don't feel limited by practicalities; In effect, these plans would require certain laws to be implement everywhere around the globe simultaneously.

In hindsight it's not difficult to understand one can feel discouraged at times, I guess.
Having concluded the livejournal wasn't accomplishing everything I wanted it to accomplish I stopped feeling the need to write. People started asking why I didn't post but the simple fact is that I don't want to write if I feel like I'm talking to the open air. The 'being open about everything, no limits' experiment backfired on me and when the choice arrives to either do the daily/weekly/monthly chore of updating the livejournal or go play a fascinating computer game, I know which way the dice will roll.

Finally I have to say my life just ain't that fascinating. Writing about the umpteenth con you went to starts to feel a little limited at some point and I can't seem to organize my thoughts about Grand Restructuring of Society at the Fundamental Level enough to make it stick. Too many niggling issues* to tackle, I guess.

Next sunday I will be playing Frozen Spire, a highly deadly 10-hour adventure (or so I was told) with my LG character. Simultaneously Dirkje's home campaign will continue without me.
I hate that sort of thing. I totally love the character I play in that campaign for some reason and the way it's been set up at the moment I don't want to miss it. She is in a temple of Hextor killing Hextorites for tying her naked to an altar and attempting to sacrifice her. The dashing Paladin saved her (of course) but what she is going to do next .. oh well, I guess she isn't ;-)


*) At the moment it seems to require a three-stage plan where people can sue politicians for incompetence, not earn more than 30 or 40 times the minimum wage (all benefits and expenses included) and the implementation of income shares (people don't get income, they get part of the profits. People don't own companies, they just work there. That kind of thing. And then I haven't even started..)
All of these will of course be spectacularly unpopular measures with the People In Charge, of course, but highly necessary.
Totally and utterly impossible, in other words.

6:25PM - Quicky post

A quick preview of what I've been upto lately (aside from the obvious):

http://www.livejournal.com/users/frostyjournal/36568.html?thread=51416#t51416

10:26PM - Random thoughts

Frontier celebrated it's 5th anniversary last week. They invited a bunch of people (including me and my GF) to the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam. It was relaxed, we got to see lots of special green stuff, a bunch of butterflies and a two-leafed plant that can reach an incredible age but outside the Hortus only exists on one specific beach in a desert somewhere. One of the ideas was that we would be given flashlights and shown around the gardens in the dark. I'm not sure what that was meant to accomplish; Make things just a little more interesting, I guess.

There was also food, served in small bites and in a range of varieties, all of which I have seen before. In fact, I had this mild sensation that I had been in the Hortus before as well; With my parents, or on some school trip way back when in the stone age.

I have a mild case of melancholy today. For some reason I only seem to write when I feel bad, or down, and this is one of those days. Not that I am feeling particularly bad, but I have doubts and feelings I can't seem to lay a finger on. A feeling I'm on the wrong track, that I have taken a turn somewhere and ended up somewhere I didn't want to be.

I have caught up on my livejournal reading. maartje had some rought times and I feel we should talk some more or I should invite her over / go over to her place but somehow that never seems to work. My schedule has to be planned a while in advance you see or things tend to not happen because my week has been filled up. But with Maartje, it always seems to be 'this week' or 'tomorrow' and that just doesn't happen.

She said I was 'happily chained up' or something along those lines. I have tried saying before I'm not exactly chained up - I still have my own free will, and frequently exercise it - but that just doesn't seem to convince anyone. Truth to tell, I have never been particularly sure I have been going about this girlfriend thing the right way. A man just shouldn't end up being stuck to the same chick all his life, especially if it's always been as doubtful it would work as with this one. The whole sex thing remains awkward and hard to deal with. In thruth what I really want in this area is just completely unrealistic and unattainable, but at the same time I keep having trouble not wanting it. I keep trying to express my desires and end up entirely fumbling it. I just want to have a gorgeous looking woman or five I can have any type of sex with any time I please. It's not that hard, really. ;-)
Somebody wondered at some point why I had such an obsession with sex. I don't really know. I just want lots and lots of it every now and then. I have skipped the phase where a normal person experiments and learns; Now I want to catch up with all of that and quickly. I don't want life to pass me by, I guess. And I believe I deserve some of what others seem to have had ready access to half their life while I was being a tangled mess of emotion that was sitting in a corner hiding behind a book somewhere. I'm not less than them!

Then there is the housekeeping shit. Which, it seems, remains my territory more than anything. I knew what I was getting into in the beginning but even minor chores I ask her to do just don't get done. It's not about the chores love. Just a little respect, that's all. I do what you say; Sometimes, I'd like you to do what I say.

I have been gaming a bit lately. I like games. Too much, really. I keep getting totally absorbed by them once I start. And usually they aren't even such great games; Second hand crap I find somewhere and then play to death until it totally screws me over and I have to quit.
Well, it's not quite that bad nowadays. But I have to watch myself anyway.

We have three cats nowadays. Two little ones that have been with us for a few months now. They are cute and adorable and totally keep us awake every now and then whilst they make our bed their battlezone in the middle of the night. Tommie, the big one, has been having trouble with them for some time but he has lightened up of late. All he seems to want is to be brought back in at a decent time every day. Never mind the catflap we installed; He just doesn't understand it, especially as the little magnet he needs keeps getting 'lost' (probably detached by a neighbour) and now his entire collar seems to have been removed as well.
Never mind that that is incredibly annoying not to mention inconvenient and expensive.

Talking about annoying, inconvenient and expensive: They finally activated those anal speed-limit checks on the freeways A4 and A12. They have been placed in such a way that they cover two of the busiest pieces of road in the Netherlands. The official reason is 'improving traffic safety as there are a lot of accidents' but these places have excellent safety records. One of them is a 5-lane speedway that is practically begging for someone to land a plane on it, if it weren't for the overflight restaurant that kindof gets in the way. It's right next to Schiphol so it's not that unlikely a scenario, either.
They are so blatantly obviously only there to leech cash from the cars that pass there that I really cannot get my mind around why these people can make their excuses and get away with it. Why _can_ they get away with these lies? It's not like it's not blatantly obvious; In fact, it's a perfect example why the government should never be allowed to keep fines it imposes; If a fine is not there to serve some purpose other than putting more cash in government's treasure chest, it shouldn't be imposed in the first place.
Right now the dutch government has totally gone berserk on the speed limit issue. They want people to write more tickets, it seems. MORE TICKETS. They don't care about genuine law enforcement; They have given each police officer a quota to meet, and if he or she doesn't meet it, it's a C on their performance report.
Never mind how many murders they solved. Murder is not important, apparently. Unless it offers a good chance to play the public sentiment in a play to get political advantage, of course.
God, I hate politics.

2:11PM - The wisdom project

I came across the Wisdom Project mostly by accident - but god almighty .. this _rules_.

No kidding.

Finally, a place to piece together the best way to run society, without impediments..

6:23PM - Corrupt politicians in the worst sense of the word

Apparently, the electronic voting being pushed by the US government is fundamentally flawed. Diebold's voting machines contain a hidden backdoor designed to tamper with elections and and the government not only ignores the issue but active measures are being taken to stonewall the people that are complaining about it.

Read here

So, some of those links on those site in the previous post were not only correct; The truth is worse! The Bush administration is pushing backdoored voting machines, probably on purpose and with knowledge, so they can tamper with election results!

To call these people evil is an understatement. A few years ago I thought they were ignorant and stupid. It's worse. They not ignorant or stupid, they are DANGEROUSLY stupid _AND_ only interested in protecting their own interests and that of their incredibly rich corporate friends, to the detriment of pretty much everyone else.

Somebody needs to remove these people from office. NOW.
(in fact, with this information known I would much rather remove the entire political apparatus from office - I suspect Kerry is not that great a replacement, to put it mildly.)

12:03PM - Censored stories

There's a lot of stuff we (as in 'we, the public') don't hear. Given how biased and ill-informed the general media has been in the past (and _continues_ to be) that's pretty much a given.

Some helpful people compiled a list of stories that we don't hear, not just because the media are incompetent, but because these subjects are politically controversial and being actively censored.

Now, I have not researched how credible these people are but I suspect there is at least a little truth found in here ..

3:20PM - Quote of the year - or at least, month..

In our mind, the real headache for an enterprise looking to switch to Linux is the simple pain of testing, rolling it out, and transitioning the users. So much so that the endless stream of commentary about "what Linux really needs to rule the desktop" looks a little foolish because the answer seems to be "Microsoft's utter annihilation."

Found here.
---

About a month ago I was at my parents' place and my father complained about having to deal with annoying cookies, popups and his "computer behaving oddly". So I looked into it, scanned the system for spyware and other junk with Ad-aware and found a bunch of tracking cookies and a whole lot of nothing. The system ran fine.

So we talked a bit and I ended up making my usual comment that the best way to defend yourselves against this sort of thing really is installing a different browser. Luckily, Mozilla firefox has come a _long_ way since it's inception. I've used it for quite a while now and recommended to them they switch.

To my amazement, they agreed.
And it worked. Just, plain, simple, out of the box worked. Even the silly banking sites that claim they won't work with anything but Internet Explorer worked perfectly.

So two weeks ago when I returned to wave my sister goodbye (she's off to a school in Boston for a few months) I was amazed to find they were _still_ running Firefox.

They don't use the internet that much, but frankly, if _they_ can switch .. anyone can. Given the cost/benefit ration (little to no cost vs lots of speed, better stability, more features, a better look _and_ a cleaner interface while mostly everything _JUST WORKS_) the only real amazement is that so few people have ..

But then again, everyone is lazy.
Why improve something that isn't broken?
Sigh..

2:01AM - Hot plastic

(a remark beforehand: I use the journal to vent sometimes. Remember that this whole livejournal thing can give you a remarkably distorted image..)

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kaetje said today I was like a strange kind of plastic; I need preheating before I bend.

I suppose I'm not a very flexible person. I have opinions and at the same thing doubt pretty much everything. Put the two together and you get a horrible mess that is hard to sort out at times.

Today was a nasty day. kaetje was touchy and irritable and the smallest mistake would lead to large discussions I'd rather not get into in the first place.
Once a woman starts debating a man's mistakes he knows he's in trouble.
Nasty.

Don't get me wrong. We have our ups and downs; Today was merely a down. Sometimes I don't know how I survive them, though. Why I even care to.

I have trouble keeping up with the mess in the house. I've always had this problem but the past weeks seem worse than others. The kittens, while cute, add a whole new dimension on their own. The litterbox is only part of it. (A part, which I might add, Kaetje promised to take care of on her own in the beginning when she tried to persuade me into getting two tiny cats in the first place. I doubt she even remembers. It seems to be my task nowadays.)
The other litterbox is part two; The box of foamy packaging material Kaetje let them use to spread around the house is part three, and then there is the fact that we're in the middle of a heat wave which makes every little thing much harder to do in the first place. To make me feel even more alone in dealing with the housekeeping she's sortof sick ("I have to make sure I'm completely better before I go back to work!") and alone in the house all day and still my housekeeping chores don't get any lighter (and really, it's the token effort I'm asking for - not the heavy stuff, but 5-minute things like clearing out the dish washer); Instead, she conspires to foist the cooking on me as well.

I made a pact with myself once. I promised myself I would learn to deal with the housekeeping while living on my own to at least be self-sufficient and not living in too much of a mess. In fact, I kind of hoped I would prove capable of actually being organized at some point.
The living on my own never happened. And I'm slipping. I can feel myself slowly stop caring. It's not a quick process, but it's happening. Once I get there, though, it will be too late.
If she doesn't change, I will.

I know at some level that I love her. When we fight, I know it. At the same time, I hate her guts a little every time.
Especially when an innocent request gets rewarded with rudeness and insults. Getting the brushoff like that hurts.
Especially when you get that -after- you made up.

Sometimes I wish somebody made a better female hormonal system; Taking out the bitching would be nice, thank you.

People wonder what I see in her sometimes. At first, this was a sex-based thing. Everybody knows that - it's not a secret. Before it became 'something' it was a friendship based thing. Nowadays though - what is it?

Sex based? Not likely.
If it was that, I should be running for the hills right now. Not that I'm not getting any, see.
But I want more.

Love based?
Sometimes I don't even know what I feel anymore. Too much other stuff gets piled on top. Too much gets surpressed for various reasons, most of which seem to boil down to 'keeping her happy'. I do love her, but on the bad days I just .. feel bad, not loved. Or loving.

Friendship based? Convenience based? Or do I just secretly crave to be her private whipping boy?

Maybe all of the above.
Well, except the whipping boy part.
Or not.

Back in the days before this started I just wanted sex. Not just for the sex. I wanted that magical quality of sex that would take my loser-hood and dump it on the trash heap somewhere. I wanted the liberation of it, the end it would spell to the endless stream of torment my sister could devise just based on my virginity, the fact that I could close a chapter of my life wherein I had no experience with relationships and despaired of ever getting one in any way, shape or form whilst the world around me seemed to be merrily doing whatever they liked like a great big bunch of happy fucking bunnies.
Literally.

I wanted to win.

All my life I have always wanted two things.
- To sit quietly in my own private space, thinking/reading/playing games/whatever
- To 'win'. To change the world. To rock the earth to it's very foundation and rebuild civilisation from the rubble. To mean something big.

At the same time I wanted to stop feeling alone.

Right now I'm feeling sortof alone, sortof confused. I wonder why I crave the sex so much sometimes. I'm not some mindless sex automaton. But I have years, nearly decades of catching up to do. Or maybe I'm just typical. I have learned to say nothing of it. I don't know how to begin anymore anyway. Every time it's different. Things work sometimes, sometimes not. I don't want to push her - it's not fair to blame anyone, least of all her, and it wouldn't have much use anyway.

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Financially we're doing ok. Not as good as I hoped, though. Our electricity/water/heating bill has been slowly been building over the past two years - not reporting the figures tends to do that - and we apparently were 500 euro behind on the real usage figures. Which neatly removed the concept of 'emergency reserves' from my bank account.
At the same time Kaetje has trouble keeping her spending in hand - as usual - and bought some goodies. A processor. A TV card. A printer. (well, it's my printer. Still feels like she bought it, though. Even if this promises to bring expensive ink spending down a notch or five.). A DVD burner. A whole bunch of new clothes - but at least she can prove she needs that.

She's going to study again this year. She has one shot. If she doesn't finish in 4 years, the government funding will become a loan permanently to the tune of 10.000 euro or something along those lines. If she didn't have her parents to back her up, it would be nigh impossible. It also means her income won't be great. She just today told me she found an exciting new job - as a telemarketer.
*cough*
Exciting really isn't the proper way to put it.

We're going to GenCon this year though. I promised myself that. It's going to be a blast.
Or at least, very exhausting ;-)
We have arranged to fill two cars with people and drive them to the UK. The passengers would be me, kaetje, valianttco, juleske, Erno (a friend of me and Jules' I've written about before) and Jan, a friend of his I've only met once before, at my first GenCon two years ago. If he can, anyway. Jan isn't certain.

It's 2 am.
Time to write another day.

2:36PM - Silly mapping efforts

Apparently somebody is trying to map all LJ users.

I added myself,
wondering how funky such a map would look.
Not very, apparently. Either I need more international friends or nobody heard of this mapping thing yet.
Go add yourselves now ;-)

(And why on earth does juleske appear to be located in finland, of all places? Tsk.)

The summer wears on. I'm busy as hell with the usual things.
Somebody is predicting that in 20 years road traffic will come to a virtual standstill.
Depressing. I'm a car addict.

On another note, it's time to start planning for GenCon UK 2004. If the killer people are there, I need to get me a rambo outfit for extra sillyness. :-)

11:21PM - The rabbit

Just as I stepped into the shower, I suddenly remembered something.
The rabbit! I forgot the rabbit! Why did I forget such a thing?

A scant few hours earlier I was walking toward the LVNL building to do some work. It was late in the afternoon and the job would only take an hour at the most before I was done and would go home. I was in a good mood, the sun was shining - for the moment - and as I walked between the office buildings from the car park toward the road I had to cross to reach the LVNL building I spotted something small huddled against a row of steel boxes meant for bikes and things like that.

A rabbit.
A scared, shivering, cute little brown rabbit.
I approached it carefully. It didn't move as I reached down and touched it. The fur was soaked - apparently from earlier rainfall - and cold to the touch.

That place was a bad place for a rabbit. Apart from the roads, the office buildings and the pavement there is only a little grass and virtually no shelter. The nearest stretch of anything resembling a suitable place for it was inside the airport area on the other side of a very big fence and several hundred meters of asphalt, not including the car park.

Unfortunately for him I had work to do and no place to put the rabbit. So after some discussion with a bystander I proceeded to the LVNL building to do my job, vowing to see if it was still there when I got back and mayhap help it somehow.

Except that I forgot.
Now I feel bad.
Darn.
He was -so- cute and furry..

Speaking of animals, Tommie the Daring apparently got himself into a fight with the dominant neighbor cat the other day and presumably won. The strange bulge on his belly turned out to be a fast healing scratch when I went to the vet with him and a neighbor showed up claiming he had bitten her cat's tail, causing an infection and a towering bill from her vet. Apparently her cat only goes out during nights, which explains why this problem hasn't occurred earlier. Until a few months ago Tommie stayed in at night. Now that he no longer stays in he gets to meet his nemesis - and beat him. ;-)
Tommie rocks.

Speaking of doctors, I called my doctor today to get the results of the allergy test they did recently. My eyes have been itching for years and I finally had enough and decided to try finding out what was causing it. At first I thought it was screen-burn or something like that but I also have it when I don't see a screen for weeks and weeks. Besides, it gets worse on nice warm shiny days even though it bothers me all year through.
So the doctor telling me the test result was negative was to say the least unexpected.
What the fuck?
I'm confused.