Yes! At popular demand and enormous pressure, the World Sucks series is back!
Todays episode: holidays! The word itself comes from holly and day, but in the meanwhile it collapsed into this one word that has nothing holly in it anymore. It's all about buying stuff, planning vacations in the "season" when all prices are inflated and all nice places are assaulted by noisy tourists (like yourself) which makes them less than nice, getting job time off in the same damn time with everybody else (and being considered not a team player if you want to work while all the others go away) and, last but not least, all kind of deities mixed together with local folklore to create a special kind of brand for each particular miserable disgusting day of each bloody holiday.

Accept it, people, holidays suck! It's this type of awful planned and allowed liberations that show the true nature of slavery. Holidays have become so much embedded in our culture, that we measure our own time and pleasure by them. If there is a holiday, you must enjoy it! If you don't you are a weirdo and if it ends you must stop enjoying anything. Get back to work, you lazy bum! I see people that expect those few free days from work like a child awaits the cndy from the sweets dispencer. What about the other days?! They are also yours. You can decide what to do with them. You can stop feeling miserable in any given day, you can miss on office work and stay in bed all day any time. I completely understand that some employers might not agree with this and even some self employed work alcoholics that think the world spins around them might growl at me from their dark den, but that doesn't make them right!

Holidays suck because they take away freedom, in it's most basic sense. You are allowed to not go to work, you are allowed to buy things that in the middle of the year you wouldn't even consider buying (ask yourself why?) and you are allowed to spend it with your family and friends. What? You don't have family and friends any other day? What if you don't want to spend your free time with family and friends? What if you just want to be left alone, to make a cool software program, play a game for 24 hours straight or watch the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica continuously from start to end? Then you clearly don't have the holiday spirit. Well, fuck the holiday spirit! It sucks!

Another suspected NASA hacker indicted tells the story of a Romanian hacker who entered 150 NASA computers, then made them display messages boasting the hack. Of course, the US government immediately took initiative and fixed all their computer security holes, suing the corporations that made the buggy software sued the Romanian hacker for "conspiracy and nine counts of computer intrusion", mounting up to 54 years in prison, if found guilty on all charges. I won't even go there. It is just ridiculous. A few years ago, an American soldier killed a man in a traffic accident and he was immediately flown back to the States, where they found him guilty of a misdemeanour and he didn't even do jail time. Read again he KILLED a man.

But there is also some justice in the world: U.S. marine sentenced to 40 years for rape in Philippines. Now, of course, the poor guy didn't do anything as serious as hacking into a computer and boasting that he did it, so he gets only 40 years.

A couple of weeks ago I posted this: Bush in Space. Now I come back with a few nice articles that show what the future of space is likely to be. Or not to be.

First of all, a news article from May 2006 US seeks laser to shoot down satellites talks about a "secret" U.S. project that uses lasers to shoot down "enemy" satellites. Considering the ability of most nations to put satellites in orbit, I can only conclude that they mean Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Russian or European satellites. Probably, the Chinese thought the same thing, and here is where this article: China Attempted To Blind U.S. Satellites With Laser comes in. It talks about the Chinese trying to shoot down (or at least blind them considerably) U.S. satellites spying on them. This story was "dug" here. You can see in the article that the US already plan for a "constellation" of satellites to replace the vulnerable spy satallites they already have in place.

Now, most comments on this are usually either moronically nationalistic, either uselessly anti-American. However, there are people that have actually put thought into this. How come the US is augmenting this "Cold War" with China, when they have such a lucrative economic bond. Is it because they see a more business oriented (read democratic) China as a more maleable one? A good consumer market just ripe for the US culture? Or is it because they actually fear a democratic China, as a very serious competitor. Most analysts observe that placing and defending stuff in space is way harder than destroying stuff in space. Even lasers work in space, but low tech solutions like plain old rubble would work just as well. This is described as asymmetric warfare. When even the little guy can fight back.

But what does all this mean? The US have all but openly dismissed the ISS. The only science projects that they do on the station are related to the human habitation of space, which leads me to believe they either plan on colonising the Moon or even Mars (a man can hope) or they just don't care about space any more than their precious spy satellites. How does the entire "teritory" concept work in space? How can you attack in space and not get into a ground war at the same time? These are questions about things one might think do not affect us, but they do. From weather to global positioning, from TV to the Internetand the telephone, they all come through space. You have to imagine a world where space wars are common and plan ahead against it. We cannot color the sky, we can't afford to.

According to Wikipedia, dink, can mean a lot of things, ranging from small boats to small penises. A dink is also a creature in the SpaceBalls parody of Star Wars. But is seems that the main use of this word right now is for "Double Income No Kids". That's me! Well, I have a cat, but he doesn't generate any income. You can also find this particular demographic group called DINKY, which is a more dynamic acronym that takes into the consideration the future possibility of offspring(Y=yet). The Americans seem to prefer Dink, while the UK and their former colonies Dinky.

Apparently being a dink means that one is part of a high-earning couple who choose not to have children and are therefore able to afford a more expensive consumer lifestyle. A dink is considered a lot of times as being also a yuppie, or Young Urban Professional, with pejorative connotations of selfishness, materialism, and superficiality.

So, apparently, I should :

• generate an income (checked)


• have a mate (checked)


• the mate should also generate income (checked)


• both generated incomes should be high (yeah, right)


• selfish (checked)


• materialist (not really)


• superficial (yes!)

So, I have demonstrated creating by oneself a Cosmopolitan test by using Wikipedia. Are you a dink? How dinky are you? Take the test! :D

It just had to come. It was inevitable. Bush has signed a "tough space policy" which basically says the US will hold space itself hostage as they do water, air and economy on Earth.
Just read the BBC article and draw your own conclusions. Before they even explore it, the Americans seize space as their own, all in the name of "protecting" their space sattelites or whatever.
So next time you god damned university students want to launch your geek science projects into space, you'd better clear it with Bush. Or Rumsfeld.

This is an image from the BBC web site and the title of the BBC article is Rice launches Korea crisis tour and the caption is Japan and the US pledge to work on implementing sanctions on North Korea, the US Secretary of State says.
I knew politicians are assholes, but how can you smile like that while deciding pledging to impose sanctions on some other nation? Look at her! You'd say she's hugging her daughter while petting the cutest cat ever. And she's imposing sanctions! And the title sounds like she has just opened a tourist resort. That whole picture is wrong. Geez!

Spurred by two TV shows about two famous people, I came to the conclusion that Osama bin Laden's history has a lot in common with the one of Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general, just as the history and technological development of the US has a lot in common with the Roman Empire.
Think about it!
Hannibal was born in Carthage, but he left it when he was nine years old. He hated the Romans with all his being and when he attacked their empire (which then span the Italian peninsula) he did it by hitting targets deep within their teritory. Using innovative strategy, he defeated the strong Roman army by using its flaws: size, but no coordination; force, but not precision. With a small mercenary army that also used elephants, he surrounded the huge Roman army and destroyed it. He then demanded support from Carthage, in order to siege and capture Rome, but the politicians of that state decided that it would be safer to not antagonize the Roman Empire and didn't sent support. Powerless to set siege to Rome, Hannibal could do nothing but watch how the Romans build another army which will then defeat him. In order to avoid capture, after years of exile, he commited suicide.
Osama didn't leave Saudi Arabia from childhood, but he was exposed to the teachings of returned exiled teachers, who brought different ideas. He came to hate the Americans and when he attacked them, he struck deep within their teritory. Using innovative strategy he defeated the US antiterrorism machine by using their flaws: size, but no coordination; force, but bureaucracy. With the smallest of terrorist groups that also used air elephants (heh, I stretched it out a bit, but it holds), he struck a major blow to the confidence of the US. He then demanded support from the Arabic nations, which decided to not antagonize the American Empire. We all know what happened to the ones that did. Powerless to continue his campaign, Osama watched as the US machine learned from its mistakes, rebuilt it's antiterror army and then defeated him. After years of exile, he dies, avoiding capture through death.
Now, what it even more interesting is that Hannibal's actions led to the expansion of the Roman Empire into Iberia and Carthage and the refining of their army and war strategy. This eventually led to the Roman Empire conquering so much and becomnig the most famous and technologically advanced civilisation of its time. Carthage was completely raised from the surface of earth, destroyed by Romans and plowed clean. If we were to continue these parallels, the American Empire should now have a more powerful and precise war machine, it should conquer or at least neutralize any threat from the Arab nations, then proceed on conquering the world. Some poor country should take the blame, as Carthage did for Hannibal, and be completely ravaged by war. Does it sound familiar? Brrrr...

Other related links from people that had similar ideas:

• comment at http://www.dailykos.com


• article at www.911helpamerica.com


• search for the "Re: And ye shall know them by their acts." comment by wrestler

There are even more links, in total Google showed 573 links that contained Osama bin Laden, Hannibal and not L*ecter. But since people spell Osama differently, others make it clear that it's not the guy from the movie, thus causing false positives and there are a lot of sites that just enumerate famous people, the count cound be completely different.
Happy thinking!

It was one of those moments when you think of nothing and suddenly something distillates into conscience. It sounded too good and too important not to find it on the net so I googled for "God is a brand" and I found 17 entries out of 98.200 (yes, Google is getting weirder and weirder).
Now, when it hit me, it seemed like something really smart, but now I understand it is just obvious; I was the dumb one for not getting it sooner. People don't have holly wars on Linux vs Microsoft, they are having brand wars on Jesus vs Mohamed.

What started me is looking for furniture for my new rented apartment (expect a huge blog in a few days) and I found the same models in two different places, but with two different prices. My wife said that it was because the more expensive ones were better made, but they really weren't.
Then I realised that most commerce is run on brands, it's nothing new, it goes on from the beginning of trade. You buy from where you know it's good, or from where stuff makes you look or feel good. People are attached to the spirit of the thing, not the thing itself (well, most people). The Stradivarius violin can be made better and cheaper using modern computer modelling and automated manufacturing, but people care about the original Stradivarius, made by a human, a human that represents something. The enormous price of Stradivarius violins is not due to their utility, but the faith of the people in the original builder, the artist. Ring a bell? Original artist? The Creator? Yes! God!
The epiphany came when I explored the idea in my mind. People doing idiotic things because of their faith, the experiment where people were given to wear a t-shirt for 10$ and refused to do it when they heard it belonged to a serial killer or the one with the children that were given a "perfect replica" of an object that they loved and they prefered the original or the simple superstitions like avoiding number 13. Movies, as well, usually portray clones as imprefect, evil, empty of true purpose or life. People remain married for decades, respecting and even loving the other person, when all rational motives to stay together have withered in time. Of course, this is also linked to the way human instincts work, but nevertheless, there are people who do it and people who don't.
Somehow, the intricate mechanism of the brain puts values on associations rather that on the objects. I think this is important. It is obvious that people have inner representations of different things and people, but I've always assumed that the inner value is put on the thing not on the associations. I now believe to have been wrong. It makes sense: there is no absolute value, only when you put something into context it reveals its value.

Therefore, returning to the God is a brand issue, it seems to me that the branding is made on oneself. You don't buy the product, you become the product. You brand yourself with a god, then act in accordance with its meaning. Then losing one's faith would be like becoming an clone of yourself, empty of meaning. It could explain the feeling of loss of a person, when "there are other fish in the sea". It makes old people be grumpy, since no one truly understand the different deep meanings that they've attached to objects and people and behaviours.

I can't even ask myself "Do brands suck?". It would attack a defining feature of humans AND animals alike. This warrants a look into the idea of religious feeling in animals. It is not possible for everything to suck. Religion sucks, though.

Welcome to another lesson in suckology! Today's topic is Manic Street Sweepers from Hell (or Bucharest).
When the weather is good I go to the office by bike. Yeah, I am a hot shot biker. My bicycle is state of the art junk and I can ride it even through major Bucharest street holes. Ok, I am being a bit unfair, as they are rebuilding all the streets now... So let me rephrase it: I can ride it even through destroyed streets that are in the process of being rebuilt.
When I first bought my bike it had no wheel protectors and I quickly realised that driving through wet or muddy terrain tended to leave a long straight line of wet dirt from my trousers bottom to the top of my head. So I bought these metal things that protect my wheels and myself from things like that. Now I can even go through moderate puddles and I only wet the bottom of my pants legs. Which is ok, I am tech guy, I'm married, I don't really need to look good. You did sense the irony there, right?
So everything was set for riding my bike. I could even hear the Queen song while going to work. To my immediate surprise I found the streets were wet! Not only in the morning, when I go to work, but also in the evening when I return. The culprits seem to be [echo]Street Sweepers!

Ok, a small technical paranthesis. All this is done to protect the mighty citizen from dust. Or so they say, actually, this is more of a EU directive or standard and, as we Romanians love to brown our noses, the City Hall felt compelled to comply. Street sweeping, in theory, should be done to clean the street of debris (by using machines with brooms) which also employ some system to keep the dust from rising up while brooming. Most employ water, the most advanced use vacuum generation and filtration.

Well, Romanians decided to split this process into two separate parts: one machine wets the street, the other sweeps. Even better, while one wets one street, the other sweeps another. The result is dry sweeping that generates immense quantities of air borne dust and wet pavement. As you might not be familiar with Romanian technology, let me explain to you what these street wetters looks like: big water containers with sprinklers. And not your average street wetter sprinkler system with a row of small water sprays, but one big water pipe with holes in it!
What this does is create huge puddles of water in the crossroads, where the trucks stop, but the drivers are too lazy/stupid to also stop the sprinkler system. Also the roads are far from flat, so in all the little depressions in the asphalt other puddles occur.

Well, how does this affect me and why these abominations suck? Let's take them one at a time:

• water makes my bike skid on the pavement. While this might be acceptable in other countries, with flat roads, maybe even with bicycle lanes, in Romania you have roads with waves, especially on the sides, no bicycle lanes (and the only one in Bucharest is used by old people to walk on) and the sewers are right in the pavement, they look like big square 5-10 cm deep holes. So, if on bicycle, you might want to break from time to time


• water makes cars skid on the pavement. It's actually called hydroplaning, when the water goes between the car wheel and the road. Some drivers might want to control or at least stop their car when they wake up and see they're on a collision course with a bike.


• new research shows that water on the pavement elevates the temperature comfort level, making it even easier to affect oh, let's say, people that drive on the said roads when the heat is up and don't have air conditioning in their car. Or a car.


• there is no way to get around a street wetter with the bike. The only solution is to wait until all the cars go past it, then go all around the other side of the street to avoid getting sprinkled. Luckily, these dumb ugly beasts are slower than my bike.

My obvious conclusion is: Street sweepers suck!
I am citing from a random link: PM-10 / PM-2.5 class street sweepers are in a developmental stage. This type of sweeper will pick up dust particulate down to 10 micron is size. The city's Envirowhirl PM-10 street sweeper utilizes a combination of mechanical and air sweeper features to pick up debris. They also utilize an internal system of dry filters to retain all dust larger than 10 microns within the sweeper's hopper. No water is used for dust control.
I hope they bring something like this in Bucharest soon and that it doesn't suck. Much.

It just occurred to me that the biggest problem on Earth is not war, but the unending talks that come afterwards. Therefore, I propose a UN resolution that bans war. If any country starts a war without being sanctioned by the UN, it is to pay. And pay a lot. No, the answer is not military retaliation or anything, but money. Each unsanctioned war day is to cost between 10 and 100 million EUROs.

The solution is both simple and elegant. If you need to start a blitzkrieg, do it, just make sure to pay afterwards. You want to go to a country, bomb its infrastructure, steal its oil? No problem, just make sure you win more than you pay to the UN. You want to stall the peace talks? Ok, but do it on your own money. You don't agree to pay? Just forget about exporting or importing anything.

Of course, there is a catch. Lately, no conflict was called a war. Therefore a clear definition of it is also required. That would help mentally challenged leaders to use the right words, too. What's my definition of war? Any conflict outside your borders perpetrated by the national armed force.

What about Hezbollah? you will ask. They attack outside the Lebanon borders and are not the official national armed force. They should be off the hook. Yes, you heard me right. Israel wants retaliation, do it with a private force of people payed or otherwise motivated to do so. In other words: pay for it!

And if you don't want to pay, ask the UN, NATO, or any other legitimate international force to sanction your need for blood or solve your problems or whatever. We can't wait for politicians to solve a problem WHILE the problem exists. They move slow, they have no foresight and their hindsight is limited to what helps them look good. Use preemptive measures: any war costs. Don't forget that the military and the politicians are ruled by the same type of people that rules everybody today: suits! The modern name for aristocracy. And they only care about one thing: money!

Gibson arrest 'handled correctly'

This is a rant marginally related to the Holocaust sucks post. Let me first say that I am NOT against the jewish people, even if I strongly think the Israeli external policy is a dark shameful spot on the face of humanity in general.

There are some words or attitudes that are socially not cool, politically incorrect, or whatever you want to call them. For example talking about fascists or terrorists as bad people is good. Talking about Jews as bad people is not good. Using 'nigger' when you're white is not good, but as a black man it's completely ok. I wonder if it's ok to say it if you're Asian. Of course, this is all bullcrap. People have the right to say what they think and not be persecuted by it. Eventually, if a behaviour is determined by society to be wrong, then it should be punished or looked down upon in ALL its manifestations.
My main focus today will be antisemitism. First of all, the very word annoys the hell out of me, Semites are Jews as well as Arabs and some other nationalities. To hijack the term to mean almost exclusively racism against Jews is discriminating in itself. Second of all, there is no need for a special word that describes racism against a single race or group of races. We've determined that racism is bad and that antisemitism is racism, so why use two words? Is it because, somehow, idiots think hating Jews is worst than hating Romanians, for example? And third of all, have you noticed that the most "opressed" of nationalities usually have a strong xenophobic culture, almost always having a special word for people that are not like them? The Jews have Goim, which means People and also Body. They very rarely use it in relationship with jewish people and most of the time only to refer to non-Jews. They also have specific other words that mean non-Jewish. They don't use kind words about Goim either. But I guess that's not racism, because they actually look down upon all races equally, except their own. In a way, they discriminate themselves, right?
So my solution is this: let us consider any racist remark a bad thing, while in the same time consider idiotic and not worth any attention any phrase or argument that contains "antisemitic". That would solve it, right?

"How can you say that, Siderite, since all your rants are typical intellectual rants and you are obviously one?" writes a loyal blog reader.

Well, loyal reader, only reader and also writer of this blog, I also suck! Yes. Writing a blog that basically helps no one except for the programming tips, for the main purpose of being read by anyone, shows that I suck big time. And I am not the only one. Forums and blogs are sprouting all over the net, an infestation marketed as Web 2.0, basically saying absolutely nothing useful. The writers usually start blogging for the same reason that young girls write diaries, then "accidentally" leave them so anyone can read them. The opinion of people we don't care about and that normally should not care about us should be irrelevant, but the human need for self affirmation seems to counteract this obvious logic.

And I've realised this (well, finally at a conscious level) by reading these small magazines that are free and left to be read in bars and restaurants. They contain a few articles, targeting medium or high income young adults, as most of the clientele of this places is, and written by intellectuals. The rest of the pages are filled, of course, with commercials and ads. I first got interested, because the things that these guys said resonated with my own thoughts. Then I realized that they only did so with negative thoughts, talking about how the world is and shouldn't be and the adjacent sarcasm and intelligent irony. They didn't really provide useful solutions; and the more I read them, the more they sounded like whining.

So it hit me! These people have no reason to write anything to others. They only express their own impotence as members of the most elitist and minority group: intellectuals. They are intelligent, they read a lot, know a lot, and can't do anything about it. They are surrounded by idiots and the world these idiots create and the only possible thing to do about it is BLOG! (as in rant, using any media they can access). And because their opinion is nothing more than a sad whine, with no effect whatsoever, they suck. And so do I!

What can be better than a rant on IT matters? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, VS2005 sucks! Compiling anything takes twice the time it took before, loading it takes 3 times as long as VS2003, resources used are also doubled.
This is not something unexpected from Microsoft, just check out the evolution of the Windows operating system, doubling in size like following a sick Moore law, but this is a developer tool, it is supposed to enhance productivity. I don't even know what I would do without ReSharper.
They also had this idea, which I think it's not bad, of trying to make VS an universal platform for any developer tool. This makes sense if you consider it all started from Visual InterDev. However, if this is not done with the limited resources of developers in mind, it will only annoy people. Who cares Visual Studio 2005 can integrate the team manager stuff, the code, the html, the css, the sql, if I only want to make a small console application and I have to wait 5 minutes for my handy tool to start? It sounds a lot like Weird Al Yankovic's It's All About the Pentiums.

Yeah, baby, the World Sucks series is back with a new season. This episode is about smokers and, yes, they suck. And this goes beyond their obsessive need to put something long and slim in their mouth and suck on it.
Smokers suck for only one true reason: they don't care. Everyday I am exposed to tobacco smoke and none of the people that are actually smoking seem to care that other people have to breathe that foul smelling odor. When I go to work on my way to the subway, when I get back home, on the subway stairways (yes, don't wait another 20 seconds you fucking junkies, light the cigarette right in front of me on the conveyor stairs!), in my own home when I open the window and some neighbour decided to smoke the very next window.
I admit, smoking inside your own house should be ok and if the wind brings the smoke into my home, well, it happends. But it's just the last drop in the bucket, is there no safe place? I now understand the glue sniffing beggars that retreated in the subway to live an underground life; it's the only safe haven.
So there you have it: smokers suck, and it is so obvious to me that I don't even feel angry anymore. The only thing I can associate smoking with is farting. Someone farts, the others have to smell it. But who in the world sympathizes with a person that enjoys the smell of their own farts?

Rant alert! This time I am not sure what or who sucks, so I'll just ask the questions and let you figure out the answers.

Today, in Bucharest, a gay parade was kept to celebrate the removal of article 200 from the Constitution, an article that made homosexuality illegal. Of course, right wing, religious, or just plain conservative people held their own demonstration and todays gay parade was attacked and ended in violence.

That made me think of this gay thing. It never occured to me that it was an issue. Lately, though, I am seeing it everywhere, from movies like Brokeback Mountain and New York style films to scientific reports that say 1 in 10 people is gay. That means that somewhere in my highschool class there were three gay people, for example, and I know of none.

I have no gay thoughts and I might just as well admit a little homophobia. But would I mind seeing people expressing their homosexuality in public, for example? I am sure some instinctual disgust would appear, but I am human, I should be able to get above my instincts. Besides, homophobic feelings, as strong as they may be, they can't be stronger than a persons sexual orientation, can they? Why should these people be forced to fight their own emotions?

On the other hand, another part of me protests violently. I don't want to see men French kissing on the street, touching their bottoms with their hands. I want things to be as they were, I like them like this. Yet, things were not very different for kissing boys and girls a few years ago. Romania being a conservative orthodox society, with a lot of people outrooted by communists from their homes in the country to come to the big industrial cities, young boys and girls showing physical affection for each other were frowned upon. I can remember how mad that made me feel.

Where do we draw the line? It is a weird line, I can tell you that. A lot of things can be seen in public in Romania. Dirty smelly beggars for example, roaming the transport system (for free I might add, while we pay the fare); loud music in the night from people listening to it on their powerful car stereos; extremely annoying comercials, people with flyers or cars that play very loudly some radio music to make you pay attention to the slogans on their sides. So why not gay people? I would certainly like to be in a bus full of kissing men than in a bus of smelly sick beggars.

A few minutes ago an idea came to my mind. Maybe people aren't against homosexuals, maybe it all started from a misunderstood word. You know when you're all lonely and depressed and you see people being happy and together and you feel a strong feeling of anger and annoyance? I think that in all countries people are mostly unhappy. Therefore, as democracy has it, in the early history they forbid gayness. People were not allowed to be gay in public, it made depressed people even more depressed. Then homosexuals chose the word to represent them and it all got mixed up.

So, my conclusion is that to be gay means nothing to me. I can live with the level of annoyance gay people might produce in me and I think they should do whatever they want and be able to express themselves. But then again, I think the same thing about right wing activists, fascists, communists and arab terrorists. Free speech should be truly free, and I would extend this to free expression.

I got it! Laws against freedom of expression suck! They might be gay, also :)