I dabbled in various music players in Xubuntu--Exaile, Rhythmbox, Banshee, and Audacious--but they all threw up errors or else didn't play quite right in my Xubuntu 12.10 install. In the end I decided to try VLC for playing music, and it plays music just as well as it does video. So there is no actual need for a separate music player in Linux. VLC answers all needs. I can even run xscreensaver while VLC plays music files. VLC apparently is smart enough to stop the screensaver from running while playing video, but it won't interfere if the user launches the screensaver.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Operating Systems
One thing that is really true about operating systems is that all of them take a lot of time and effort to research, configure and learn. Now that I've cut my teeth on Xubuntu, I'm loathe to install any other distro on a production computer. Just takes too much time and effort. I can understand why people feel loyalty to their particular OS, distro, or desktop. It's not just fear of change or conservatism, but fear of the amount of work involved learning a new bag of tricks. There are a lot of little configuration files spread all around the Linux file system that control this, that, and the other, and a lot of little components that need configuring or else they will cause strange errors and misbehavior and warning messages. All of that takes time to sort out. The result however is that in the end, one can achieve a desktop that is arguably superior to Windows both in usability (providing nothing breaks with the next release) and appearance. Windows may retain some advantage in speed, however, when it comes to things like games and HD video playback, although one's mileage may vary depending upon the hardware. I've been satisfied with standard definition playback. I haven't made the leap to HD video quite yet, and since I haven't done so, I don't know what I'm missing, and ignorance is bliss, so please don't anyone show me HD video on an HD monitor.
Linux offers a free OS in exchange for sweat equity. Windows requires purchase, and the purchase price can grow expensive, since it is per computer, rather than paying just once for an entire household or office. In exchange for money, Windows offers an easier solution requiring less configuration, but it is also less customizable and more rigid in its appearance and functionality. After all, in Linux, many desktops are available--Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, and others. I use Xfce 4.10 in Xubuntu 12.10, and it works well for me, but I had to invest a lot of sweat equity to learn how to customize it the way I wanted. Also, I was interested in tweaking the OS to try to get better performance.
Linux offers a free OS in exchange for sweat equity. Windows requires purchase, and the purchase price can grow expensive, since it is per computer, rather than paying just once for an entire household or office. In exchange for money, Windows offers an easier solution requiring less configuration, but it is also less customizable and more rigid in its appearance and functionality. After all, in Linux, many desktops are available--Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, and others. I use Xfce 4.10 in Xubuntu 12.10, and it works well for me, but I had to invest a lot of sweat equity to learn how to customize it the way I wanted. Also, I was interested in tweaking the OS to try to get better performance.
Adios, Google
Greasemonkey's script to fix Google broke tonight, so I've quit Google and am using Bing as my search engine now. I don't know why Google decided to hide the first 3-4 search results. It seems odd to me that the designers place so much confidence in a dropdown list. That dropdown list is the most irritating thing Google has ever put on its page. I never use it, it has never been helpful to me, and I have to click on the search button multiple times in order to get my results back and dispel the accursed dropdown list. There is no option to disable it that I can find after much searching. I've even Googled how to fix Google and get rid of this stupid "feature," but even the fix has broken.
So let's see how Bing is doing these days.
So let's see how Bing is doing these days.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Xubuntu is Faster
I just timed Xubuntu, and it boots in < 25 seconds on my machine. That's about 5 seconds faster than Linux Mint Mate. I guess I just needed to get Xubuntu configured in my usual style. Xubuntu is definitely faster at start-up, no doubt about it. Windows XP takes over a minute to boot, by comparison.
Death Strikes Again
We're all on a sinking ship. When a friend dies, that's a reminder that the ship is going down, and no one is going to survive this voyage. The only thing to do is try to live well and appreciate the people and things of this world as much as one can.
Second Thoughts About Mate
I discovered to my dismay that the slideshow screensaver is completely removed from the latest version of Mate. At any rate, it never worked right to begin with, so I imagine the developers just don't want to hear about it anymore. Many people assume that screensavers are no longer necessary, which is true, but those of us that appreciate art also appreciate screensavers. I am willing to give up certain things in a desktop, but a screensaver slideshow is not one of them.
So I am going back to Xubuntu, which has no problem running xscreensaver. Xubuntu may be slower than Mate, it may boot slower as well, and it may lack certain nice features found in Mate, but it has no problem whatsoever with the screensaver.
Not only is Mate's internal screensaver defective, but many of the potential replacements are also defective in Mate. I spent hours installing slideshows and screensavers, all to no avail. Finally I decided the easiest path forward would be to install and configure Xubuntu, which is now my permanent replacement for Linux Mint Mate.
Xubuntu is about as easy to install and configure as Mate. I would say it is very comparable to Linux Mint Mate once you get the hang of it. However, the better design lies in Linux Mint Mate, no question about that. I do miss my Linux Mint Menu.
I plan to check out Linux Mint again however, when the next LTS is released around 2015 or so. The most likely flavor I try will be Cinnamon or Xfce. I expect Mate will join the history books by then. Based on the backstory, Mate always seemed like a stopgap to me until Cinnamon matures.
Not only is Mate's internal screensaver defective, but many of the potential replacements are also defective in Mate. I spent hours installing slideshows and screensavers, all to no avail. Finally I decided the easiest path forward would be to install and configure Xubuntu, which is now my permanent replacement for Linux Mint Mate.
Xubuntu is about as easy to install and configure as Mate. I would say it is very comparable to Linux Mint Mate once you get the hang of it. However, the better design lies in Linux Mint Mate, no question about that. I do miss my Linux Mint Menu.
I plan to check out Linux Mint again however, when the next LTS is released around 2015 or so. The most likely flavor I try will be Cinnamon or Xfce. I expect Mate will join the history books by then. Based on the backstory, Mate always seemed like a stopgap to me until Cinnamon matures.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
I'm Sticking with Linux Mint Mate
I've tried other Linux distros: Open Suse 12.2, Xubuntu, and Kubuntu. Linux Mint Mate is just twenty-four flavors of awesome and that's all there is to it. I like the Linux Mint Menu and don't want to give it up, not for Xubuntu and certainly not for Kubuntu. I like the simplicity and easiness of Mate, where things tend to just work, although there are a few quirks, such as the buggy and limited screensaver. But I plan to stick with Mate until such time that I start hearing about the maturity and stability of Linux Mint Cinnamon. Based on the comments I've read in forums, I'm not sure Cinnamon is ready yet to be my desktop. Mate is ready. But I'm going to wait a year or two, maybe for the next LTS release, for Cinnamon.
Xubuntu annoyed me greatly because the file manager, Thunar, does not allow me to open config files with Admin privileges, unlike Linux Mint Mate's Nautilus. It is also slow, especially moving files to different directories on a single partition, which should be fast, as it is in Windows XP. Thunar has some odd default behavior which was anti-intuitive, such as not opening a directory when I clicked on it. Xubuntu did not auto-detect my display resolution either, but put me at 1680 x 1024 on a monitor with a maximum 800x600 display, which meant I was having to guess what the text messages read until I finally figured out how to correct the resolution. I spent hours trying to configure Xubuntu before I gave up. The look of Xubuntu is simply inferior to Mate, and there's no easy way around that. I felt that Xfce overall was sacrificing a lot of conveniences and elegance to preserve a negligible amount of memory. At no time did Xubuntu seem faster. In fact, after creating Samba shares on my Xubuntu drive, Xubuntu booted about 5-10 seconds slower than Linux Mint Mate. In addition, everytime I clicked on Firefox or VLC the response seemed to be much slower than Linux Mint Mate, about three to five seconds of waiting before the application opened. Often I clicked on Firefox two or three times before two or three instances opened. Thus, there was no advantage to Xubuntu, but it was more difficult to use, while being considerably slower. I was also missing my wonderful Linux Mint menu, which I never want to be without, ever again. The menu alone is worth installing Linux Mint. Other distros simply do not understand how human beings work. Linux Mint really gets it.
The thing about an OS is I do not want to learn how to use one. I want the OS to know how to handle me, not the other way around.
I do wish I could find a Linux distro that displayed a modicum of intelligence during the installation process. For instance, if a computer has > 2 gigs of RAM, then swappiness should be dialed down at the get-go. I should not have to go in and modify vm.swappiness to equal 5 or 10. The temp directories in fstab should all be tmpfs. "Noatime" should be the default for all partitions. Why do I have to modify ten freaking configuration files every time I install a new Linux distro? But then again Windows is not much different. Every Windows install I ever made, I had to tweak about ten settings after install.
Xubuntu annoyed me greatly because the file manager, Thunar, does not allow me to open config files with Admin privileges, unlike Linux Mint Mate's Nautilus. It is also slow, especially moving files to different directories on a single partition, which should be fast, as it is in Windows XP. Thunar has some odd default behavior which was anti-intuitive, such as not opening a directory when I clicked on it. Xubuntu did not auto-detect my display resolution either, but put me at 1680 x 1024 on a monitor with a maximum 800x600 display, which meant I was having to guess what the text messages read until I finally figured out how to correct the resolution. I spent hours trying to configure Xubuntu before I gave up. The look of Xubuntu is simply inferior to Mate, and there's no easy way around that. I felt that Xfce overall was sacrificing a lot of conveniences and elegance to preserve a negligible amount of memory. At no time did Xubuntu seem faster. In fact, after creating Samba shares on my Xubuntu drive, Xubuntu booted about 5-10 seconds slower than Linux Mint Mate. In addition, everytime I clicked on Firefox or VLC the response seemed to be much slower than Linux Mint Mate, about three to five seconds of waiting before the application opened. Often I clicked on Firefox two or three times before two or three instances opened. Thus, there was no advantage to Xubuntu, but it was more difficult to use, while being considerably slower. I was also missing my wonderful Linux Mint menu, which I never want to be without, ever again. The menu alone is worth installing Linux Mint. Other distros simply do not understand how human beings work. Linux Mint really gets it.
The thing about an OS is I do not want to learn how to use one. I want the OS to know how to handle me, not the other way around.
I do wish I could find a Linux distro that displayed a modicum of intelligence during the installation process. For instance, if a computer has > 2 gigs of RAM, then swappiness should be dialed down at the get-go. I should not have to go in and modify vm.swappiness to equal 5 or 10. The temp directories in fstab should all be tmpfs. "Noatime" should be the default for all partitions. Why do I have to modify ten freaking configuration files every time I install a new Linux distro? But then again Windows is not much different. Every Windows install I ever made, I had to tweak about ten settings after install.
Disable the Google Dropdown List
Who on this good green Earth wants to hide the first three results in a
search? Google does. Their dropdown list obscures the search results, making it so I have to search for a term two or three times instead of just once. A dropdown list only slows me down because I can type faster than Google can populate a dropdown list with its guesses. This link shows how to install Greasemonkey in Firefox. Greasemonkey can install a third-party script that will eliminate Google's dropdown list.
The Time Has Come
The time has come to reread Patrick O'Brian's wonderful saga about Captain Aubrey.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Characters
Writing can or could be an end unto itself, if one has what it takes to create an imaginary character. I've often been tempted, but the task is difficult, probably beyond me. It is easier to imagine a character than to translate the imaginings into the written word. Only a good sort of writer, like Tolkien, can bring characters to life in such a way that readers will be happy to spend their evenings with those characters. Other writers are good enough to bring characters to life, but one doesn't wish to spend time with their characters. Doris Lessing comes to mind here. I can't think of a single character from her books that I miss. On the other hand, I do miss some of the characters in books by Tolkien, Jane Austen, Robert Heinlein, Mary Renault, Anne Rice, and Gore Vidal.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Belief
The way that ghosts are treated by movies and books seems mistaken. I would think that if ghosts were possible, then they would be as moderate and mild as we are, since they were once like us. If anything, one would expect amelioration from a ghost, an improvement over what they once were. Did death teach them nothing? Surely it is an effective teacher.
I've never felt contacted by any ghost, I think. Or if so, the entity was mild and gentle, not scary or annoying. I've never had what might be called a supernatural or religious experience that I can recall. I think that is a good thing, because I probably wouldn't understand a universe where the rules could be waved aside, as it were.
Sometimes I do wonder about certain odd coincidences, but then I feel like I'm being silly and unscientific, a superstitious ape that is startled by thunder because he does not know what makes it.
I prayed as a child, but was never in touch and did not understand the first thing. Few of my prayers were answered. My success rate in prayer was below one percent. Maybe I had a few successful prayers concerning something small, such as getting an "A" on a test that I would have gotten an "A" on anyway. Maybe someone recovered from a cold virus quickly and I attributed their recovery to my prayer the night before. The successes were always probable events, and I realized there was a problem giving credit to prayer for them. Prayer didn't have anything to do with anything. Bunch of mumbo-jumbo, it was. Overall, the God described by my Church seemed pretty useless to me. He was a nag at best, or at worst a wimp that never helped out. I felt like I could do better in my choice of friends, so I ditched God for good. Yet even at the most unexpected times, I still do pray on rare occasion by way of deal-making with the abstract Cosmos, thinking only to myself without uttering a word. "If such-and-such may be allowed to happen (such as getting a new job), then I will be able to do good work over in this area as well, you see... So, isn't it better if fortune shines my way? Of course, it is only logical..." I'm pragmatic. If there's a Deity, then let's see what he can do for me.
I think that my belief is primitive and elemental, maybe primordial. I do not think of the Deity because that is something I cannot know, something beyond human capacity, like staring into the Sun. I don't believe any of the religions have got things exactly right, but I don't know either. So, atheist, yes, if the word is to mean a belief in a deity as described by a book. Not an atheist, if the word is to mean something greater than or equal to ourselves that one does not know yet, perhaps not a thing at all but instead a force or even a bit of revelatory knowledge, such as the reason for existence. One finds it enticing to hope that there is a Direction, and one finds it dismal to believe only in Chaos and randomness, a brief life and then darkness. I do prefer to believe in Direction, in order, finding it more appealing. I do not know much more than that. I like to conceptualize God as the Ideal, or what happens according to Absolute Good for the benefit of all. That seems about right to me.
Perhaps it is so that a brief life and then darkness is the human fate. But that is made more bearable if one supposes that there is a continuity of goodness, of the creative genius, that transcends the cycle of life and death. Perhaps death is the annihilation of the individual, as I still believe. I find it very unlikely that individual identity can or should survive death. For one thing, humans are very much alike, so another person often may serve as an adequate replacement, equal if not superior. Our redundancy means there's no real necessity for the soul to be immortal. Why would the souls of Man persist after death, when Man's distant relatives were mere beasts, or going further back, single-celled organisms? At what point in our evolution spanning millions of years would God grant upon this species of ape the precious gift of immortal life? No, I think it is wishful thinking and egotism that makes people cling to the thought of immortality, a clinging to this world and the things and people of this world, which is only natural.
Certainly immortality would be preferable. Perhaps one day scientific advances will create a race that is immortal or at least very long-lived. I'd gladly accept a thousand years, a solid improvement over eighty.
I've never felt contacted by any ghost, I think. Or if so, the entity was mild and gentle, not scary or annoying. I've never had what might be called a supernatural or religious experience that I can recall. I think that is a good thing, because I probably wouldn't understand a universe where the rules could be waved aside, as it were.
Sometimes I do wonder about certain odd coincidences, but then I feel like I'm being silly and unscientific, a superstitious ape that is startled by thunder because he does not know what makes it.
I prayed as a child, but was never in touch and did not understand the first thing. Few of my prayers were answered. My success rate in prayer was below one percent. Maybe I had a few successful prayers concerning something small, such as getting an "A" on a test that I would have gotten an "A" on anyway. Maybe someone recovered from a cold virus quickly and I attributed their recovery to my prayer the night before. The successes were always probable events, and I realized there was a problem giving credit to prayer for them. Prayer didn't have anything to do with anything. Bunch of mumbo-jumbo, it was. Overall, the God described by my Church seemed pretty useless to me. He was a nag at best, or at worst a wimp that never helped out. I felt like I could do better in my choice of friends, so I ditched God for good. Yet even at the most unexpected times, I still do pray on rare occasion by way of deal-making with the abstract Cosmos, thinking only to myself without uttering a word. "If such-and-such may be allowed to happen (such as getting a new job), then I will be able to do good work over in this area as well, you see... So, isn't it better if fortune shines my way? Of course, it is only logical..." I'm pragmatic. If there's a Deity, then let's see what he can do for me.
I think that my belief is primitive and elemental, maybe primordial. I do not think of the Deity because that is something I cannot know, something beyond human capacity, like staring into the Sun. I don't believe any of the religions have got things exactly right, but I don't know either. So, atheist, yes, if the word is to mean a belief in a deity as described by a book. Not an atheist, if the word is to mean something greater than or equal to ourselves that one does not know yet, perhaps not a thing at all but instead a force or even a bit of revelatory knowledge, such as the reason for existence. One finds it enticing to hope that there is a Direction, and one finds it dismal to believe only in Chaos and randomness, a brief life and then darkness. I do prefer to believe in Direction, in order, finding it more appealing. I do not know much more than that. I like to conceptualize God as the Ideal, or what happens according to Absolute Good for the benefit of all. That seems about right to me.
Perhaps it is so that a brief life and then darkness is the human fate. But that is made more bearable if one supposes that there is a continuity of goodness, of the creative genius, that transcends the cycle of life and death. Perhaps death is the annihilation of the individual, as I still believe. I find it very unlikely that individual identity can or should survive death. For one thing, humans are very much alike, so another person often may serve as an adequate replacement, equal if not superior. Our redundancy means there's no real necessity for the soul to be immortal. Why would the souls of Man persist after death, when Man's distant relatives were mere beasts, or going further back, single-celled organisms? At what point in our evolution spanning millions of years would God grant upon this species of ape the precious gift of immortal life? No, I think it is wishful thinking and egotism that makes people cling to the thought of immortality, a clinging to this world and the things and people of this world, which is only natural.
Certainly immortality would be preferable. Perhaps one day scientific advances will create a race that is immortal or at least very long-lived. I'd gladly accept a thousand years, a solid improvement over eighty.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Hot Cocoa
I believe chocolate is the most divine of foods. It is a superb antidepressant. One should be poor without a cup of hot cocoa in the evening. The best sort of chocolate is the kind scorned by TIME Magazine, which according to this month's issue finds greater value in a Hershey bar than an Organic Free Trade Dark Chocolate bar. TIME magazine compares on the basis of price and nutritional value, important considerations no doubt, but please, give me the Free Trade bar. I will pay a dollar more. Maybe all the razzmatazz about Free Trade is true, maybe embellished, but at any rate what a pleasant thought to sell, that the cocoa farmers are getting paid a fair price for their beans, and thus this cocoa is imbued with good will and good luck, and that means good things will happen to me from eating this cocoa. And I do appreciate the flavor that I find in Free Trade chocolate, and I am certain it is superior to any brand of Hershey's, even their Dove brand. I find Hershey's too sweet and not chocolatey enough by a long shot. The chocolate I prefer is bittersweet and strong-flavored. Lindt 90% is grand, but there are some other good brands that cost more, and Free Trade is one.
Friday, November 23, 2012
A Boring Life
Drama is popular because people don't have it. They don't have it because they don't want it. We really don't want drama in our lives. A boring life is a happy one. Drama does have a place on the screen and in books however. The best life is a boring one, which experiences vicarious drama, adventure, and risk-taking.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
The Economy
I remember back in the 1990's--the boom years--everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike, were rapping about how free trade was so great. America wouldn't be manufacturing, but that was all right, because we were going to be leaders in information technology, doing high-level innovating with our super-creative brains, because we were so much more awesome than all those foreigners. Turns out that those imaginary new jobs got exported, downsized, rightsized and outsourced, and when one opens the newspaper nowadays, there just aren't any jobs to be had except in the medical field caring for the comfortably retired with their Medicare and pension plans. That will last for a decade or two and then guess what, no more pension plans and who knows what will happen to Medicare.
I do wish the Republicans would try for once to do something about job creation instead of giving more welfare to the rich, who already receive the lion's share of welfare benefits.
I do wish the Republicans would try for once to do something about job creation instead of giving more welfare to the rich, who already receive the lion's share of welfare benefits.
Monogamy
A thinker such as Thomas Jefferson could not survive as a public and historical icon and revered figure in this modern age. He would be hounded from one end of the earth to the other over the affair with his slave, Sally. Many of the philosophes and illuminati of earlier eras, I'm afraid--they were--regrettably?--horny. The mind, it seems, is difficult to sever from the lower part of the body, which has ideas of its own. I think that, in general, women have greater difficulty understanding this than men, and women tend to look upon the issue in strictly moralistic terms of black and white, whereas men understand the issue in biological terms. Men understand desire and the way that it can burn, burn through restraint and ties and sometimes even oaths. There is also such a thing as mid-life crisis, when a man may long to return to the days of youth, to recapture old feelings, old sensations that may have been lost.
A reasonable accommodation could be found for public figures that find themselves ill-suited to strict life-long monogamy. I think that altogether too many people are getting married that shouldn't, because the institution of marriage isn't well-suited to them. Perhaps a contract may be a better framework, as Heinlein postulated in his wonderful science fiction novels. I am thinking about Petraeus and Clinton.
Yet if a liberal allowance is to be made for those at the top, then a similar accommodation must be made for those in the middle and at the bottom. The Code of Military Conduct must be revisited along with civilian, corporate practices.
A reasonable accommodation could be found for public figures that find themselves ill-suited to strict life-long monogamy. I think that altogether too many people are getting married that shouldn't, because the institution of marriage isn't well-suited to them. Perhaps a contract may be a better framework, as Heinlein postulated in his wonderful science fiction novels. I am thinking about Petraeus and Clinton.
Yet if a liberal allowance is to be made for those at the top, then a similar accommodation must be made for those in the middle and at the bottom. The Code of Military Conduct must be revisited along with civilian, corporate practices.
Xubuntu
I continue to find KDE confusing. I look for settings and they seem to be in multiple locations. I also don't yet understand the concept of Widgets or Panels. After fiddling around with Linux Mint KDE for a while, I don't understand why KDE is any better than Linux Mint Mate. I think I prefer Mate for its helpful and expansive menu. The main problem with Mate is that it doesn't offer enough options on the screensaver. In Mate however, items seem organized in a more logical fashion. In KDE, once I installed a package, it would not show up in the Linux Mint KDE menu. Instead, I had to go hunting for it on the file system. That seemed strange to me.
I've hopped over to Xubuntu. Xubuntu knows how to install a package on the menu for me. Another thing I've noticed about Xubuntu is that it boots faster. I like Xubuntu's story, avoiding the fads and nonsense and concentrating on being a small, lightweight, invisible operating system that is easy to use. As long as I can do almost everything in the GUI I'm happy.
I like Xfce and Xubuntu because they seem conservative. I really don't see an improvement to be made upon the way that the desktop works, or at least Windows 8 and Unity do not represent improvements--they represent regressions. The desktop is not a cell phone. It will never be like a cell phone. To make a desktop like a cell phone is to eliminate all the advantages of the desktop. Really this should be obvious.
I've hopped over to Xubuntu. Xubuntu knows how to install a package on the menu for me. Another thing I've noticed about Xubuntu is that it boots faster. I like Xubuntu's story, avoiding the fads and nonsense and concentrating on being a small, lightweight, invisible operating system that is easy to use. As long as I can do almost everything in the GUI I'm happy.
I like Xfce and Xubuntu because they seem conservative. I really don't see an improvement to be made upon the way that the desktop works, or at least Windows 8 and Unity do not represent improvements--they represent regressions. The desktop is not a cell phone. It will never be like a cell phone. To make a desktop like a cell phone is to eliminate all the advantages of the desktop. Really this should be obvious.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.
I read an article in the New York Times today about Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., who has been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, the same illness that my father suffers from. Three things about mental illness I can tell you:
Mental illness raises fascinating ethical questions. Perhaps one should forgive everybody, because all evil under the sun may be the result of mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated. Can free will exist in a mind impaired? Today we know only a few mental illnesses, but how many conditions exist without labels? Of course universal forgiveness was the position Jesus adopted. Perhaps we are too limited in both resources and wisdom to adopt this position on a societal scale or even an individual one.
- People do not understand it and are afraid of it.
- Mental illness is subtle sometimes and can be treated. I would expect that many of J.J.'s peers suffer from similar disorders with varying severity.
- It is common to blame the sufferer, whereas with a physical ailment the cause, such as cancer, is blamed rather than the victim.
Mental illness raises fascinating ethical questions. Perhaps one should forgive everybody, because all evil under the sun may be the result of mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated. Can free will exist in a mind impaired? Today we know only a few mental illnesses, but how many conditions exist without labels? Of course universal forgiveness was the position Jesus adopted. Perhaps we are too limited in both resources and wisdom to adopt this position on a societal scale or even an individual one.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Ecstasy Therapy
There appears to be a clinical research study going on in South Carolina that administers the drug MDMA to subjects. Perhaps Ecstasy may prove to have certain medicinal benefits.
I've never done Ecstasy. I don't understand how it works. Ten years ago, I read an alarming article in TIME magazine purporting to show all of the harmful long-term effects. Yes, I'm a bit suspicious because the mainstream media is often nonsense on drugs, marijuana being a case in point. I was alarmed nonetheless. I guess I'm too old to feel any desire to try some new drug. Also, I feel that people should regard any drug as merely experimental until it has been around for at least three thousand years, treating people with medical conditions.
I've never done Ecstasy. I don't understand how it works. Ten years ago, I read an alarming article in TIME magazine purporting to show all of the harmful long-term effects. Yes, I'm a bit suspicious because the mainstream media is often nonsense on drugs, marijuana being a case in point. I was alarmed nonetheless. I guess I'm too old to feel any desire to try some new drug. Also, I feel that people should regard any drug as merely experimental until it has been around for at least three thousand years, treating people with medical conditions.
Kubuntu
Blew my mind recently to learn that Kubuntu is being sponsored by a German philanthropist (here's the English translation) for no reason other than Just Because. Just because, I assume, he's a nice guy. I could see myself doing something similar if I inherited a bundle from my old man.
I think I'm going to give Kubuntu a spin and see whether it flies.
I think I'm going to give Kubuntu a spin and see whether it flies.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Open Suse
I deleted Open Suse after I ran into trouble trying to install a simple video driver, ATI's fglrx. I don't have time enough in the day to deal with a distro that plays games with PackageKit and tells me I can't update my video driver due to metadata. Whatever. I don't want a distro that is harder to use than Ubuntu or Linux Mint. I think I will stay with ubuntu derivatives for the time being, based on this experience with a non-ubuntu distro.
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