I feel like it's fucking me. How can it be like that? It's all just a sick joke. And I am the punch line. How could it have possibly happened? I'm out of the loop and a million miles away wasting my life once again. Can I win? Will I ever win? You don't get these chances all the time. It's never what you imagine it to be. The functional is truly dysfunction in disguise. I've only figured that out now. But the truth will be exposed for what it is. Is this even right? There isn't a hope in hell. I'm beyond tired. What happens to the tank after even the fumes have disappeared? The bitter twist is that what's keeping me alive is really killing me in the end. None of it is replaceable. A few more days nonetheless. What has happened to me? These things are not compatible. Make me king. There are many faces of reality. And they are all poker faces. Not yet, not quite yet. And again it's all on me. I can shoulder it.
I'm trying to get away from screens this weekend barring typing this out. I'm enjoying the read I'm making some good headway.
Isn't it weird that blogger+ uses the old iOS keyboard in the app? I wonder why they never updated it, but that's fine, it's a good keyboard. But at least I'm on the app and blogging with a weekend update. Haven't had one of those in a while.
Let me just sit and stew on it. Like 2 ships forever passing in the night.
I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Cruel, Cruel Ironies
Friday, August 29, 2014
Lost On The Highway
Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, I had work stuff to take care
of. It's all done now, so I can get back to this good stuff. I
think this is the last one for August, and then we're in September! Yes,
I'll get on to the blog intro/retrospective. How I'm going to do that, I
haven't quite figured out yet. But I'll get done, one way or
another. It might just take me some time to actually complete. But
I'll keep blogging when I can.
Had some great ideas for blogging about over the past few days, but I neglected to write anything down. Of course, I've now forgotten them and I have nothing to write about now. But I think that's an important thing to understand - I believe that everyone, no matter how smart or seemingly unintelligent they are will have a good thought a few times a day. It's imperative that they be written down, so that you can explore them in greater depth, or else they're just consigned to the ether of your mind, never to be elaborated upon. And then what? I think that's where great, creative concepts come from. You just have to tease them out. You should set yourself apart from the rest.
I've got a fair inkling that it's going to be another lost weekend. What is the point of it all?
I have a question for all of you. If we are all slated to die, and death is not linear but circular, then is any death really a tragedy? It's just a different state of being, or non-existence until that matter becomes something else. We place far too more importance on ourselves, those who are still here.
Looks like it's finally on! Russia has invaded Ukraine. It's no longer some small band of rebel/expeditionary forces that are doing it, but ordinary Russian soldiers. It'll be very interesting to see what happens from here. The question is will USA intervene? Of course not! They're cowards, and only like to fight people they think they can win against. Russia's dealings are rather interesting, I wonder why they are pushing? Especially in light of the sanctions and what not that were in place. But I guess it's the old guard who want to look tough and strong and not bow to international pressure on the subject. WW3? Let's see! America is far too stretched in the military world. And far too involved.
Well after a year of faltering, it looks like I have to get back on the bandwagon. Is there anything more to add? Not that I can think of.
Readership on the blog has gone through the roof! It's back to levels I haven't experienced since early this year. It's been a productive time, but have I done enough? That's always the question that irks me. Who is it that decides these things? There are just a lot of things left open and up in the air right now.
Alright, okay, just under an hour to go before I'm out of here. I wasn't feeling well this morning when I woke up. Things haven't improved that much right now, but perhaps I know a bit more than I would need to. It's all just down the road. I need some sleep. Like big time, I'm exhausted.
I'll call it here. Have a good time folks.
Take care.
Joaquin out.
Had some great ideas for blogging about over the past few days, but I neglected to write anything down. Of course, I've now forgotten them and I have nothing to write about now. But I think that's an important thing to understand - I believe that everyone, no matter how smart or seemingly unintelligent they are will have a good thought a few times a day. It's imperative that they be written down, so that you can explore them in greater depth, or else they're just consigned to the ether of your mind, never to be elaborated upon. And then what? I think that's where great, creative concepts come from. You just have to tease them out. You should set yourself apart from the rest.
I've got a fair inkling that it's going to be another lost weekend. What is the point of it all?
I have a question for all of you. If we are all slated to die, and death is not linear but circular, then is any death really a tragedy? It's just a different state of being, or non-existence until that matter becomes something else. We place far too more importance on ourselves, those who are still here.
Looks like it's finally on! Russia has invaded Ukraine. It's no longer some small band of rebel/expeditionary forces that are doing it, but ordinary Russian soldiers. It'll be very interesting to see what happens from here. The question is will USA intervene? Of course not! They're cowards, and only like to fight people they think they can win against. Russia's dealings are rather interesting, I wonder why they are pushing? Especially in light of the sanctions and what not that were in place. But I guess it's the old guard who want to look tough and strong and not bow to international pressure on the subject. WW3? Let's see! America is far too stretched in the military world. And far too involved.
Well after a year of faltering, it looks like I have to get back on the bandwagon. Is there anything more to add? Not that I can think of.
Readership on the blog has gone through the roof! It's back to levels I haven't experienced since early this year. It's been a productive time, but have I done enough? That's always the question that irks me. Who is it that decides these things? There are just a lot of things left open and up in the air right now.
Alright, okay, just under an hour to go before I'm out of here. I wasn't feeling well this morning when I woke up. Things haven't improved that much right now, but perhaps I know a bit more than I would need to. It's all just down the road. I need some sleep. Like big time, I'm exhausted.
I'll call it here. Have a good time folks.
Take care.
Joaquin out.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Surviving Hump Day As I Say
In all but a myriad of ways. Sometimes the days go quickly, other
times they don't. It's Wednesday, but it feels like I've already gone
through a week's worth of suffering. But then again, it's August and I
don't know where this year is going. See, it's all very strange.
But I guess life is like that. You feel that you've lived forever, but on
the other hand, it just disappears in the blink of an eye. I guess I'm
getting a bit more thoughtful and introspective as I get older. But you
can't lose the fire, that's what sets me apart. What do you do when you
already know the answers before you get asked the question? It wasn't
quite the conclusion I was hoping for, and I did end up going in every
direction except the right one. I can do this. I know what I need
to, but I still need to draw the line from Point A to Point B. Do I talk
in riddles? I don't think so.
I'm tired and I'm sore. As I'm getting older, I just feel that my body is getting tighter and less responsive. My eyes really hurt. I'm going to need glasses soon. This near sightedness in one eye is a killer. Too much screen time is killing me. I want to just read my normal physical book, and just rest. It's dawning on me now, as I realise that we're going 10 years into this blog. How the world has changed. Or how little it has. It all tends to go in cycles. I could just go to sleep right now, right at my desk! I'm seriously about ready to pass out. Dark circles under my eyes and everything of the sort!
Who buys houses at auctions? It's a really filthy activity. Setting a minimum price (the reserve), and then seeing the maximum price you can extract from the market. What's worse is that auctions employ psychological tactics to get people to bid over their limits, so they always overextend to outbid other people that they're in 'competition' with. It's always weirded me out that more and more houses tend to get auctioned off. Why the revival? Well because people are greedy. I don't trust the real estate market, and I don't trust real estate agents (they're all shady). This concept of property as an investment instead of somewhere to actually live and thrive, is something that's destroying modern society. It's the harbinger of inherited wealth transferred through generations, which all just goes to reinforce discrimination and unjust causes. You can take that to the bank!
The state of journalism in this town is pretty poor. Despite living in the capital city of the country, we only have one real newspaper that services the town. Everything else is just community papers, or just general puff/advertorial magazines designed to sell you cars and houses, not to inform you about important issues. With the advent of the Internet, more people are turning online for their exclusive news source. This has come at the detriment of circulation figures for this paper - the Times. When profits fall, the idea is to cut costs and all the better journalists were let go. The paper is now basically staffed by fresh university graduates with no real skill or contacts to break the important stories. And that's only an inkling into how democracy died.
Why do people get personal loans? Interest rates are very high (even though at the moment they're supposed to be low), and in the case of credit card repayments or cash advancements, the interest rates are near exorbitant. So why bother taking on such a loan to repay (for the bank's profit) an amount much higher? What could you really need that warrants that kind of loan? If you need something, save for it. Sacrifice, scrounge up and save, and in time you can get it, and not have to have the bank profit off you (and you're better off from a long term perspective). Being in debt to anyone is never good, especially the banks. Then again, I'm not even sure how people outside my circle live. Life is tough, and maybe I don't appreciate that fact enough.
The conservative government floated the idea of introducing a co-payment of $7 AUD to attend GP appointments (for basic doctor services). So if you need to be diagnosed with something, you pay that money (on top of what you'd normally be charged), and then if you need to see a specialist, you'd pay their fees, then you'd come back to the General Practitioner to discuss results, and that's another $7, and the consultation fee again. That's almost $700 (I'd assume to be minimum) for just 3 visits. The cost of health care is ridiculous, considering we consider Australia to be an industrialised and developed nation. And the standard of care isn't even that great! Just go and visit a public hospital anywhere in Australia, and you will think we have not advanced past the 1960s, or the 1970s as a best case scenario. You better hope something complex doesn't happen to you, because the odds of you coming out in better shape are not in your favour. The only decent health care is privately funded, and that cost is way out of reach of the majority of the population. Our health care system is clogged. Unless you're immediately dying, you can spend up to 4-6 hours waiting in an emergency ward, and seeing a specialist can take months. Everyone was up in arms about this co-payment issue, because it places health care even further out of reach of ordinary Australians. I think it's just short sighted policy. The idea was to stop people who have colds and small niggling issues from clogging up the system and leading to better efficiencies (while also leading to a profit for the Government). That sort of makes sense, but what about when poor people or pensioners need to see the doctor? They just won't go, and that's an even worse outcome. If it was means-tested, so that it only impacted those on higher incomes, then we could still have the co-payment to help reduce the strain on the system, while still allowing lower income people to get access to health care.
What does adulthood even mean? Does it mean never playing? Does it mean hard work and no relaxation? Emotional stunting to the point where you have to always have an air of fakeness or two-facedness about you? That you always sacrifice happiness for stability and safety? Why always be told to grow up like it's a good thing? Adults love the status quo, having money, having more than your neighbours. They don't know how to have empathy and engage with others.
I was reading an interesting article in the Guardian, and on another online crowd-sourced news site about how governments stay in power. Like I mentioned earlier, things tend to work in cycles. Early last century there was fear about the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Communists, the Russians. This fear gets whipped up by the government and gets the uneducated populace into hysteria about it. This has a massive bearing on things like elections, as both sides fight to say they can control the imaginary threat. Whoever has the most draconian tactics generally wins power. Conservative ones win extra points, because they're good at highlighting the 'perils' of minorities, as well as the poor. We're now seeing that point with Islam and Muslims. People think multiculturalism doesn't work because they're sick of seeing enclaves of ethnic people, and they don't like people who speak other languages, or they find it hard to pronounce names they're not used to. They don't like seeing women wearing hijabs or burqas because it means they can't gaze upon them to tell whether they're attractive enough to rate. Everything is defined by their 'otherness' - as in 'why can't they be more like us' and because they're not me "I don't like it". I get it, radicalisation is a problem, but what do you want everyone else to do about it? It's like they expect people to be putting themselves in danger to go overseas and personally thwart any terrorist actions. They think religion itself is a harbinger of violence (that is very debatable, and is not restricted to any one religion), but here's the kicker: Islam, like Judaism is not centralised in the way that Christianity is. You can't throw 65 million dollars at the issue (like our government is doing) and expect things to happen. No one person speaks for the religion, so funding mosques and Imams and whatever is not going to work, because that that want to radicalise or want to be radicalised will find their own way. But how can that be stopped? Unless you can get inside someone's head and get them to actually change a thought, Inception style, then it's not possible. People need to get out there and experience things. Not just visit Europe and make huge judgement calls because they think they're all cultured now. Let me remind you, if you're one of these vocal idiots out there right now, history will prove you wrong, just like it has with any other paranoid, scared party out there from the past.
2 and a half hours to go! This has been a great post though. Readership is up! I think my writing has gotten better. I can collect my thoughts now. I can organise my prose better. Ahh the network at work is down, and I can't access anything! I guess all I can do is keep writing. I really encourage everyone to travel. Save up and go somewhere new, some place you've never been. You have to step outside your comfort zone at some point. See how the rest of the world lives, and it'll put your place on the map into perspective. If you get in a plane and fly above a continent, you see how arbitrary and silly things like country boundaries are. They are meaningless. We are all on the same blue ball just floating in space. You get that feeling of interconnectedness.
Damn, I had something good and important to say, but I've now forgotten my point. Oh well. My recall isn't up unfortunately! There's a lot to learn, but no chances are ever taken. It's never as easy as you may think. It's all going down somewhere. It's all being accounted for. But to who? Or to what? If there's nothing in the end, it's a zero sum game. And then what? Nothing really links society together except for two things, life and death. Everyone will die, if you exist, you live. That's it, besides that, no 2 people will have the exact same experience ever. So why isn't this recognised more often? It's the great leveller. The great equaliser. From our first ancestor to our last, that will be it. It will never change, unless we tap into immortality, and then what? That's just a ridiculous grey area. Wow, this post is huge! Not a bad effort at all. But now I'm bored and don't have anything more to say.
Is there focus that I just don't have? Why can't I ask the question? Why can't they just be answered? Why isn't there any assistance? I remember back in High School (or maybe it was Primary School) where I wrote about a third world country I had visited. I travelled pretty widely with my parents and co. and there were some parts of the country that were very modern and developing quickly. I mentioned that particular bit in my report, and I didn't get a good mark for that report, because the teacher crossed it out and put a question mark next to that particular point. What? How would he know? He's never visited there! What a hunk of baloney! Fuck you, Mr. Thomas, I hope you're dead!
Still nothing working! Terrible! How am I supposed to get anything done?? Oh well, I'm sure I can be productive in other ways.
Better get to it! It's been good.
Joaquin out.
I'm tired and I'm sore. As I'm getting older, I just feel that my body is getting tighter and less responsive. My eyes really hurt. I'm going to need glasses soon. This near sightedness in one eye is a killer. Too much screen time is killing me. I want to just read my normal physical book, and just rest. It's dawning on me now, as I realise that we're going 10 years into this blog. How the world has changed. Or how little it has. It all tends to go in cycles. I could just go to sleep right now, right at my desk! I'm seriously about ready to pass out. Dark circles under my eyes and everything of the sort!
Who buys houses at auctions? It's a really filthy activity. Setting a minimum price (the reserve), and then seeing the maximum price you can extract from the market. What's worse is that auctions employ psychological tactics to get people to bid over their limits, so they always overextend to outbid other people that they're in 'competition' with. It's always weirded me out that more and more houses tend to get auctioned off. Why the revival? Well because people are greedy. I don't trust the real estate market, and I don't trust real estate agents (they're all shady). This concept of property as an investment instead of somewhere to actually live and thrive, is something that's destroying modern society. It's the harbinger of inherited wealth transferred through generations, which all just goes to reinforce discrimination and unjust causes. You can take that to the bank!
The state of journalism in this town is pretty poor. Despite living in the capital city of the country, we only have one real newspaper that services the town. Everything else is just community papers, or just general puff/advertorial magazines designed to sell you cars and houses, not to inform you about important issues. With the advent of the Internet, more people are turning online for their exclusive news source. This has come at the detriment of circulation figures for this paper - the Times. When profits fall, the idea is to cut costs and all the better journalists were let go. The paper is now basically staffed by fresh university graduates with no real skill or contacts to break the important stories. And that's only an inkling into how democracy died.
Why do people get personal loans? Interest rates are very high (even though at the moment they're supposed to be low), and in the case of credit card repayments or cash advancements, the interest rates are near exorbitant. So why bother taking on such a loan to repay (for the bank's profit) an amount much higher? What could you really need that warrants that kind of loan? If you need something, save for it. Sacrifice, scrounge up and save, and in time you can get it, and not have to have the bank profit off you (and you're better off from a long term perspective). Being in debt to anyone is never good, especially the banks. Then again, I'm not even sure how people outside my circle live. Life is tough, and maybe I don't appreciate that fact enough.
The conservative government floated the idea of introducing a co-payment of $7 AUD to attend GP appointments (for basic doctor services). So if you need to be diagnosed with something, you pay that money (on top of what you'd normally be charged), and then if you need to see a specialist, you'd pay their fees, then you'd come back to the General Practitioner to discuss results, and that's another $7, and the consultation fee again. That's almost $700 (I'd assume to be minimum) for just 3 visits. The cost of health care is ridiculous, considering we consider Australia to be an industrialised and developed nation. And the standard of care isn't even that great! Just go and visit a public hospital anywhere in Australia, and you will think we have not advanced past the 1960s, or the 1970s as a best case scenario. You better hope something complex doesn't happen to you, because the odds of you coming out in better shape are not in your favour. The only decent health care is privately funded, and that cost is way out of reach of the majority of the population. Our health care system is clogged. Unless you're immediately dying, you can spend up to 4-6 hours waiting in an emergency ward, and seeing a specialist can take months. Everyone was up in arms about this co-payment issue, because it places health care even further out of reach of ordinary Australians. I think it's just short sighted policy. The idea was to stop people who have colds and small niggling issues from clogging up the system and leading to better efficiencies (while also leading to a profit for the Government). That sort of makes sense, but what about when poor people or pensioners need to see the doctor? They just won't go, and that's an even worse outcome. If it was means-tested, so that it only impacted those on higher incomes, then we could still have the co-payment to help reduce the strain on the system, while still allowing lower income people to get access to health care.
What does adulthood even mean? Does it mean never playing? Does it mean hard work and no relaxation? Emotional stunting to the point where you have to always have an air of fakeness or two-facedness about you? That you always sacrifice happiness for stability and safety? Why always be told to grow up like it's a good thing? Adults love the status quo, having money, having more than your neighbours. They don't know how to have empathy and engage with others.
I was reading an interesting article in the Guardian, and on another online crowd-sourced news site about how governments stay in power. Like I mentioned earlier, things tend to work in cycles. Early last century there was fear about the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Communists, the Russians. This fear gets whipped up by the government and gets the uneducated populace into hysteria about it. This has a massive bearing on things like elections, as both sides fight to say they can control the imaginary threat. Whoever has the most draconian tactics generally wins power. Conservative ones win extra points, because they're good at highlighting the 'perils' of minorities, as well as the poor. We're now seeing that point with Islam and Muslims. People think multiculturalism doesn't work because they're sick of seeing enclaves of ethnic people, and they don't like people who speak other languages, or they find it hard to pronounce names they're not used to. They don't like seeing women wearing hijabs or burqas because it means they can't gaze upon them to tell whether they're attractive enough to rate. Everything is defined by their 'otherness' - as in 'why can't they be more like us' and because they're not me "I don't like it". I get it, radicalisation is a problem, but what do you want everyone else to do about it? It's like they expect people to be putting themselves in danger to go overseas and personally thwart any terrorist actions. They think religion itself is a harbinger of violence (that is very debatable, and is not restricted to any one religion), but here's the kicker: Islam, like Judaism is not centralised in the way that Christianity is. You can't throw 65 million dollars at the issue (like our government is doing) and expect things to happen. No one person speaks for the religion, so funding mosques and Imams and whatever is not going to work, because that that want to radicalise or want to be radicalised will find their own way. But how can that be stopped? Unless you can get inside someone's head and get them to actually change a thought, Inception style, then it's not possible. People need to get out there and experience things. Not just visit Europe and make huge judgement calls because they think they're all cultured now. Let me remind you, if you're one of these vocal idiots out there right now, history will prove you wrong, just like it has with any other paranoid, scared party out there from the past.
2 and a half hours to go! This has been a great post though. Readership is up! I think my writing has gotten better. I can collect my thoughts now. I can organise my prose better. Ahh the network at work is down, and I can't access anything! I guess all I can do is keep writing. I really encourage everyone to travel. Save up and go somewhere new, some place you've never been. You have to step outside your comfort zone at some point. See how the rest of the world lives, and it'll put your place on the map into perspective. If you get in a plane and fly above a continent, you see how arbitrary and silly things like country boundaries are. They are meaningless. We are all on the same blue ball just floating in space. You get that feeling of interconnectedness.
Damn, I had something good and important to say, but I've now forgotten my point. Oh well. My recall isn't up unfortunately! There's a lot to learn, but no chances are ever taken. It's never as easy as you may think. It's all going down somewhere. It's all being accounted for. But to who? Or to what? If there's nothing in the end, it's a zero sum game. And then what? Nothing really links society together except for two things, life and death. Everyone will die, if you exist, you live. That's it, besides that, no 2 people will have the exact same experience ever. So why isn't this recognised more often? It's the great leveller. The great equaliser. From our first ancestor to our last, that will be it. It will never change, unless we tap into immortality, and then what? That's just a ridiculous grey area. Wow, this post is huge! Not a bad effort at all. But now I'm bored and don't have anything more to say.
Is there focus that I just don't have? Why can't I ask the question? Why can't they just be answered? Why isn't there any assistance? I remember back in High School (or maybe it was Primary School) where I wrote about a third world country I had visited. I travelled pretty widely with my parents and co. and there were some parts of the country that were very modern and developing quickly. I mentioned that particular bit in my report, and I didn't get a good mark for that report, because the teacher crossed it out and put a question mark next to that particular point. What? How would he know? He's never visited there! What a hunk of baloney! Fuck you, Mr. Thomas, I hope you're dead!
Still nothing working! Terrible! How am I supposed to get anything done?? Oh well, I'm sure I can be productive in other ways.
Better get to it! It's been good.
Joaquin out.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
The Reality Of Expectation
Is never as good as the initial thought. You can take that to the
bank.
Are we all just tripping On existence? It's a weird thing, isn't it? Just being? You get up and do the same thing every day, with little regard for change or more or better. And that's it. You wither away and die. And then what? Nobody knows. You just die. There's stability, but this is just existence, this isn't living. There's so much out there. And most of us will never see it. I want to see it all. I want to be it all. But there is none of that. Strength is returning. Am I with it? Do I know what's going on? My mind is completely bereft of ideas right now. I just want to go home and read. That's all I'm looking forward to, and I'm ok with that.
Stark reminders of the past are all that lay in front of me. Everything is on a continuous loop. Time is never linear. I certainly feel that way. If only we could reach through. What happens to reality then? Do we break something? I'd like to find out. But I'm totally licked over here. Maybe some things do make sense. I'm still not feeling well though.
I've got things to do! Am I wasting my time? Can't let go of past glories?
I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Are we all just tripping On existence? It's a weird thing, isn't it? Just being? You get up and do the same thing every day, with little regard for change or more or better. And that's it. You wither away and die. And then what? Nobody knows. You just die. There's stability, but this is just existence, this isn't living. There's so much out there. And most of us will never see it. I want to see it all. I want to be it all. But there is none of that. Strength is returning. Am I with it? Do I know what's going on? My mind is completely bereft of ideas right now. I just want to go home and read. That's all I'm looking forward to, and I'm ok with that.
Stark reminders of the past are all that lay in front of me. Everything is on a continuous loop. Time is never linear. I certainly feel that way. If only we could reach through. What happens to reality then? Do we break something? I'd like to find out. But I'm totally licked over here. Maybe some things do make sense. I'm still not feeling well though.
I've got things to do! Am I wasting my time? Can't let go of past glories?
I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Monday, August 25, 2014
Awoken By The Sun
Slowly the phoenix rises. Despite not knowing anything but instinct,
it still flies. I'm back and slightly with the program, I have some
things to get out of the way before I can properly blog. Didn't get a
chance to get any blogging done while I was away, but I don't even know what I
was doing the whole time. It all just sort of went very quickly. I
found it difficult to sleep and I was just run down and tired the whole
time. But it's all done and I unfortunately have come back to a 5 day
working week. I don't know how I'm going to cope with this!
Slowly but surely, my fitness is coming back. Hopefully I'll somehow come back to peak fitness at some point. Just need the warmer weather to strike and I'll feel better. Oh the irony! Last week I was praising google chrome and now everything is just going haywire with my computer at home. Firstly I was getting server execution errors in windows explorer/windows media player after that kerfuffle with Microsoft and their silly updates to Windows 7 causing a big crash and therefore messing up the registry, to the point that Internet Explorer did not work. So after rolling those back and re-installing the updates, everything was working fine. Then I realised my Western Digital Hard Drive 2tb Green model is about to pack it in. It's been threatening to do this for a while, with the bad sector count down to 140 for a long time, which is the danger threshold, but it finally hit 133, and there's a fair few files in the corrupt sectors. I tried to back up to my other hard drive (I run a 3 hard drive setup - 1 solid state for my operating system, with 2 2tb Western Digital Greens for my media and backups), and I was getting all these corrupt file messages I/O errors and I even blue screened once. Not good. Then after that, google chrome stopped working! It just crashed and all the tabs would give me an Aw Snap! message and nothing would work. I couldn't access settings or the crash report or anything else. Thankfully, Google is smart and their source folder allows you to use the old version of Chrome, and that was working fine. I'm hopeful that after coming home today, everything will be fine after a re-set. It's weird, cause my solid state houses chrome! It shouldn't be corrupt. It's a bit silly how re-setting generally fixes stuff. Why is that? Things should work so that re-setting is only a last resort! Now it's the first port of call. Silly. I'll have to get a new hard drive this week. I'll see what's available. On top of that, ditto with my phone being an annoying piece of crap! I tend to use my phone on max volume all the time, except when I sleep, when I flip the switch and let it stay silent, so I don't get bothered by calls or notifications, but the alarm will still sound in the morning. But sometimes it just defaults to automatic silence once I press the button so the alarm doesn't sound, it just vibrates! So annoying, luckily I am somewhat awake in the morning, or else I'd just sleep right through my alarm. Can something in my life please work?!
Yikes, I better get some work done! I'm not feeling well all of a sudden. Ok now with all that work done, let's continue, shall we?
The blogger interface has changed so much since we first started. There's a whole new layouts and template button, and you can really change the look and feel of your blog, so you're not locked into the standard presentation style for most blogs. There's so many more options now, and I must really commend google for their work here. When we first started, there were a few standard templates, with the option to tweak stuff if you knew HTML. This is why our blog looks rather different to others, because the other coded everything by hand. But anyway, I see that there's now more functionality, which is great, but this whole comment system is a drag. Disqus is not intuitive. Why not maintain the native comment system on blogger? It's easy, and spam isn't that much of an issue if you're willing to police it. But with disqus you need to sign in and then sync it and it's just a real pain in the ass. Anyway, there didn't appear to be a widget for it on our blog, it was just coded into it for some reason, so I've taken that code out. The native comment system still doesn't work, but at least there's no disqus? It's a step forward I suppose. But we'll live with it for now! Speaking of, it's almost September! That'll be 10 years of blogging from us! Not bad at all! Yes, I'll start the blog intro/retrospective soon. A decade! Who'd have thunk it?
September. Wow, where does this year go? And yet I still sit around waiting for things that never come. They just won't. So why wait? How can I be so slow? What's with my own hesitation? I've already lost out before and I can't let it happen again. It was all so easy before. Well not again. The flow of information has all changed, it's not what it once was. But some news is good news.
There's a lot of reporting on how sugar is as bad as other drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cocaine. I can see that. While tobacco and alcohol are socially acceptable, sugar is even more so. I don't smoke and I don't drink, so having those taken away means nothing to me. But sugar is my lifeblood, you see! If they took that away, that would be a pretty big impact on my life. But I think I could learn to live without it. It's not good for you! I know it! But I need the sweetness. I'm an addict!
Did you know your money loses value every year? Due to inflation and cost of living changes, prices increase on things by like 13-14%. But wages only tend to go up like 3-5% (if you're lucky), and interest rates at the bank are like 4%! So unless you're investing and taking massive risks (and thereby staking your entire financial future), then you're actually losing the value of your dollar year on year. Isn't that sick? What sort of system is this? There's no justice in the world. Why would people even buy technology stocks? I don't believe stocks like facebook and linkedin and that ilk. How can you trade on something that provides no concrete products? People are getting rich off speculating on the hard work of others, and not even providing any hard work of their own. That's not right.
I'm feeling pretty grose still. Nothing is dependable. Nothing is reliable. Can I just shut myself away and read the books that I want to read? Is that too much to ask?
Alright! An hour and 15 minutes to go until I can get out of here. I can do this! The clouds are just steamrolling in at the moment. And now it's pouring like anything!
Well that's no good. I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Slowly but surely, my fitness is coming back. Hopefully I'll somehow come back to peak fitness at some point. Just need the warmer weather to strike and I'll feel better. Oh the irony! Last week I was praising google chrome and now everything is just going haywire with my computer at home. Firstly I was getting server execution errors in windows explorer/windows media player after that kerfuffle with Microsoft and their silly updates to Windows 7 causing a big crash and therefore messing up the registry, to the point that Internet Explorer did not work. So after rolling those back and re-installing the updates, everything was working fine. Then I realised my Western Digital Hard Drive 2tb Green model is about to pack it in. It's been threatening to do this for a while, with the bad sector count down to 140 for a long time, which is the danger threshold, but it finally hit 133, and there's a fair few files in the corrupt sectors. I tried to back up to my other hard drive (I run a 3 hard drive setup - 1 solid state for my operating system, with 2 2tb Western Digital Greens for my media and backups), and I was getting all these corrupt file messages I/O errors and I even blue screened once. Not good. Then after that, google chrome stopped working! It just crashed and all the tabs would give me an Aw Snap! message and nothing would work. I couldn't access settings or the crash report or anything else. Thankfully, Google is smart and their source folder allows you to use the old version of Chrome, and that was working fine. I'm hopeful that after coming home today, everything will be fine after a re-set. It's weird, cause my solid state houses chrome! It shouldn't be corrupt. It's a bit silly how re-setting generally fixes stuff. Why is that? Things should work so that re-setting is only a last resort! Now it's the first port of call. Silly. I'll have to get a new hard drive this week. I'll see what's available. On top of that, ditto with my phone being an annoying piece of crap! I tend to use my phone on max volume all the time, except when I sleep, when I flip the switch and let it stay silent, so I don't get bothered by calls or notifications, but the alarm will still sound in the morning. But sometimes it just defaults to automatic silence once I press the button so the alarm doesn't sound, it just vibrates! So annoying, luckily I am somewhat awake in the morning, or else I'd just sleep right through my alarm. Can something in my life please work?!
Yikes, I better get some work done! I'm not feeling well all of a sudden. Ok now with all that work done, let's continue, shall we?
The blogger interface has changed so much since we first started. There's a whole new layouts and template button, and you can really change the look and feel of your blog, so you're not locked into the standard presentation style for most blogs. There's so many more options now, and I must really commend google for their work here. When we first started, there were a few standard templates, with the option to tweak stuff if you knew HTML. This is why our blog looks rather different to others, because the other coded everything by hand. But anyway, I see that there's now more functionality, which is great, but this whole comment system is a drag. Disqus is not intuitive. Why not maintain the native comment system on blogger? It's easy, and spam isn't that much of an issue if you're willing to police it. But with disqus you need to sign in and then sync it and it's just a real pain in the ass. Anyway, there didn't appear to be a widget for it on our blog, it was just coded into it for some reason, so I've taken that code out. The native comment system still doesn't work, but at least there's no disqus? It's a step forward I suppose. But we'll live with it for now! Speaking of, it's almost September! That'll be 10 years of blogging from us! Not bad at all! Yes, I'll start the blog intro/retrospective soon. A decade! Who'd have thunk it?
September. Wow, where does this year go? And yet I still sit around waiting for things that never come. They just won't. So why wait? How can I be so slow? What's with my own hesitation? I've already lost out before and I can't let it happen again. It was all so easy before. Well not again. The flow of information has all changed, it's not what it once was. But some news is good news.
There's a lot of reporting on how sugar is as bad as other drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and cocaine. I can see that. While tobacco and alcohol are socially acceptable, sugar is even more so. I don't smoke and I don't drink, so having those taken away means nothing to me. But sugar is my lifeblood, you see! If they took that away, that would be a pretty big impact on my life. But I think I could learn to live without it. It's not good for you! I know it! But I need the sweetness. I'm an addict!
Did you know your money loses value every year? Due to inflation and cost of living changes, prices increase on things by like 13-14%. But wages only tend to go up like 3-5% (if you're lucky), and interest rates at the bank are like 4%! So unless you're investing and taking massive risks (and thereby staking your entire financial future), then you're actually losing the value of your dollar year on year. Isn't that sick? What sort of system is this? There's no justice in the world. Why would people even buy technology stocks? I don't believe stocks like facebook and linkedin and that ilk. How can you trade on something that provides no concrete products? People are getting rich off speculating on the hard work of others, and not even providing any hard work of their own. That's not right.
I'm feeling pretty grose still. Nothing is dependable. Nothing is reliable. Can I just shut myself away and read the books that I want to read? Is that too much to ask?
Alright! An hour and 15 minutes to go until I can get out of here. I can do this! The clouds are just steamrolling in at the moment. And now it's pouring like anything!
Well that's no good. I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Battered Fields & The Hand That Heals
But there is nothing left to show for it. I'm really enjoying guitar
at the moment, I'm coming across some awesome rhythms and patterns and chords
that just make it exciting to play! It's good to be inspired, it's good
to be creative. Things are just weird. It's not what I expected it
to be. There's plenty being said, even if just in my head. Things
have changed, and I'm not sure whether it's for the better or not. If
there's a violent shift in the order of things, then the game is over.
There's nothing else that can be done about it. Freedom of expression is
being stifled, and we have slipped down the slope of fascism.
I saw my face in the mirror this morning and I looked tired and old. The lines on my face came out of nowhere, middle age just found me. I was hiding in a corner in the basement, but it always wins out in the end. Time gets to us all. I don't think I have much to say today. I'm out for the rest of the week and I'll do my best to get into the blogger+ platform while I'm gone, but we'll see.
Everything is a struggle, but in the end we persevere. Why do I keep referring to myself as the plural? I don't know, it's a bad habit I have, haha! I think I may just ride this one out, there's nothing else to do.
Joaquin out.
I saw my face in the mirror this morning and I looked tired and old. The lines on my face came out of nowhere, middle age just found me. I was hiding in a corner in the basement, but it always wins out in the end. Time gets to us all. I don't think I have much to say today. I'm out for the rest of the week and I'll do my best to get into the blogger+ platform while I'm gone, but we'll see.
Everything is a struggle, but in the end we persevere. Why do I keep referring to myself as the plural? I don't know, it's a bad habit I have, haha! I think I may just ride this one out, there's nothing else to do.
Joaquin out.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Dreaming Of Broken Teeth
Trying to put one away for the home team. I can feel it, and it's
coursing through my veins. It's all coming back to me now. There's
just too much I'm not aware of, but from time to time, there's a major
win. There will always be a time, I know who I am. The pressure is
unrelenting, and it squeezes my chest and I struggle to breathe. But the
breath is the only thing that ties me into life.
Wow, things are moving too quickly today! Just had so much to do this morning. Getting in the way of my blogging! Stupid Microsoft!! Their latest round of updates has resulted in Internet Explorer being rendered unusable! It just gets stuck in a 'internet explorer has stopped working' loop. I've uninstalled those updates and am hoping that it's up and working by the time I get home. Yeah I know! You're out there going why the hell are you using IE? Well I primarily use Google Chrome. Hands down, the best browser ever made. So light on the RAM, and the plugins for ad and popup removals make the internet fun again! Tabbed browsing, compatibility with everything out there, I can't state how much I really love it. But IE is a good backup browser, since it hardly gets used, and all of my really old bookmarks are on there! I know, I should probably import them out to chrome some day. But not today! Not quite yet!
It looks like Japan is starting to militarise, which makes sense, but I can't believe the nerve of reporters to comment on the dangers of Japan moving away from the pacifism enshrined in its constitution. What a load of crap! That's not right, that constitution was forced upon them after the Allies won World War 2. We now live in a more complicated world! There's the need to check China, and the potential escalation over Dokdo Islands with South Korea. Japan needs a military presence in its region, and they can't rely on the Americans to help them from potential incursions by China. America simply cannot stand up to China and they cannot provoke anything, so Japan has the right to defend themselves! Isn't that the sheer genius of the American war machine? They have a right to defend themselves, so they can go and extra judiciously kill people in sovereign nations, so why can't other people do that too? Just remember what happened to Germany after World War 1...
In an Australian city today, some guy has been arrested for having major industrial duty explosives, as well as maps to major landmarks and public places. Apparently he has used explosives before and was being watched by the police. But here's the kicker, because he's white and not muslim, it's just being reported on as a 'bomb plot'. You can bet your ass that if he looked foreign and had a muslim name, he would be classified as a 'terrorist' and charged under anti-terrorism legislation, which is far harsher than what the courts would normally apply for these sorts of offences. People get arrested, and the media never reports on it again, because they just disappear. Don't be surprised if they wind up in some American offshore place that doesn't exist. It would be flashed all over the news, and everyone would be rejoicing in the streets. So what's with that? One law for some people, and a different law for others, that sounds like discrimination to me! Then we get a bunch of judicial soft cocks on the bench who refuse to stand up to the tyranny of our Executive and Legislature and say national security is more paramount than the fundamentals of democracy. Fuck the media for not portraying this properly or bringing this to the attention of the public.
It's real anarchy here! It was just a title that I'm sure the other came up with when he started the blog, but I have to say that in recent times I have come to fully agree with the concept, because 'ordered' systems just don't make sense. They lead to inequality. Those who benefit from it don't want things to change because life is so good for them. But that's why I'm hoping things change in America. It's the bastion of all this 'false' freedom. Once the Hispanics and Blacks form a decent voting (and population) block in that country, I am hopeful things will change for the better. All these notions of demonstration and protest are written off as hooliganism and fighting thug like crowd behaviour. Get lost! They want a revolution. Years ago, people did that against an oppressive government and they were called revolutionaries and founding fathers. If only the British had a good military and control over the media! You can bet that they would have branded them criminals and that would be the last of that. What do you want, western world? Your governments are lying to you! They are in the pockets of big business, that just want profits and to screw workers over.
What really bothers me about my schooling and other people I know is the notion of the rise of the 'pseudo intellectual'. They interpret and comment and speculate on politics and finance and the ways of the world, but that's where it all ends. It's just conversation, they want to analyse and criticise everything, but they aren't interested in the actual mechanics of getting things to work. They don't want to get out there and do it. Just passive click activists that click like or share to think they're doing something. And I think here we are trapped somewhere. We can never move forward.
Wow this post is actually getting somewhere! Oh man, it's a crazy world out there! Too damn crazy. I'm all about the learning, you know!
I think that's it for now.
Joaquin out.
Wow, things are moving too quickly today! Just had so much to do this morning. Getting in the way of my blogging! Stupid Microsoft!! Their latest round of updates has resulted in Internet Explorer being rendered unusable! It just gets stuck in a 'internet explorer has stopped working' loop. I've uninstalled those updates and am hoping that it's up and working by the time I get home. Yeah I know! You're out there going why the hell are you using IE? Well I primarily use Google Chrome. Hands down, the best browser ever made. So light on the RAM, and the plugins for ad and popup removals make the internet fun again! Tabbed browsing, compatibility with everything out there, I can't state how much I really love it. But IE is a good backup browser, since it hardly gets used, and all of my really old bookmarks are on there! I know, I should probably import them out to chrome some day. But not today! Not quite yet!
It looks like Japan is starting to militarise, which makes sense, but I can't believe the nerve of reporters to comment on the dangers of Japan moving away from the pacifism enshrined in its constitution. What a load of crap! That's not right, that constitution was forced upon them after the Allies won World War 2. We now live in a more complicated world! There's the need to check China, and the potential escalation over Dokdo Islands with South Korea. Japan needs a military presence in its region, and they can't rely on the Americans to help them from potential incursions by China. America simply cannot stand up to China and they cannot provoke anything, so Japan has the right to defend themselves! Isn't that the sheer genius of the American war machine? They have a right to defend themselves, so they can go and extra judiciously kill people in sovereign nations, so why can't other people do that too? Just remember what happened to Germany after World War 1...
In an Australian city today, some guy has been arrested for having major industrial duty explosives, as well as maps to major landmarks and public places. Apparently he has used explosives before and was being watched by the police. But here's the kicker, because he's white and not muslim, it's just being reported on as a 'bomb plot'. You can bet your ass that if he looked foreign and had a muslim name, he would be classified as a 'terrorist' and charged under anti-terrorism legislation, which is far harsher than what the courts would normally apply for these sorts of offences. People get arrested, and the media never reports on it again, because they just disappear. Don't be surprised if they wind up in some American offshore place that doesn't exist. It would be flashed all over the news, and everyone would be rejoicing in the streets. So what's with that? One law for some people, and a different law for others, that sounds like discrimination to me! Then we get a bunch of judicial soft cocks on the bench who refuse to stand up to the tyranny of our Executive and Legislature and say national security is more paramount than the fundamentals of democracy. Fuck the media for not portraying this properly or bringing this to the attention of the public.
It's real anarchy here! It was just a title that I'm sure the other came up with when he started the blog, but I have to say that in recent times I have come to fully agree with the concept, because 'ordered' systems just don't make sense. They lead to inequality. Those who benefit from it don't want things to change because life is so good for them. But that's why I'm hoping things change in America. It's the bastion of all this 'false' freedom. Once the Hispanics and Blacks form a decent voting (and population) block in that country, I am hopeful things will change for the better. All these notions of demonstration and protest are written off as hooliganism and fighting thug like crowd behaviour. Get lost! They want a revolution. Years ago, people did that against an oppressive government and they were called revolutionaries and founding fathers. If only the British had a good military and control over the media! You can bet that they would have branded them criminals and that would be the last of that. What do you want, western world? Your governments are lying to you! They are in the pockets of big business, that just want profits and to screw workers over.
What really bothers me about my schooling and other people I know is the notion of the rise of the 'pseudo intellectual'. They interpret and comment and speculate on politics and finance and the ways of the world, but that's where it all ends. It's just conversation, they want to analyse and criticise everything, but they aren't interested in the actual mechanics of getting things to work. They don't want to get out there and do it. Just passive click activists that click like or share to think they're doing something. And I think here we are trapped somewhere. We can never move forward.
Wow this post is actually getting somewhere! Oh man, it's a crazy world out there! Too damn crazy. I'm all about the learning, you know!
I think that's it for now.
Joaquin out.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Faded Rainbows On The Horizon
And a wasted evening in the East. Too many of them, actually.
But that's the way the cookie crumbles. And I find I am slowly losing my
eyesight. Well in one eye at least. Things are a bit blurry if I
just use that eye, it's like I'm near sighted with just that eye, but with both
eyes I can see fine. Not good. I'm sure I need glasses, and I'll
get them at some point. Slowly getting back into the swing of things, I'm
no longer sick, but it is a struggle to get back to fitness. Just some
form of it, not even peak fitness. It's better than nothing. I'll
get there in the end. Guitar is also going swimmingly, but I would really
like to get back to where I was in terms of theory and practical ability.
Just knowing chords and all their positions at will and just going for
it. Now, things are a bit more cerebral as I need to figure out what I'm
doing before I play.
For me, it's another week of travel towards the end of the week, and I'm really looking forward to a 3 day week. Granted, I have meetings during work travel, but I don't mind, cause they're usually over quickly and I have the rest of the time to do what I want. Which I'm sure will just mean reading and being at the gym. I don't mind though, as long as my books have been delivered before then! Or else things are going to suck. Reading is an underrated leisure activity. The world would be a better place if we all read just a little bit more.
What the hell is going to happen with today? It's going to be a non-issue. Just like everything else. I find my thirst for knowledge insatiable, especially on financial markets, it's interesting to get involved and see what's out there, you know! I don't know why I wasn't interested before, but I am now. Gotta keep the brain stimulated somehow!
So yes, you should be aware by now that Robin Williams took his own life last week and it's come as a shock to everyone. We won't get into the trope of the funniest person usually being the saddest one. We will never know the full truth, but everyone was quick to speculate about the state of his mental health and having a conversation to spare your life, given his past history with depression and substance abuse. But now it's coming out that he was in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease, which is debilitating and immeasurably life altering. So should he not have the right to take his own life? That's a very difficult question that we cannot answer for him. But let's summarise it as follows: mental health vs the right to take your own life.
There's some crazy stuff going on in the world right now, especially with regard to this ebola epidemic. So those of you not in the know, there was an outbreak, and a lot of people have died, which isn't that uncommon, given the mortality rate associated with ebola, and the rather nasty way people tend to die as a result. So a lot of really knowledgeable and well trained African doctors died as they treated those infected, and somehow American volunteers who were at the site were extracted back to America and given an experimental serum and are on the road to recovery. What the hell?? How come this serum can't be given to those infected? If the mortality rate is so high, it doesn't matter if the drug is experimental, because at least it's an effort. Well, just goes to show how America 'helps' people. I hope this comes back to bite them in the ass as the outbreak fails to get contained and someone sneaks into the country for treatment and things spread. You have to think ahead to the possible repercussions of your ridiculous medical and foreign policy.
Ahh what else was I going to blog about today? I don't even remember. I just want to be done for the day, but still 2 and a half hours to go, sheeesh. I can do this!
Joaquin out.
For me, it's another week of travel towards the end of the week, and I'm really looking forward to a 3 day week. Granted, I have meetings during work travel, but I don't mind, cause they're usually over quickly and I have the rest of the time to do what I want. Which I'm sure will just mean reading and being at the gym. I don't mind though, as long as my books have been delivered before then! Or else things are going to suck. Reading is an underrated leisure activity. The world would be a better place if we all read just a little bit more.
What the hell is going to happen with today? It's going to be a non-issue. Just like everything else. I find my thirst for knowledge insatiable, especially on financial markets, it's interesting to get involved and see what's out there, you know! I don't know why I wasn't interested before, but I am now. Gotta keep the brain stimulated somehow!
So yes, you should be aware by now that Robin Williams took his own life last week and it's come as a shock to everyone. We won't get into the trope of the funniest person usually being the saddest one. We will never know the full truth, but everyone was quick to speculate about the state of his mental health and having a conversation to spare your life, given his past history with depression and substance abuse. But now it's coming out that he was in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease, which is debilitating and immeasurably life altering. So should he not have the right to take his own life? That's a very difficult question that we cannot answer for him. But let's summarise it as follows: mental health vs the right to take your own life.
There's some crazy stuff going on in the world right now, especially with regard to this ebola epidemic. So those of you not in the know, there was an outbreak, and a lot of people have died, which isn't that uncommon, given the mortality rate associated with ebola, and the rather nasty way people tend to die as a result. So a lot of really knowledgeable and well trained African doctors died as they treated those infected, and somehow American volunteers who were at the site were extracted back to America and given an experimental serum and are on the road to recovery. What the hell?? How come this serum can't be given to those infected? If the mortality rate is so high, it doesn't matter if the drug is experimental, because at least it's an effort. Well, just goes to show how America 'helps' people. I hope this comes back to bite them in the ass as the outbreak fails to get contained and someone sneaks into the country for treatment and things spread. You have to think ahead to the possible repercussions of your ridiculous medical and foreign policy.
Ahh what else was I going to blog about today? I don't even remember. I just want to be done for the day, but still 2 and a half hours to go, sheeesh. I can do this!
Joaquin out.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Paranoia Esquire
I will not go weak at the knees. The world is a weird place and it's
getting weirder by the day. Is America only now just realising what they
gave up in the wake of post September 11 hysteria? Ferguson is the
example. I won't go into the background of what's going on, because you
can easily just read google news and find out. African Americans have
been killed by authority figures in America since the dawn of Western
slavery. It's nothing new. But only now has it become apparent to
the non-Government white majority that there is a lot of injustice being
perpetrated on minorities. People are giving up their rights, and as a
result, the police forces all across America have become heavily militarised.
It's no longer community minded police who know their citizens and stop to help
out. More so it's assuming guilt and doing their best to try to pin
something on you to justify their actions. There's no longer
investigation, there's full on army style breach tactics to scare people, and
then they just lock people up, and if nothing is found wrong, they just let
them go. No apology, no restitution, nothing.
A few members of the media were arrested in Ferguson for their coverage on police brutality and strong-arm tactics, and now things have blown up in the news. Good, this sort of thing should be given more coverage. The police in America are a pseudo military style force that only seeks to maintain the peace for rich, white elites. If you don't fall into this category, the police will not help you. It may give the illusion of helping you, but don't be fooled, you're probably a suspect somehow. Killing in the name of by Rage Against The Machine seems very apt right now. All police are scum, that's the long and short of it. Remember those disenfranchised jocks from high school and college that could get nowhere on their intellect? Well they are welcomed into places like the police force where they are given assault weapons and a badge, and the licence to do what they wish to the community. That's not right. There has to be a change to how these people are dealt with when there's an extra judicial killing. They should not be investigated by other police, it should be an independent review, and the police officer is automatically suspended, pending re-deployment. Maybe then, things will start making sense.
And that's just one problem out of so many facing society. There's always another chance to shine, and I will make it mine. Getting into some good guitaring. There's a good chord combo that's just totally taking me over at the moment. Just two chords over and over, but they sound so good together. There's gotta be a song there. The blog is really taking off! I don't even know what I wrote the other day, but it garnered a lot of views. Hope I got the conversation started somehow. We have to live and learn I suppose.
I'm wondering, if there's really no point to it all, why bother having children? If it's a zero sum game in the end,is all we're doing just prolonging the delay of nothingness?
We are all balloons lost in the wind, at the mercy of time and external forces we cannot control.
Joaquin out.
A few members of the media were arrested in Ferguson for their coverage on police brutality and strong-arm tactics, and now things have blown up in the news. Good, this sort of thing should be given more coverage. The police in America are a pseudo military style force that only seeks to maintain the peace for rich, white elites. If you don't fall into this category, the police will not help you. It may give the illusion of helping you, but don't be fooled, you're probably a suspect somehow. Killing in the name of by Rage Against The Machine seems very apt right now. All police are scum, that's the long and short of it. Remember those disenfranchised jocks from high school and college that could get nowhere on their intellect? Well they are welcomed into places like the police force where they are given assault weapons and a badge, and the licence to do what they wish to the community. That's not right. There has to be a change to how these people are dealt with when there's an extra judicial killing. They should not be investigated by other police, it should be an independent review, and the police officer is automatically suspended, pending re-deployment. Maybe then, things will start making sense.
And that's just one problem out of so many facing society. There's always another chance to shine, and I will make it mine. Getting into some good guitaring. There's a good chord combo that's just totally taking me over at the moment. Just two chords over and over, but they sound so good together. There's gotta be a song there. The blog is really taking off! I don't even know what I wrote the other day, but it garnered a lot of views. Hope I got the conversation started somehow. We have to live and learn I suppose.
I'm wondering, if there's really no point to it all, why bother having children? If it's a zero sum game in the end,is all we're doing just prolonging the delay of nothingness?
We are all balloons lost in the wind, at the mercy of time and external forces we cannot control.
Joaquin out.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
White Nonsense
Are we going to remind blind to the errors of our ways forever? Will
we always be stumbling around in the dark? I wish I could get all
philosophical about it, but I am utterly without care or understanding
anymore. This is killing me, not even slowly. It's aged me and
taken my spirit faster than anything else. Well hey, at least it's pay
day. And I guess that's part of the problem. It just keeps coming,
and I'm not concerned. So long as that continues.
No post yesterday because I was home sick again. Stupid windows 7! Latest patch of important updates (there's 16 or so of them), and it won't install properly after the 5th one! Hope it doesn't mess up my computer, because I had to manually shut it off when it just stayed frozen for a couple of hours with no response.
I've been enjoying random stuff on tumblr's blogs of notes lately, one in particular was the yo, is this racist page. Basically, people write in with different examples of what they consider to be questionable behaviour, and the author of the site decides whether it's racist or not. There's brilliant responses, and there's some hilarious questions, but at the heart of everything lies a very important message: racism in all its forms needs to be called out. People want to equate racism with freedom of expression, well that stuff needs to be ridiculed, and their ignorance needs to be pointed out to everyone. Whoever forgives them or associates with them is a racist sympathiser. That's something I can get behind.
A term I've come across in recent times is white nonsense, I really like it. Basically it's some 'fad' or 'phase' that gets ridiculous amounts of attention in the media, which only seems to be of interest to white people, because it's so trivial and unimportant. But this is extends to stuff that is really only of interest to white people. Think things like extreme sports. The stock market is one such case, but it gets even more sinister. The history of stocks and stock holding (as well as options, futures and insurance) all harks back to slavery and the exploitation of resources from the developing world, which were all taken by force and coercion. So a system that rich old white folks employed now basically serves to keep rich old white people rich. Think about the fairness of that concept for a second.
Just what do these people do all day? I came back to nothing of note. Do I know what's going on? No, absolutely not. Like I've said before, it's only a small piece of the puzzle, but the picture keeps re-arranging, so there's never really any progression. This is all just so weird and wonderful. I don't have the inspiration to play guitar, but damn it, I can play and play well. I've forgotten a lot of stuff I should know, though. Might have to jog the old memory to see what's up.
The plan for today is to just listen to music and wile away the time. Maybe it's time to bring everything back together. It's all about the prestige and the reveal. Some of these memories are real, others are not. What do you do when you can't rely on your mind? I don't know. Life is fickle.
2 hours more of this to go? I'm wasting my life. That's it. It's all gone in a seeming relative flash. I'm too tired for this.
What will it be for me? I think if I make it to 50, my cause of death will be a heart attack. If I go out before then, I'm putting it down to cancer or an accident. I'm already getting chest pains. And holy crap, the age of 50 is as close to me as the age of 10 was. That's a little crazy. How are you going out? There's never really another chance, unless you make it so. If I get a chance, I'll write about it here so you'll at least know what happened to me before this page goes without updates. I can't speak for the other, who I believe will probably not blog again, and I have no idea what's going on with the other two members.
I think I'm done for the day. Now for some much needed sleep. :/
Joaquin out.
No post yesterday because I was home sick again. Stupid windows 7! Latest patch of important updates (there's 16 or so of them), and it won't install properly after the 5th one! Hope it doesn't mess up my computer, because I had to manually shut it off when it just stayed frozen for a couple of hours with no response.
I've been enjoying random stuff on tumblr's blogs of notes lately, one in particular was the yo, is this racist page. Basically, people write in with different examples of what they consider to be questionable behaviour, and the author of the site decides whether it's racist or not. There's brilliant responses, and there's some hilarious questions, but at the heart of everything lies a very important message: racism in all its forms needs to be called out. People want to equate racism with freedom of expression, well that stuff needs to be ridiculed, and their ignorance needs to be pointed out to everyone. Whoever forgives them or associates with them is a racist sympathiser. That's something I can get behind.
A term I've come across in recent times is white nonsense, I really like it. Basically it's some 'fad' or 'phase' that gets ridiculous amounts of attention in the media, which only seems to be of interest to white people, because it's so trivial and unimportant. But this is extends to stuff that is really only of interest to white people. Think things like extreme sports. The stock market is one such case, but it gets even more sinister. The history of stocks and stock holding (as well as options, futures and insurance) all harks back to slavery and the exploitation of resources from the developing world, which were all taken by force and coercion. So a system that rich old white folks employed now basically serves to keep rich old white people rich. Think about the fairness of that concept for a second.
Just what do these people do all day? I came back to nothing of note. Do I know what's going on? No, absolutely not. Like I've said before, it's only a small piece of the puzzle, but the picture keeps re-arranging, so there's never really any progression. This is all just so weird and wonderful. I don't have the inspiration to play guitar, but damn it, I can play and play well. I've forgotten a lot of stuff I should know, though. Might have to jog the old memory to see what's up.
The plan for today is to just listen to music and wile away the time. Maybe it's time to bring everything back together. It's all about the prestige and the reveal. Some of these memories are real, others are not. What do you do when you can't rely on your mind? I don't know. Life is fickle.
2 hours more of this to go? I'm wasting my life. That's it. It's all gone in a seeming relative flash. I'm too tired for this.
What will it be for me? I think if I make it to 50, my cause of death will be a heart attack. If I go out before then, I'm putting it down to cancer or an accident. I'm already getting chest pains. And holy crap, the age of 50 is as close to me as the age of 10 was. That's a little crazy. How are you going out? There's never really another chance, unless you make it so. If I get a chance, I'll write about it here so you'll at least know what happened to me before this page goes without updates. I can't speak for the other, who I believe will probably not blog again, and I have no idea what's going on with the other two members.
I think I'm done for the day. Now for some much needed sleep. :/
Joaquin out.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Touching Base, I Remember That Face
It is rather difficult to forget, actually. I am absolutely clueless
at the moment, which is not good, because things could be shifting into crunch
time, and then what would be left? I'd be back to square one. But
sometimes that's all you need for a fresh start, a new perspective and a
probability of success. Right now, the odds are stacked against my
favour, but I have come quite far from the zero point.
Maybe it's my illness, and the lack of going to the gym lately (due to sickness), but I'm really feeling my age. I'm mentally alert and with the program, but everything to do with my body is so much slower than it used to be. I can't recognise it anymore. The transition from 20's to my 30's has been almost imperceptible, but if I benchmark it now and just a few years ago, the difference is striking. I'm more susceptible to illness, it takes ages to get over colds, I can't really stay up late and get up early without dramatic impact on my performance. It takes longer to recover from exercise. That being said, I may be faster and stronger now than I ever have been. But it's all a bit of give and take.
As the door shuts on my 20's, I look back and wonder how weird everything was. The first half of my 20's was an interesting time, where I was learning so much at university and just generally hating on the world. You think armed with that knowledge you can effect good change. But the second half of my 20's has just been obscure. Everything has been on autopilot and I've just mentally checked out. Everything is all consuming apathy. You come to realise just how evil this world is.
I'm thinking about all those geniuses (so called) in the financial sector with their complicated models and rules. If that were true, how come there aren't a lot more very very rich people out there? I don't think they can predict anything with certainty, it's just not feasible. You can't possibly account for all the variables, it's just not possible. There's always something outstanding that wasn't factored in, some unknown, unseen force. We can't predict anything I'm afraid.
Just where is this day heading?? I have no idea. What's worse is that I can't leave! Have to hold the fort somehow. Maybe I need to get my butt in gear.
I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Maybe it's my illness, and the lack of going to the gym lately (due to sickness), but I'm really feeling my age. I'm mentally alert and with the program, but everything to do with my body is so much slower than it used to be. I can't recognise it anymore. The transition from 20's to my 30's has been almost imperceptible, but if I benchmark it now and just a few years ago, the difference is striking. I'm more susceptible to illness, it takes ages to get over colds, I can't really stay up late and get up early without dramatic impact on my performance. It takes longer to recover from exercise. That being said, I may be faster and stronger now than I ever have been. But it's all a bit of give and take.
As the door shuts on my 20's, I look back and wonder how weird everything was. The first half of my 20's was an interesting time, where I was learning so much at university and just generally hating on the world. You think armed with that knowledge you can effect good change. But the second half of my 20's has just been obscure. Everything has been on autopilot and I've just mentally checked out. Everything is all consuming apathy. You come to realise just how evil this world is.
I'm thinking about all those geniuses (so called) in the financial sector with their complicated models and rules. If that were true, how come there aren't a lot more very very rich people out there? I don't think they can predict anything with certainty, it's just not feasible. You can't possibly account for all the variables, it's just not possible. There's always something outstanding that wasn't factored in, some unknown, unseen force. We can't predict anything I'm afraid.
Just where is this day heading?? I have no idea. What's worse is that I can't leave! Have to hold the fort somehow. Maybe I need to get my butt in gear.
I'm done.
Joaquin out.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Stumbling On To Ideologies
It's been a whacky couple of days. No guitar, no inspiration to
play. It's just been...odd. Not really much else to say. It's
a strange time to be alive, let me tell you. Amazon is a load of
crap! I was looking to buy something on there, and the purchase price was
really cheap, but then the postage and handling worked out to be pretty much
the same as the purchase price! So whatever you're looking at, just
basically double the price to get an accurate reflection of the cost!
What a load of crap! Postage and handling should never be the same as the
purchase price, it should be a slight percentage. Otherwise it's just
misleading and a big rip-off!
I'm still feeling absolutely sick. I don't need to be here. I read that most people can't afford their bucket lists. I'm not surprised. The world has become a lot more expensive than it used to be to get things done. Then again, I guess people can't be happy with the miracles that are in their faces every single day. That's stuff you have to savour and appreciate.
So now we're here. The US plans to bomb Iraq again, in light of new evidence about what's going on in that country. I'm not surprised. The nature of warfare has changed. You can't go to a sovereign nation under false pretences for a trumped up war and expect things to go well. Of course Australia is planning to get involved and be the lapdogs of American foreign policy, which is all about creating injustices and chasing ghosts and trading shadow punches.
Where do we go from here?
Joaquin out.
I'm still feeling absolutely sick. I don't need to be here. I read that most people can't afford their bucket lists. I'm not surprised. The world has become a lot more expensive than it used to be to get things done. Then again, I guess people can't be happy with the miracles that are in their faces every single day. That's stuff you have to savour and appreciate.
So now we're here. The US plans to bomb Iraq again, in light of new evidence about what's going on in that country. I'm not surprised. The nature of warfare has changed. You can't go to a sovereign nation under false pretences for a trumped up war and expect things to go well. Of course Australia is planning to get involved and be the lapdogs of American foreign policy, which is all about creating injustices and chasing ghosts and trading shadow punches.
Where do we go from here?
Joaquin out.
Friday, August 08, 2014
Pulling The Bootstrap
I'm not sure what a bootstrap is, so you're going to have to forgive me on
that one. You'll also have to forgive me for not blogging for the last
couple of days. I've been home pretty damn sick, with no ability to do
anything except lay in bed or on the couch, with occasional sojourns out to the
computer. I'm still sick but I'm here struggling through the day.
I'll get there eventually!
It's interesting when you have half the piece of the puzzle. But you don't know what the final picture is supposed to look like. Can you just stick the pieces together like that? Not necessarily. But it's a start, it's better than nothing. What can you see, absolutely nothing for I am as blind as can be. What was interesting was that I got in some matches of Rome Total War and won a historical battle I've never won before, and almost won another that I have never come close to. But weirdly, the game glitched a fair bit on custom battles to the point where I had to reset my computer 3-4 times for stability. What's with these total war games? Why are they so unstable?
And with that, I'm feeling sick and anxious again. I just need to run out the clock.
Joaquin out.
It's interesting when you have half the piece of the puzzle. But you don't know what the final picture is supposed to look like. Can you just stick the pieces together like that? Not necessarily. But it's a start, it's better than nothing. What can you see, absolutely nothing for I am as blind as can be. What was interesting was that I got in some matches of Rome Total War and won a historical battle I've never won before, and almost won another that I have never come close to. But weirdly, the game glitched a fair bit on custom battles to the point where I had to reset my computer 3-4 times for stability. What's with these total war games? Why are they so unstable?
And with that, I'm feeling sick and anxious again. I just need to run out the clock.
Joaquin out.
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
This Is War
And I felt it slip away over the space of a few hours. It's all
heading south now. Then I woke up this morning and I realised that was
it. It had commenced, the war was at my doorstep. My face felt like
I had a truck run into half of it. Like the left half of my face is just
gone. It was a strange dream. Was it someone I knew? Someone
that doesn't look anything like they used to. It's interesting in the
grand scheme of things, isn't it? When you're in High School in one of
the middle years (14 or 15), and the girls in year 10 (who are 16 or so) seem
so old. Then as you get older, you realise that all of those people are
just young. Time can completely change your perspective on things.
I guess that comes with experience. This broken body is being rebuilt and
I have the growing pains to match. It is a different beast entirely, or
it will be the next time around. There's no value in any of that.
This has become a solo battle now. I understand that.
I read - and this was incredibly hard to find, mind you, that the Prime Minister has signed off on laws for federal agencies to be able to hold internet and phone data for 2 years, under the concept of national security or anti-terrorism. So a lot of your metadata will now be held and provided to our 'spying' allies under the 5 eyes alliance, and all the other spy agencies that are just aching to justify their existence by putting you up on some trumped up charges. These laws were signed off under the National Security Council - which is a council of the Executive, made up of the ultimately most despicable members of the Government, the Prime Minister, the Immigration Minister, the Attorney-General and so on. What I'm concerned about is whether these laws just become automatic under the lack of separation of powers now afforded to the executive under anti-terror laws. None of this is transparent or fair.
And to go on about another great evil occurring in Australia right now, a doctor in charge of looking after the mental health of asylum seekers has admitted that the current government has the policy of 'breaking' refugees spirits, so that the most vulnerable snap and go crazy, and believe that it is not worth staying here. That is torture, and what is worse, nobody is reporting on it. This conservative government is big on not telling the public about what is going on with asylum seekers in the hope that apathy will win out and the problem will just go away. Sadly it's working, and great injustices and illegal behaviour is occuring as a result. We deserve all the bad things that happen to us as a result. There is so much to share, but people are so greedy. It should all be taken away from us.
Looking over the blog's stats, the Russian audience is pretty much catching up to the American one! How did that happen? Are Russians interested about what's happening in the West? Either way, it's good to have you on board. Hong Kong is also making an appearance which warms my heart. I really enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, even if it was unseasonably cold when I visited. Lots of cool stuff going on there.
What else is there to talk about? All my work is done, so I'm just here not doing very much. Got into some guitar last night and holy crap, I played one of my technical pieces and I was awful. Terrible, even. I think I really need to just rehearse and practice. I'm not devoting enough time to it. Sure, I'm coming up with new and creative chords and melodies, but that's nothing in the face of actual technical playing (for the moment anyway).
I did end up reading that court order on wikileaks (considering the subject matter and all that's happening on national security at the moment, don't be surprised if you're automatically flagged for further surveillance if you frequent this site), and it was pretty big time news! I don't think I'll say too much on it, because I didn't read the full order and I don't want to get in trouble, especially with all the other stuff I tend to blog about on here, I wouldn't be surprised! Needless to say, it involves corruption, inducements from an Australian company operated under the Reserve Bank, and the leaders and their families of various south East Asian nations. Surprise surprise. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the greater scheme of things.
There's an opportunity for a power play here, but there's no room for the right type of finagling to get it right. It should have worked before! Maybe there are other ways. I will win. Now the question on everybody's lips, how do I stay awake for the next 3 hours? Maybe I can learn something and the time should just fly by! And it has! Already 1 hour to go and I think I've been having a good time.
I don't think I have any more to say!
Let's call it there though.
Joaquin out.
I read - and this was incredibly hard to find, mind you, that the Prime Minister has signed off on laws for federal agencies to be able to hold internet and phone data for 2 years, under the concept of national security or anti-terrorism. So a lot of your metadata will now be held and provided to our 'spying' allies under the 5 eyes alliance, and all the other spy agencies that are just aching to justify their existence by putting you up on some trumped up charges. These laws were signed off under the National Security Council - which is a council of the Executive, made up of the ultimately most despicable members of the Government, the Prime Minister, the Immigration Minister, the Attorney-General and so on. What I'm concerned about is whether these laws just become automatic under the lack of separation of powers now afforded to the executive under anti-terror laws. None of this is transparent or fair.
And to go on about another great evil occurring in Australia right now, a doctor in charge of looking after the mental health of asylum seekers has admitted that the current government has the policy of 'breaking' refugees spirits, so that the most vulnerable snap and go crazy, and believe that it is not worth staying here. That is torture, and what is worse, nobody is reporting on it. This conservative government is big on not telling the public about what is going on with asylum seekers in the hope that apathy will win out and the problem will just go away. Sadly it's working, and great injustices and illegal behaviour is occuring as a result. We deserve all the bad things that happen to us as a result. There is so much to share, but people are so greedy. It should all be taken away from us.
Looking over the blog's stats, the Russian audience is pretty much catching up to the American one! How did that happen? Are Russians interested about what's happening in the West? Either way, it's good to have you on board. Hong Kong is also making an appearance which warms my heart. I really enjoyed my time in Hong Kong, even if it was unseasonably cold when I visited. Lots of cool stuff going on there.
What else is there to talk about? All my work is done, so I'm just here not doing very much. Got into some guitar last night and holy crap, I played one of my technical pieces and I was awful. Terrible, even. I think I really need to just rehearse and practice. I'm not devoting enough time to it. Sure, I'm coming up with new and creative chords and melodies, but that's nothing in the face of actual technical playing (for the moment anyway).
I did end up reading that court order on wikileaks (considering the subject matter and all that's happening on national security at the moment, don't be surprised if you're automatically flagged for further surveillance if you frequent this site), and it was pretty big time news! I don't think I'll say too much on it, because I didn't read the full order and I don't want to get in trouble, especially with all the other stuff I tend to blog about on here, I wouldn't be surprised! Needless to say, it involves corruption, inducements from an Australian company operated under the Reserve Bank, and the leaders and their families of various south East Asian nations. Surprise surprise. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the greater scheme of things.
There's an opportunity for a power play here, but there's no room for the right type of finagling to get it right. It should have worked before! Maybe there are other ways. I will win. Now the question on everybody's lips, how do I stay awake for the next 3 hours? Maybe I can learn something and the time should just fly by! And it has! Already 1 hour to go and I think I've been having a good time.
I don't think I have any more to say!
Let's call it there though.
Joaquin out.
Monday, August 04, 2014
Interference
I'm slowly getting through work. Slowly getting back on track. I
think I'm slightly with the program? Nothing is guaranteed though.
It's always a bit of a shock to the system, but with some leg work, you can
always get there in the end. It all makes sense. I was right all
along. But by what measure? It all takes place behind the
scenes. Where the sun is shining. Things are figured out. All
so terrible, haha!
I have a theory, it's called coin convenience. We all know inflation has impacted the cost of living, considering most real wages haven't caught up, so in the end, most workers are worse off now compared to any other period in history. But let's put it down to some real reasons - coin convenience. For example, here is a cupcake that you love to eat and it costs $1. You get accustomed to that cost and having to front up two 50 cent pieces or a $1 coin. But then of course the cupcake people want to turn more of a profit, so they start charging $1.10. Adding that extra burden of having to account for that extra 10 cents is enough to turn people off the product. It's due to the inconvenience of coin, and not having products available for a nicely rounded figure. I think it makes sense, but it doesn't really impact places that do EFTPOS payments without any minimum transaction limit. That's my contribution to the world of economics! Hahaha.
There's a theory going on in Australia called the "masterchef effect". This is essentially the concept that due to the number of reality show themed cooking shows, you are now seeing a rise in food prices and restaurants serving overpriced pretentious fare. I think I'm inclined to agree. We're seeing a lot of ridiculous dishes out there, and I live in a city that has the most per-capita restaurants in the world. Restaurants come and go all the time. Good ones and bad ones, we just don't have the population to sustain so many. But all the newer ones have got all these overproduced dishes that are stupidly expensive and you don't feel full after eating them! Just goes to show what's indicative of society. So many people out there starving, and yet people are paying upwards of $45 for a main course somewhere. Absolutely ridiculous. That's not what cooking should be about.
Australia hosted a prestigious AIDS conference the other day, which received some media exposure due to the unfortunate fact that a lot of the leading doctors there were on board MH17, which was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. A number of these delegates have now claimed asylum in Australia, for fear of being persecuted in their own country (mostly countries of African origin). It'll be interesting to see how the government handles this, considering they've now got a racist and xenophobic view on refugees coming by boat. They previously shipped them off to offshore detention centres (read: prisons) but this current conservative government seems to favour handing them back to whatever country they came from, which is highly illegal. How is that going to work now? Will they lock these people up? Will we stop holding international events! It'll be interesting.
Due to being away, I have 10 gig of downloads to get through before midnight tonight! The question is, can I make it??
Oh I'll get there! Sooner or later. There are still lessons to be learned. Damn, work just keeps piling up! Ridiculous, absolutely. I was looking forward to having some fun this afternoon.
Just as it seems easier, it gets a lot harder. A lot harder. What does any of this mean? This is just the first step. All journeys start with the first step.
I don't think I have anything more to say.
Joaquin out.
I have a theory, it's called coin convenience. We all know inflation has impacted the cost of living, considering most real wages haven't caught up, so in the end, most workers are worse off now compared to any other period in history. But let's put it down to some real reasons - coin convenience. For example, here is a cupcake that you love to eat and it costs $1. You get accustomed to that cost and having to front up two 50 cent pieces or a $1 coin. But then of course the cupcake people want to turn more of a profit, so they start charging $1.10. Adding that extra burden of having to account for that extra 10 cents is enough to turn people off the product. It's due to the inconvenience of coin, and not having products available for a nicely rounded figure. I think it makes sense, but it doesn't really impact places that do EFTPOS payments without any minimum transaction limit. That's my contribution to the world of economics! Hahaha.
There's a theory going on in Australia called the "masterchef effect". This is essentially the concept that due to the number of reality show themed cooking shows, you are now seeing a rise in food prices and restaurants serving overpriced pretentious fare. I think I'm inclined to agree. We're seeing a lot of ridiculous dishes out there, and I live in a city that has the most per-capita restaurants in the world. Restaurants come and go all the time. Good ones and bad ones, we just don't have the population to sustain so many. But all the newer ones have got all these overproduced dishes that are stupidly expensive and you don't feel full after eating them! Just goes to show what's indicative of society. So many people out there starving, and yet people are paying upwards of $45 for a main course somewhere. Absolutely ridiculous. That's not what cooking should be about.
Australia hosted a prestigious AIDS conference the other day, which received some media exposure due to the unfortunate fact that a lot of the leading doctors there were on board MH17, which was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. A number of these delegates have now claimed asylum in Australia, for fear of being persecuted in their own country (mostly countries of African origin). It'll be interesting to see how the government handles this, considering they've now got a racist and xenophobic view on refugees coming by boat. They previously shipped them off to offshore detention centres (read: prisons) but this current conservative government seems to favour handing them back to whatever country they came from, which is highly illegal. How is that going to work now? Will they lock these people up? Will we stop holding international events! It'll be interesting.
Due to being away, I have 10 gig of downloads to get through before midnight tonight! The question is, can I make it??
Oh I'll get there! Sooner or later. There are still lessons to be learned. Damn, work just keeps piling up! Ridiculous, absolutely. I was looking forward to having some fun this afternoon.
Just as it seems easier, it gets a lot harder. A lot harder. What does any of this mean? This is just the first step. All journeys start with the first step.
I don't think I have anything more to say.
Joaquin out.
Saturday, August 02, 2014
Lowbrow, Don't Have A Cow
What a weird day. What a weird week. Scrub that; what a weird
existence. I had half a post to put up yesterday, but my work computer
developed a blue screen of death (BSOD) and packed it in. Since nothing
was saved, I lost the notes before I could e-mail them to myself to post
later. I know! Weird right! It's the first time I've ever had
a BSOD on a work computer. It's not good! But that's Microsoft
windows for you. Great and intuitive, but not exactly stable. I've
used Mac OS, Windows, iOS, Android and Linux and I have to say I still prefer
Windows over everything, even if the other stuff has more functionality,
freedom and reliability. Well yeah, I lost a post (note: it was not the
fault of blogger this time), but it's not like I had much to say. Let's
get going with August shall I?
I'm incredibly tired, and this week is just lost to me. I'm sick. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of that. I'm tired of life. I'm tired of me. But I'll try to keep up with things. So we move on to August, and I haven't updated in a while, I'm sorry. Haven't been at home and just haven't been well enough to post. But that also means I have a lot of downloads to catch up on! My eyes are twitching and pulsating from the tiredness. This isn't a good sign.
There's a current issue in Australia about a court case in Victoria and a court suppression notice on a case that involves International level Parliamentarians. This means the media cannot report on it in any shape or form, due to the perceived threat of damaging international relationships between Australia and other countries. So something pretty major is going on. I wonder what it could be. Thankfully, wikileaks doesn't buy into the crap of protecting our 'elite rulers' and has got the details of the case. I'll give it a read when I get home and update you. I'm not a media organisation, and I am a concerned member of the public and I believe the Australian people have a right to know the truth. The linchpin of democracy is an open court system. This cannot be abrogated by the Crown, or the ego of a silly Judge.
Credit cards have finally moved into the 21st century, but at what cost? From today, you will no longer be able to sign for purchases on credit cards, and instead must only use PIN numbers. It's interesting how things change in just a short manner of time. We've been using credit cards for nigh on 100 years, and due to fraud from signatures (which must have always existed), we're now all forced to use pin numbers. How interesting and weird. It's funny how the world works.
You may recall in a post from a little while ago that the Government was going to prosecute those who report on leaks relating to National Security. So essentially people like Glenn Greenwald would be in jail for reporting on Edward Snowden's heroic whistleblowing. That's not right. We're so close to fascism and a totalitarian state, it's not funny! But today I read that the Attorney-General George Brandis would be the one who decides which cases get prosecuted! What the hell?! That's an abuse of separation of powers and completely unconstitutional! But we're treading a very dark path now. I wish I could say that it was just a typefication of Conservative style politics, but the Labor party isn't really much better. So what can the public do? Is there a destination of no return? Are we already there? I also read that Brandis is looking to introduce new laws that mean piracy on the Internet can result in your internet being withdrawn. What the hell? That is ridiculous! I firmly believe in being able to watch something to see if it's good, and then paying for it if you like it and want to support the artist. It's much better than being charged for something (i.e. ripped off at inflated prices) for something of inferior quality that wastes your time. So if you aren't paying thousands of dollars to have a Foxtel connection just to watch Game of Thrones, you can't really do anything about it. Something tells me that Mister Rupert Murdoch has been laying some pressure on the government to help turn his floundering cable service back to profitability. Everyone knows he is in league with the conservative government, having devoted all his Australian press to slandering the previous government, yet no criticism has occurred of the current government for all their gaffes and rampant stupidity. Toss in Brandis' idea that bigotry should be protected, but hate speech inciting terrorism should be subject to secret, private trials and swept under the rug, and I firmly believe that George Brandis is the worst Attorney-General in the history of the federation of Australia. If they bring that law in, the country will rebel! Haha! Any party that pledges to remove that law will be in power by the next election, I guarantee it.
On this whole electronic media thing, I've noticed that a court in America has stated that Microsoft must hand over the e-mails it holds in a data centre in Ireland. What? American courts have no jurisdiction over Ireland, so how can they enforce such an order? The judge said it was a matter of control and not geography, and that Microsoft should be able to comply. That's scary for privacy concerns, but we already knew there were issues on that front (thank you NSA). It just goes to show the stupidity of the court system in America, where judges are elected officials, and try to enforce popular orders instead of following the law, so that they can win re-election. Businesses and individuals should just boycott doing business with any US entity unless you have to, because you never know how something will come back to bite you with crazy orders like this.
There was an issue in Thailand where an Australian couple who could not have children paid a surrogate mother to have a baby for them. The surrogate mother conceived twins, and one child developed down's syndrome. The Australian couple said they did not want to have that child, and have left the disabled baby with the mother. The mother was convinced by the surrogacy agency to lie to the Australian embassy to allow the 'transfer' (grose, it sounds like a business transaction) and has not been paid for the other baby. Great, so due to the greed and disgusting behaviour of a bunch of rich Australians, this baby will now be forced to endure abject poverty and a difficult existence. Well done. Sums up pretty much how the West treats developing nations, it's the absolute epitome of attitudes. I don't know how I feel about surrogacy, it feels exploitative to me. It's something that's come about due to technology, and the legal grey areas have not really caught up to the reality of the situation. I think as the human genus dies out in the future, it will be something that becomes more prevalent. But I wonder what it feels like to not be able to have children?
Yeah I have work and I'll get to it! What have I done? What have I become?
This has been a good return to form. Joaquin out.
I'm incredibly tired, and this week is just lost to me. I'm sick. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of that. I'm tired of life. I'm tired of me. But I'll try to keep up with things. So we move on to August, and I haven't updated in a while, I'm sorry. Haven't been at home and just haven't been well enough to post. But that also means I have a lot of downloads to catch up on! My eyes are twitching and pulsating from the tiredness. This isn't a good sign.
There's a current issue in Australia about a court case in Victoria and a court suppression notice on a case that involves International level Parliamentarians. This means the media cannot report on it in any shape or form, due to the perceived threat of damaging international relationships between Australia and other countries. So something pretty major is going on. I wonder what it could be. Thankfully, wikileaks doesn't buy into the crap of protecting our 'elite rulers' and has got the details of the case. I'll give it a read when I get home and update you. I'm not a media organisation, and I am a concerned member of the public and I believe the Australian people have a right to know the truth. The linchpin of democracy is an open court system. This cannot be abrogated by the Crown, or the ego of a silly Judge.
Credit cards have finally moved into the 21st century, but at what cost? From today, you will no longer be able to sign for purchases on credit cards, and instead must only use PIN numbers. It's interesting how things change in just a short manner of time. We've been using credit cards for nigh on 100 years, and due to fraud from signatures (which must have always existed), we're now all forced to use pin numbers. How interesting and weird. It's funny how the world works.
You may recall in a post from a little while ago that the Government was going to prosecute those who report on leaks relating to National Security. So essentially people like Glenn Greenwald would be in jail for reporting on Edward Snowden's heroic whistleblowing. That's not right. We're so close to fascism and a totalitarian state, it's not funny! But today I read that the Attorney-General George Brandis would be the one who decides which cases get prosecuted! What the hell?! That's an abuse of separation of powers and completely unconstitutional! But we're treading a very dark path now. I wish I could say that it was just a typefication of Conservative style politics, but the Labor party isn't really much better. So what can the public do? Is there a destination of no return? Are we already there? I also read that Brandis is looking to introduce new laws that mean piracy on the Internet can result in your internet being withdrawn. What the hell? That is ridiculous! I firmly believe in being able to watch something to see if it's good, and then paying for it if you like it and want to support the artist. It's much better than being charged for something (i.e. ripped off at inflated prices) for something of inferior quality that wastes your time. So if you aren't paying thousands of dollars to have a Foxtel connection just to watch Game of Thrones, you can't really do anything about it. Something tells me that Mister Rupert Murdoch has been laying some pressure on the government to help turn his floundering cable service back to profitability. Everyone knows he is in league with the conservative government, having devoted all his Australian press to slandering the previous government, yet no criticism has occurred of the current government for all their gaffes and rampant stupidity. Toss in Brandis' idea that bigotry should be protected, but hate speech inciting terrorism should be subject to secret, private trials and swept under the rug, and I firmly believe that George Brandis is the worst Attorney-General in the history of the federation of Australia. If they bring that law in, the country will rebel! Haha! Any party that pledges to remove that law will be in power by the next election, I guarantee it.
On this whole electronic media thing, I've noticed that a court in America has stated that Microsoft must hand over the e-mails it holds in a data centre in Ireland. What? American courts have no jurisdiction over Ireland, so how can they enforce such an order? The judge said it was a matter of control and not geography, and that Microsoft should be able to comply. That's scary for privacy concerns, but we already knew there were issues on that front (thank you NSA). It just goes to show the stupidity of the court system in America, where judges are elected officials, and try to enforce popular orders instead of following the law, so that they can win re-election. Businesses and individuals should just boycott doing business with any US entity unless you have to, because you never know how something will come back to bite you with crazy orders like this.
There was an issue in Thailand where an Australian couple who could not have children paid a surrogate mother to have a baby for them. The surrogate mother conceived twins, and one child developed down's syndrome. The Australian couple said they did not want to have that child, and have left the disabled baby with the mother. The mother was convinced by the surrogacy agency to lie to the Australian embassy to allow the 'transfer' (grose, it sounds like a business transaction) and has not been paid for the other baby. Great, so due to the greed and disgusting behaviour of a bunch of rich Australians, this baby will now be forced to endure abject poverty and a difficult existence. Well done. Sums up pretty much how the West treats developing nations, it's the absolute epitome of attitudes. I don't know how I feel about surrogacy, it feels exploitative to me. It's something that's come about due to technology, and the legal grey areas have not really caught up to the reality of the situation. I think as the human genus dies out in the future, it will be something that becomes more prevalent. But I wonder what it feels like to not be able to have children?
Yeah I have work and I'll get to it! What have I done? What have I become?
This has been a good return to form. Joaquin out.
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