The weekend retreat is over. It was nice to get away from the construction site that Poznan had become. Anywhere I looked debris, detours and warning signs. Dust settling while I fall asleep to jackhammers banging 60 feet away from my windows. Unfortunately home disappointed me in one respect. I was expecting wafts of smoke from burning stubble to permeate the air, mixing with the redolence of a cold early spring night, and found none. On one hand it’s nice that they seem to have finally learned something and stopped burning everything to scorched earth. On the other, that particular smell was something I always associated with the vernal transition.
On the way I witnessed some extraordinary crepuscular rays, burning through the fog coiling through the forests and fields at daybreak. As is always the case, I hadn't brought my camera with me. Murphy's Law in its ugly flesh. Right now, coming back, on a train passing through all these small towns and villages the names of which I always forget it seems I found it in me to write a few lines. I always liked that particular sense of separation from reality while on a train. Sure, when you have to get somewhere on time, trains are usually an utter clustercoitus. However when traveling at one’s leisure, just enjoying the view out the window zooming, alright, crawling by, there's this sense that the outside rules are somehow suspended, nonexistent for the moment. That will, obviously, come back and bite me. But for now, I’m just being carried by the flow and let myself drift along with it. It’s a nice feeling and I’m surprised at myself how I’ve missed it.
2012-04-08
2012-03-11
Signal to noise ratio
I miss the old Internet. The one without google or facebook checking the inside of my fridge or laundry basket. Without having to worry about LSOs, targeted ads and whatnot. I miss IRC, ftp, even Geocities (okay, some parts - the horrible animated gif backgrounds one could find there coupled with looped midi music is something best forgotten). I know that some of this is still there, but that sense that there is a cornucopia of things that one can discover (to ones joy or disgust) seems gone. I miss not knowing that in order to discover said cornucopia I have to go over corporate paywalls, sign in through site A just to be routed through sites B, C, D to get to Q where I have to evade trolls while wading through a swamp of datasludge. Is attributing sources so hard? Compare articles on pl and en wikipedia for the number of attributed bibliographical sources. Seems it takes arcane knowledge of the highest degree to do it. I miss simplicity of information without clutter.
I remember this one time, ten, maybe twelve years ago when I found a ftp server stuffed with AMVs on some Italian univeristy site. The feeling was similar to rummaging through and old attic and happening upon a particularly interesting bauble, book or other thingamajig. Fat chance of that happening now. I think I'll start using an off-line email client again. Brush up my html, maybe tackle php.
Okay, enough with this rant(-ish) fit of nostalgia. My sick leave is at an end. Monday starts in 3+ hours. Time for a nice hot cup of joe and some light reading to get in the mood. "The rum diary" perhaps? On another note I need to get a haircut. I miss my mohawk.
I remember this one time, ten, maybe twelve years ago when I found a ftp server stuffed with AMVs on some Italian univeristy site. The feeling was similar to rummaging through and old attic and happening upon a particularly interesting bauble, book or other thingamajig. Fat chance of that happening now. I think I'll start using an off-line email client again. Brush up my html, maybe tackle php.
Okay, enough with this rant(-ish) fit of nostalgia. My sick leave is at an end. Monday starts in 3+ hours. Time for a nice hot cup of joe and some light reading to get in the mood. "The rum diary" perhaps? On another note I need to get a haircut. I miss my mohawk.
2012-03-07
Belated birthday post
Diarrhea, nausea, vomit, joint pain and fever. In short: stomach flu. Did I mention that I hate surprise gifts?
2012-02-20
The apogee of sumo inertia
I slept for too long yesterday. Let the weekend get too deep under my skin. Suffice to say, that when finally woken and free of the mattress's clutches just waiting to pull me back under, I had to claw every inch of the way to the closed the door no turning back stage. Walking the Pattern in Amber? Bitch, please. Try going to work at midnight on Sunday.
2012-02-15
2012-01-23
Bits, bytes and pieces
Everyone knows the differences between an archetypal politician and a, let's use the term, 'person of negotiable affection'. Chiefly among them, that you can choose to fuck the latter and have no choice in being fucked by the former. Also, both will take your money, however you have no say in the matter with the former, while if you choose not to fuck the latter, your money stays in your wallet. And unlike some STDs, stupidity and utter lack of foresight are incurable.
With authoritarian monarchy there is a chance, that you'll be governed by an inbred motherfucker (literally, I mean, there have been cases) who will hang your family because he didn't like the color of your shoes. Or a down to earth guy who's got his shit sorted. With democracy, you have a solid 100% guarantee that you'll be ruled by someone whose IQ is the consequence of the average IQ of the voters. Take the dumbest guy in the electorate and divide his IQ by the number of voters, that's what you get. But hey, you chose that, right? go ahead, feel smug and morally superior, pat yourself on the back.
If issues covered in that "Trade agreement" are already covered in Polish law/policy, then why is it being signed anyway? For kicks? To conform? Sorry, but I never heard of a lemming which suddenly sprouted wings and flew away in the midst of free fall. Sure. Go ahead, carve open a whole new niche for the black market. The netizens will adapt. Ad-hoc wifi networks and encrypted VPNs, onion routing, and so on and so forth.
If the admin credentials for our PM's website (which, mind you, was on an external network, therefore it's rather doubtful that any critical data was there - if there was, then, well shucks...) are admin and admin1, for the login and password, respectively. And said PM keeps his government issue laptop password on a post-it stuck to it, then I won't even ask about the level of IT security policy practiced in our government. I won't ask, and I won't shudder. I'll just get a bottle of good alcohol and store it. And look for a nice place to drink it (preferably in a tropical climate) at the time when that asteroid finally hits, or the nukes start flying.
Because if the apocalypse doesn't hit then I'll be very disappointed. If the world won't burn, scream or quake, then our grandchildren won't hate us for our stupidity. They won't have the capacity to hate, care, or think for that matter. They'll just want another 100% legal, certified, infringement free megaburger™ and fries™, while consuming another safe, original, corpo-issued, G rated blood and gore kids extravaganza remake of a sequel of a remake of a remake of a prequel (you can smell and taste the blood in our 6D™ holo-gigaplex™, only 15 corpo$ extra) with an amazing 10 lines of dialogue.
Come hither asteroid!
With authoritarian monarchy there is a chance, that you'll be governed by an inbred motherfucker (literally, I mean, there have been cases) who will hang your family because he didn't like the color of your shoes. Or a down to earth guy who's got his shit sorted. With democracy, you have a solid 100% guarantee that you'll be ruled by someone whose IQ is the consequence of the average IQ of the voters. Take the dumbest guy in the electorate and divide his IQ by the number of voters, that's what you get. But hey, you chose that, right? go ahead, feel smug and morally superior, pat yourself on the back.
If issues covered in that "Trade agreement" are already covered in Polish law/policy, then why is it being signed anyway? For kicks? To conform? Sorry, but I never heard of a lemming which suddenly sprouted wings and flew away in the midst of free fall. Sure. Go ahead, carve open a whole new niche for the black market. The netizens will adapt. Ad-hoc wifi networks and encrypted VPNs, onion routing, and so on and so forth.
If the admin credentials for our PM's website (which, mind you, was on an external network, therefore it's rather doubtful that any critical data was there - if there was, then, well shucks...) are admin and admin1, for the login and password, respectively. And said PM keeps his government issue laptop password on a post-it stuck to it, then I won't even ask about the level of IT security policy practiced in our government. I won't ask, and I won't shudder. I'll just get a bottle of good alcohol and store it. And look for a nice place to drink it (preferably in a tropical climate) at the time when that asteroid finally hits, or the nukes start flying.
Because if the apocalypse doesn't hit then I'll be very disappointed. If the world won't burn, scream or quake, then our grandchildren won't hate us for our stupidity. They won't have the capacity to hate, care, or think for that matter. They'll just want another 100% legal, certified, infringement free megaburger™ and fries™, while consuming another safe, original, corpo-issued, G rated blood and gore kids extravaganza remake of a sequel of a remake of a remake of a prequel (you can smell and taste the blood in our 6D™ holo-gigaplex™, only 15 corpo$ extra) with an amazing 10 lines of dialogue.
Come hither asteroid!
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