Take Proton for example. They advertise themselves as a “privacy by default” company. I used to admire their work and suggest them to people. I still suggest them to people who are in their first steps of reclaiming their privacy rights and moving away from Gmail and other proprietary dis-services.
But I don’t trust them anymore. I don’t know why but when a company grows to be large (relatively), serving hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions, of users, they lose my trust.
Something pokes me from inside and tells me that when they grow, they no longer work for my interest, but they work for their own benefit. When they become a giant, they become blind, they forget their initial mission and goals, and they do whatever they can to remain in business by all means, rather to work hard to protect their users.
Perhaps there are measures and hard work from their side to make sure they can’t violate our privacy even if they want to. The Proton case, for example, claims that they encrypt every inbox (or account) individually with our passwords as keys. Or they have an option to enable a second password on your account that further encrypts the account if I understand it right.
But that still doesn’t change my opinions regarding them. I understand that they perhaps do a lot to ensure that our data never ends up in the wrong hands (or any hands), but it’s still internet we’re talking about and it’s still us vs. a company that works for profit.
Of course that I may be wrong, but that’s how I feel about giant companies. I love this paranoia as it reminds me how much I still value my privacy and I haven’t get tired of protecting myself.
Quote
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal”, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
Anonymous
The quote is attributed to George Carlin on many web pages, yet it’s nowhere to be found on Carlin’s works.
A man was in a hurry. He was going to buy some groceries and then heading to his office. Putting his car in reverse after buying the groceries, he gets distracted by the loud music that suddenly starts to play in the car.
While going in reverse, he hits a delivery guy’s motorcycle and breaks a part of it. He gets out of his car and apologizes to the delivery guy. He also asks how much does it cost to replace the broken part. Delivery guy says it’ll be twenty bucks.
He gives the guy the money and goes to work. When he comes back home at night, his wife asks him if he had an accident today. He, surprised that his wife knows, tells her yes, and explains how he hit a motorcycle.
His wife tells him that a guy came to the house. The guy told the wife that he found the address asking the grocery store. He gave 5 bucks back to the wife telling her that the broken piece took only 15 dollars to repair and he came by to give back the 5 bucks he received more.
The post has many spoilers about various movies and TV series. The list includes:
* The Invention of Lying
* House (TV series)
* Lucifer (TV series)
* Supernatural (TV series)
Everybody lies, right? I was thinking about this. Small or big, everybody lies and life goes on. You may lie about how far are you from the restaurant, like telling people you’ll be there in 5 when you actually will be there in 10. You may lie about killing people, like when you lie when you’re a psychopath murderer and cannibal and you lie to the court. The point is everybody lies.
But is lying always bad?Like if I tell someone that she’s beautiful just to make her happy, did I do a wrong thing? I know I shouldn’t lie about my work experience when I’m applying as a neurosurgeon while my only work experience is none, but what about lying when you really don’t want to visit some friends at the moment so you tell them you’re busy so you don’t hurt their feelings?
In the movie The Invention of Lying , Mark starts lying when his mom is dying. Nobody can lie in that alternative reality, nobody. Mark (Ricky Gervais) starts lying when his mom, in hospital, tells him that she’s scared of dying. She doesn’t want to go to an eternity of nothingness. Mark, trying to comfort his mom, tells her she’s wrong. He says it’s not an eternity of nothingness, rather you go to your favorite place in the whole world. There will be no pain, there’s love there, happiness, and everyone gets a mansion.
Was he wrong? In that alternative reality he lied to his mother and went on to lie to everybody else but did he do something wrong when he lied to his mother? And if yes, why? All he did was to tell a harmless lie to his mother to comfort her. She won’t realize it’s a lie, it’ll only help her to die peacefully.
Lying has a bad effect. I understand that. In the movie, Mark went on a journey of lying to everybody for his own benefits. Lying to casino about winning, lying to the bank about how much money he had, etc. but at that specific moment, did he do something wrong?
Lying is bad because it makes us lie and lie again to keep up with the first one. We will tell bigger lies as a result. But we do tell harmless little white lies every now and then. If you mom cooks for you and it tastes bad, you won’t tell her that, you’ll tell her it’s delicious. It’s a lie but you’ll protect her feelings. I don’t think it’s bad to lie about this. It makes her happy, and won’t harm anyone.
In the TV series House , there was an episode that Dr. House had a (if I recall right) pastor patient who was an atheist. The pastor hallucinated that he sees Jesus. House was amazed that an atheist could work in church, the pastor told him that he lied to the church and nobody knows that he’s an atheist. He managed to do his work perfectly, helped many people, earned an honest living, and became a good member of the society, all because he lied about one small detail.
I don’t think lying is good, I try my best to not lie, but is that little lie he told the church bad? He did his job with no problem as he was supposed to do. Nobody got hurt, nobody was harmed, and quite opposite, one or more people were more happy and in a better place as the result of this lie.
In the TV series Lucifer , Lucifer is famous for always telling the truth. It’s awesome. I always wanted to be able to do that. Always telling the truth is such an amazing ability to have. However, he managed to not answer somethings by asking a question in return, or changing the subject. I was thinking, isn’t that lying?
To lie is to give a false impression. So sometimes, giving only half the truth, or changing the subject, or asking a question in return, could be considered a lie. We all have something to hide. We have guilty pleasures, we have some people we like but not that much, we all have people who we love and don’t want to hurt their feelings, and so on, and we lie. It keeps the balance.
There will be chaos if we don’t lie. In an episode of TV series Supernatural , son of the devil will make everyone stop lying (warning: YouTube link). It causes chaos in a funny way but also the scene makes you think. It’s not possible to quit lying quickly, and it’s not possible to stop lying when you’ve said countless lies in your life, so is not-lying possible at all?
It’s a dream of mine to be able to not say even smallest lies. Being able to be truthful, honest, and straight with everybody is a dream. I personally believe there’s no harm in little lies we tell every day, such as “I’m fine” when someone asks us how we are, or telling your grandma that the dinner she cooked is delicious. There’s no harm in telling your children that tooth fairy puts money under their pillow or santa gives them presents. It’s OK to tell your children that storks bring babies.
But I still think it would be awesome if we could just tell the truth. Lying is not always bad and telling the truth is not always good. Lying is needed to balance our lives. A lie is a great story that someone ruined with truth. Barney Stinson said that.
Oh and wouldn’t it be funny if someone’s pants caught on fire when we sang liar, liar, pants on fire?
So Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, is turning 40 in ten days and he asked for an interesting gift. He wants us to blog!
Well that shouldn’t be surprising. He made something I’m sure every blogger ever has some experience with. This blog is made possible by WordPress. There are some amazing blogging platforms out there but WordPress is something else. Its user experience is best by far.
I used to publish some blogs with static site generators but they weren’t as satisfying and convenient as it is to use WordPress. I’m writing this on a computer at my office. I don’t have my password manager on it so I created a temporary account on my WordPress installation using my phone and started writing this. After that I’ll delete the random user I created.
You see, that’s how easy WordPress makes it to blog. I can blog whenever I need, wherever I want. This is all thanks to you Matt, and Mike.
Matt is one of my favorite bloggers. He’s also on my blogroll and I’m subscribed to his feed on all of my feed readers. I enjoy reading his blogs and I have learnt so much from him. A while ago he posted a video on his blog , excited about experience a ride in a self-driving cab from Waymo. I remember thinking how cool is that, that he’s still sharing his experiences with his blog. And how amazing is that, that there are still active bloggers who enjoy updating their blogs like we used to, 15 years ago.
I’ve expressed my dislike of social networks for enough times but I don’t think I explained my still-growing enthusiasm towards blogging nearly enough and a big part of this is all thanks to what Matt created.
I’ve been using WordPress for a long time on many many blogs. It’s my go-to program when I want to set up a blog for someone. It’s everything someone needs to start. It’s easy to install and easy to use. So, why are you still not blogging? Go and start one, it’ll take about 15 minutes of your time until you publish your first post. Go and give Matt a birthday present.
Happy birthday Matt. WordPress is a wonderful gift you gave us.
His son was in hospital after a car crash, injured and in critical condition. Doctors said there’s low chance that he survives. He couldn’t tolerate seeing him so he went outside and waited for an answer. His wife and other son came, loudly crying, and delivered the sad news to him. His son died. The car crash was too severe for the son to make it alive. He shed a tear and whispered “praise be to God.”
His wife cried more loudly and started hitting him angrily and asked him “your son died and you’re thanking God?” He replied “God is with us all the time. He gave me my son and he took him away. I thank him for good and bad. I’m his servant and he is my loving lord. Praise be to God for everything, not only in happiness, but also in sadness.”
Whether you believe in God or not, that’s a beautiful story.
1987 June 28, the city of Sardasht, West Azerbaijan was attacked by Iraqi aircraft with mustard gas bombs in two separate bombing runs on four residential areas. 130 people died and eight thousand people were injured.
Of the civilians who died, 39 were under 18 years of age, including 11 under the age of 5, and 34 were women or girls. In 2006, out of 20 thousand population of the city, a quarter were still suffering from the consequences of these bombings. There are people who still are suffering from those bombings today.
Many of the 95% who survived the Sardasht gas attack developed serious long-term complications over the next few years, including serious respiratory problems, eye lesions, skin problems, and immune system problems.
It’s almost 2024 and you would think people are sure of their feelings towards Saddam Hussein, the one who ordered the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Sardasht, far far from the war front. Not!
Just visit YouTube and search for Saddam Hussein, open a video and go to the comment section. Comments are filled with people calling Saddam a legend, a hero, a king. You would think that after bombing multiple cities and killing civilians in cold blood, people would realize what a monster he is, but no, they don’t, evidently.
Sardasht, Marivan, Halabja, Sarpol-e Zahab, Gilan-e-gharb, and Oshnavieh are cities documented to be targeted with chemical gas by Saddam Hussein. Not only the civilian areas alone but also medical centers and hospitals were targeted. What a legend!
The cities I mentioned are not the only ones, but the most famous ones. Near 41 thousand people overall were targeted by chemical weapons during the war. Forty one thousand people, at least. The actual casualties are much higher, as the latency period is as long as 40 years.
Iran asked the UN to engage in preventing Iraq from using chemical weapon agents, but there were no strong actions by the UN or other international organizations. The Security Council ratified reports of use of chemical weapons against Iran and two statements were issued, on 1984 March 13, and 1986 March 21, condemning Iraq for those chemical attacks, but the Iraqi regime did not abide by those condemnations and continued launching chemical attacks.
After the war, Saddam hid himself, then got arrested eventually, tried, and got hanged. There were celebrations all around Iran and Iraq by millions of people who finally were free from this monster. Now it’s almost 2024 and I see people calling him a hero. People seem to be blind.
One of my uncles who was 15 years old at that time was killed in Shalamcheh. His body was lost for almost 16 years. My grandfather tells me that during the 16 years of waiting for him in desperation, every time someone knocked on their door they would jump and rush to the door because deep down they had hope that maybe, maybe, it’s him coming back.
Someone knocked their door, finally, and gave them the news. A piece of his scapula and one boot, along with his dog tag was found. They had to do a DNA test to be sure that the bone was in fact his. This is the result of what this legend did. For 16 years they waited.
Halabja was one of the cities that was bombed by Saddam, with chemical weapons, and many people died there.
Qader Molanpour, who 2020 film Walnut Tree is based on him, lost his three children and his pregnant wife during delivery. All of his family members were exposed severely to chemical gases and died as the result of it. The newborn child, due to the improper condition of the hospital (as a result of attacks on hospitals and medical centers), was transferred to a hospital in the city of Tabriz and Molanpour could never find his last child ever. He died in 2016 December 31 while still searching for his child. His last child was named Zhina, meaning “life.”
It’s not really about Saddam. Saddam, Hitler, radical militia and terrorists around the world, these all have fans and supporters around the world. Taliban, with years of experience of torture, beheading, killing innocent people, and terrorist bombing on civilian areas, is now ruling Afghanistan and has its supporters. Hitler, with record killing of 40 million people (and total of 75 million) is a hero of some people.
Military generals of the confederate army who fought against liberation of slaves have their statues and flags up in states. There are some Italians, and some others, who worship Benito Mussolini, a dictator who killed over a million people.
I don’t know what has happened to us but there’s something we did wrong. We did something wrong. We thought history would speak for itself, we thought maybe history will teach us and our children, but that was wrong. It’s sad but I thought that being a mass-murderer, a dictator, a war criminal, and a homewrecker of millions would buy one some bad reputation but I see it only helped people worshiping them.
I don’t know what should we do, I don’t have any idea how to stop this, i don’t know what am I supposed to do against this. I’m hopeless for the young generation.
