Tag: Blogosphere

Liars

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Unfortunately it seems that creationists are not the only ones limited to lying. There are many others who even though they claim an intellectual base (in biology no-less) but are just as shallow and quick to turn to comment deleting and banning in order to silence and the ones that refute them.

Thus, witness the my recent exchange with one such liar with whom I tried to engage in a conversation after I read a recent post from the Black Sun journal. Initially I left a simple comment and didn’t expect to respond any more. However after taking a second look and seeing that I’ve been labeled as an Objectivist (of all things)I decided to leave a second one.

I expected it to be deleted in short order which is why I kept my browser window open to it. And this is exactly what happened. Not only that, but the blog author decided to tell blatant lies in order to save whatever credence she had left with her audience. Unfrotunately, for some reason my browser window reloaded and I lost my comment (although you can see when I tagged it here) which means I cannot easily copy-paste it here.

Within my reply, in short, I tried to actually discuss the matter with her. I explained that she was doing the all too common fallacy of appealing to emotion. I explained how having the goverment take an active hand in the curriculum does not lead to totalitarianism, as exemplified by the situation in Europe where not only is the education level superior to the USA but homeschooling is also illegal. I asked her to put aside for a moment the communism/fascism idea and actually try to discuss the issue at hand.

What did I get for my trouble? I am being labeled as Black Sun’s alias, an Objectivist and a Troll.

Now, you would assume that anyone with even 2 minutes to space would very easily discover the validity of the first two claims by visiting my blogger profile, clicking on the “My Website” link and then coming to the Division by Zer0. Then it would be obvious that I am independent from BSJ and also find out my thoughts on objectivism (Hint: They’re not positive). It would also be easy to surmise that I am also not a Troll, unless Troll for this particular hypocrite includes anyone who disagrees with her…

But no. Even that simple task was too much to ask for this Homeschooler. It was just so much easier to delete my comment, put her comments on moderation (so that we don’t spoil her party) and put invalid labels on me and everyone else who dissagreed with her. Just read Black Sun’s latest post for more amusement.

If this is the kind of discussion she is having, I’m feeling sorry for her kid(s). I really am. Here is a child who will grow up learning that you should never challenge your authority figures or else you risk losing your rights to speech. And Gawd help the kid if he so much as dares to say that Communism/Socialism has some nice ideas. Seeing how she reacted to people proposing goverment intervention in order to save children from being kept ignorant, I’m half-expecting her to explode and start urgent brainwashing procedures (Yeah right, as if she’s not doing so now…)

It’s impressive though. Even Objectivists were not so rude so as to delete comments without a fair warning and an attempt to discussion.

Unfortunately people like this seem to be perfectly happy to live in their little bubble world where all they hear is praises from their friends. Putting their head in the sand is apparently a very appropriate method of dealing with issues and they’re displaying the classic “Live and let die” mind frame that has, and still is, creating so many problems in the world. It is a pity but like a hedgehog, when reality rears its ugly head, they will prefer to curl up in a ball rather than face it.

I have no specific problem with that when it affects only themselves but unfortunately not only do they brainwash their children to act in such a manner but they are also spreading their lies to the blogosphere without havign to deal with any feedback. Against such action, like Alonzo Fyfe says, our only course of action is Words and Private Actions. You have seen my own actions already and these are to spread the word and label them as appropriate.

I urge any and all of you (yes, all five) to expose such people for what they are by linking to them with keywords that describe them. I selected “Liar” in this caseand Black Sun selected the quite appropriate “Hypocrite”. They may be able to delete comments but  unfortunately for them, they cannot delete linkbacks on the web. Hopefully anyone who is looking at whom is linking to them is bound to discover the antilogue…

If you dissagree with my action on the other hand, I’d love to hear your opinion on this.

The Beginning of the end or the end of a beginning?

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Apparently back in my homecountry, Greece, people have been finally waking up to the blogging phenomenon and as with anything new, the knee-jerk reaction is starting.

What is happening is that the anonymous blog Press-gr which has been publishing various inside stories for a while has finally drawn enough ire (and lawsuits) that the Greek goverment has mobilized to reveal who the anonymous bloggers behind it are. Apparently, they managed to track down an “author” of the blog by revealing ip addresses from his ISP. Nevermind that this is ridiculous as, without knowing from which IP addresses the authors used to connect to press-gr (which they can only get from Google) they might as well be catching any regular reader (Although without knowing the specifics of the investigation, I guess I could be wrong but I don’t see how unless they set up illegal packet sniffers).

In any case, I was reading Press-gr in the beggining, when the information seemed genuine, but when it started posting any BS that came to their hands, even things posted by anonymous commenters or obvious political propaganda, I decided to call it quits. It was just getting too unreliable (as well as being suspicious due to the amount of adverising) as far as accurate information ios concerned, not to mention annoying as the commentspam was ridiculous – A clear example that freedom of speech does not equal freedom to spam.

So what happened now is that various famous personalities of Greece are claiming that they were blackmailed from the authors of Press-gr and were threatened with defamation. Now, ignoring the fact that groundless defamation from an anonymous blog who’s quality is arguable by most sceptics, is not going to do much damage, the blackmailed people have gone public and are asking for goverment intervention. I’m actually wondering if those fighting back against an anonymous posting have ever heard of the Streisand effect

The most scary thing of all, of course, is that the goverment is now considering putting limits on free speech. This is exactly what the big media companies (and Televangelist/Telemarketers) want. Specifically, they are going to request people that blog about “informative issues” remain eponymous. If they still wish to remain anonymous then it will be much easier for the goverment to violate their rights and find out who they are.

Seeing how backwards the Greek goverment has been until now as regards to digital rights, then it’s fairly certain that things will move towards the worse case scenario. I just hope that more people will start using wikileaks which the Greek goverment cannot touch and also has a much higher standard

Generally speaking, after being sent a cease and desist myself for supposedly defaming my previous employer (although no details were given other than the scary lawyer email), I’m seeing a larger interest in the blogosphere from all the people that are set to have their skeletons drawn out of the closet.

Truly, there is nothing more that these slimy worms fear than the unedited light of truth. Blogs and the internet are the only thing they cannot control and all their secrets are finally slipping through their fingers. Don’t let them take it away from you people.

Sometimes I’m really glad I escaped Greece…

Το ιστολόγιο του Panhas

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Ένας συνεργάτης για λίγο καιρό όταν που δούλευα στον Φωκά, ο Παντελής, μετά απο μια μικρή μου παρότρυνση άνοιξε δικό του ιστολόγιο. Εκεί απ’οτι φαίνεται θα γράφει τις δικιές του οδηγίες και βοηθήματα με ότι έχει να κάνει με MS Windows.

Αρχικά ο Παντελής έστελνε τα κείμενα του μέσω email σε διάφορους (φαντάζομαι) γνωστούς του, συμπεριλαμβανομένου και του εαυτού μου. Δυστυχώς αυτός ο τρόπος είναι αρκετά περιοριστικός καθότι

  1. Δεν μπορείς να κάνεις πραγματική συζήτηση με όλα τα άτομα στην λίστα χωρις να αρχίσεις να ενοχλείς αυτούς που δεν ενδιαφέρονται
  2. Το αρχικό email μπορεί να μην είναι ενδιαφέρον σε όλου που το παίρνουν αλλά δεν έχεις τρόπο να το καταλάβεις αυτό χωρίς να στο πούνε.
  3. Μετά την αρχική αποστολή του μηνύματος, το έχεις χάσει. Κανείς άλλος δεν μπορεί να το βρεί έυκολα και δεν είναι αρχειοθετημένο πουθενά στο διαδίκτυο.
  4. Έχεις πολύ περιορισμένο formatting. Δεν γίνεται να βάλεις συνδέσμους μέσα στο κείμενο. Δεν μπορείς να έχεις rich text, κλπ.
  5. Δεν μπορείς να κάνεις διορθώσεις. Εαν συνηδειτοποιήσεις ότι αυτό που έγραψες είναι λάθος, πρέπει να στείλεις ένα email ακόμα με διορθώσεις.
  6. Εαν επιθυμείς να ακολουθείς τα γραπτά του, μπορείς απλά να χρησιμοποιήσεις κάποιο feed reader που κάνει την ίδια δουλειά με ένα email, απλά…καλύτερα.

Γι’αυτό τον λόγο χαίρομαι λοιπόν που έκανε αυτή την κίνηση και προτείνω ανεπιφύλακτα μια τουλάχιστον επίσκεψη σε όποιον δουλέβει σε οποιοδήποτε επίπεδο υποστήριξης σε περιβάλλον Windows. Ο Παντελής είναι πραγματικός γνώστης της πλατφόρμας της MS και αυτά που λέει έρχονται απο σημαντική εμπειρία. Όχι μόνο αυτό αλλα γράφει μόνος του τα κείμενα του σε δυο γλώσσες (Ελληνικά & Αγγλικά) για να διευκολύνει και αυτούς που δεν κατέχουν καλά τα αγγλικά αλλα και αυτούς που προτιμούν να διαβάζουν τα τεχνικά άρθρα στην γλωσσα του IT.

Objectivist kick

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Well, that’s it then. It seems that the objectivist apologist cannot stand my inferior intellectual mediocricy anymore and decided to bar me from posting any longer.  This is the last comment I made to his thread, which has since been deleted.

Yes Lord. We are unworthy…

I agree there is no point in continuing this as your arguments consist of either ignoring what I say, or first labeling me as something (in this case a moral subjectivist) and then bring the encyclopedic definition to personally attack me.

In this case, I am not a moral subjectivist as the encyclopedia defines it. I do not believe all moral theories are good. I do know that different kind of societies find different kind of moral theories correct. Thus morality is subjective.

I appreciate that you are trying to save me from embarrassing myself but seeing as your a shameless intellectual elitist who cannot accept being wrong (witness you ignoring everything you cannot refute), I have no fear of being embarrassed.

Oh, well. It seems that that’s that for the argumentative powers of the objectivist. Ergo seems to be acting no better than a theist to me. If you cannot argue against it, ignore it…

Quote of the Day: Mental Masturbation

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OMG, this must be like the best quote I’ve seen in a while

…If you prefer mental masturbation, then go back to Philosophy 101 and stroke your intellectual penis with the other pseudointellectuals until you squirt happy little fantasies all over each other. But don’t waste our time with your blathering bullshit.

Just. LOL!

Seriously, there guys have become one of my favorite stops on the net. Their snarkiness is quite refreshing:)

The mutating genre meme music variant

Db0

I really wanted to take part in the The Pharyngula mutating genre meme but unfortunately I am not viable for the environment he has created (not enough data from the first two genres). Thus I decided to create a competing meme on music & computers, since I am a bit more knowledgeable in it and my known blogs are a bit more in that subject.

So, here are the rules: Read more “The mutating genre meme music variant”

Shamed

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Oh man, I thought I had a nice looking site, but after seeing what some other people can do so easily, I am seriously shamed 🙁

In any case, [tag]Arnoc[/tag] certainly deserves congragulations on the excellent layout and look of it.  He’s also a professional web designer so if you’re looking for someone to make your site look good, look no further 😉

Ελληνικό Blogspot

Db04 Comments

Ρε παιδιά, υπάρχει καμία εξηγηση γιατί σχεδόν όλοκληρη η ελληνική blogo-σφαίρα πάει και ανοίξει ιστολόγια στο blogspot όταν υπάρχει το WordPress.com το οποίο είναι απλά ανώτερο σε λειτουργία ;

Καταλαβαίνω οτι είναι κυρίως το word-of-mouth (δηλαδή οι περισσότεροι Έλληνες μαθαίνουν για τα ιστολόγια από άτομα που είναι γραμμένα στο blogspot) αλλά η υπεροχή του wordpress θα έπρεπε να μετράει για κάτι έτσι δεν είναι;

Αν εξαιρέσει κανείς το γεγονός οτι στο wordpress.com δεν σου επιτρέπουν να βγάλεις χρήματα, κατι που έχει δημιουργήσει μια μικρή αντίδραση, πιστεύω οτι η υπεροχή βρίσκεται χαλαρά στην πλευρά του wordpress.com. Ιδιαίτερα εαν προσθέσεις το γεγονός οτι τα ιστολόγια που βρίσκονται στο blogspot παίρνουν πολύ μικρότερη προταιρεότητα στα αποτελέσματα του google λόγο των splogs που βρίσκονται εκεί μέσα (Ο οποίος ήταν και ο λόγος που στο wordpress.com κατάργησαν τα “χρηματιζόμενα” ιστολόγια)

Προσωπικά πιστεύω οτι εαν είναι να πληρώσεις χρήματα για το ιστολόγιο σου, είναι προτιμότερο να πας σε μια εταιρία hosting, και να πάρεις μια δική σου σελίδα, στην οποία θα έχεις πολύ μεγάλύτερη ευελιξία έτσι και αλλιώς. Με τις τιμές που υπάρχουν τώρα (7 ευρώ τον μήνα για 300+Gb), είναι απλά η καλύτερη επιλογή.

Βοηθώντας το Blog.me

Db0

Οργανώνεται συλλογή υπογραφών για την βοήθεια υπεράσπισης του Αντώνη Τσιπρόπουλου. Το πιο ενδιαφέρον είναι οτι το τελικό σύνολο των θα παρουσιαστεί στο δικαστήριο σαν πειστήριο οτι οι “εμπειρογνώμονες” των ιστολογίων και του internet διαφωνουν με την κλήτευση.

Μέχρι τώρα που το γράφω αυτό έχουν υπογράψει μόνο 16 άτομα.

Αίντε!