Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Wikileaks

When I first heard about Wikileaks and the leader, Julian Assange, I thought it was a good thing. There are too many serious issues that are hidden form the people who should know about it. A venue for "whistle blowers" to spread information through would benefit us all.

I admit that I was wrong.

Wikileaks is not about spreading information but controlling it. Julian Assange is not a great leader and vigilante, he's an insane dictator, with the skills and charisma that those of his kind have. Had he lived in Germany during the 20's he'd been a great asset for the Nazi party.
I hope that the Americans get their hands on him before he and his fanatic followers causes this world any more harm.


Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Writing.

Chen Shaohua
Last month I posted "The Star Sapphire", a short story with a dragon theme. The thought of dragons triggered my imagination and today I've posted a new dragon story, "Axis Mundi". This is the year of the dragon in the Chinese zodiac and now I'm hoping that the inspiration will keep on flowing through the rest of the year.

I've dropped my hopes of being able to learn how to write "properly" in English any time soon. I simply don't have the mind and time for it. It's better to keep on writing without feeling the stress. The things I need to learn will probably come to me bit by bit over time.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

In the news today

The news today are reporting that spring is officially here now. "Here" is of course down south and not where I live. We have at least a meter of snow and -6°C.

It's a lot lighter outside though. The sunrise is 6.50 now and it starts to get lighter even earlier than that. 

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Disaster

Disaster struck a week ago when our gluttonous veil tail goldfish, decided to eat the roe of another fish in the aquarium. He got stuck and it took a lot of effort on our side to get him out of the jam. We don't know how long he was stuck but the effects on him was clearly visible. His veil died, he had lost lots of scales and had cuts here and there. The first day he hid in a corner while grasping and resting. Then we realized that the other fish were picking on him and we moved them to another aquarium. This helped a lot, he quickly got more active and he started to beg for food again. The following day he had black patches and stripes all over the body and we're guessing that it's a form of bruises. I used my phone camera to film him as he swims back and forth. It's not great quality but it clearly shows how injured he is.

It's not the first disaster he lives through. During the first year we had him he got ill and as he recovered he also changed colour. We bought a golden veil tail but he turned completely white.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Amazing Art

Snow Art by Simon Beck
Artist Simon Beck creates some truly amazing art. "Crop" circles in snow. Armed with a sighting compass, a piece of string and snowshoes he creates stunning geometrical shapes on snow clad mountainsides.

A visit to his FaceBook page is well worth the effort.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Cause of Death: Woman.

Cause of Death: Woman
Cause of Death: Woman is an investigative report on violence against women. One in three women around the world is subjected to physical, sexual or some other form of violence during her lifetime. Between 2010 and 2012 we examined the situation in ten countries. In each country we met women who had survived violence and people working for change. With the help of relatives we were also able to tell the story of a woman who had been killed. You can see the result at www.causeofdeathwoman.com, where you will find 150 articles from all over the world.
It's difficult to understand the mindset of those who think it's somehow "ok" to harm women. It doesn't matter if it's about a man, woman, child or animal, violence, abuse and rape is never ever "ok". 


The articles at the site is disturbing to read, but sometimes it's good to step out of your comfort zone. That the women and their families are sharing their stories, that other people read them, is one more step on the way of changing this world. 

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Political Satire

Wet diaper 9.90SEK
Carema is a company that's been in the news quite often lately. They are best known as the company that mistreats elderly to save money. On of the things they've done is to save money on adult diapers. The personal have gotten orders to change them as long between as possible, and even to weigh the diapers to see if they can get any fuller before they change it. Leaving the elderly in diapers full of faeces and urine is not the worst thing they've done, but it is something we all can relate to. No one want to go around in wet, stinky, dirty, corrosive pants.

The artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin is known for her provocative art, and perhaps most of all for her "ecce homo" art where she shows Jesus as a member of the LGBT community. Now she's created a photo montage based on the Carema scandal and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. 

"Looking at the picture should feel just as disgusting as it feels for the elderly to be in their own shit. The piss diaper became a symbol of mismanagement in healthcare, Carema-diaper. You should really take this seriously", says Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Common sense.

Lately I've read several different articles pointing out mistakes made when making studies.

Studies on how men think and act are incorrect since the test subjects were young men with their hormones flying high. Their way of acting and thinking is different from how older men think and act. As a layman I always took for granted that scientists made sure to make the study based on people of all ages. It makes sense to me.

Then there is the study that shows that taking multivitamin supplements raises the mortality rate in older women. We all know (or should know by now) that taking too much of certain vitamin supplements is bad for our health, so what does this study add? Well, nothing. The study did not control how much the women took of the supplements. It did not look at their ordinary diet and it did not ask why they took the supplements in the first place. It only looked at what the women said about the supplements and diet.
Mmm... Yeah, all my friends say that taking people's words for it instead of checking the facts is stupid. Now spread that through the media and make huge headlines of it.

Humans turns out to be social creatures rather than competitive, aggressive and brutish as has been the "fact" up until about a decade ago. Humans were seen to be born without morals, ethics and a will to cooperate with others. That humans are social by nature was something that had to be "discovered". The way we naturally interact, even as babies, seems to have been missed by scientist after scientist. Now I'm guessing that the idea was based on the testosterone drunk young men mentioned earlier. Really. "I'm a young man, I'm a scientist, the way I look at the world is the correct way since I'm the greatest and the rest of the world will always act and think as I do."


Monday, February 20, 2012

Norwegian Reindeer Transport


Lapland may be the mythical home of Santa Claus and his famous hoofed hauliers, but police in the far north of Norway were astonished recently to find three of the local reindeer packed into the back seat of a car. (Source)
There were two more reindeer in the luggage compartment and the police noted that "none of the animals were wearing seatbelts".  As if it had been any better if they had the seatbelts on. 


Also note how their ears have been censored in the photo. This is because the owner cuts marks in their ears to show that they belong to him/her. 






Sunday, February 19, 2012

Racism?

Opposite Day!
Sometimes I think that you have to have the mindset of a racist to be able to see the racism. In other words, people who constantly think of racism will see it no matter if it's there or not. I noted this many years ago when an Intel ad was accused of being racist. Some of the members of the forum were furious over the racism and I had to go and look at the picture to see what it was all about. I didn't get it. I looked again and again, and I still didn't see it and by the end of it I had to ask what was so racist about it. They attacked me so badly that the admin closed the thread and deleted it. I still don't know what was so racist about it.

Dove ad
Intel ad
If I have to guess then I'd guess it's racist because the white guy is shown as weak and inferior and needs not one but six strong men to help him. He simply doesn't have what it takes and the ad ridicules him about it.

When I heard that the Dove ad was racist I thought I knew what it was about. Just look at it. The black model is a plus model. People see plus size as something negative. Well, I was wrong. Apparently the ad is racist because it gives the appearance of the skin not only becoming smoother but also paler when you use Dove.

 I don't get it.

Isn't obvious that the sample in the background have nothing to do with the skin of the models standing in front of it? The skin tone of the sample doesn't match either of them.

Maybe it's just me that's colour blind?


Saturday, February 18, 2012

Getting results...

My struggle to eat less sugar is finally giving me clear results. I'm taking 35 units of insulin less than when I started, I don't crave the sweet stuff any more and I've lost 5 kilos. The major turning point was when I cut back on eating carbohydrates. No unnecessary carbs, no potatoes, no pasta, no rice. I'm following the basic idea of LCHF (Low Carb High Fat), though I don't push it to an extreme, and I'm feeling great.

I've tried LCHF in the past, but it was too extreme for me and I stopped. It was simply impossible to make it work in my life. Now I'm back and I do as I want to. I don't need to keep the carbs under 5%, I don't have to seat a lot of fat. The important thing is that it works and shows results.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Brusspup Illusions

I stumbled over this at some site and I just have to share it. It's a YouTube channel named Brusspup and the videos shows really cool optical illusions. The video I'm posting here is only a series of short samples, you need to go to the channel to see more and more detail.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

This is Torture!

(Source)
Christine Schürrer has been convicted for murdering two children and trying to murder their mother. Going to prison is, of course, a great inconvenience for her and she's complaining about it. She's complained and managed to get a transfer from one prison to another. She's complained about not being allowed to keep her make-up and now she's at it again.

Now she complains about how she's being tortured in the prison she was moved to. She's not allowed to cook her own food and because of that she's starving. (The prison serves her food daily, it's her choice to not eat it.) She can't sleep properly, but the article I read did not say why she can't sleep. Somehow I doubt it's because the guards keep her awake intentionally. Because of that she claims that her "human rights have been deeply violated".

She's in prison for cold bloodily killing two children. It's supposed to be a punishment not a joy ride. If she has the time to figure out stupid complaints like this then she is not being punished enough.

The Swine flu

The statistics over the effects of the swine flu is in. In Sweden 60% of the population got vaccinated and that saved 6 Swedes from dying form the flu. In Germany 8% of the population took the vaccine and ... the fatality figures were the same as in Sweden, 0.31 fatalities per 100,000 people. No one took the vaccine in Poland and their fatality figures was 0.47 per 100,000.
168 Swedes suffer from the side effects of the vaccine compared to 29 Germans.
(Source.)

I wonder about the numbers. How do they know that only six lives were saved? Why are the number of Germans that suffer from side effects higher than the Swedish, when more Swedes took the vaccine? Shouldn't more people have died in Poland? Should we look for the answer in the type of healthcare we get and the quality of it?

I think that's the answer. As a Swede I have the right to healthcare, but I don't have the right to good healthcare. Better healthcare would mean less deaths and quicker diagnosis's. This could also account for the higher numbers in Poland, as I recall it their healthcare standard are lower than the Swedish ones.



Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day

It's interesting to see how something change over time. The celebrations of St Valentine that started in the 5th century had nothing to do with romance. No one knows who he was or what he did either, there were several Valentines. It was in the 14th century France and Britain that the Saint's day started to be connected to romance. It was in the 1960's that the tradition reached Sweden in a larger scale, and that was because of commercialism. However, it was in the 1990's that the Valentine's Day market truly boomed. Today about 50% of the population celebrate it Me, I'm so not buying anything just so that the stores can make more money on this day.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Facebook Parenting


Yesterday I showed my youngest son the YouTube video of the father shooting his daughter's laptop and we had a good laugh at it. Today I'm reading how supporters the "poor girl" thinks that she will be traumatized by the whole ordeal and how what he did is a sign of "bad parenting". I think that's utter bollocks of course. The girl had shown the same amount of disrespect before, she had been warned before and she had been punished for it before. She knew the rules and she knew what the consequences would be is she broke them. It's not as if he suddenly punished her without her being warned that what she was doing was wrong.

There is one thing that makes me wonder though. You can see and hear the cars passing by in the background. This area is clearly populated and there are people moving there. Is it really legal in America to fire your gun in a populated area? Here there would be an uproar about that and he would be likely to lose his gun and license.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

I keep saying that I should explore something new

Snowflake
I'm stuck in a rut and I need to explore and expand my creativity. There is so much that I still need to learn about photography, and an example. My husband have bought us a stack of gadgets and things to use with the camera and I should learn about it all. So what do I do? I keep doing the same old same old, until I suddenly remember to do something different and snap a couple of shots of a snowflake. Not much creativity in that.

Friday, February 10, 2012

And they wonder why ....

US Marines posing with Nazi SS flag in Afghanistan
I often come across people online that wonder why people outside of the US think that Americans are stupid. All Americans are not stupid, we all know that, but media provides us with so many examples of stupid Americans that it's difficult to not be influenced.

Today's contribution to the America's Stupidest's Hall of Shame has to be the US Marines who thought that the Nazi SS flag represented "sniper scouts". How can ten (or more) adult men fail to recognize one of the world's most famous Nazi symbols?
"I don't believe that the Marines involved would have ever used any type of symbol associated the Nazi Germany military criminal organization that committed mass atrocities in WWII," Chapin said. "It's not within who we are as Marines." (Source)
Well, belief and fact are two different things aren't they? They did use the flag, it is a Nazi symbol, and they are marines. I find it very hard to believe that a whole group of military adult people can have gone through years of education, and simply living in this world, without seeing the symbol and learning what it stands for. 10 year old kids know this. It's common knowledge.

And they wonder why we get the picture that Americans are stupid.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

I'm sooo tired

The cold weather has worsened my aches and pains and sleeping a whole night is impossible. Add to that my husband watching TV at night and the sound waking me up, and my youngest son being kind and washing the dishes early in the morning. *yawns*

Luckily I have nothing I have to do this week, other than making sure to eat properly.

I'm working on the COYA I started ages ago. It keeps dividing and spreading and I'm having a hard time keeping track of it all. It's still great fun though. All the alternatives that I'm coming up with is great fun. At least it is to me.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Cheating

I'm cheating on my new diet. No surprise really. It started with 10 frozen raspberries. No big deal, it's just a few berries. Then I addend a grapefruit. Not the greatest sin either. Then a pear. Then more raspberries and another grapefruit. Still not satisfied I added a cheese burger with bread and I stole a couple of fries from my son. Then more raspberries with an added sweetener. The cookies just suddenly appeared and landed in my mouth, somehow, and the chocolate...

*sigh*

I know I'm not perfect. I know that falling of the wagon is no big deal, it's what you do next that matters. Still, I feel down.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Escape! - III - Zombie-Master - Dungeon Master Custom Dungeon

Escape! - III - Zombie-Master
I've played the demo for Escape! -III- Zombie-Master before but I never finished it. The main reason for that being that I'm a slow fighter and it ends with a quick kick-ass boss. This time I made sure to level up my fighting skills well a head of the end. Now I wish that I had been playing a full version of the game so that I could keep on going.

I didn't solve it all and I went to the hints page to see what I had missed. Unfortunately they never mention the things I wonder about. My guess is that I've encountered bugs that has been dealt with in a later version of the game.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Top five regrets of the dyingHere are the top five regrets of the dying:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
(Source) (The book at Amazon)

This fits with what I keep telling people that happens to complain about being unhappy around me. 

  • How can you possibly be happy in your life when you live someone else's life?
  • Working is great since it gives your life a meaning and an income, but if you live to work then something is wrong with your priorities.
  • People can't read your mind. Things, such as life getting better, will not happen unless you speak up.
  • Having some sort of social network is important for your health as well as your mood. How it looks is on the other hand up to you. Some people needs lots of friends others, like me, need only a few. 
  • You can make the choice to be happy. Happiness is a state of mind, not an external thing or gadget.

Most people that talk about being unhappy also have a problem with staying in or being in control of their lives. They don't have control since they are living up to other people's expectations, or something have happened out of their control or they don't dare to take control. 


At least that's how I see it. 


I'm no different than people in general. The worst times in my life has been when I couldn't stay in control of my own happiness, my own life, for some reason. My illnesses is a good example. I was miserable and depressed when it all started since the illnesses dictated what I could and could not do. The turning point came when I learned to take control of my own happiness again and find ways to be both ill and happy. 

Dark Portal - Dungeon Master Custom Dungeon

Dark Portal
Dark Portal is different from the usual Dungeon Master games since it's based on solving puzzles. (In Shadow gate style.) You need to solve some of the puzzles in the right order to be able to move on. The monsters you encounter can't be killed if you haven't solved the puzzle connected to them.

The worst part for me was figuring the "Desire - raised" puzzle. I spent a lot of time on it and even asked my husband for help. After hours of frustration I finally admitted defeat and went to the thread with hints to be able to move on.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Dark Abyss - Dungeon Master Custom Dungeon

Dark Abyss
I finished it the other day and forgot to post my screenshot. The Dark Abyss did have a bug that made things a bit more difficult than it should have been, but it was a minor issue that could be easily solved.

It's freezing cold outside, -30° Celsius, and my plans for the day is to curl up in a warm blanket, drink tea and play another custom dungeon or, if I'm lucky, two.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Sugar is evil

I thought drug and spoon
 would be a suiting illustration.
I've known this for years now. The main reason for that knowledge is that I display signs of addiction when it comes to the sweet stuff.
  • Can't give it up even though you know of the negative ways it affect you.
  • Obsession. Thinking about it, planning for it and so on.
  • Emotional usage. Good mood, bad mood, feeling up, feeling down. Any emotion is a reason to use.
  • Abstinence, can't stop using.
  • Withdrawals. Physical reactions to not using. 
  • Tolerance, the need for more, either more often or higher amounts. 
  • Hiding it and lying about it. 
  • Guilt and shame. 
I admit, I frowned at the idea when I first heard about it many years ago. Sugar addiction? That has to be nonsense right? Well, no, not really. Sugar consumption raises the levels of opioids and dopamine in your body studies show. Both opioids and dopamine are linked to us feeling pleasure and to addictions or "needs". Now sugar addiction suddenly makes sense.

At Live Science there is an article today about sugar being toxic to our bodies.
A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
This makes another aspect of it make sense too, the fact that sugar-free sweeteners are not better than sugar. As a diabetic I've been used the sugar-free and "light" products that's around frequently and nothing has changed really. My blood sugar has gone down a little, but nothing about my health have improved.

It's been 22 days since I decided to stop eating candy. It hasn't worked out perfectly, but it's been far better than any time I've tried before. The greatest result comes from a change in the rest of my diet, I'm now on a low carbohydrate diet. The difference between complex and simple carbohydrates is something that my body fails to see, carbohydrates are sugar and sugar triggers the cravings and the eating.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Another Photoshopped Advert Banned

(Source)
An advert showing actress Rachel Weisz wearing a L'Oreal Paris anti-wrinkle cream has been banned as misleading because the photograph had been digitally enhanced. Advertising watchdogs said the cosmetic firm had used post-production techniques to misrepresent what was achievable by women. (Source)


I've heard women claim that it doesn't matter if the adverts are airbrushed or not, they take for granted that it has been done. Personally I don't think it's that easy since they don't know what the model truly look like. When I imagine the picture to the right as older and having more wrinkles it still don't look at the photo to the left. How about the next pictures. Does anyone really see the picture to the right and them mentally imagine the photo to the left?

I know that I don't. My mind is too lacy to question every picture I see and reshape it, I simply take what I see for granted, unless I have a good reason to question it.


That we know it's fake doesn't help us imagine reality.