Room for Sk3pticism

How Scandinavians Won The 1%

Jan 282012

We must learn from the past and this is the single web page you really, really need to read. If you have any interest in having a better world, this is about the most important must-read material I have ever come across.

“There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.”

So go at it => https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/26-3

Privacy through hosts-file

Privacy No Responses »

Jan 252012

Now that Google has been declared evil it is a good time to think about your privacy online. There are many ways to go about it, here is one:

Hack: Xchat + bitlbee + auto-login

SW&HW No Responses »

Jan 172012

I thought no-one in the world would still like to use Xchat, but maybe I was wrong. I now have skype, twitter and two jabber accounts in Xchat through bitlbee. To get the auto-login to work right w/this somewhat exotic scenario, look no further: take this nice script and run: xchat-hacks.pl. (It isn’t mine and I’m grateful to the author.)

All you need to do is to place the script in your ~/.xchat2/ directory and to add a file called ‘waider.conf’ into that directory w/the contents:

[bitlbee] password='YOURPASS'

That’s basically it. If you want additional irc-commands, you need to hack the script. Search for ‘bitlbee’ in the script if you want to add actions to your bitlbee autologin. Perhaps you want to start a chat automatically w/a good friend:

IRC::command( “/query good_friend_nick”);

,or whatever you like. :-)

BTW: To get this thing to generally work, you need install skyped, bitlbee and configure them both. It will take a bit of effort, google around to figure out how it goes.

unrtf tree

SW&HW No Responses »

Dec 242011

Today I needed to convert loads of .rtf files to .html files so that one could use gwrite instead of wordpad: unrtf_tree.sh.

Mankind may have only 20 years left

Green No Responses »

Dec 142011

Once again the local mainstream media failing us, I have to use my blog to report about this: Shock as retreat of Arctic sea ice releases deadly greenhouse gas. There can be no doubt anymore that the Clathrate Gun is firing. And it’s been firing for a while.

I don’t think anyone of us really knows what will happen, but scenarios like hell and high water are certainly not out of the picture. There are even estimates that the mankind will be extinct by 2039. Feel free to criticize the writer: The Last 11,000 Days. I have to say that I don’t have the competency to do so, but from what I can tell from other sources, we might really be royally fucked:

The Great Dying could have been caused by “sudden release of methane clathrate from the sea floor”

“It was the Earth’s most severe extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species^[3] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.^[4] It is the only known mass extinction of insects.^[5]^[6] Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera were killed. Because so much biodiversity was lost, the recovery of life on Earth took significantly longer than after other extinction events.^[3] This event has been described as the “mother of all mass extinctions.”^[7]“

There is really little more left to say. For once, I wish there was a god we could pray to. It might well be that our other options are exhausted. Be it as it may, none of us really know what’s going to happen. The mechanisms that will be started or stopped by what is going on right now are something that we know little about. Some say we may be facing an ice age, others fear that the entire atmosphere will vaporize into space and Earth will end up like Venus, which probably had a runaway climate change, as well.

Fundamental pattern: Organic growth

Agile, Deep thought, Fundamental Patterns, SW&HW No Responses »

Nov 292011

As any software developer knows, there comes a time for every program. A time to throw it away or to write it from scratch again. As others have noted, software programs evolve like organisms. They become insanely complex at some point and there seems to be few proper methods to stop this from happening. And boy, have we tried.

The problem w/organically growing non-organic organisms is that they don’t necessarily die. Biological organisms do – and from what I can tell, that is a true blessing in disguise. A wise developer always thinks what we can live w/o and understands that every line of code is a liability. What you don’t write, can’t fail in testing or cause a shuttle to fly into the sun. What you can remove, won’t be there the next time you come around to confuse you.

But this is not true only for software! We tend to think that this is a fundamental problem in programming, but the truth of the matter is that this is a fundamental problem, period. To give you an example that my good friend just pointed out to me, the handbook of personal taxation in Finland is 880 pages long! In Estonia, taxation, for now, is very simple. Just a few rules and that’s it. Sounds a lot like software – give it time and it grows into a monster.

The same is, w/o a doubt, true for most rules and regulations and you all out there should make it your personal quest to fight this. All rules, regulations and laws should be made as simple as possible. This would reduce the amount of work that is wasted on part of many different parties and as an added bonus, there would be no tax loopholes to exploit. Any proper programmer can tell you that taking care of the functionality and the security of a wildly large program becomes impossible. At a certain point, the complexity just cannot be maintained and the same is equally true for rules and regulations.

To keep it short and sweet, I just propose this to be yet another fundamental pattern.

Functional Finance to the Rescue?

Deep thought No Responses »

Nov 272011

“Global financial concerns in 2010 that surround national debt, national and global aggregate demands, and proposed inconsistent applications of austerity and reduced government spending, on the one hand, and quantitative easing and increased government spending on the other hand, have made functional finance relevant again. If unemployment is minimized rapidly by application of functional finance (modified to require green production of the material wants that prevents unacceptable environmental stress and/or financial inflation,) and its principles would in fact achieve freedom from want, Lerner will be one of the fathers of reforms suggested in the 20th Century that finds favor in the 21st.”

What is this thing hight Agile?

Agile, Rhetoric No Responses »

Nov 202011

My take on Agile Wars. Adopted from “A Reformed Druid Anthology”.

There shall come unto thee those who do inquire: “What is this thing hight Agile?”
And thou shalt answer them by quoting the basic tenets, for this is the only answer with which all Agile Practitioners do agree.
Yea, there may be those practitioners who do have reservations even about these basic tenets.
And some there shall be who do understand, and who do gain in awareness.
For there are those who do be Agile Practitioners, yet who know it not, never before having heard of us.
May the blessings of the Mother be upon them.
But others there shall be who understand not, and who shall ask again, “What is this thing hight Agile?”
And thou shalt answer them by paraphrasing the Great Bard, saying, “It is a tale of sound and fury, signifying what thou wilt.”
For, verily, even as Agile Practitioners do disagree, so do they agree to disagree.
And even as they do agree to disagree, so do they disagree so that they may agree.
And some there shall be who do understand, and who do gain in awareness.
May Be’al smile upon them.
But many there shall be who do grow yet more confused. Yea, even shall they be confused in their confusion.
And they shall ask once again, “What is this thing hight Agile?”
Then shalt thou pick up this tome and throw it at them. Yea, shalt thou throw it at them even aiming at their most tender parts.
And thou shalt intone even as thou dost throw this tome the First (and only) Commandment of Agile.
For, yea, though it be nowhere written, it is a commandment most dear to all Agile Practitioners.
And that commandment is this:
“Think for thyself, foolish one.”
Then shalt thou grow in awareness, even as he doth grow who doth ask.
And then shall ye both receive the blessing of the Mother and of Be’al.

=> original

Scrum is dead – Long live Scrum!

Agile, Deep thought 1 Response »

Nov 072011

Scrum is dead, isn’t it? I mean the name of the agile framework, Scrum. Many agree. And why would this be? Because Scrum became Scrumbut so many times that whenever anyone mentions Scrum, people who have had bad experiences w/Scrum instantly associate it w/Scrumbut.

I have explained before why this happened: because adopting a bottom-up system is next to impossible in a top-down organisation. So what are we left w/?

A bright future.

Yes, a bright future, indeed, in the long run – at least to those of us who live in democracies. As we can learn from here, it is quite obvious that in non-totalitarian countries there will be a push for democracy alongside the education of knowledge workers. This push will not be limited to the political sphere, because the needs of the people are exactly the same in their work as they are as citizens of a society.

There will be a constant push. And this tidal wave will, eventually, break down the resistance of the management model that is about 100 years old. The more educated the people, the greater their hunger for self-actualisation. And at some point these people – who have seen XP fall and Scrum fail – will end up somewhere where they can change this. The waves of education will slowly but certainly wash away the resistance and there is nothing that can be done about it in non-totalitarian countries. It will be the will of the people, and always, eventually, the people prevail.

So, no matter what Scrum will be called, it will become the norm and this is good. And to me, Scrum is just a name. It is the concept that matters and it’s not going to go anywhere. It is a natural tagalong to the education of knowledge workers.

If you think it’s been tough w/Scrum, relax. It’s never easy for those who want to change the status quo. At least in our times we aren’t burnt at the stake for trying to do so. :-)

What We Know about Modernization Today

Deep thought, Fundamental Patterns No Responses »

Nov 072011

What We Know about Modernization Today – World Values Survey is an interesting read. However, to save you the trouble, here comes the beef: education -> push for democracy. However, in all honesty, you really should read the paper. :-)

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