Sin's Notebook

Dagens citat om kotlettkonservativa och den övriga knashögern

“Ibland är det svårt att inte hitta paralleller mellan östeuropeiska katoliker som uttrycker sin längtan efter en Ledare, som beskriver Hur Det Är och den svenska ankdammshögern och dess timbrotalibaner som drömmer om sin exklusiva herrklubb, där man i samstämmighet berättar Hur Det Är.”

Kvällens bästa term: Stridspittskonservativ - slentrianhöger-man som gillar att uttrycka sig med hög röst, speciellt om ‘såsseriet’, att ‘peka med hela handen’ och drömmer om den karriär som reservofficer han aldrig lyckades med, eftersom hans fru vägrade ha en evig gosse istället för en ‘Manager’ i villans sovrum. #älskaIRC

“Slentrianhögern o timbrotalibanerna hatar i hemlighet Juholt eftersom han är en så stereotyp sosse att deras vanliga drygheter om ‘såsseriet’ blir en travesti på en travesti. De saknar verkligen Mona.” #stackarskotlettfrillor

Supply and real demand

The fundamental problem with the myth of supply and demand — which is actually supposed to be demand and then supply — is that demand is not market, or customer, demand, but that other, “false” demand, that is manufactured advertising driven by a supply that must be sold.

Breakfast for champions

One of the favourite things I’ve read on a menu was in a cafe in, I think Greece, which offered a breakfast for those who had a bit too fun the night before. “A pot of black coffee, a glass of juice, a croissant, two aspirins and no sympathy from the waitress.”

After living close to six years in an Eastern European country, I can only express it in three lines:

RELIGION IS SUSPICION

MATERIALISM IS VIOLENCE

OBEDIENCE IS HATE

Like I told the people at Diaspora, high on my wishlist is linking with your two ‘sister concepts’, though: StatusNet and Jabber/XMPP.

The main drawback with StatusNet in my opinion is that it hasn’t successfully implemented a true mobile interface. I am not talking about apps, I am talking about a workable stylesheet for an ordinary mobile browser. Dabr used to have a work-around, but seems it’s no longer working. Examples of sites working are
With regular address (media detecting tag)
wordpress.com
blogspot.com
diaspora’s sites, like this one.

With a special address
m.box.net
m.twitter.com

Trenton’s law - UEFR (Useless Elitist Forum Responses)

You may be familiar with Godwin’s law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%)”.

Occasionally I participate in forums where people wanting to learn and having questions are sometimes met with a truly disgusting von oben attitude, which not only is rude, but also quite often containing completely useless — and sometimes confusing — information. Information that doesn’t help the person wanting to learn, rather the opposite.

I have seen — and been there myself — people joining Linux or cryptation forums, having honest questions and being met with this kind of answers. No wonder if a regular user rather just quietly leave, making the community poorer for it.

As a first draft, I defined what I — in utter humbleness —  now call “Trenton’s law”. If this law already exists, feel free to point it out to me.

“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a statment that all previous suggestions from other participants are invalid since they are not theoretically perfect, without the provision of a reasonably useful alternative, approaches 1.”

E.g. “You are so naïve if you think GPG/TrueCrypt/AES256/etc will keep your data safe. The only close to secure, real encryption is using One Time Pads with high entropy, generated by quantum computers and isotopes. You’re stupid if you use X.”

So by this line of reasoning, you are being told that you shouldn’t bother with encryption at all, unless you have a supercomputer and a couple of radioctive substances at home, I guess.

Sure, if the MI5, CIA, NSA, PSB or whatever may come grabbing your disks, putting your RAM in special freeze containers and process them all through their secret supercomputers, cracking what you thought was encrypted files wide open (or maybe not), maybe the encryption wasn’t perfect. But meanwhile, for us ordinary people, having some protection for our personal data against more mundane baddies or nosy people is a sensible idea, even if it is not perfect.

So, my friend was CRM consultant during the…

So, my friend was CRM consultant during the hype, switched to be SEO consultant during that hype, and is now Social Media consultant.

Maybe he should just have “Hype Consultant” on his card, to save money?

The Three Way Call

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Gangsters!

Never thought how appropriate those lines from The Specials’ first hit are nowadays.
Dedicated to Reinfeldt, the PM of Sweden. Or as he likes to refer to himself; The Land’s Father that walks side by side with the population, whose trust he carries.

“Why must you record my phone calls?
Are you planning a bootleg L.P?
Said you’ve been threatened by gangsters
Now it’s you that’s threatening me.

Can’t fight corruption with con tricks
They use the law to commit crime?
I dread, dread to think what the future will bring
When we’re living in gangster times.”

Quality viz Quantity

When I stayed in Spain, I thought they were obsessed with food. Here in Slovakia they seem obsessed with eating. Never realised how enormous the difference is.

Simplehack: A moleskine refillable, Midori style

While visiting Chasing Daisies, one of the stationery blogs on my list, I — again — browsed through the posts about Midori’s Traveler’s Notebook (Flickr collection).

As so often happen, I then dragged up a number of photos and blogs about the notebook, to try to get a feel for it. As much as you are able to through your screen, of course.

Two things that I found appealing with it were first, the leather cover. I love leather covers, the all time favourite of mine being the sturdy hide of my old Filofax, which went out of stock sometime around 1985 or so. (From while they were still made in the UK, not in China).

Nothing ages as beautifully as leather.

The second thing was the concept of refills. An elastic band that kept the insert in place. This enables you to continue to use the ‘notebook’, while refilling it with fresh paper.

These two are the main reasons why I kept my old Filofax for years. To be honest, the paper quality is not very interesting and the binder rings really are a nuisance when you are writing. However, the leather has aged almost to perfection and the ability to just archive the old notes were what made it worth it.

Then, two summers ago, I finally switched to Moleskine pocket sized notebooks. The Filofax Personal size is just too big to haul along at times, when the rest of what you carry is a mobile, a USB drive and a belt pouch with passport and minor belongings.

I bought the ‘regular’, hard cover notebook, the Japanese notebook and the set of three, thinner cahier notebooks, with carton ‘Kraft’ covers.

I immediately took fancy of the thinner notebooks, which became my everyday thought jotters. Sometimes, I missed the hard cover, though, especially for supporting while you write, resting the notebook on your knee or similar.

After I had filled up the Japanese notebook, I cut out the paper from the hard cover. It’s not that hard since the content is a single, folded sheet, so only one side of the entire notebook is actually attached to the covers. I started to keep loose notes in it, but it wasn’t all that practical after a while.

This gave me the moleskine covers, but it wasn’t until I saw the Midori that I realised I could use it as a cover for my Kraft notebooks.

I generally use two at a time; one for personal notes and thoughts, and one for projects, research and ideas.

For now, while testing it out, I am using two simple rubber bands to keep the two books in place. I may want to look for something fancier later, though I’m not sure how to join the two ends of an elastic band together. From what I have heard, the lead piece solution of Midori’s leaves something to be wished for.

If I want or need to remove one of the notebooks, it is quite easy to do so, just slipping it out. 

The solution also allows for the entire assembly to lie flat on a table while I write, something greatly appreciated.

It is just a simple hack and even if a Moleskine cover doesn’t age with the same grace as leather, I’ve found it quite useful so far.

EDIT, FEB 27

I must say I am quite happy with this set up so far. It works and seems quite durable, even when riding in the back pocket of your jeans.

I switched the rubber bands for some black elastic bands, the kind you use for your hair. All over, looks pretty nice now. :)