Yet Another Angry Citizen

I love TED, part 6

2008-11-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

This link came through on my TED RSS feed:

Dan Barber: A surprising parable of foie gras

And off course I thought; Booooooorrrriiinng. What could possibly be interesting about a presentation about a type of food that I have never eaten and aren't in any hurry to either. And then the title of the talk is so not inspiring. And then I read the description:

At the Taste3 conference, chef Dan Barber tells the story of a small farm in Spain that has found a humane way to produce foie gras. Raising his geese in a natural environment, farmer Eduardo Sousa embodies the kind of food production Barber believes in.

Ok, still not very interesting.. But I thought, ok I want to be a more balanced person with interests in many different subjects and truely general knowledge and understanding of the world, so I really should listen to this. Not because it is interesting but because I should practice what I profess to believe in and at the very least I get to say that I listened.. Boy were my instincts off on this one.

This may very well be one of the most interesting, inspiring and enjoyable, yes even funny presentations I have listened to in a long time. Watch this!

John Fortune and John Bird

2008-09-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Tianamo

2008-09-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

website

I love TED, part 5

2008-09-10T12:50:00.001-07:00

Skyrails..

2008-09-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

website
download

I love TED, part 4

2008-09-03T12:54:00.001-07:00

Humor galore.

2008-09-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

Life After Death by PowerPoint

users guide 4 min

Computer Security is Fun!

2008-08-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

I really like the reverse money transfer trick.

Get Rich or Die Trying - Black Hat 08072008

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: flaws logic)

Pretty!

2008-08-07T03:55:00.000-07:00

I love TED, part 3

2008-06-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Eclipse visualization.. pretty

2008-06-19T04:48:00.001-07:00

code_swarm - Eclipse (short ver.) from Michael Ogawa on Vimeo.

The Happening..

2008-06-12T12:41:00.003-07:00

I just went to see a movie.. Me and some friends try to see a movie every week. There are not that many so our threshold is pretty low. We'd seen the trailer of 'The Hapening' and it seemed ok enough, so we went.

Here is my official review.

THE HAPPENING IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!

Stupid plot, stupid people, stupid dialogue and stupid decisions by all the actors. I can't possibly think of a way that a movie could ever be worse. It wasn't even possible to laugh at the movie for its stupidity. I think the movie literally wants to incite suicidal behavior in its audience.

Sorry, just needed to vent a little and get it out of my system.

I love TED, part 2

2008-06-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is not a link to TED. Sorry!

I also love Visualization. This is a visualization of all the TED videos. Cool.

TEDSphere

Inside joke.

2008-06-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious.

Ice cream

2008-05-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

On a rainy afternoon in the university cafeteria four academics sit down for a conversation..

Robert Nozick: You know, the state of liberty is derived from the state of nature.

John Nash: Hmm, yes and economics is not a zero sum game.

Richard Dawkins: Altruism an Cooperation flow from selfish genes.

Stephen Hawking: The earth is not a closed system.

I overhear and think; our rights are derived from sunlight.

I need some icecream.

I love TED, part 1

2008-05-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Cognitive surplus

2008-05-12T05:20:00.000-07:00

Obama a little forgetful..

2008-04-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere is a little upset over an election debate between Clinton and Obama because it lacked substance.. Right, since when have debates on television been about the issues?

Anyway, I spotted something when I listened to Obama answering a question about lapel pins:

Obama says at 1:21: "I have never said that I don't wear flagpins or refuse to wear flagpins."

Which made me think about this:

And here Obama says at 2:29: "I won't wear that pin on my chest instead I'm gonna try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great."

Getting a little forgetful are we?

Our 'quality' newspaper commits plagiarism

2008-04-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

The NRC has a story about the police in belgium doing a search in the head office of the scientology church there. The NRC freely admits that they got the story from the belgian newspaper.. Look at what they write:

Huiszoeking bij Scientology in Brussel

........
Het gaat om een onderzoek naar valsheid in geschrifte en afpersing. Er zijn documenten en computers meegenomen. De politie heeft het pand na de huiszoekingen op donderdag en vrijdag verzegeld. Dat meldt de Belgische krant De Morgen .

Het gebouw is verzegeld. Bij de gerechtelijke instanties konden voorts geen details over deze huiszoeking bekomen worden.

In een persbericht stelt de Scientology Kerk dat ze slachtoffer is geworden van een schending van haar fundamentele rechten en beschuldigt ze justitie ervan kwaadwillige operaties te voeren, "in een poging, die al tien jaren duurt, om bewijzen te vinden".

Justitie in België besloot vorig jaar september Scientology te gaan vervolgen. Justitie wil de Europese en Belgische afdelingen van Scientology vervolgen, samen met twaalf leden.
......

Huiszoeking in Belgische hoofdzetel Scientology Kerk

De federale politie heeft gisteren een huiszoeking gehouden in de Belgische hoofdzetel van de Scientology Kerk, aan de Generaal McArthurstraat in Ukkel. Het gebouw is verzegeld. Bij de gerechtelijke instanties konden voorts geen details over deze huiszoeking bekomen worden.

Rechten geschonden
In een persbericht stelt de Scientology Kerk dat ze slachtoffer is geworden van een schending van haar fundamentele rechten en beschuldigt ze justitie ervan kwaadwillige operaties te voeren, "in een poging, die al tien jaren duurt, om bewijzen te vinden".

Misdadige organisatie
De Scientology Kerk is sinds een tiental jaren onderwerp van een gerechtelijk onderzoek, gebaseerd op de betichting van een misdadige organisatie.
......

Hey NRC, Getting lazy huh?

North Korea is rattling the sabres

2008-03-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the headline:

North Korea warns South of 'pre-emptive strike'

I'd just like to take a few seconds to respond to this...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
..
HAHA
..
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
..
sniffle...

Seriously.. North Korea.. like it has any change in hell of winning a war with South Korea. Always fun to hear kimmi squirm.

Democracy on the cheap

2008-03-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

I'm always amazed when I hear people talking about voting. Nobody seems to care about it.

This might sound weird considering all the fuss over elections all the time. People do care about elections and politicians and the direction of their country. All that is clear, but as soon as it comes down to actually doing the voting nobody seems all that interested in the integrity of the process.

Crooks and liars has a post about Florida and Michigan democrats squabbling over what to do with their delegates, they both didn't have a proper election so the results they have are only partial. Now they are debating whether to count the delegates as is or to not count them or to do a new election.

Crooks and liars then says this: "Florida Dems could have another primary, but there are some major legal and financial restrictions."

Legal? So there is a law saying that people are not allowed to vote? I think I know the solution to this problem..

Financial? I'm surprised that this can even be said with a straight face. So the rule is "democracy is good as long as it doesn't cost anything"?

To be fair, Michigan is trying to set up a new election they just need the necessary funding ($10 million). Lets hope they can raise that.

Why I love Holland, part 2

2008-03-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'll ever be able to comprehend the arrogance, immorality and maliciousness of those that oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Chantal Sebire begs French president for the right to die
France rejects right-to-die plea

Joel speaks on web standards

2008-03-18T06:06:00.000-07:00

There are only a few technology writers that can really explain stuff in non-technical terms, teach you something and be funny at the same time. Joel Spolsky is one of these people. He has written an article on web standards that is really worth the time if you care about the subject. I really like the quote at the end: "the idealists are 100% right in principle and, ..., the pragmatists are right in practice."

Amazon sucks

2008-03-11T11:52:00.001-07:00

With the ongoing creditcrisis the dollar is seriously tanking. Great! that means that I can buy books for cheap on Amazon.. I like reading and I buy a lot of books but so far always from dutch sellers (bol.com and the local bookstore). So I thought I'd change this and save some money.

Here is the problem; Amazon only accepts credit cards as payment methods and I don't want a credit card. I do want to pay with iDEAL but Amazon doesn't want to support that system. I tried complaining to them but their online complaint system requires an order number for the complaint. Obviously I don't have one.

God I hate Amazon.

Why I love Holland, part 1

2008-03-07T06:35:00.001-08:00

This will be a multipart series, although I don't know how often I'll post something.

In the news today is an article saying that the government is going to put more funding into combatting the dogshit at a public park in Amsterdam. This is in reponse to a survey which said that it was the number two annoyance there, the number one annoyance was stray garbage and number three was dogs running around not on a leesh. Other nuisances mentioned where people playing soccer, barbequing and public urination.

You might think, so why is this great? It seems like nothing more than standard governing. Well, its great because that same park is used at night by gay men having sex (obviously in public in full view). Nobody seemed to be upset about that. :)

I love Holland.

Blogosphere falls over itself to be politically correct

2008-03-05T05:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about Charlotte Allen's post about women being stupid. I do not think that the premise of the piece is correct but it did raise an interesting point; that women and men are mentally different. Off course that part of the article was not addressed by the blogosphere:

Steve Benen in a post on Crooks and Liars:

Her foolish attack on women is easy to dismiss as petty nonsense, best suited for a He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club blog.

Ezra Klein on his blog says:

They should be ashamed of publishing an article of such poor quality.

Jessica at feministing had this to say:

she's just spouting misogyny for a patriarchal head-pat and a paycheck

But only hilzoy at Obsidian Wings had anything really useful to say:

A few more particular points. First, talking about what "we" women (or we liberals/conservatives, or whatever) is almost always just intellectual laziness. Unless the claim is obviously true (e.g., "we human beings are mammals"), the appropriate response is: what do you mean "we", white man?

Second, romance novels* (update below the fold) are not "books", as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold. Personally, I think they come out fine in either comparison, but that's probably because I'm just a dumb woman.

Third, the idea that brain size has anything to do with intelligence was disproven ages ago (at least, if we're talking about the normal variation in human brain size, as opposed to the difference between human and planarian brains.)

Fourth: doesn't the Post have editors whose job is to prevent this sort of trainwreck? If so, the editor responsible for allowing this column to waste perfectly good space in the Washington Post should be fired.

The first is nothing but semantic nitpicking. The question is if there are differences in intelligence between the genders. What the word 'we' means in the phrase 'we women' is rather pointless.

The second doesn't make much sence either. Comparing men and women by the kind of entertainment they enjoy isn't going to teach us much about their intelligence. And of course the research is very hard to control. I.e. when is something entertainment? how do you control for spare time? how do you rate the 'intelligence' of different forms of entertainment? etc.

The third point is fair, but false. A simple google search shows that there definately is a correlation between brain size and intelligence. [1], [2], [3]

And the fourth, well, I guess you can disagree on whether to print this article.

America bombs a village, doesn't provide health care and some reflections on misogyny

2008-03-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Some news of the day..

America decided to bomb a somali village using a Hercules AC-130. Those planes are generally not used for precision bombing. Score: 2 women and 2 children dead, 20 people wounded.

Americans are now getting health care provided for them by charity.

A war is erupting between Equador and Venezuela on one side and Colombia on the other. My first reaction was; wow a war in the world that America is not part of.. But the conspiracy nut in me couldn't completely rule it out.

Finally, Charlotte Allen in the Washington Post wrote an article asking why women are so stupid:

I can't help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial.

As you can understand this struck a nerve in our friendly feminists. Jessica at Fiministing had this to say:

Charlotte Allen - a professional woman-hating hack from the Independent Women's Forum who has also oh-so-bravely attacked transgender rights, said that the answer to women's potential financial woes is marriage, and suggested that Hurricane Katrina might have been "the best thing" to happen to New Orleans which is full of "whiners...chisel[ing] us taxpayers" out of money - has outdone herself in an article that is all about what dumb fucks women are.

You can see where this is going:

I could go on and on, because Allen certainly does provide ample fodder for fisking, but there's no real point. Professional anti-feminists make too much bank to ever stop writing sexist drivel.

I made that part bold because I think that part is the most important, Allen doesn't just mention anecdotes and vague beliefs, she mentions scientific studies. And thats what this question ultimately is: a scientific question. Everybody I know would readily accept that women and men are physically different, why is it so hard to entertain the notion that women and men are also mentally different? Maybe its just me but I've always found feminists to be a strange type of woman; trying very hard to be like men. I've never heard of men voluntarily trying to get in touch with their feminin side. We are all different in a lot of ways, please stop confusing equality with similarity. We are equal and different.

So what were those studies that Charlotte refered to? These are the quotes:
- "A study published in 1998 by the Johns Hopkins schools of medicine and public health revealed that women clocked 5.7 auto accidents per million miles driven, in contrast to men's 5.1, even though men drive about 74 percent more miles a year than women." article

- "a study released by the University of London in January showing that women and gay men perform more poorly than heterosexual men at tasks involving navigation and spatial awareness" article

- "Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size)." website website

- "While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid." article

Its not very conclusive in my mind but it does clearly show difference. I especially like the last one where men stick to the extremes and women are more in the middle. So Jessica, do you have any criticisms of these papers? In the interest of furthering the debate this seems like a good place to start.

A new promotional video for clinton.. Blowjob fiasco

2008-03-01T19:33:00.001-08:00

I just ran into this from the Huffington post:

The Hillary Clinton Campaign released a video starring Jack Nicholson today. The spot consists of a statement from Nicholson along with him in character as The Joker, Col. Jessup (A Few Good Men), and Jake Gittes (Chinatown).

Here is the video:

I think its a great promotional video, but what I find really amusing is that last part of the video. It doesn't include everything that Jack Nickolson says in "A few good men". Good thing I remembered and Google is so good at finding a transcript:

JN: There is nothing sexier then a woman you have to salute in the morning.

JN: Promote 'em all, I say!

JN: If you've never had a blowjob from a superior officer, -
JN: you've missed the best in life.

TC: Code Reds are still condoned here?

JN: But I'll just take cold showers till they elect some gal president.

I like quizes.. The "What is Your World View?" quiz

2008-02-19T08:55:00.000-08:00

I like quizes.. Here's one. And here are my results:

------------------------------
What is Your World View?
You scored as a Existentialist
Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist   56%
Postmodernist   56%
Modernist   50%
Cultural Creative  50%
Materialist   50%
Idealist   31%
Romanticist   31%
Fundamentalist   19%

------------------------------

Denmark Utopia, part 1

2008-02-19T04:36:00.001-08:00

This is going to be a multipart series. I have no idea how many parts there are going to be but we'll see.

For some time now I've noticed that all news coming out of denmark is positive. Denmark really seems like Utopia.

Here is what the news is this time:

The Keys to Happiness
Which is the happiest country in the world? According to a scientific study by Leicester University in England, it's Denmark.
http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/140/happiness

It is somewhat disappointing that I only started this blog a few days ago.. I could have had several parts already about the hotel that started offering vibrators for their female guests, or the striptease from schoolgirls where they started smearing whipped cream on eachother. Ahh.. those were the days..

Watching history happen..

2008-02-18T06:23:00.000-08:00

Kosovo declared independence yesterday and I was watching wikipedia getting updated while everything happened. Today I looked at the page for Kosovo again, this time noticing that a flag was added.

Seeing the stars on the blue background I was reminded of a lecture given at Pop!Tech by a guy named Juan Enriquez. He talked about how countries appear and disappear and change in size all the time. The whole talk is really consciousness raising so go watch it if you have the time (its about 30 minutes).

Of course watching a lecture with historical data providing evidence for a trendline is one thing, seeing it in action is quite another.

Stuff mentioned or related:
Maps of war, Padania, Spain, Italy, US, Texas, Connecticut, Nations of the world, Mexico, Maya peoples, Ancestries by county in US, Los Angeles, Amexica, Popular Baby Names in California, English good enough for Jesus, Je me souviens, US States, British Empire, Scotland, National Debt Graph, US Debt Clocks and Savings Clocks, Book buying on Amazon, W. Edwards Deming

Congratulations Kosovo!

2008-02-17T09:13:00.001-08:00

Congratulations on getting independence Kosovo!

Poor Americans get help from Bangladesh

2008-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

American exceptionalism? The American Dream?

Maybe for a few.. According to the financial times the Grameen Bank has opened up a branch in New York to provide microcredit to the American poor.

Don't get me wrong I'm all in favor of helping the poor but shouldn't America, the richest county in the world, be able to take care of its own poor?

Also, providing credit to Americans just doesn't seem like a good idea. The rest of the world was scammed out of a lot of money with the recent housing bubble, does anyone really want to give more credit to people who apparently can't control their own consumption? And do Americans really expect to be able to borrow their way out of debt?

First post! :)

2008-02-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I just created this blog.

I guess I've been thinking about creating a blog for some time now. Whether I have the time to actually put some good content here I don't know. The blog is more a way of venting all the random thoughts that flow through my mind on a daily basis.

Lets see if anybody is interested in reading them.

Hopefully the whole blog experience will be therapeutic.