Updates

Damn, wasn't planning to post anything, in fact not even to stay up so late. Argh damn seems I got a bit over addicted into this. There goes my beauty sleep. Well I did some updates. Mainly in the side bar. I had a quick look at some blogs which I enjoyed at first look and linked them so you can as well have a look at. I'm planning (eventually) to read em up a bit better and if I think they aren't as "cool" as I first thought I will edit the links. Added as well some banners. Using firefox atm myself, been using it for some time now (a bit of Microsoft bash - ff is more Blogger friendly!) , and have to say it's very nice, and considering it's free - it's excellent :) Picassa from my brief look seemed pretty neat software too and I'm planning to download and try it over the weekend. And added some ads as well. Don't say I'm Google-propaganding! It's not like anybody's been clicking them but have no work from tomorrow, ok, ok from Monday, so the stomach needs feeding too...

I think the best part for you, the reader, will be the Boredom Killers in the sidebar. all of them are execllent companions whether you are bored at work, stuck home on Friday evening or whatever the reason they can bring good laughter.
WARNING: Don't forget that some of the videos at metacafe can be a bit strange and attract people around you if you are surrounded by people. Maakies is not for the weak-hearted and don't laugh too hard while checking out Engrish, you don't want to attract the attention of your boss on Monday morning.

Ah I've been listening to the new album of the Rhapsody of Fire (ex Rhapsody) - Triumph or Agony all night. From the all night Rhapsody session my favorite is track 7. Here it goes once again - Silent Dream \m/. Second impression of the album is that it is pretty good, but it's getting late, more on that later.

Amazing Pictures

Wasn't planning to post anything more today but I checked the BBC International News front page whether there is anything new (yeah news obssessed lately, eugh) and found this article on pictures and photography. I've been lately quite a lot into photography and thought of sharing the article, although it is blinding obvious at is on their central page...

Anyway, for some more info on digital cameras and ratehr precise, reliable info, here is the reliable site - Digital Preview. Only too bad that it is too technical for me.

On the last Friday of September

Here it is.. taaadaaa. the Friday \o/ Tomorrow won't be that free and careless late sleep-in Saturday, but still it's Friday. Not just any Friday, but the last Friday of this month. This specific Friday been keeping me alive for this heavy wakeing up week. Every morning the thought alone that Friday is coming soon made me wake up early, go on, survive the hard world of work ... even today while on my way to work I wa actually happy it was Friday. And not because I'm gonna get crazy knocked overfrom some cheap vodka, but because no work from Monday :D Vacaaaaation. I guess that after work, I can appreciate the free, lazy time way way better. Yupe, free time is a luxury, especially nowadays in this modern time.

And for the ending of this post here is an entertaining website I found about, or more like against, Jar Jar Binks. There are some quite funny bits and some interesting comments from people. Don't get it wrong I don't want Jar Jar to die, I even like him (a little bit), now don't hate me for that.

Women's rights or some fundamental human wrongs

Here is an interesting bit in English from the BBC blog of the Pakistani rape vicitm Mukhtar Mai: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5370192.stm and a darker part 2 continues http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5371904.stm.

Equality... hmm it is perhaps an over-rated concept... Much like true democracy? Makes me wonder. And it makes me wonder even more why so many people who are well off, and live in absolute abundance compared to the majority of poor people in the third world start noticing and caring how to improve vices and right the wrongs only after they had happened. It's exactly like putting on the umbrella after the rain has fallen. It is becoming rather widespread as if it is a fashion trend or something... It is good to prevent future wrong doings, but by starting to care only when it is too late it seems as if people are trying to say "hey look, we are doing something, we are not guilty that we didn't take good care for soemthing not to happen"

Sadly rapes are happening in the developed nations as well. Reading some of the comments made after part 1 of the English blog made me go "wow"... Nicole yeah do well in that business, America is great, no problemos what so ever, no rapes, safety is best of course, with social welfare out . The comments on BBC give you a good insigh on the diversity of people, much like a real society (where there is internet), shows you as well the biased, the wrong and confused people :D

Needless to say what Mukhtar is doing deserves universal approval. Unfortunately though I think that this problem lies much deeper in the human race. Men has been physcically the stronger half of humanity. And men use their mere brute force on women, the physically weak ones, for their own desires. Not right... but this has been so for ages. The strong forces down the weak and makes the weaker do what the strong wants. The rule of the jungle. The strong survives. And the weak disappears. The problems of the weak become its own, while everyone minds the strong. But let's not confuse that the mere physical force is the good and the just but let's judge the deed behind the action (even though you could say "no good deed goes unpunished")... This is what is hard, but wouldn't that show an evidence of the advancement achieved by the human kind from the ancient times and perhaps using our mind to resist the instant, animalistic force for the reasonable will that not set us apart from the dark jungle and isn't that what makes us humans?

European Press Review on EU 27

After yesterday's green light from EU Commission to Bulgaria and Romania to join EU from 1 January 2007 there are many artciles and different responses all around the world. Here are some.

European press review by BBC News.
Some news agencies that are not covered there, to start with an update by Reuters with Oli Rehn's reassurances.
And The Guardian reports the problems with slight negativism.
An article about Bulgaria joining EU and a message from the president Georgi Parvanov, both in Standart News.

EU enlargement to 27 member states

Yesterday read some more of "The Last Continent", I guess now I want to go visit Australia even more. Also saw Angel-A a Luc Besson movie. There is still something left unanswered in my mind. Why that guy Andre!!? (No spoilers if you want watch it, go ahead, I don't recommend it but it can be good for couples, couples who are perhaps into soapy sentimental bits).

Right about now EU Commission should be declaring whether Bulgaria and Romania will be joining the EU on January 1 2007 or be postponed for 2008. So far it seems it is 99% certain it will be in about 3 months time. Some more info can be found on BBC News here and here. From my view point, of a person living in Bulgaria and pretty well familiar with how things are in neighboring Romania, none of the 2 countries are ready yet. It is quite obvious. But indeed EU will do more damage if they don't accept them now and I on second consideration I think its a smart decision from EU to decide to accept them from 2007 rather than a year later. If the 2 countries get an year later there certainly will be some psychological set back and even slow down reform processes and the economic reforms. In my opinion, economic growth on the other hand will be pushed down minorly if the status quo, not being part of the Union, continues. I can at least say so about Bulgaria. The country will keep reforming aiming for 2008 entry and the economy will keep growing with near or above 5% annually. The minor effects will stem because politics and the surrounding world events are entangled in the economy. But of course as part of EU the economic growth will be much faster but most importantly in the "right" track with better choice of policies.

Now, now I was also reading some readers' comments, again on BBC. There are people, mainly British (or English is the impression I got), who have facts wrong. One of the reasons of the so called "German miracle" was due to the influx of foreign labour. (Un)fortunately it is more than obvious that there will be immigrants, but there will be less than expected. Not the waves of Poles after 2004 enlargement, on top of that (or may be not to repeat that because of strong public opinion) there are plans for a lot of restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania and likely additional UK work restrictions. The Poles who immigrated to UK brought more benefits to UK than problems.

On the other hand a lot of people seem to be worried about their job. I understand that people are worried about their jobs, and that leading to houses and support of families, if that's the case no one will be thinking about economic growth or positive sides, they be only worried about their own. Something completely normal and absolutely in their right to protest because of that.

That aside, I keep seeing those blind pure stupidity "Britain should get out of EU" ofc EU will lose out, Britain will lose A LOT more... Sometimes I want them to get out and laugh at this, what I can only call, backward thinking and observe the loses that will follow up from getting out of the common market... And what the hell is the stupid example of Switzerland? True their though on giving citizenship, but tdo the research plz... they are in what is called EEA (European Economic Area) and they have shit load of agreements with EU. What does that mean? More or less they can to a very large extent benefit from the EU market and not be much harmed by the common external tariffs. In fact Switzerland is and will be benefiting more than will be Bulgaria or Romania after joining the EU.

If people are wondering what the 2 new entrants can bring in when they join is at least that there will be the reduced EU-wide crime. Being part of EU will mean less crime because there will be more tight internal control. And finally, how can people talk of EU wide integration, wtf this biased thinking who is ready or not... Portugal? Spain? Greece?


What a long post... but it's good to keep one thing in mind... Balkans do create trouble.

"Google poses a threat to more companies in more industries than anyone else in history."

An article I found while just casually checking CNN. Pretty good article that describes Google as something like the digital era Robin Hood, but with the roles reversed. Here is the twist. In the article it is stated that "the Goliath" takes away from the small business for its own gain. Who benefits? No, not the big, already fat assed capitalistic pigs. Or at least only those at Google. The others are you and me. The regular people who benefit from A LOT of free and exellent services (such as this Blogger, and needless to mention Gmail). But let's bring on simple economics theory. In a helthy economy, one that is the US market, it is absolutely normal for companies, especially small and medium sized firms, to go bankrupt. Certainly google with its technological advantage, in its search engine, takes away a market share from some big and mainly from smaller firms. I see why some protest, but as one univolved, or more like a beneficiary of Google, search aside, but mainly from its awesome free mail service, I see these explansions and intake of others' market shares as a normal way to maintain my and other Google users' satisfaction, in turn its own existence from its current proft making vast advertisments. The article gives a wonderful example of the "imperfect competition" model... afterall from all this competition shouldn't the consumer benefit more? Make your own judgement.

Sunday

Woke up pretty late today. Read quite a bit of "The Last Continent" by Terry Pratchet, had a good laugh. I recommend you that book. Got a long-awaited story's continuation from a friend over the net, but the evil early wake up for work tomorrow forces me to get to sleep early on, so the story will have to wait for tomorrow. Something nice to keep me going on through the day... especially thinking about the after work visit to the police station to fill up a form for my lost mobile phone will be one tough day, knowing the policemen around here.

So yesterday I was thinking about work, as it is last week of work, for the time being. While at work, or even going to work, seemed so compelling. Nothing to worry about, just follow the everyday procedures. Wake up, wash face, brush teeth, go to work, come back, do something not-so-special, and early bed, to continue on with the same process tomorrow. But in this routine I felt the comfort of security. Everything was pre-planned, I had the day more or less planned for this (last work) week. In this habbit of mine, I felt relaxed, no need to think about anything different, just the straight forward thing I have been doing for the past 2 months, more or less the same. I guess its a good example how the surrounding and the familiarity of it makes us relax and push down our thinking pace to the minimum of the mundane surrounding...

Mobile phone lost

On Tuesday evening on my way from home to Hilton I lost my mobile phone Sony Ericsson V800 in a taxi. I really suspect the taxi driver. Compared to so many other of his cash-hungry colleagues, and even of the same cab company, he was waaaay too sincere and "nice", but I'm not intending on letting him have it. Will try search it using GPS through the police... hope it'll work.

Let's go to school comrade

There is an interesting suggestion by New York mayor Michale Bloomberg. Even if the cash money, or the reward will not be that great, it will provide a much valuable incentive for people to follow up with those "healthy choices". It should bring those poor people a step closer to the opportunities available to others who simply follow the main order. Sadly, the money is claimed not to be coming from government funds. Isn't the city of New York itself responsible for its own citizens and therefore public money be used? I guess that can prove unpopular with voters. Can such socialist policies be at all implemented in America? On the other hand some big companies make HUGE profits. We are not talking here huge revenue, but HUGE profits (profit = revenue - cost). "What an unjust world" I might say, and "that's life" you could say. Because it is the life now, I don't think it has been that way in the past. Then again with the spread of globalisation, there is a larger market on which to operate. But back on the issue in New York, I don't see anything wrong for those proftable companies to redistribute their wealth among the society, especially those in need. And more than enough of such large, multinational, profitable firms are located in the city that never sleeps.

But still it makes me wonder why the richest country in the world can not take care of its problems first before trying to fix other countries' problems...

The next step

I updated the blog yesterday afternon a bit. After my own ranting about how hard it was, I have to say it was not that bad, the help explanation given is decent and it sort of gave me a feeling of fullfeelment that I accomplished something. Lately I have been reading SHITLOAD of news, from world breaking news, new economic data, financial info on stocks, new trends in fashion and technology to even the new BigBrother show... yes I think you got the idea. Boredome mainly... I feel almost like a walking news agency, even if soemthing happens and I'm walking outside I have the feeling I'll catch the transmitted news by the news agency... so I thought of giving you some links of news agency I quite like, my favorites being BBC and Reuters.

I think I got into the boredome wave (don't call it blogging wave or trend!) and I'll do an update towards the style of this blog. Perhaps make it more personal... but that will mean some work needs to be done while I'm not actually AT WORK :) and due to reality keeping me busy, plus all those optehr things I told you yesterday that I want to do, the modification of the site has to wait.

Food for thought

Due to some real life consequence the food has to wait a bit. Too bad that not all goes as the stomach, or even the body :D pleases.

I just read that Blogger is blocked in Pakistan. Blogger on its own doesn't say or do anything. It's the people that post blogs (still not so used to that word, hmm) in Blogger, that make the "need" to be censored. There is still a long way for Pakistan to go to reach anywhere near to be called normal country. You could claim this to be Western mind, perhaps from the viewpoint of a Pakistani, but a human expressing logical reasoning, even if questiong the state's religion (Islam in the case of Pakistan) should be given a chance to express himself( was about to include /herself, but can't allow for those feministic thinsg to eb chasing me, think of it as of myself then :). I think a mind free to express is sometimes way stronger than a settled and a more secured in the box mind. Get out of your habbits! True I admit my Western bias of logical, in my case quite rational, thinking but you do have to do something if you feel like it is worth it. Simply blogging, or expressing one's thoughts, should not be stopped, but here comes the tricky bit, unless someone is thinking its against his/hers ideals(women can be no less planning, corruptive, ambitious). Clash of ideals is now a different topic. But then bringing it back somewhat into a context, a country can not demand to be viewed, in a positive or a negative way, in the same way, unless it does more or less the same basic, normal things, from my, Western point of view. Pakistan's government has its own ideals. I don't know whether there is a major clash of ideals with its population, but I doubt it. I assume most Pakistani in Pakistan, support the deeds of their government. But if that assumption is true in fact they have to take the resposibilty of their support, those feelings they have towards their ruling people. And this responsibility will mean that they as well regard blogging, or some people expressing renegade ideas, as against the state of Pakistan. That's fine. But then that creates a difference between what is normal in the West and in Pakistan. People should keep that in mind, that values of people differ.

If a person belives in the existence of universal human moral, or values, would not such values be the feeling that is not right and just to kill children, regardless if it is war or not? Similiar would be the case of women's rape, a mass-rape would be even worse. Didn't the god punish Achilles after the pillage of Apollon's temple and the rape of his priestesses. An act clearly marked as negative by the people of the past. If a woman who suffered a rape wants to express herself thorugh a medium, be it a blog, shouldn't it be normal for the general public to let her do so?

Another week... another Monday

Another week Monday started the working week, time to say farewell to the joyous free time of the weekend until better times that will follow until the next long awaited Saturday and Sunday full with all-I-can-waste time. I was thinking of posting something about Pope's quote from last Friday, the waves of anger across the Muslim lands, and following his official apology yesterday and the still continuing protest... but let's not dwell into religion and such thought provoking things on Monday. Let's leave that aside, for now.

Trying to post here, I realized how hard and how much nuissance is caused if you want to have a savvy, nice blog... so much UNproductive time... But you can always get people to do a website for you if you pay... I guess I'm not satisfied, or more like it, will not be satisfied in the future, from simple texts. Where are the pretty texts, the pictures, all the interactive stuff!? I guess its me being unhappy. So many things I'd love to do, places to visit, food to taste, books to read and so on... so while I have a urge to do these things... meanwhile to post something (and in this case not that meanigful post) I have to forego the time I could gain joy. In economics thats the opportunity cost and in otehr words I value this post as much as the joy I could have gotten from doing something else. Hmm... re-thinking about that: 1) No way. I guess in general the blog can be turned to something interesting, but that means I want to tell someone something, so I have to tell ppl to check it, to remind them to read it... else whats the point. 2) I'm at work, nothing to do, well something to do, mroe like it I don't want to read it. So is this escape from reality...? 3) Lazyness to read the "Mastering Treasury Office Operations". So unable to do anything I really like, I'm here telling you that I'm coming back to reality. Food here I come!

Second Time

Now I'm not so nerveous, shaking with excitement (well I guess the aftereffect of making the first post is better than actually doing it, no? ;) of venturing deep into the a little bit more familiar blogging.

For some time I had some ideas that I call "Theory of Habits". Although I'm interested in philosophy never dug that deep into articles and books to see if anybody before stated that. Surely there must be something pretty close to some of the points I came up to. I'm saying I came up with because although I have read the works of some noteworthy philosophers and collected, sometimes summarized, ideas of others, I have never seen anything related to this theory of mine. But judging human nature urge to think about all sort of things over the years, I strongly suspect that putting the ideas of those thinkers together will eventually lead to these habits. Or if there was/is someone who alone arrived to those conclusions, in no way I am attempting to take away your academic, artistic, material or whatever work it is... I seem to be reapeating it, but it is all because those are ideas I have been thinking over for quite some time all on my own (with only 2 ppl I can think of that I shared some of them in broader aspect) and it's soemthing I like to share with all of you out there. Curious to hear your comments, flaming, agreements or disagreements or even creative spam.

On a side note I didn't tell anyone I know, online or real life, about this blog (ugh the word is still hard to type, I'm still venturing into unknown realms it seems?). I guess until I tell someone I know I'll be curious to hear (or read if you prefer) the commnets of random ppl out there. You ask, where is this theory of yours then!? Eh! You'll have to wait for it ofc. Not only I have to fight my well-known and strong lazyness, but also I have to do some mind work of getting out those thoughts out of my head (preferbly sticking in some more useful ones?) and putting them 0n ... here, may be for a start.

The First Time...

Umm keyboard test, 1,2... 1,2

Never thought I'd be blogging (even the word feels so unfamiliar for my fingers) so soon...

Let's see how long this thing can keep my boredom away.

Yesterday I saw a bad trasnlation of Steven King's book description on the back of the very book: "his life turns 360 degrees"... oh no he starts from the same spot he was at!!! Some people have difficulty with numbers... some of those that spring to my mind are politicians.

I guess I see where this will be heading... About some things out there that bother me, while others amuse me and some other nearby things, which many people (at least in my opinion) don't seem to pay attention at all or just don't pay enough (attention, not money!).