Thanks for your music Johan Agebjörn and Sally Shapiro.
It’s wonderful!
Hey Karoliina, Sally Shapiro sounds a bit like the stuff you make. I don’t know, maybe it’s a completely different style. Who cares?
When is your next song ready, by the way? Aha! Train Tracks. Listening.
Don’t stop making music! We addicts need our drug.
Nice start.
Don’t stop.
Kind regards,
A European citizen
Introduction
In a discussion some concluded that technology X is ‘more tied to GNOME’ than technology Y because ‘more [GNOME] people are helped by X’ due to dependencies for Y. Dependencies that might be unacceptable for some people.
This smells like utilitarianism and therefore it’s subject to criticism.
Utilitarianism is probably best described by Jeremy Bentham as:
Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men’s actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness.
— Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
A situational example that, in my opinion, falsifies this:
You are standing near the handle of a railroad switch. Six people are attached to the rails. Five of them at one side of the switch, one at the other side of the switch. Currently the handle is set in such a way that five people will be killed. A train is coming. There’s no time to get help.
The utilitarianist chooses the first option, right? He must direct his actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness.
Body of the discussion
Now imagine that you have to throw a person on the rails to save the lives of five others. The person would instantly get killed but the five others would be saved by you sacrificing one other.
A true utilitarianist would pick the first option in both exercises; he would use the handle and he would throw a person on the rails. In both cases he believes his total value of produced happiness is (+3) and he believes that in both situations picking the second option means his total value of produced happiness is (-4) + (+1) = (-3). The person who picks the second option is therefore considered ethically immoral by a true utilitarianist.
For most people that’s not what they meant the first time. Apparently ethics don’t allow you to always say (+4) + (-1) = (+3) about happiness. I’ll explain.
The essence of the discussion
Psychologically, less people will believe that throwing a person on the rails is morally the right thing to do. When we can impersonificate we make it more easy for our brains to handle such a decision. Ethically and morally the situation is the same. People feel filthy when they need to physically touch a person in a way that’ll get him killed. A handle makes it more easy to kill him.
Let’s get back to the Gnome technology discussion … If you consider pure utilitarianism as most ethical, then you should immediately stop developing for GNOME and start working at Microsoft: writing good Windows software at Microsoft would produce a greater possible quantity of happiness.
Please also consider reading criticism and defence of utilitarianism at wikipedia. Wikipedia is not necessarily a good source, but do click on some links on the page and you’ll find some reliable information.
Some scientists claim that we have a moral instinct, which is apparently programmed by our genes into our brains. I too believe that genetics probably explain why we have a moral system.
The developer of X built his case as following: My technology only promotes happiness. The technology doesn’t promote unhappiness.
It was a good attempt but there are multiple fallacies in his defense.
Firstly, in a similar way doesn’t technology Y promote unhappiness either. If this is assumed about X, neither promote unhappiness.
Secondly, how does the developer of X know that his technology promotes no unhappiness at all? Y also promotes some unhappiness and I don’t have to claim that it doesn’t. That’s a silly assumption.
Thirdly, let’s learn by example: downplaying the amount of unhappiness happens to be the exact same thing regimes having control over their media also did whenever they executed military action. The act of downplaying the amount of unhappiness should create a reason for the spectator to question it.
Finally, my opinion is that the very act of claiming that ‘X is more tied to GNOME’, will create unhappiness among the supporters of Y. Making the railroad example applicable anyway.
My conclusion and the reason for writing this
‘More’ and ‘less’ happiness doesn’t mean a lot if both are incommensurable. Valuations like “more tied to GNOME” and “less tied to GNOME” aren’t meaningful to me. That’s because I’m not a utilitarianist. I even believe that pure utilitarianism is dangerous for our species.
To conclude I think we should prevent that the GNOME philosophy is damaged by too much utilitarianism.
Thinking must never submit itself, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be.
La pensée ne doit jamais se soumettre, ni à un dogme, ni à un parti, ni à une passion, ni à un intérêt, ni à une idée préconçue, ni à quoi que ce soit, si ce n’est aux faits eux-mêmes, parce que, pour elle, se soumettre, ce serait cesser d’être.
— Henri Poincaré, Nov 1909 Brussels
… but maybe it’s the sheep who have been telling me lies
ps. Marked as ‘extremely condescending’, since it is condescending for the sheep on the other side.
Karoliina just E-mailed me to tell me that she just finished her new song.
This one sounds more like Vangelis than I have ever done before. It combines some symphonic elements (some (sampled) instruments from symphonic orchestra were used) with synthetic sounds.
— Karoliina Salminen
A video with the song as background showing the cathedral in Mechelen (filmed by Karoliina and Kate during Akademy)
I like it!
My naive opinion on the current strategy for dealing with Russia
Maybe Cold War organizations like NATO don’t see it, as their people are indoctrinated by the need for a unified strategy against a common enemy (keep Russia out, Germany down and the United States in).
But the world has changed since 1989.
Whenever the Soviet Union was stubborn, it was also predictable. Today’s Russia is not predictable. It is and has been pushing its real goals in a rather subtle way (even if you think the Georgian crisis was not subtle, the real Russian goal is). You can no longer just contain Russia. Neither can you easily engage with them. You need to ‘negotiate’ your relationship with it.
By kicking Russia out of treaties and organizations, all you will achieve is that Russia will start doing business with individual European countries rather than with the European Union. Which means different market rules will play. Less control over mutual interests in Europe: more competition among the individual European countries over Russia’s resources and market, sharper differences between Western -and Eastern Europe.
In the long run the result of that will be a split of Europe into Western -and Eastern Europe. This would be followed by a decline of Western power over Eastern European countries. Strategically seen, this would be a perfect outcome for Russia. A dream come true, for them.
Without the wealthy Western Europe, both the economy and industry of many of Eastern Europe’s countries are still underdeveloped and not yet ready to compete, on their own, against three major economic powers. As a result would Eastern Europe become yet another unstable region in the World.
Russia conducting the Orchestra of opposition politics in those countries, and Russian media influence, will for many sound like an answer to their dissatisfactions.
I think it’s for that reason that keeping Eastern Europe within the group called “Europe”, is something you want to strive for. A split with Western Europe would inevitably mean major influence from Russia in these Eastern European countries and regions.
It’s in fact already taking place here and there. If you take off your by propaganda blinded glasses and go look for the facts, you’ll see.
My own naive proposal
Russia’s regime is doomed the moment the Russian elite looses its European legitimacy. Russia’s future wealth depends on Europe’s willingness to continue doing business with them. This business must be in both directions. Just selling gas yet remaining isolated from the World markets means that for example your currency can easily be devaluated outside of your borders. Meaning that you are selling your resources too cheap or that the actual price that you got for it depends on the politics of other nations (like petrodollars). Replace currency with any other valuable resource located within your own borders.
The Russian elite who keep people like Vladimir Putin in power are the same people who are doing business selling Russian gas to Europe. If we want a peaceful world, we can seize the opportunity of doing business with these Russian elites to convince them of at least certain of European’s values. Values like free markets. Especially as we integrate our European businesses into Russia and especially if Russian elites start seeing the benefits of that (wealth), will European values further influence Russian politics.
If we kick them out of our organizations, they’ll just continue doing business with individual European countries. Making it harder to keep Europe united. They very well know that Europe needs energy. They know individual European countries will continue buying gas from Russia.
It would be insane because if we don’t, China will. And then China instead will get a strategic partnership with Russia. Pushing their values and culture. Rising new economies are the circumstances of today. Containment is not an answer to changed circumstances.
Europeans want a multipolar World, right? This is the opportunity to have Russia, China, United States and Europe as different economic powers (I simplified it, I of course know there are more economic centers).
My naive conclusion
A new kind of World is coming towards us. Although the history book on the shelve is always repeating itself, all we can do is learn from the past.
Learning however, is not the same as maintaining a strategy designed for completely different past circumstances. We are called humans because unlike many other species we can intelligently adapt ourselves. Let’s consume that capability.
In order to succeed as a people, as a nation and as a culture you have to synchronize your strategy with today’s circumstances.
It’s our time and our generation, to cope with them.
To make sure I indoctrinate the defenseless Qt and KDE people with my extraordinary ideas for Maemo and GMAE/GNOME related things (like Vala, GObject-Introspection, Tracker, Xesam, Desktop/tablet search, Tinymail, Modest, IMAP + Lemonade and E-mail in general a.k.a. things that interest me) I decided to show up in Mechelen (well, actually Sint-Katelijne Waver) where the guys organizing Akademy had picked a nice and peaceful spot in my warm and fuzzy country to do KDE’s yearly conference.
Always nice to see Nokia doing the same thing at conferences! I decided to have a few chats with the Akonadi guys, watched a few presentations like the one about Decibel (they are using Telepathy! Awesome!). And then I met Kate and Karollina again. Nokians!
Among the things I asked Karoliina was whether or not she was still making music. Guess what, she is! She told me she made this one for her cat and for Kate’s phone as a ring tone. It’s a quite relaxing song that ‘opens the mind in your brains’. I don’t know if that makes any sense in the English language, but nevertheless it’s what I came up with after the second time listening to it.
Anyway. Refreshing and opening my mind (and my airways) is exactly why I also go to saunas. I’m confident that this piece of audio will therefore be a perfect match with a nice sauna experience.
Notwithstanding that (it smells like) the United State’s propaganda machine is trying hard to control our European media once more, let’s try to get as much information from both sides of the story this time.
I thought that since U.S. is supporting Georgia there would be some control over the situation in South Ossetia and that there would be a peaceful solution to the conflict. But what is happening there now it’s not just war, but war crimes. George Bush and [Georgian president] Mikhail Saakashvili should answer to the crimes that are being committed – the killing of innocent people, running over by tanks of children and women, throwing grenades into cellars where people are hiding,
— Joe Mestas. A United States citizen in the conflict zone, according to Russia Today [video footage].
As this conflict escalates both sides are as usual trying to politically involve the European Union. I think Europe should restrain from supporting Georgia as it clearly committed war crimes. I’m quite certain we will soon see hard proof of this coming from the Russians. Proof that will be ten times more accurate than an idiot like Colin Powell throwing away his career and credibility a few years ago.
The European population wont support supporting a war criminal. Hanging our European flag in your office while doing a speech on World Television, is ridiculous and didn’t convince serious people in Europe at all.
Militarily seen, it’s a not even a question: You can’t fight Russians a few kilometers from their own border. It would mean a military humiliation.
Europe is not a war continent anymore. If you want lasting peace with Europe, the only way is by doing business with us. Supplying us with what we need (which in case of Russia is energy in the form of gas), buying from us what you need (which in case of Russia are European investments in their country and culture).
What Europe can do about this conflict would be to decrease the amount of European investment in Russia. Just stopping the gas supplies from Russia would probably destroy Germany’s economy in a few months and would that way drastically weaken any kind of power Europe has. This is not the kind of stuff that we want (in Europe), and we are not naive enough (anymore) to be convinced that this is what should be done.
My conclusion is that the rest of the world better stops hoping that Europe will help a Georgian war criminal.
Although I know that I shouldn’t drag the U.S. in this conflict, I’m quite confident that behind the scenes it’s pretty obvious that this is Russia showing its newly gained might to the U.S.
The New World Order line that the Bush administration seems to have tried by falsely promising to support Georgia if Georgia would send troops to Iraq turned out to be a foolish one.Then again, we are getting used to foolish U.S. strategy with Cheney and Bush trying to play poker with the rest of the World.
As a result Russia has a moral ground to do what they are doing (in the end, they had a peacekeeping mandate over the region). The United States can only watch and suffer as Easter European countries will now have learned that all what Bush senior had build up as political trust, is now unveiled as pure U.S. rubbish.
That is likely going to be the end conclusion of the foreign policy of the administration that has ruled the U.S. for the last decade. That all the achievements of Bush senior will have been flushed through the toilet.
Russia is and will keep gaining power. China is and will keep growing its economy and energy consumption. Iran is and will keep gaining more power over the Middle East (the U.S.’s propaganda about their nuclear weapons programs is among the weakest I have ever received). Etcetera.
In a curious way a New World Order is forming indeed. Regretfully for the Neoconservatives they will most likely not play the role of World Leaders. At least not as a coherent group.
I blame their own incompetence for that.
Their “New World Order”-meme was both strategically and diplomatically supported by weak people. They played poker while the game on the table was Chess. And they lost.
The money they did win turned out to be printed by the Federal Reserve as it was needed. That inflated the Dollar and is increasing the gap between rich and poor in their own country. Meanwhile it enriched the super elite involved in the war machine while the sons of poorer patriotic families got sent to the battle ground.
The man in the streets in the United States is paying for all this.
I think this new conflict in Georgia wont be the last thing we’ll see as a result of the poker and Chess games of 200n.
ps. Planet.gnome picks the categories it wants to syndicate from my blog. I don’t send blog items to planet.gnome myself. Instead, planet.gnome picks them. I have a category specifically dedicated to technology. This item is specifically not categorized in a technical category. Don’t blame me for political content on planet.gnome.
Yesterday we went to a public sauna where it doesn’t matter too much if they’d throw me out (I don’t often go there).
We decided to pick that one because we wanted to tryout our mint crystals!
“Just put them on the stones” I hear all the Finnish sauna people think. Right, indeed! But at most of the Belgian public saunas you are not allowed to bring your own smells.
In Belgium not everybody has his own sauna. And those who do own one usually have a infrared sauna (because those are often smaller in size). I mean, come on, infrared saunas are not real saunas. You can’t put mint crystals on stones, there are no stones involved! I think it’s much more common for Belgian sauna fans to go to a public one instead.
Although not allowed, it’s not uncommon that somebody brings smells. Usually there’s a guy putting smells incognito on stones. After some time all the real sauna fans recognize him of course. Often it’s the same people, so you get to know who’s into that. Usually I’m just an innocent observer who joins the saunas where custom smells are being thrown on the stones. In fact I’m inexperienced with bringing my own smells.
So we waited until there was nobody left in the sauna we picked, it was Sunday evening and stormy, so not a lot of people. Then we emptied a glass, filled it up with some water, put the mint crystals in it, entered the sauna, we threw the glass over the stones, enjoyed, hoped that they wouldn’t throw us out. We didn’t get caught!
Now, don’t get me wrong. At most of the public saunas in Belgium the owner of the place periodically puts a bunch of smells on the stones for an entire half hour. It’s like some sort of a three-hourly event. When that happens a lot of people join that specific sauna of course. They usually give you some oranges and cubes of ice after ten minutes. They circle with a towel to distribute the air. Etc. It’s not that because you are not allowed to bring your own smells, that it sucks. I guess they don’t want you to ruin their saunas with experimental piece of shit smells that some people would bring.
Anyway. The Turkish mint crystals were awesome. After the second time I was so thirsty that I drank a half liter cola and a half liter fresh orange. It was amazingly cold on my body yet I was sweating like mad.
Refreshing!
I am not asking your newspaper to support an administration.. But I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people..
For I have complete confidence in the response and the dedication of our citizens when they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy from your readers I welcome it. This administration intends to be candid about its errors. For as a wise man once said, “an error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it”.
We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors and we expect you to point them out when we miss them. Without debate without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed. And no republic can survive.
That is why the Athenian law decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the first amendment, the only business in America specifically protected by the constitution, not primarily to amuse or entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants, but to inform, to arouse, and to reflect to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mould, and educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
ps. This is an extract from a speech by JFK
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
This blog item was done for the sole reason of pissing off some people.
An innocent developer will now not only be addicted to girly drinks, like Malibu, he and his girlfriend will also become addicted to drinking the same Whisky as one of the SMASHED members brought to GUADEC this year.
I finally found what I was looking for at the Istanbul Spice Bazaar (Misir Çarsisi): mint crystals.
For the Nokians and other Finnish sauna freaks reading this, this is the stuff that you want to mix with a little bit of water (else your sauna is way to dry, of course) and then put the mixture on the hot stones. Crystalised mint is a very pure form of mint. Mint in a sauna gives a very cold and cool feeling on your body. Meanwhile your sauna is obviously very hot. You basically think that it’s cold, yet it’s very hot.
Well, with crystlized mint you maximize this. Eucalyptus is nothing compared to mint crystals. Chinese mint comes close, though. But not quite.
The aftermath is that you probably don’t want to jump in ice water after your sauna anymore. Not before adapting to normal temperatures for ten minutes. You wouldn’t be the first who passes out. I mean, your body is in a very confused state: it behaves as if it’s cold, but it sweats as if it’s very hot. The one thing you don’t want to do is to make it very cold suddenly. Unless you are a big dangerous looking Finnish dude, maybe.
I mean, I’m not underestimating the Finnish sauna people. I’ve been to a public one in Helsinki. Woah.
Anyway. The store can send the crystals to your home with DHL, the owner told me.
If any of the Nokians or other Finnish sauna pussies want to know what a real sauna experience is, you can mail them at ucuzcular@gmail.com, and try it.
Obviously, European Youtube users didn’t ask for their youtube usage to be handed over to Viacom Inc.. Who knows what Viacom will do with this highly private data (which contains highly detailed information about people’s interests such as the videos they watch, the various topics they are interested in, and so on)?
I only hope that enough Europeans will formally protest at their country’s privacy agencies and/or at the European institutions. Although, I fear it won’t matter anymore as privacy nowadays has become far less important than Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.
A few days ago I made a completely correct analysis of how the Schuko standard for power sockets and plugs, used on the continent of Europe, is superior to the British BS1363 standard.
Today I noticed the fruits of our hard work of trying to convert the British people to the fine uses and traditions of the people who live on the European continent. I saw a carton “Gezeefde Tomaten / Purée de Tomates” at a supermarket in Durham UK.
Just like how politics in Belgium work we have started applying the principle of divide and conqueror: instead of using their native language English, we are now sending them products with dual language branding and descriptions. Just like in our own country. This introduces doubt about their English identity. To divide you first need to generate fear and doubt (Am I really English? I’m not Welsh either? Maybe I’m Dutch? Maybe French!! Wouh!). Then you conqueror them by telling them, with a soft voice:
No no, you are Europe.
Works great! Just make them believe those Belgian “Purée de Tomates or Gezeefde Tomaten” are good. Once they grasped that, tell them: “but the tomatoes and the brand itself (Valfrutta) actually comes from Italy”. That’ll completely confuse them! Then relax them by softly putting your hand on their forehead and say: you are European, don’t be afraid child.
ps. Dear people who don’t live in Europe: this post is sarcasm, irony, a joke.
People living somewhere on the British Islands.
This is a device that produces static electricity
You plug a power plug in a power socket
I have marked on this image of the power plug where the static electricity gets delivered into the power socket
Let me clarify my point:
Let me add another point that I’m trying to make here
Also note that the Germans and the Dutch use sockets that don’t have the dangerous looking pin. Both types of sockets and both types of plugs are compatible with each other. European continental standardisation is very useful sometimes.
Let’s take a look at the European plug and the location where it delivers the static electricity to the wall socket.
Let’s now compare that with an actual photo of a British Island’s (Irish guys use it too) plug.
My adult male finger (I have very thick fingers compared to Tinne’s skinny fingers and Tinne has thick fingers compared to a small child’s fingers) fitted in the space. It was possible for me to fully touch the static electricity pin. The device was powered on so the two pins for delivering the actual electricity where completely connected.
Now let’s see some actual photos of the European plug in action. Decide for yourself.
The solution is to convert those crazy English, Irish, Northern Irish, Scotts and Welshman (boy, I do hope I didn’t forget anybody) to the European system :-)
We receive messages like this quite frequently:
Please only post in English on planet gnome or at least make non-english posts contain english translations.
If you don’t wish that posts like this are syndicated, please have the planet gnome administrator (jdub) pull a certain tag from your blog.
Thanks for understanding.
Note that Jeff Waugh (maintainer of planet-gnome) has indicated several times that he wants planet-gnome to be a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors (top-right of the site). That includes “lives”, not just “work”, and for that reason planet-gnome does not filter based on tags like “GNOME”.
This however means that you get to read the personal blogs of the people who are syndicated. Very often they asked specifically about the use of non-English languages and about the fact that content is not always going to be related to GNOME at all. Very often it has been pointed out that is precisely the very idea of planet-gnome.
This means that planet-gnome is meant to have posts in different languages, is meant to have posts that are not about GNOME at all. If that’s not comfortable for you, then please either read another website or install filters.
I’m not planning to change my personal blog because planet-gnome doesn’t use my categories. Although I agree with and like its policies, I didn’t decide them. Please don’t complain to the non-English speaking blog writers who are syndicated on planet-gnome.
In Bruges, the movie
Today I went to the movie In Bruges in Newcastle together with Tinne. It’s a funny movie about two assassins in Bruges, a tourism city in Belgium. Now that we are back at our place in Durham UK, I immediately wondered whether they are playing the movie in Belgian movie theaters too. Surprisingly they don’t. Sure they make fun of Belgians, Belgium and the “shit-hole Bruges” quite a lot. But hey, that doesn’t mean you can’t air the movie in our country! We can take a couple of yokes. Don’t worry!
It was a bit sad that they didn’t speak a single word of Flemish/Dutch in the movie. It’s not really normal for Flemish people to spontaneously and automatically reply in fluent English each time any guy asks something. Even the people screaming when a dude falls out of the sky at the end of the movie don’t use a single word of Dutch for the shouting. I’m quite sure you’d hear a “Wat is da joh??” or a “Godverdoemme! Wah valt er naa ut de lucht?! Nen Englander!” and then they’d probably go look at say something like: “ei mo, dien hee een geweer”. And they’d continue with a “goh ligge, die zen aant schieten na mekander!”.
Nothing like that in the movie. Just boring English speaking people doing English, like in every typical movie. They did get the bus company, De Lijn, right in the beginning of the movie. Also some romantic images from the city Bruges. That was about it, regretfully.
Anyway, me and Tinne had a few good laughs. Funny Belgians, etc etc.
DBusGlibBindings and AsyncWorker combined
I added a sample to the DBus page that I wrote this weekend. It uses AsyncWorker. I also made the now two samples actually compile. Although I have not really tested them, you can download them too now.
