I don't know why I bother…

Db021 Comments

Oh Gawd! It is like Objectivism takes otherwise decent blokes and slowly distorts them into horrible discussion monsters. This is like, the second blog I’ve now been banned from. Amazing! I’ve never been banned from anywhere in my life before and within 3 short months I’ve been banned from two Objectivist lairs, and with the same argument no less: I’m bringing the quality of the blog down. (Just try and say that with a straight face and imagine talking to another person.)

…

This is me being speechless.

Seriously though, what’s up with that. Is this cult that is called Objectivism, so mind distorting that once you are sucked into it you stop debating like any other person? Does an Objectivist’s body eventually get as corrupted as their mind, so that in the end they end up slithering in the night, like a Lovecraftian nightmate, whispering “Man qua man qua man qua man qua man…”? Scary…

In any case, it’s honestly a shame to see Evanescent end up like this. I honestly thought that he would be better than that but it seems that he has become pretty much like his mentor (Hell, he even copied the same WordPress theme for fuck’s sake…) His previous comments gave me hope that, even with this horrible ideology, he would still remain conversational but I was wrong.

I read somewhere that Objectivism is like a way to have the same certainty as a religion but without the God aspect and this strikes me as true every time I talk to them. They have their prophet, Ayn Rand, and all her words are gold. They have the infallible philosophy and perfect moral system. They have their cult like group and bask in the groupthink (Why do you see so few Objectivists in the Atheosphere? It’s because they don’t really hang out outside of their kind). And so it goes

Oh well, what can you do. In any case it’s for the best as this kind of conversation is starting to get on my nerves. I can handle only so much condescension in one place and the Objectivists seem to have that in spades. it practically oozes from every sentence they make that is directed at any non-Objectivist. Of course I’m certain it all stems from them having discovered the ultimate Objective truth and everyone being too stupid not to see it. Pretty much like a theist really…

Man qua man qua man qua man qua man Cthulu ftagn!

Political Compass

Db03 Comments

Recently I took this little test and the results where pretty much what I expected.

My Political Compass results

The results seem to indicate that I’m a kind of Ghandi 🙂 Just a bit more libertarianist and less to the left.

There also other interesting tidbits you can check out in there. For example, I find it very interesting how the entire political spectrum of the U.S. is on the to right quarter, with two notable Democtat exceptions (who incidentally were branded “extreme left” and had no real chance). Apparently, for the U.S. , the “left” is just anything close to the middle from the right side. Of course, this is what one would except of them, what with their irrational fear or communists.

Το ιστολόγιο του Panhas

Db01 Comment

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.

Once again…Ξεφτίλα!

Db01 Comment

Το παρακάτω το πήρα σε email

Η δικαστής Γρεβενών κα Μαρία Μαργαρίτη, εκδιώχθηκε κακήν κακώς από το δικαστικό σώμα,όταν έβγαλε στην φόρα, παρτίδα Κονδυλίων που προορίζονταν ως οικονομική ενίσχυση σε σεισμοπαθείς, τα οποία κατασπαράχτηκαν από κρατικούς και παρακρατικούς φορείς.

Παράλληλα, ξεμπρόστιασε ολόκληρο το δικαστικό σώμα, αποκαλύπτοντας τον ΟΙΚΟ ΑΝΟΧΗΣ ΠΟΥ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΕΙ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΧΩΡΟΥΣ ΤΟΝ ΔΙΚΑΣΤΗΡΙΩΝ: Εκατοντάδες ανήλικοι έχουν κακοποιηθεί σεξουαλικά (και πολλές φορές έναντι αμοιβής που απολαμβάνουν δικαστικοί και άλλοι”μεσάζοντες”) σε μυστικό χώρο, ειδικά διαμορφωμένο εντός των δικαστηρίων!

Η κα Μαρία Μαργαρίτη, προέβη σε απεργία πείνας έξω από το Μέγαρο Μαξίμου, ζητώντας την πλήρη αποκατάστασή της και την ανάδειξη των παραπάνω θεμάτων. Όμως, η προσωπική ασφάλεια του κου Καραμανλή φρόντισε να την απομακρύνει βίαια, όπως θα δείτε και στο παρακάτω βίντεο.

Αξίζει να σημειωθεί ότι το συγκεκριμένο θέμα μέχρι αυτή την στιγμή
ΔΕΝ ΠΡΟΒΛΗΘΗΚΕ ΠΟΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΑΠΟ ΚΑΝΕΝΑ ΣΧΕΔΟΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟ ΡΑΔΙΟΤΗΛΕΟΠΤΙΚΟ ΜΕΣΟ, παρά μόνο από το BBC, ενώ στο YouTube η μαζική διανομή του βίντεο δεν επιτρέπεται (αναγράφεται η ένδειξη “Embedding disabled by request”).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglCyU8TPJw

[coolplayer width=”355″ height=”288″ autoplay=”0″ loop=”0″ charset=”utf-8″ download=”1″ mediatype=”flv”]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jglCyU8TPJw
[/coolplayer]

Gallery tags not working

Db0

So I’ve managed to fix the latest problem that stumped me. This was related to my latest WordPress-WPG2-Gallery combo installation and it was the fact that for some reason the Gallery tag plugin just refused to display the tag cloud correctly. No matter what I tried, the tag cloud always displayed as a list on the blog, (separated by a line, one under the other etc) instead of an inline big & small tag cloud you would expect. Not only that but anything I tried in order to fix this on the WP theme stylesheet did not work. I even tried disabling everything that had to do with <ul> and <li> tags and the damn thing still persists.

What was even more enraging was that by directly accessing the gallery the tag cloud would work as expected, colours and all. Exasperating.

So I spend the whole afternoon and I did manage to fix the tag cloud. I had to use the style injection box that is provided by the WPG2 plugin in order to put the style code that forced list items to be put inline and without line separators. However, no matter what I tried, I could not make the colours change.

Hopefully, while I was lying in bed, it clicked for me. I must have been the gallery theme I was using, wordpress embedded, which makes the gallery fit to your WP theme. However for some reason, the designer has hard coded the font and link colour to the theme, which as a result of being loaded after the WP theme, took precedence. This is the reason why my links had that ugly blue colour and my tag colours would not work. By commenting the colour lines for the <body> and the <a> tags, I was able to force the gallery theme to submit to the WP theme selections.

Just in case anyone is wondering, the stylesheet code I put in my WPG2 Output – Element header textbox is

.g2_column {
width: 100%;
margin: 0px 1px 0px 12px;
}

.tag1 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:8px;}
.tag1 a {color: #828282;}

.tag2 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:11px;}
.tag2 a {color: #AC6FCF;}

.tag3 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:14px;}
.tag3 a {color: #00659C;}

.tag4 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:18px;}
.tag4 a {color: #008200;}

.tag5 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:22px;}
.tag5 a {color: #FFCB21;}

.tag6 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:26px;}
.tag6 a {color: #FF0000;}

.tag7 {
display: inline;
background:none;
font-size:30px;}
.tag7 a {color: #1acdb6;}

Where tag1-7 is the class that the Gallery2 tag plugin uses for each level of tag (based on the quantity)

PS: Yes, I have insomnia again…

Yet another blog

Db0

So I’ve bit the bullet again and started yet another blog called The Wesnoth Journals.

Since I’m not in the mood of repeating myself, you’re welcome to check the second post on the reasons why I took the effort.

The whole issue took me around 6 hours to complete, between which my host suffered a load of doom which pretty much make my site unavailable as I was about to present it to the forum. Argh! In any case, fortunately they resolved it relatively fast and I managed to polish it before I went to bed.

Currently it is powered by a WordPress blog and a Gallery installation, linked via WPG2, much like my own site. This is the kind of thing why you love free software (and Dreamhost with their one-click installs. Without any extra money at all, within half a day, I’ve set up and configured a passable site that can fill a gap.

This is especially my opportunity to check out what Gallery can do when there are actually multiple users and need of correct categorization. Until now, my own gallery is used only by my which just does not give it enough to work with. Είδομεν…

So, take a look, and let me know if you see something blatant missing.

PS: If you can be bothered, remind me how to redirect http://wordpress.dbzer0.com to http://wordpress.dbzer0.com/blog

Cheers!

And you thought American privacy violations were bad…

Db03 Comments

According to a law passed by the German parties CDU, CSU and SPD, from 2008 on it will be possible to trace who has contacted whom via telephone, mobile phone or e-mail for a period of six months.

— Anonymising services will be prohibited. —

This is a really frightening prospect. However many organizations are already working on getting this up to the Supreme Court so hopefully it will receive a negative ruling.

Spread the word!

read more | digg story

Piratbyrån

Db05 Comments

Here is the main reason why people should know about and (hopefully) support the Pirate Party.

I’ve already set up a €5 donation per month just because this is a movement that deserves traction. Our personal freedoms are much more important than the bottom line of corporations who have a shady history of dealings (Payola, hacking etc).

Especially when we get to the point of pressuring the goverment to pass laws, only for the benefit of big corporations, to the detriment of the freedom and creativity of everyone else, then we really have an issue.

Now, can someone point me to the Greek and German Pirate parties?