Thoughts of an average geek.

Resurrection?

2011-11-11T03:37:00.000-08:00

I have a lot to say. Not right now, but in general.

I'm an average young woman, I finished my bachelor's degree in business and management, and despite my best efforts, I am unemployed yet again. Perhaps studying business in Iceland wasn't the best desicion I ever made, but then again... anyone who get's through a business education without getting brainwashed probably won't be getting a job in the business world anytime soon.

In any case, I'll have a lot of time on my hands, so maybe I'll pick up blogging. Perhaps. In any case, unless I start posting a lot, no one will ever read this. Heh.

2008-06-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

I am an avid watcher of movies and series. I also listen to a huge variety of music, ranging from classical to metal to some techno or R&B.
I currently own, along with my beau, five complete tv-series and a couple of partial ones, with episodes numbering in the hundreds. We also own hundreds of movies spanning all thinkable genres. The reason I bring this up is because each and every one of those movies and series we went out and bought in a store.
Before we bought any of said movies, we watched them in a pirated or otherwise illegal version. We watched them on our computers in downloaded bittorrent format. (Illegal sharing, copying and distribution.) We watched them at our friends' houses without the consent of the distributors of the movie or we borrowed their copy of said movie. (Unauthorized lending, letting third parties watch the movies.)
My point is that most of those movies would not have been purchased at all if it hadn't been for "illegal" actions on our part or on the part of our friends.

So this is where I wonder if the corporations understand today's world at all. They say we are criminals for doing what we do. But who are they to dictate right and wrong to us? How can it be that the majority of the world can be made into criminals like this? Who makes those laws and who do they protect?
I don't watch TV much. I like to be in charge of what I watch and when, and whether or not I want to have breaks in my entertainment. I understand that a lot of people my age and younger do the same. It's easier, just as fast and neatly controlled to just download the next episode of your favorite show, so why not do it?

The step of the big label corporations to criminalize free distribution and their tremendous efforts to immoralize that option are completely self-defeating and wrong. They are trying to change the environment to suit them, rather than adapting themselves to it.
By suppressing the individual's right to distribute and handle their copy of the media they are attempting to crush the biggest word-of-mouth advertising trend ever to exist.
Instead of fighting it, they should be offering medium-quality non subtitled versions of their movies in bit-torrent format (Or some other format as easily downloadable) and make it available to anyone who wants it. For free. Then they could offer their high-quality versions with a billion subtitles and extra material for sale on disks and a more slow download rate. They should allow us to do with our purchases as we please. If I buy a DVD, I should be able to resell it when I get tired of it, show it to my friends if I want to and quote it and show parts of it in other productions as long as I give credit where credit is due.

True, corporations might suffer if they can't sell as much of their respective media as they'd like, but from my experience, it's not the pirate industry that is preventing them from making money, but rather their inflexible, stagnant marketing strategies and legislation. Their stifling attitude and failure to understand their customers that will lead to their undoing.

The reason why most of us would rather download the latest pirate version of any media than go out and buy it in the store is because it is faster, easier and, let's face it, free.

Figthing the "system"

2008-01-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Since we were little we've always been told to accept the system.
"It's just the way things are", "It might seem harsh and unjust but it is the best solution", "There's nothing you can do about it" and "Going against the system will only make it worse".

I live in what is considered a free society and have done so all my life. I grew up in the Faroe Islands. It doesn't get much more remote than that. It's the Nordic country with the highest pollution per capita. Not because we pollute much. There's just very few of us.
Then I went to Norway to attend a school which represented all the basic human values. Equality, International Friendship, Justice... You name them. The school took two years to complete and it removed my innocent view of life. Until I went there I thought I could change the world. Until I went there I lived in the profound belief that people were "good" deep down inside.
I then moved to Iceland. I've always wanted to live here. It was a plan you see, when I finished my "college" education, I would go to Iceland to study. I wanted to get to know the culture, experience a country that was like an elder brother to my own society.
The reason I am sharing part of my life's story here, is that I want you to understand that I have encountered several different systems in my life.

I am not going to say that all of this was wasted. It really wasn't. It's just that I am sick of meeting system after system that is equally flawed. System after system that is not created to ensure our rights but to limit our movement. System after system that requires us to make sacrifices for minimal benefit.

So how come the system has to be this way?

True, there is only one of me, but there is also one of you, one of all your friends and my friends, one of each of everyone around us. I am one, we are many.

You might find that my use of the word "system" is wrong. by System, I mean government, authority, anything that you feel is controlling your life in a way that you disagree with. "System" just feels like a good word to encompass all that. Even if it is a bit cliche.

The main thing about opposing the current state of things is that you need to have a clear idea of what should replace it. If you don't have one, and have it in a way that is easily expressible, you can't expect others to take you seriously, and remember that you need to become a "we" not an "I" if your protesting is to work. You alternative should take into account legal issues, moral issues and anything else that might affect the matter at hand. Remember, that just because the law is against your proposal doesn't mean that it's invalid. Perhaps the law needs changing too. (On the other hand, sometimes this means that you should drop the matter entirely and go back to watching football and styling your hair.) (Not that I do either of these, but you never know. Perhaps someone else does.)

Then you need to present your new alternative solution. This stage is crucial. You need to consider that not everyone will agree, and this is where you need to convince them. Forget about a quick surgeon-like incision and a painless change. It will take time. If you rush it, it will fail, and all will be for the worse of it.

If you are convinced that your idea is better than the current system, present it to others. Discuss it. Allow it to be debated and improved. An idea lasts only as long as it is debatable. Otherwise it becomes fanatic which just sucks for everyone.
So, so far, we've established that Planning, Informing and Discussing is important. What more is needed?

Get of Your Arse and Get Shit Done!

It sounds easy doesn't it? The annoying thing about challenging the system is that it takes a lot of time, and it will be a straining, tedious task most of the time. You need to work your way through it somehow, and if you can't muster up the steadfastness to see it through, then you probably never wanted to change anything from the start, you just wanted somewhere to point your anger and frustration. My advice: Go write angry poetry for a while then wait a couple of years and return when you stop hating your parents.

Oh, and never, ever use the least bit of violence! Violence is just a big dumb brick and is destined to ruin your venture before it has a chance to begin. You don't get anything good out of violence except perhaps if you need ice cubes out of one of those annoying freezing thingies.

Emergency Rescue in Iceland.

2007-11-12T07:22:00.000-08:00

A law has been proposed in Iceland which takes emergency response away from the local authorities and gives it to the Police Chief, who resides in Reykjavik. At the same time, this law would make it illegal to help someone who has had an accident unless you have express permission from the Police Chief himself.
All rescue equipment would be centered in Reykjavik, inaccessible without the permission of the Police Chief.

Say something happens on the other side of the country, for example in Akureyri. Someone arrives on the site of the accident, and in stead of following sensible procedures, this person stands idly by, calling Reykjavik. He gets patched through, explains the problem, asks if he may go and stop the problem and maybe do some lifesaving first aid, gets put through to the Police Chief, explains the problem again, asks his question again and explains his abilities, in this case we say he knows basic first aid and has been a scout for a while, the police chief thinks about it, and then gives him his allowance to go and help the casualties.
At this point, our man can approach the site and do the basic lifesaving first aid that he knows, while a rescue team is dispatched by helicopter or airplane, expected to arrive in Akureyri in about half an hour - an hour.
The man approaches his casualties who have now been bleeding/choking/panicking for 5-15 minutes longer than necessary and tries to save them.

First aid is often hinged on a quick response. If you get to a casualty who isn't breathing and you get started on CPR immediately, there is a chance that you got there fast enough to keep their body functioning. You will usually need to be replaced by professionals with appropriate medical equipment within half an hour, because if it goes on much longer than that your casualty is not going to make it.
If someone is bleeding you need to apply pressure, calm them down, raise the injured body part and make sure that they don't freeze. This is no huge task, but it must be done before they loose too much blood.
Panicking people can be dangerous, they might try to help their injured friends/family and most often they do more bad than good.
The list goes on. More often than not, a quick response makes the difference between life and death.

Further, bringing people from Rekjavik to each rural area means that they will need guides to show them around, they cannot as easily be dispatched in small teams, they cannot as easily find their way, you might be looking at further casualties in form of rescue teams that got lost, because they are city-people who don't know the area. This can be remedied by good training, but only someone with a good knowledge base in the area of emergency rescue would recognize this. The Police Chief does not have that knowledge base nor the interest required to run this operation efficiently.
Additionally, time plays its part again. No matter how well trained a team is, it will take time for them to get ready, and if they need to travel across the country to get to their casualties, this will add another large amount of time to the preparation process.
Weather is another obstacle. What if there is a flood? A storm? A fire? There are many ways in which the weather can hinder a quick rescue. Frost, fog or heavy rain are also possibilities, and in harsh weather conditions accidents are more prone to happen.

Basically, this system is inefficient, irresponsible and quite bluntly retarded. It cannot possibly be in the interest of the people, and thus shouldn't be in the interest of the politicians representing them.

They speak of outsourcing and delegation, but they try to get their grubby little hands in as much power as they can, regardless of the best interests of the country.

A meeting.

2007-10-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

On a freezing Monday evening, namely the 29th of October 2007, Smari introduced two of his friends to each other. One of them, the Director of Evil, was (and is) in control of a project powerful enough to shake the very foundations of our world. The other was a hub of sorts, a non-remarkable girl with connections all over the planet.
From the tables they occupied that evening, for they traveled more than once, came loud bouts of laughter, cheerful conversation and the busy buzz of laptops.

At the cozy coffee-tables, exchanging smiles and information, they plotted a revolution of sorts. It was already in motion, the project that would change the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, was of to a slow but steady start, liftoff had already happened. Yet still there was much to be done. The turtle needed help becoming the armored monstrosity of awesome helping energy that it was aiming towards. In order to ascend, it would need a hand.

"Once you realize that the candle is burning, the meal is long since cooked."

-And so we shall cook the meal while governments around the world are fussing over the candle.

The Hub had connections in two major world wide organizations, and they were of the correct sort. Not-for-profit, eager-to-help organizations that had not yet been corrupted. One had already showed interest, but like all mastodons, it would take a while before all the signals were digested and proper action cold be taken.
In the meanwhile, much was still to be done. A primer would need to be constructed, and this was no child's play. The primer would need excellent content, and was to be translated to all the worlds languages. A bible of survival. The Director of Evil wished much good upon the earth, and so he wanted a free resource of knowledge to any child that would seek it. A resource untainted by religion or politics. One centered on the reader and not on the writer.
The Hub nodded and agreed, the task was honorable and she could spur it on, send a buzz through the veins of the earth, find reliable people who would do it with the kindness of their hearts and no other agenda of their own. It could and would be done.

The meeting, a joyful, natural play-date between minds went well, and perhaps the destiny of human-kind was decided there, perhaps it was not. Whichever way, something grand had gone down, and no one would ever know about it but the three participants themselves.

In over my head?

2007-10-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

If you read my blog, you most likely received this in the mail already, but I want it here so I can refer to it later. I sent this mail to all RCN graduates of 06 and 07 plus a few teachers and interested people. That makes more than 200 people all in all.
Here's the mail:

"Greetings fellow alumni, teachers and others!

I am sending this with the hope and knowledge that many of us still carry the UWC spirit in our hearts. I hope you will take your time to look over the material I have attached, but shall present an abstract so you know what you are devoting your time to. (This mail is also being mailed to the brain behind the project, Vinay Gupta, and other resourceful people)

The STAR-TIDES (Sustainable Technologies Acceleration Research - Transportable Infrastructure for Development and Emergency Situations project) is an initiative set in motion to make disaster relief more effective, and to provide good options for disaster relief in general.
Their planning involve the hexayurt, self-composting toilets, wood-stoves and other low-tech-high-efficiency equipment. The idea is to make it possible to construct quick temporary refugee homes in a very short time. Using a combination of these solutions, large camps can be set up in a day, and the problems of heating, clean water, sewage and electricity are all attended to.
The idea is not to endorse any governments choice of planning, and they wish to share technology and strategies with all other help organizations. Disasters in this context are both natural and man-made.

Interested?

What we can do is to volunteer as on-site help. If your country should be subject to a disaster, you could act as intermediaries and possibly teach how the equipment is used. Even if you can't be on-site help, you might just do the trick simply by spreading the word. You guys have connections so if you find this cause worthy of your attention I am certain the initiators would appreciate it.
Whether you help or not, these links should interest most of you. Lots of info here about various issues dealing with sustainable technology, helping each other and many other things that occupy the concerned mind. ^^

The main page of the project with lots of information about the whole thing, it also holds more info on what we could do to help. Use your imagination! http://star-tides.net/

More about this project and other connected items of interest: http://www.appropedia.org/STAR-TIDES

Self-composting toilets, this place has the all sorts of interesting details: http://www.biolet.com/

A large collection of technology and options that are available: http://openfarmtech.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

The hexayurt buildings are explained in detail here: http://hexayurt.com/

Blogs that deal more or less directly with the project:
http://smari.yaxic.org/blag
http://standarrd.org

Related links and other interesting stuff:

http://guptaoption.org

Oh, many of these sites link to each other, but that just means that you'll see the wonderful information an extra time, right?

Feel free to forward this, place it in blogs, post on message boards and anything else you feel like, also you may print it out an fold it to make a simple homemade cup, a fan or possibly a hat, but make sure to use recyclable paper! ^^

Love to you all!

Birita (Bunny) í Dali, Faroe Islands"

I hope this pans out well...

Honor and Respect

2007-10-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

Honor is a concept which is frustratingly overlooked in modern society.

For one, honor is not tangible. In Japan, honor is clearly defined and involves strict self-control, both concerning emotional and physical issues. In some places it might mean that you don't sully your family's name by doing something immoral or, as it were, dishonorable. In others it might mean that you don't betray your friends, or that you live your life according to some obscure rules put down by hermits millenia ago.

No matter where you go and who you ask, the concept will be slightly distorted. Consider the society of an industrial country like Iceland:

There are young people who will willingly remove their wits (Via alcohol, drugs etc.) until they don't mind shitting on the street, having intercourse with complete strangers or running around naked.

There are corporate and political officials who trick with accounting, take bribes, abuse the system and otherwise bite and butcher anything in their path if it gives them personal gain.

Parents allow their children to behave like crazy squirrels on drugs rather than discipline them, and children who rule their family simply because they are allowed to do so.

And this is where Respect comes in. How can we respect a person who has no honor? How does one go about respecting the drunk next to you while he pisses in his shoes? How does one respect the parent who will bow to their child's every whim?
Perhaps we can respect them at other times. Say you meet the drunk the next day, after he has changed his clothes and, hopefully, his shoes, could you respect him then? What if this is your boss or co-worker? Perhaps he is the best ping-pong player in the world, could you look at him without wondering whether he needs new shoes every week? And the parent, say this person is a manager of sorts, would you feel comfortable serving someone who can't even manage their own home?

I believe respect and honor go hand in hand. You must uphold your own honor, whatever obscure code you adhere to, to be able to respect yourself, and once you respect yourself, others can respect you too.

Do any of you have personal rules you adhere to? Why do you think so many people don't have them?

Musings about prosthetic eyes.

2007-10-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

I discussed this with Smári yesterday on msn, and despite him being my only reader I shall still put it up here in all its glory.

My thoughts originated in Shadowrun and other cyber-punk fiction. I didn't expand on them much until the other day when I attended a lecture by one of the main managers of Ossur, a prosthetics company.

My thoughts were, that as far as I know, (Of course, I haven't heard much from these branches of research, but still...) the main focus of research into optical restoration etc. has been on the eye itself. I propose to bypass this stage, and move on to studying the signals that the eye sends, that is, study the nerves.
The aim of this research would be to identify which signals mean what. Making a map, so to speak, of all transmissions that the eye sends to our visual cortex.
Of course there are many problems with this, like: How do we get sensors sensitive and focused enough to study each individual nerve without just picking up all the noise from all the other nerves as well?
Or: How can we map out each signal when there are essentially endless combinations?
Well you people are the brilliant minds here, you tell me. ^^

Businesses and their governing

2007-10-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

My mind tends to wander quite a lot, and I often have trouble focusing my thoughts. It seems like there are especially many interesting things to catch my attention when I have loads of homework to do.

Sometimes, however, I do get incredible bursts of focused working inspiration. Today is not one of those days.

I am rather pressed for time, mid-terms are cropping up, and I am behind on my work. I still get everything that happens in classes, but no matter how interesting most of my subjects are, certain teachers manage to mess it all up. Also, all the discussion classes seem determined to make us complete 15-20 examples for each class, with two classes on Tuesdays and two more on Thursdays in addition to the usual lectures we all need to attend.

Smari, one of his friends and I discussed markets the other day. They both seem to agree that we should abandon the corporation layout and adopt some sort of public ownership of all businesses.
I think that we should limit the amount of possible shareholders per company and reinstate a responsibility for the companies you are a shareholder of. I will try to the best of my ability to describe why, below:

Businesses that are not owned by anyone in particular are not as bound by moral and ethical approaches. Businesses that are owned by too many individuals also lack these moral and ethical approaches, mostly focusing on maximized profits and nothing much else.
So, instead of staying in the current setup, with corporations largely owned by scrupulous, irresponsible shareholders or changing to a communistic setup, where all businesses become some sort of public property, I say that we should aim for something in between. With corporations owned by a limited amount of people, where each owner can only own a decided percentage of the company, we could justfully reinstate owner liability for the company's actions.
My aim is to find a balance, where the corporations would be forced to become more aware of their surroundings, and less focused on maximizing profits at all costs.

In our present-day world, many issues, which didn't exist a few years ago, have incredible impact on our lives. Environmental issues, ethical issues and a more effective journalistic approach (In some countries at least) are but a few of the recently awakened impacts on the way businesses are run.

By applying the method mentioned above, I would hope that the claims raised against businesses might gain more attention. People generally tend to tread more carefully when their own names can be dragged through the mud should the business simply ignore all the social requests tossed at it.
Also, if businesses were divided more evenly, most people would have the opportunity to be part-owners of such companies, meaning that the demands put upon the companies would become more reasonable, seeing as most people would know all aspects of the cases better.

Basically, what I want is for businesses to seize their responsibilities at the same time as I want the general populace to look into all cases before making unreasonable demands. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But at least now I managed to get it all out before Smari's friend huffs and shuns my ideas by making some presumptuous statement... (No offense, he's probably very smart, I just dislike being brushed aside in an equal discussion.)
Feel free to huff and shun now, via comments by the way.