Dear Mobile Users (+ Other Notes)

Note to mobile-addicted bipeds: 

- if you're going to break up with your better half (and that's probably literal) in a call whilst on the bus, have a spot of self-esteem, and don't have the entire bus enjoy the whole thing. It makes you look like a demented creature who might well be just out of Bedlam - or at least in need of some education (then again, you all know about my love for mobiles).

- if you've just done drugs, don't phone your best mate to tell him (in great details!) how you feel and everything. The world doesn't need to know what you took, how long it made you puke, how dizzy and high you're feeling and how hungry you are (okay, that part made me go: 'Helloooo, Amazing Grace!'). Once more: self-esteem and good education.

I've got some seasonal extra work now, which means that I'm covering for other people, and I got to meet students who are not "mine". 

Bottom line? I may have slightly scared mine, but now they arrive on time, they keep their mobiles out of sight, and they do their homework (not all of them, but most of them, and I'm darn proud of that because I hope they'll remember to behave decently outside of school, and I want to believe that a bit of what I taught them will stay with them after they leave my care). The others? Simple... when I left the room, I started wondering what half of them are smoking, inhaling or taking.

Utterly disturbing and odd.

May the end of the week be quiet for all of us...!

Music, please!

Long time, no music...

My musical plot bunny's been keeping this in his paws for... years. It inspired a first story in a prior incarnation, and now... it's coming back in my Doncaster story.

Listen and melt.....................

Of the Importance of Education (My Week on the Net - Mostly)

This week has been odd. In real life, and on the net.

In real life, I had to start reading the Riot Act to the wankers downstairs: the din is back ("But... we had a plumber dust the fan off!" - Sorry, Cupcake, you need a new A/C unit, not one that's been gathering dust for over a decade), now there's music, too, and they close at 1 AM! 

I hate them. I positively hate them. Excuse my French, but they don't give a fuck about the people around them. They're a pathetic example of "Me, me, me! And the rest of the world can fuck off and die, I don't give a shit!".

Still in real life, one spot of blue sky, singing birds and fluffy... stuff: I work with a few nice ladies, who are being really kind, and that's awesome. When I'm really better, I'll bake them cookies, or something.

Oh, no link, but my Sci-Fi novel is going to be Muff&Sherly - The Annotated Edition (having too much fun adding footnotes!).

On the net... Oh, boy, where do I start?

Well, let's take things in order, shall we?

Last Saturday, I went to bed as it was announced that a zoo had offered to rescue Marius (the giraffe - see prior posts). When I got up on Sunday, it was to see photos of Marius's corpse being dismembered. All the people involved in that slaughter are sticking to their guns, and that's awful. Apparently, the entire planet could have told them not to slaughter Marius, and they'd still have done it, just to show us who's boss. How mature and human is that? (Being rhetorical here.)

We need to teach compassion and empathy, or we'll be the endangered species before 2050.

Next, I caught someone making a joke (or not) about beating his wife. Does he beat his wife? I'll probably never know, but the bottom line is that most boys (because those are not finished in the head) find it funny to joke about beating up a woman. 'Chill! It's just a joke for God's sake!' they'll say, thus patronizing all the victims of abuse. If that's their idea of a joke, sorry, boys, but it's NOT funny, and that shouldn't be a common topic for pseudo-jokes. Who raised you, an amoeba?

This is one aspect of abuse that needs to be addressed... before the next millennium.

Then, I got to read posts by the lil' boy (who's quite a few years older than I, but that's another story) who keeps writing like an escapee from Pirates of the Caribbean on a bad day (he's the bloke who inspired this sordid fairy tale). On a forum mostly visited by (mostly) adult women, that bloke behaves like a peacock that thinks the king died and he's the heir to the throne (or like a bloke in a harem who managed to make the sultan believe that 'Honest to God, Guv', I'm a eunuch'. Your average fox in the stupidly welcoming hen house). 

Since I'm just a visitor there, I'm not commenting, but if he tried such a thing anywhere I'm a Mod, I'd have ripped him a new one aeons ago.

And that one illustrated the importance of teaching respect. And (full) gender equality!

Speaking of respect, the next incident is half lack of respect, half bullying: I've seen famous people who care about animal rights be lectured by some idiot who thought it was good to point out that now that they'd been informed of some issue that was going on, if they didn't act immediately, they'd be as guilty as the people at the source of the "issue". Way to go, you twat! When one's lucky enough to have on our side famous people who, let's face it, can reach a lot more people than Tom, Dick, and Harry, one doesn't risk antagonizing them by comparing them to the very people they're trying to stop from committing abuse.

As well, that reeks of bullying, because that person was basically trying to shame fellow Earthlings into doing something (whether they had the time or not, and as if they belonged to him).

That's when being polite and knowing a thing or two about strategy can be quite useful. 'Could you pretty please lend your voice to this cause; that'd be so kind of you' has got to work better than 'There's issue "ABC" over there. Now you know. If you don't do something this instant, you'll have as much blood on your hands as the actual culprits'; at least, I know how I'd react to the latter...

And today's "fun" was provided by a religious nut. I don't care that he's a bigot and that he's attempting to shove his beliefs down the throats of all Earthlings. It happens that in his miserable attempt at showing the world that he's a dedicated zealot... Oops! Sorry, a Christian, he decided to add an obelus (it's the † symbol, and you can find its definition in the OED) after his name in order to show where his loyalty lies.

Problem? Well, it's just usually used to indicate that a person is deceased, not to show that one's a Christian. Just sayin'...

And that tells us that one should always do one's homework in order to avoid being utterly ridiculous.

Right, I'll go back to adding fake footnotes to my novel.

See you...!

On My Wall of Shame (#7)

On February, 9th, 2014, a healthy giraffe was slaughtered by the staff of the Copenhagen Zoo.

If you haven't already read about it, you can do so there.

In spite of what the zoo's scientific director pretends, Marius didn't have to be slaughtered - and then cut into piece. There is no law (in spite of what that man pretends) that forced them to slaughter that poor baby that day. If you want to read more on that topic, go there.

The man who gave the order "had never considered cancelling the killing, despite the protests", which shows how important that biped thinks he is.

Marius, an 18-month-old giraffe, was considered useless for breeding because his genes were too common. Fuck! How common are the genes of the bipeds that slaughtered him?

The zoo idiots keep justifying themselves, and all I hear is 'BULLSHIT!'

The man who made the choice and didn't change his mind is Bengt Holst. May he get, very quickly, some super interesting, entertaining, challenging karma.

Marius. In Memoriam

Marius was just a giraffe. In a zoo. Miles and miles and miles away from me.

He was just a giraffe, but he was just a baby, and on February, 9th, 2014, he was slaughtered by heartless, plonkerish, red-tape-loving, disgraceful bipeds.

Being sad that he was slaughtered because the Copenhagen Zoo's director didn't want to change his mind is what tells me that I am still human.

The world has lost another baby because of stupid bipeds.

R.I.P. beautiful Marius

Attempts at Customizing Windows 8 (& a Write-up - with a Growl on the Side)

Most certainly because of a defective fan, my motherboard fried last December, and so I kissed my Windows 7 PC goodbye.

I need a PC for work, so I bought a new one.

My options? Well, any brand I wanted... with Windows 8. No other frigging choice.

A- Thanks a bunch, happy plonkers!

B- Note to people working for Microsoft: always run away from me, I'm a disappointed customer (understatement of the millennium!).

I'm not too bad with computers, and up to last December, it had taken me about two days to customize my computers (95, ME, XP, and 7).

With the new one? That bloody piece of ill-conceived blob is still hiccoughing (weeks after I got it!).

I had to go hunt for things to make the PC workable - *cough* sorta - so I decided to write this post in order to help fellow victims.

Create a restore point before each change, or you may have nasty surprises. That OS is highly unstable and madder than a barmy hatter!

First, no more Classic Menu in 8 (because who needs that when you've got fashionable Metro Start Page? Well, anyone without a bloody touch screen and who's not a teen or an IT fashion victim? Yes, I am going to growl a lot in this post because I'm doing an engineer's work, and not everything is doing what I want. Pretty scam, boys).

I downloaded Classic Shell, and it really does the job. Download, install, and you can customize it quite easily: right-click on the Start button, and choose Parameters.

Since we are now blessed with the Metro nightmare, Microthingy decided that the gadget had to go on the desktop. Since Classic Shell allows you to bypass Metro, you can download 8gadgetpack (I've read some comments saying that this might not be stable, but I've had no issues. Now... make your own choices.

If you want to change the look of icons, you're going to need to download Types. you'll have to change all associations, but it's well worth it.

By then, you'll want to drag your mouse to the right side of the screen in order to wake up the charm bar. Click Parameters and Customization. This is were you'll start crying: Microthingy has decided for us that being able to change and customize all the colours (as it was still possible in 7, where we could customize everything through the Colours advanced parameters) is no longer an option.

I'd better never meet the twat who made that choice because that was quite stupid.

If you still have access to a computer with Windows 7, you save save and import a Theme (that's what I did), but be warned that 8 makes it crash on a regular basis, and you have to resuscitate your chosen Theme.

Good luck with that one!

As well, I could kiss my Windows Live Photo Gallery screensaver goodbye. Bit tough for a creature of habit like me. There's something in the new beast that refuses to have it work...

Go back to the charm bar, Parameters, and this time click "Change PC settings" (down the menu). There, customize to your heart's content.

Next, the games.

Since you have Metro (*gags*), you're supposed to go play games online.

Sorry, creature of habit, and I'm not the only one... because the solution can be found there. Some people don't trust the patch, but I have no problem with it. Once more, make a choice: ChessTitans or Metro crap. As you like it...

Then, PDF files thumbnails. It could be useful to visit this page.

And then the massive thing that was already annoying with 7, that made hundreds of thousands of patrons growl and complain to Microsoft, and the thing that still needs to be dealt with a "crack": auto arrange that can't be turned off.

The file worked with 7, and it still works with 8.

Full explanation here and magic file there. That change saved my sanity back when Microthingy started blowing a fuse.

One last thing: if you want to install an old programme and your 8 is driving you nuts, right-click and install in compatibility mode (it should work for most programmes).

To conclude, yes, 8 is quicker to start and shut down, but I don't need Metro and its stupid screen.

I'm quite unhappy to have lost the ability to customize all the colours in the OS (sorry, boys and gals, but when you work for hours on a computer, white pages just kill your eyes - and I love my eyes).

Basically, I'd have been happier if I could have bought a new computer with 7, but, oh, no... Microsoft think they know what's best for me. That's dreadful marketing, and I tell everybody to cling to their 7 for as long as possible.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go curse a fried motherboard...

Good luck!

PS: even though I turned Microsoft offers off, from time to time, I still get a message asking me to download 8.1. I'm not going to do that because... Well, I cannot trust the upgrade not to frell my poor computer that's already nutty. If you want to get rid of the notification, try this. I dream of being able to downgrade...

History, Denial, & DNA

And here comes another general reflection on... things.

What prompted this is an article that, I must admit, made me scratch my head a bit.

Perhaps we're back to a place where my brain cells are making me weird... That's always a possibility.

So, here's what I think...

I believe that we must promote History - even though it can be really tough to get a clear picture of the past (believe me, I spend most of my PhD research time attempting to piece together what happened during a military siege: thousands of soldiers, several nations involved, bunches of spies reporting to their sovereigns, and... I have one full day that disappeared into oblivion!).

Yet, we must try to remember (or simply learn!) about our past, because it's true that things tend to be repeated by the powers that be if we, citizens, don't pay attention.

We can't know everything. Of course... but we can try to not be (too much) blinded by our current politicos.

As I already stated before in another post, I can't stand denialists. It's not because I was properly educated in History, it's because we're dealing with people who can read proof, see proof, potentially meet actual victims of historical events, and yet who will deny that these pieces of History happened, and that makes me angry beyond words. That's arrogant and counter-productive.

History happened. Face it. Learn from it. Don't do it again.

If you deny History, I'll point at you and make fun of you until you grow a brain or you crawl back into your cave and leave good society alone.

What I'm planning to say next may well seem a paradox to some, but it's not.

Whilst I believe in knowing History and in avoiding denialism, I do not think that individuals have to apologize for their parents' or their ancestors' actions.

Saying that one regrets sharing DNA with someone who did terrible things in History, that's one thing, but that never means that one has to apologize for what others committed.

I cannot, for one second, imagine myself hunting down the name of the German officer who gave the order to shell the city where my great-grandmother was killed, and then locating his descendants to demand an apology or to target them with a reparations claim.

On the topic of slave owners, there are several points to consider.

 - The fact that it was "normal" back then doesn't excuse the horror (let's update the concept: would I become Japanese, go to Taiji and slaughter dolphins because that's what they do? No... but we're back to my being a weird creature; always have, always will).

 - The fact that profit was made in the past by individuals has to be separated from atrocities committed by states (I'll never have any sympathy for governments being inhuman, be it about the Holocaust, the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent, the women who were taken by the Japanese army in WWII in order to become sex slaves, and the list goes on and on and on).

- It's possible that, upon learning that one is related to some dark historical figure, someone might feel sad and somehow guilty (that's a private reaction to which everybody's entitled), but it's perfectly annoying and arrogant to expect everybody to feel guilty about one's ancestors' past.
To somehow paraphrase one of the commenters in the article I mentioned, I probably have ancestors who committed crimes in caves back when we were still hunting with silex, and I'm not going to apologize for that because that's got nothing to do with me. Ook probably killed Argh in some dark cave over some meat or because of Mrs Argh, but Argh's scions can't go after Ook's descendants today.

- The bottom line is: the great-grandchild of a person who owned slaves is not guilty of the ancestor's sins; we're all born into families that have extraordinary histories, but the children (provided that they don't share the views of the parents and ancestors) have nothing to do with the past, and they can't change it.

It's like treating a child poorly because you don't like the parents. Blame the parents all you want, but the child never asked to have some DNA mixed in order to be created. If someone's to be blamed, put the blame where it really belongs.

Things can be strange. History is full of tragedies.

In my family, I've got a massive bunch of teachers, linguists and historians (Merlin! I wonder where I come from!!). The nasty things that my blood relatives did were all things done to other relatives (in-house nastiness, if you want): they cheated siblings out of their share of inheritance... Stuff like that. That is the extent of nastiness in my family.

Now, if the daughter of my eldest cousin tried to sue me for being the one who got our great-grandmother's watch and ring, I'd be pissed (not only because those are the only tangible things that our grandmother managed to salvage from the vultures who were her older siblings, but also because she gave me both whilst she was still alive and she knew there would be a battle for both after her death if she didn't make her will clear before it was too late).

I can understand the pain and trauma of people whose ancestors were stolen and taken to the other side of the globe as if they were pieces of furniture, but the mere idea that, over a century after the abolition of slavery, private individuals could still face reparations claims is something that puzzles me - deeply.

If someone were to say, 'Oh, I regret that my family no longer owns slaves; that'd have looked cool on my curriculum, and my bank account would be so much bigger with all that free workmanship!', then sue him or her to hell and back before having him or her prosecuted for being a twat... or something.

If someone is born in a family that used to own slaves in the 19th century, well.......... that person was born in that family by accident, and he or she isn't responsible for what was done before 1843.

Back to myself... I loathe most of my blood relatives. Most of them are petty, bigoted, limited, stuck in the Dark Ages, and... I could go on. I don't get along with them, and they don't like me.

I can't relate to most of my cousins, and I can't relate to their parents. Hell! It's because of them that I've changed my name!

If I can't relate to the blood relatives who are so close to me, how could I feel any connection with my ancestors - or feel guilty about anything they've done?

For the moment, I know the history of my family up to 1845. I was told the History of the family in such a vivid way that I have the feeling that I somehow knew them. When I finally manage to go farther in time, Merlin knows what I'll discover... but whatever I find, I'll treat it as History, I'll admit that it's my past, but no one shall make me feel guilty.

Facing History, knowing History, yes, but being stuck in the past can only lead to more suffering.

Actually, you know what? I think I'd like to find the descendants of the officer who gave the order that killed my great-grandmother, just to see if they'd like to start a movement where we'd take steps to protect our families and all families, as if we could make all bipeds realize that we're all from the same family, which we are, because the Earth is our village and we all come from the same stardust fallen into a mud pond somewhere on this rock.

Yea... There's no need to tell me that it's not going to happen. Biped brains still have to evolve quite a lot to start considering my idea as a potentially valid option.
We'd need to learn from History, not deny it or be frozen by it. This is yet another case of 'Not out of the wood'...

A Mile in Those Shoes

Blessed quiet!

The constant din from downstairs has stopped, and it's made me realize several things.

One cannot imagine how dreadful noise can be. I was a zombie: I was knackered, I couldn't focus, I was beginning to forget things, and I felt so low that I didn't phone the police (and I was truly collapsing).

The Big Freeze from which I'm recovering was something completely different, and I wasn't prepared to deal with life inside an engine room (on the plus side, I can now describe aforementioned engine rooms, life on a spaceship and torture by sound quite accurately, methinks).

I'd really have kicked the bucket if that thing had been going on, and I probably wouldn't have called the coppers because I was in no shape to do that, I felt abandoned and betrayed by the people in my building, and I was in such a dark mood that I was sincerely convinced that the coppers would have done nothing.

Mother was trying to find ways for me to cope with the din (listening to music 24/7, earplugs, etc...), but she couldn't realize in what dreadful, terrible state I was.

In consequence, that makes me think again about the issues that we all have to face (and the fact that not many people can really understand what our lives are like until they've walked a mile in our shoes), but... if the din were to start again, in order to not kick the bucket, I wouldn't wait a single second (no more waiting to see the caretaker or contacting the building manager), and I'd call the coppers to the rescue.

I have nothing against the people downstairs who are trying to make a living, but I'm not going to die for their sake...

In plot bunny news, the first Muff&Sherly novel should be finished this week. I'll just *cough* have to edit it then...