I spy, I spy, I spy with my little eye!

Again. The United States is incessantly violating people's privacy.

Sure, the 'cloud' is basically hanging everything up on the Internet for anyone to see, but that is not how it was meant to be. It was supposed to be a way of making sure a person can access his or her data from anywhere without constantly carrying around a hard drive or multiple thumb drives. It was supposed to be a way for a person to use all the computing power necessary even if all the person has is a puny netbook or tablet, or even a phone. It was supposed to be a way of getting things done anywhere using any device by letting the 'cloud' take care of the heavy lifting. Collaboration was supposed to be a great feature of the 'cloud', allowing people from all over the world to work on the same project, no matter where they were or what device they were using to access the 'cloud'. Even so, it was never meant to be used or accessed by people not specifically authorized for it.
Now it would appear that a piece of legislation is allowing the U.S. law enforcement to snoop what goes on in the cloud. While currently it is limited to the servers located in the country, but nothing is really stopping them from demanding other countries' cooperation. We all remember how they demanded that New Zealand would hand over the founder of MegaUpload because his company servers were being used for piracy. The servers were not located in the U.S., the founder was not located there, and yet it was the U.S. decided to prosecute the guy. For creating a company that allowed people to rent server space from them. The hand of 'world police' stretches far.

I've shared my gripe with the powers that be before, most notably when Obama allowed detaining U.S. citizens without sufficient (or any) proof for an unspecified amount of time and when he allowed the killing of U.S. citizens abroad without due process.

It is all part of the problem that Americans tend to have nowadays. A problem brought out by a smart chap. A problem that Americans have excessive faith in the establishment. That is to say that whenever there is a problem, they want more government control. The latest issue, gun control. One shooting by a person who used his mother's guns and people go running to the government, demanding more stricter rules, from more psychological tests to banning guns altogether. Random demands, just wanting the government to spread its wings and bubble-wrap them. Because it is not the people or the gun culture at fault, it is the government. And giving all possible power to the government surely can't be a bad thing, right?

Student life.

I recently came across an interesting question. Should all people who obtain higher education while being sponsored by the state (i.e. the state covering the tuition fees) have to work in their home state for at least 3 years after graduating?

Aside from the obvious organizational problems (Do you have to work 3 years after getting a Bachelor's or Master's?; How can the state enforce such a rule?) there are obvious issues with the use of the proposition. The problem that raised such an idea is the fact that many people look for work in foreign countries where the wages are significantly higher, and consequently few specialists remain. In essence, the state subsidizes the training of workforce for other countries, and gains very little in return.

While the 'how?' can be addressed by laying down some ground rules (any degree after which the person does not enroll in a local higher education facility; any emigrates can be prosecuted upon their return home), the idea retains issues that cannot be addressed simply. For example, a person who completes a Bachelor's in his home country and wishes to go to med school in the Unites States, simply cannot. He'd have to find work for 3 years. The problem herein lies in the fact that the person will no longer be financed by his or her home state, and as such, the state is unable to make any demands concerning the education received abroad. And so, the demand has to be made either beforehand (before going abroad) or extended by the duration or the studies (making the person stay in the home country for 3 years after coming back). In the former case, the person will become a fully-fledged specialist when about half of his probable lifetime is over, and retirement is creeping up. This means a relatively short time of employment, even if the person chooses to remain in the home country after graduating. In the latter case, it effectively hinders the person's potential career. He or she could get a job in his or her while studying, and forcing them to come back could mean giving up a great position that might not be open 3 years later. Internships generally want younger people, and besides, the impression made on a potential employer fades with time. Forcing people to come back is just throwing even more hurdles in their faces. Keeping them here is even worse.

There are plenty of specialties where the local work market is extremely limited, or even absent. The workforce needs to move to where the work is, because forcing a person to work 3 years in a place there is actually no work pertaining to the person's education results in cheaper workforce. More people with higher education will be working in blue collar positions, McDonald's (not just the literature majors)... It would be a terrible waste of resources. Why teach and train people to be specialists if we do not allow them to use their knowledge and skills? Why spend our tax money and people's time to produce overeducated cleaning staff? After all, resources are very limited.

The only solution as far as the young, aspiring teens are involved if this were to come to pass as far as I can figure is emigration. Get your higher education in Scotland, France or Germany. This way you will retain the option of choosing whether you wish to return home or remain abroad. But nobody will force you to do either. It may not be possible for everyone, as living and studying abroad is demanding, both financially and intellectually (you need to know the language). And I've heard excess emigration of bright, young, aspiring individuals is not exactly what is in a state's best interest.

All in all, forcing people to remain in the country that funded their higher education after graduation is not only limiting the people's chances of success, personal happiness and spiritual fulfillment, it is also impractical and counterproductive from the country's own perspective. As such, the rule would bring absolutely no perks for anyone, only create an abundance of further problems. In this case, the rule should not ever put into practice.

Sad truth of consumption.

User experience.
The feeling we get when we use something, the impression carved in our minds about the thing we use. A coctail mixed from ease of use, aesthetics and functionality. Something really important, yet really difficult to get right.

The first thing that comes to mind when speaking of UX is UI, the user interface. While it is the window through which everything is operated, but it is just that - a window. And you don't buy a house by looking at the windows. You also look inside, you look at the components, you look at the potential just sitting there, you look at the nooks and crannies, and by doing that you also look at the soul of the house.

And the soul can be just right, and it can be really terrible. A case in point, modern gadgets.

If there is one thing you should know how to do with your computer to lengthen its lifetime, it is cleaning. The outside smudges and fingerprints aren't that bad, but crumbles under the keyboard and heaps of dust blocking the cooling fan are threats to be reckoned with. Obviously, the problem is even more severe in the case of laptops, where the components are pressed tightly together, increasing the probability of short circuits and mechanical damages (bending, breaking, scratching). Cleaning the innards should be a simple process anyone can do. Alas, with the newer machines, it is something a desperate person would do. The cooling fan should be accessible by removing a couple of screws, not by disassembling the whole computer.

And this problem affects the user more than one would think. The fact that the fan is not accessible also indicates that air flow inside the computer is somewhat lacking. This leads to high temperatures and a shorter lifespan for the components. Sure it might last for a couple of years, but 4 years is a stretch. The thing is, computers should last longer. They cost a pretty penny so an average user would prefer not to make a payment like that very often. This is excluding those who always want the latest technology (or whatever Apple shoots out).

I like to be the master of my computer, and I do not want it to unexpectedly die on me because of poor construction planning. Alas, this is not so good for the current economy - that wants people to buy, accumulate, and buy again. And that sadly leads to somewhat lacking user experience.

"Helping me is wrong. Letting me know you are helping me, that's even worse."

Time Lords (from Doctor Who) and Altarans (from Stargate series) had many things in common. They were both extremely evolved species that had their inner squabbles (renegades like the Doctor or Merlin; bad guys like Master and the Ori), so it was quite apparent that they could not keep their people in order. Granted, it might be rather difficult to oversee the actions of shape-shifting time travelers, but it is not impossible. For species that have evolved so far and existed for so long, I would expect to have a more advanced culture, a better form of government. Alas, they don't.
When I say 'bad guys', I mean the people who decided to break the rules. The most important of them is a no-change policy - they are not allowed to change anything that happens. No helping the less evolved species, no protecting anyone from being exterminated. In fact, the only time they appear to do anything is when they are being targeted. Why anyone would bother with them if they do nothing is anyone's guess. Sure, they are big and powerful, but if they do nothing it does not matter. If you want to exterminate them, leave the best for last. That way you will already have established a power base in their vicinity and amassed forces large enough to be quite undefeatable. Staying on the defensive indicated insufficient strength, going on the offensive indicates a overabundance of strength. Only fight a fight you've already won.
In any case, the no-change policy causes an obvious security risk. If you are not allowed to react to a threat, you will face the dire consequences. And why not help the little guys? Enlighten them of your mistakes, teach them how to avoid those blunders. Inform them, influence them by teaching them. You don't have to make them dependent on you, you don't have to make them perfect. But a little guidance goes a long way. It's like being parents to a less evolved species. Sure they might not listen to you, and do some stupid stuff along the way, but that's just a part of growing up, of evolving. And who knows, maybe they find an another path that differs from yours. There isn't much you can do without a huge risk of changing things for the worse, but it's a whole lot better than doing nothing. When you see a problem, advise, help. Don't look the other way. After all, I bet learning from your elders was an important part of your evolution at some point.

Yes, there is a good chance there will be someone 'evil' who will advise badly. But that's the whole point of teaching those under you to think for themselves. And maybe you are the 'evil' person who advises badly. 'evil' and 'good' are extremely subjective. All you can hope is that what you've learned, what you know, is somewhat useful to others. Otherwise, what excuse do you have for existing if you cannot impart a single bit of information that would benefit someone else? If you cannot affect someone's life for the better, if you can't make a person smile for a moment, if you can't even make anyone remember you (well, that is quite a problem for the Silence)? If it does not matter whether you exist or not, then you are not a higher species. If that is the case, then perhaps you should learn from those you consider beneath you.



And no, not mattering does not mean that you should not exist. If there is no reason for you to exist, then there probably isn't a good reason for you not to exist. So you might as well keep existing, and you will probably begin to matter to somebody. Hope is a powerful influence.

"Be adventurous, but not reckless!"

Inspiration. It is something abstract, yet something we all crave for. In that respect, it is like love. We can't really define it, unless we go down the simple route of saying it is a normal part of our biology, a simple reaction that happens in us. But there is something they both have in common that is not part of the definition. They are both triggered by some kind of outside influence. Sometimes the same influence.
Pretty much everyone knows how when we meet someone interesting and/or attractive, our creative juices start flowing. And so amazing artwork, breathtaking poetry and romantic novels are born. From meeting a single person that somehow triggers a switch in us. Continued meeting can preserve the hormone balance required for the extraordinary creativity, but eventually the juice runs out. Stagnation kills emotions, and without emotions there cannot be exquisite works of art. Then is the last moment to attempt sudden progress (as opposed to gradual progress). Otherwise one day you will look into the mirror and realize that you have reached your potential, and wasted all opportunities to be something more, that what you see is all that you will ever be. And that is not a nice thing to happen.
However, unlike love, inspiration can be triggered by random events, even inanimate objects. Conversations, books, quotes. Even a wandering mind can suddenly be overcome by an unexpected wave of creativity when it becomes tired enough. But the best source of inspiration is life itself. What happens to you, what you overhear, what you talk about, what you do. Not awesome TV-series or irrefutably good books. It is what changes you the most that gives you the most inspiration to do something. Change triggers the mind. So try something new once in a while. Try a new hobby, go see a foreign film with a nice girl, visit a museum or science center, write blindly. Your mind will thank itself.






And in case you haven't heard, even the U.S. are warning about a big troublemaker called Java. So it is not just slow, it is also kind of dangerous.

Thoughts in the abyss

"Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so."

Time is an interesting dimension. As with other dimensions, we have distributed it into portions, or quantities. Usually, we have more of it than we require, deadlines are but light at the end of the tunnel. Only too late do we realize that while it may be at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel is a terribly short one. So our productivity suddenly shoots up right before the deadline, after which it slumps to the ground.
This is the case most of the time. Sometimes people keep pushing, keep being productive no matter how far deadlines are. It is awe-inspiring to see some people constantly doing their best. Surprisingly enough, they make it look easy. In a way, it is easy, because it is something they've been doing for a very long time. Being proper is a kind of thing one can get used to.
Constant work is by no means an exclusive club, anyone willing can join. Even if you are lazy and have only done as much as is necessary but as little as possible, it will just take a bit more willpower. And the transition is not easy, not with so many possible options of procrastination at your fingertips at every second of the day. And that is why you need a hobby.

A good hobby is work that you do when you feel like it, or you have set down some certain time when you do it. Many people have chosen jogging, gymnastics, or really any sport. Stamp collecting seems to be a thing of the past. Some play computer games that keep their minds sharp and active, from amazingly detailed and mind-training 4X games to newer, more reflex-based mindless carnage games (LoL and the ilk). To each his own. But there is one hobby that I've grown fond of lately. Thinking.
Now, it might sound a bit strange, but it is actually rather good. You do some work, you study or whatnot, then you get tired of it, you stress your mind even further by simply thinking. You can think of the stuff you just read about, you can think of some things that you read about months ago, or you can think of the world, of economics, or you can simulate a 3D journey, flying through the streets of a neighborhood you know, or can imagine for yourself. Create imaginary people or use people you know and create visual images of them to talk to, to philosophize with, or create flying cars and ponder about how they can function. In your mind the only limits are the ones you set for yourself. Wouldn't you like to have a lucid, controllable daydream about working in a different country, in a different environment? Wouldn't you like to dream up something to strive for in real life? After all, "As long as my mind is free, I can never get bored" applies. If you don't believe me, just think about it.
And once you have stressed your mind enough, do something creative to relax. Draw. Dance like nobody is watching (while hopefully nobody is). Sing like nobody is listening (but do it quietly so that the neighbors won't complain). Cuddle with somebody. If you can, try composing. Break your Android or iOS devices so that they would work properly (sadly, this actually works). Clean your computer for once, if you can (if you have pretty much anything but a MacBook). Work out. Again, the possibilities are nearly endless, and each person can find one's fancy.

Whatever you choose to do to keep you from overheating or overworking, make sure it works, and that it does not take too much of your time. The work still has to get done. Just slow yourself down a little to go even faster than before. Because if you think about it, work is like a marathon. You have to pace yourself.

The geek shall inherit

By now I'm sure you've heard of the great news. Ubuntu is coming for mobile platforms, including a combination of Android+Ubuntu. While this is rather small news when you think of the (rather limited) phone experience, it does have a point. A very important point as well if you ask me.

For about a year now many people, including me, have been wondering about the staggering amount of power mobile phones have. Over 1GHz processors, dual-core processors, dedicated GPUs, now even quad-core processors with each processor overpowering many desktops from this century. The sheer amount of computing capability just sitting in our pockets is astounding, and until Ubuntu, there has been pretty much nothing that would use all of that juice.

What Canonical, the company financing the development of Ubuntu, a distribution of Linux, an architecture on which Android is built as well, has been trying to do for the past 4 years is bring the power of your pocket-pc (that's what smartphones really were until they were called smartphones, just simple PDAs) to the desktop level. Plug your phone in to a screen and a keyboard (and a mouse if you like) and you get the typical Ubuntu experience that you get right now on a desktop or a laptop. It is exactly the same thing DELL tried to do with laptops and docks - keep the laptop dock connected to a large screen (or screens), a mouse, an optional external keyboard, external drives, anything. And when you come home, simply put your laptop in the dock and use it as a real workstation. It was quite impressive. And if you can carry your phone around, and just plug it in to do anything you would on a laptop or a desktop, I am all for that. It is a concept Canonical demoed last February as well, though it got very little attention. Now, it appears that they are much closer to a final product.

But most people already have a desktop or a laptop, or both. And they are accustomed to the idea that when their computer becomes too slow (or they break it with bad care), they buy a new computer, not a new phone. So the market is not really ready for these all-in-one devices, even though this would probably decrease the problem of low battery. After all, if you plug it in to use it as a computer, it charges while you do that.

While the phone-PC combo is extremely cool and futuristic, it is not the only thing that Canonical wishes to roll out. The phone-PC was originally meant to use Android as a base - when you use your phone as a phone, it's Android that you use, when you dock it, you get Ubuntu. Pretty much what the ASUS PadFones were about, except that with the larger screen you also get more options. And this is where it really gets good.

The tablet has been more or less a fashion product, something to entertain the elderly, the kids, cats, iguanas, frogs, or really anything else with. A toy, because it has been forced to run an operating system meant for tiny devices. Devices that were so limited that the operating systems don't even know the meaning of multitasking, let alone keeping a video playing in a browser tab which is not currently selected. With the Tegra 4 coming, tablets have the screen estate and the wherewithal to compete with modern netbooks when it comes to power. Netbooks that already have a normal operating system like Ubuntu. And many tablets even come with a slide-out keyboard or a keyboard dock so that makes them even more like netbooks. What they do better than netbooks is the creative part. Handwriting, drawing, interactive demos, anything to do with a touchscreen. The old Wacom tabs were a hit among cartoonists and designers who wanted their computer to understand their pencil movements, who wanted to draw directly to their computer. Getting Ubuntu on tablets would enable tablets to become the netbooks of the modern age. Devices as small as netbooks, but with a lot more possibilities.

Sure, there have been unofficial ports of Ubuntu to tablets (because Ubuntu is an open source platform, it is rather flexible and does not depend on a single type of processor architecture, such as Intel, but instead supports other hardware as well, such as the ARM processors), but they tend to have the same shortcomings. The chipsets are not fully supported, which means that perhaps the HDMI port does not work out of the box and requires tinkering or WiFi is spotty, or the tablet keyboard lacks the F1-F12 keys which one would use in Linux if they for some reason did not want to use a graphical user interface (fat chance for that though). And as with all unofficial ports, you lose the warranty (as you need to break or 'root' your laptop to make it work better) and, at the same time, risk bricking it (which is uncommon, but very easy to do for a beginner) and lose the option or over-the-air updates if you were to revert to Android (because the bootloader has signing problems).

However, since Android was built for phones, and tablets follow the structure of phone more or less, once Ubuntu is made fully compatible with Android devices (should not take long since they are both based on Linux so the underlying stuff is already there), Ubuntu will natively be compatible with tablets. And that, my friends, is the point when tablets gain use for an average person. Because let's face it, Android apps are very limited, even when it comes to simple .docx editing or watching movies with DTS sound. Ubuntu on the other hand is smooth, and with the new and reduced Unity, very easily usable. Even for those who have never touched a Linux distribution before, as odd as it may be, I would actually recommend it.

Canonical is proving that geeks are now the cool kids in town, the people with power and the knowledge to use it. They are the people who get paid the big bucks now, and they are the people whose work we can all benefit from more and more in our daily lives. The hardware was there a long time ago, now they are bringing in the software that will change how we think of mobile computing.

Link.

The Daily Show is back from the winter break, and takes a rather good stance about the gun debate. It is worth a watch, because even if you do not live in the States, the problem is not limited to there. It is mostly there, but often enough things that happen there somehow influence what goes on in other countries.
Furthermore, it shows how restricted democratic governments are when it comes to protecting the people. And, in a sense, they should be.

In any case, normality should be restored soon.

It is a brand new world out there. It is time for a brand new you.

Ah, a new year has arrived, and with it, new promises and hopes to finally do something we've wanted to do for years, but never done them. Though often more than not, if you wait long enough, an opportunity will present itself.

Change rarely comes when you want it to, instead it likes to sneak up behind you and get your knickers in a twist before it finally shows itself. As with the New Year. Most resolutions fail due to the lack of change. Some succeed because they make the change happen, some do because change coincides with their desires. This time, I got lucky.

I have decided to let go of the 2-day blogging limit, set about 6 months ago, as it really hasn't worked out lately. Instead, a 3-day limit will have to do, as long as I keep working on my resolution-induced side project. It is something I've wanted to do for a long time, years even. But I believe that if I don't do it now, I will never. Why? Because I no longer live the easy life where nothing really *had* to be done. Now it is time to do things when things are supposed to be get done, and do them properly, not half-assed. It is the time to step up one's game and stay on top of the moving mountain, so as to avoid getting crushed by it.
"It is time to get to work." - John Smith

In any case, if there's something you've long wanted to do, but haven't got round to it, now is as good time as any to start.