Log

Talks Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice:

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

Here's a good example of how democracy works:

NASA Christens Space Station Treadmill 'COLBERT'.

Want laten we eerlijk zijn, rokers hebben humor. Rokers hebben stijl. Rokers zijn sexy motherfuckers. Na het neuken rook je samen bezweet een sigaret in bed. Niet-rokers aaien samen een kat.

Beste.. column.. ooit: Rokers zijn sexy

Free Speech. Why is it important? Because it's an extension of Free Thought. Should we be able to think whatever the hell we want? Yes we should. Controlling Free Speech is about nothing more than controlling Free Thought. "You're not allowed to say this, because somebody might not agree with it. You're not allowed to say that, because somebody might feel hurt by it". What they're really trying to do is control what you can think. Trying to generate a "mindset", a "zeitgeist". Brainwashing is more like it. Well, fuck that. I'll think about whatever the hell I want and as long as I'm thinking it, I'll be saying it.

So fuck the Dutch government for trying to outlaw Free Thought, and keep on publishing cartoons showing Mohammed, wearing t-shirts implying cops are corrupt (which they are), making Death-Threat Raps and telling the public about how the politicians are the real terrorists. Remember that little rhyme you used to use when you were a kid? "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? Guess what? Kids are smarter than our police, politicians, religious fanatics and the whole government. Grow the fuck up.

This country is going to shit. Time to move to Cuba, where you're allowed more freedoms these days.

I didn't know it, but (Open)SSH supports setting up a Socks5 proxy:

-D [bind_address:]port
  Specifies a local ``dynamic'' application-level port forwarding.
  This works by allocating a socket to listen to port on the local
  side, optionally bound to the specified bind_address.  Whenever a
  connection is made to this port, the connection is forwarded over
  the secure channel, and the application protocol is then used to
  determine where to connect to from the remote machine.  Currently
  the SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 protocols are supported, and ssh will act
  as a SOCKS server.  Only root can forward privileged ports.
  Dynamic port forwardings can also be specified in the configura-
  tion file.

Socks5 is pretty neat, as it allows you to proxy stuff without the server having to know anything about the way the client works. For instance, if we give the following command:

$ ssh -N -D 127.0.0.1:8080 todsah@sharky.electricmonk.nl

We can now tell all kinds of clients such as web browsers and instant messaging clients that there is a Socks5 proxy running on the localhost at port 8080. SSH will forward all connections made to port 8080 to the sharky.electricmonk.nl host (all encrypted of course).

So, say we tell Pidgin that it should connect your MSN account through the Socks5 proxy at localhost:8080 by opening the Accounts (Ctrl-A) → Click MSN account → click Modify → Advanced tab → Proxy options → Proxy type = SOCKS5 and setting it to Host: localhost, Port: 8080. Now, when we reconnect to our MSN account, all MSN traffic will be routed over an encrypted SSH tunnel to the sharky.electricmonk.nl host, and will enter the public Internet from there.

This works great if you don't trust the network you're currently on, but don't have access to a VPN for instance. You also don't have to specify a single forward for each application/port like you have to do when you use ssh -L. You can use the same SOCKS5 proxied port with multiple applications, as long as they understand SOCKS5.

Hof veroordeelt bedreiger Balkenende tot celstraf.

Ik vraag me af waarom deze man wel celstraf krijgt, en iemand als Theo Maassen, die toch ook zo'n beetje heel de wereld al heeft bedreigd met de dood, niet. Lekker kieskeurigheid weer in Nederland. "Straf optreden, zolang we maar geen slechte publiciteit krijgen!". Want het is natuurlijk meer dan duidelijk dat Theo Maassen alleen maar vrijheid van meningsuiting vertoont, maar dat deze man een werkelijk grooootte bedreiging vormt voor Balkenende..

Als het zo door gaat in Nederland met de burgerrechten, dan zou het me niet verbazen, noch spijten, als er eens een paar mensen omgebracht worden. Balkenende moet dood, omdat zijn kapsel me niet bevalt. Zo, eens kijken of ze ook achter mij aankomen; heb gehoord dat het goed vertoeven is in zo'n gevangenis. Gratis eten; beetje tv kijken, en als ze je slecht behandelen, dan zoek je gewoon even de media op. Helemaal top.

Nederland holt achteruit. Nog even, en het is hier net zo gesteld met de burgerrechten als in die fijne U.S. of A.

Dutch minister of Justice, Hirsch Ballin, is being pressured by dutch christian and labour parties to force Dutch ISP's to start censoring the Internet:

A translation of the dutch NU.nl article:

AMSTERDAM – The NOS [Dutch Broadcasting Institute] on friday reports that a majority of the Dutch parlement have demanded that internet providers be forced to block child pornograpy.

Currently, providers have the freedom to cooperate with blocking activities, but they are not required to. The Korps Landelijke Politiediensten [red; Dutch National Police Corps] keeps a list of websites that spread child pornography, which ISPs can use to filter. The UPC cablecompany is the only one currently using the list.

The CDA [red; Christian Democrats], the ChristenUnie and the PvdA [red; labour party] parties have demanded that minister Hirsch Ballin forces ISP to start blockin child pornorgraphy, according to the NOS. The topic has been a long-running point of discussion between Hirsch Ballin and Internet providers.

First off, I'd like to explain that I am NOT AT ALL for child pornography or anything of the sorts. That said, censorship is never the solution to a problem. If you're thinking 'But what about..', NO! Censorship is never, ever the solution to a problem.

Now, who is this blocking of child pornography supposed to help (or stop)? There are only three possible answers: The children, the people trying to get their hands on child pornography or the people who accidentally stumble upon child pornography. Does this solution really help any of these parties? No. Children featured in child pornography are already hurt, so it doesn't help them. Paedophiles looking for child pornography aren't going to be stopped by this blocking. They'll simply use any of the existing routing networks such as Tor, which don't allow blocking, or they'll find some proxy in a foreign country. The only party it might help are people not actively looking for child pornography but who see it by accident. But come on, have you ever encountered child pornography by accident?

A big problem with this kind of blocking is that it is about fighting symptoms instead of causes. We shouldn't be blocking this content; we should be prosecuting the people hosting it and those that are actively looking for it. By blocking child pornography you run the risk of hiding the actual problem. It appears as if something is actively being done about child pornography, but the problem is still there; except now it's hidden from the public's view. And paedophlies? Where will they go for their needs? Underground, perhaps, making them harder to trace? Or will they simply create their own supply, harming even more children in the progress?

Another problem is that once you start censoring, where do you stop? Right now, the Dutch government is planning on blocking child pornography, terrorist sites and sites with content possibly useful to terrorists (bomb-making manuals, etc). Next up? Who knows? Sites presenting views our government doesn't agree on (anti-religion, discriminating sites, right-wing, left-wing)? Where does it stop? As we all should know, when looking at history, it won't stop anywhere. The entry barrier to censoring is high, but after that it's just like dancing: Getting on the dance floor and making the first step is hard, but after that, all bets are off.

And something that hasn't been discussed by our government is: Who monitors the monitors? Right now, there are no plans for actually making anybody accountable for what gets on the censoring list and what doesn't. Smells ripe for abuse to me.

So we're looking at a system that won't actually help anybody. A system which, in fact, will do more harm than it'll do good. A system that's open to abuse and can only lead to an uncontrollable, unmonitored system.

Sounds like another good idea by our government to 'think of the children!!'.

Found an interesting read over at O Reilly's website:

The GNU Operating System and the Free Software Movement, by Richard Stallman.

The Chinese government has outlawed the practice of reincarnating for Buddhist monks in Tibet without their permission.

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

From Wikipedia's article on the Dalai Lama:

Despite its officially secular stance, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has claimed the power to approve the naming of high reincarnations in Tibet. This decision cites a precedent set by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, who instituted a system of selecting the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama by means of a lottery which utilised a golden urn with names wrapped in barley balls. Controversially, this precedent was called upon by the PRC to name their own Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama and the majority of Tibetan Buddhists in exile do not regard this to be the legitimate Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama has recognized a different child, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the reincarnated Panchen Lama. This child and his family have been taken into 'protective custody' according to the PRC, and all attempts by members of the EU parliament and US government to garner guarantees of the family's safety have been denied by the PRC. There is some speculation that with the death of the current Dalai Lama, the People's Republic of China will attempt to direct the selection of a successor, using the authority of their chosen Panchen Lama.

The current Dalai Lama has repeatedly stated that he will never be reborn inside territory controlled by the People's Republic of China, and has occasionally suggested that he might choose to be the last Dalai Lama by not being reborn at all. However, he has also stated that the purpose of his repeated incarnations is to continue unfinished work and, as such, if the situation in Tibet remains unchanged, it is very likely that he will be reborn to finish his work. Additionally, in the draft constitution of future Tibet, the institution of the Dalai Lama can be revoked at any time by a democratic majority vote of two-thirds of the Assembly. The 14th Dalai Lama has stated, "Personally, I feel the institution of the Dalai Lama has served its purpose."

A link related to the previous post: The Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie.

_{Thanks Aczid.}