Things that piss you off!

[kitamesume]

it pisses me off that everything has tax, including staying alive. what makes it worse is that corrupted government makes the taxes heavy on the pocket.

[Supai]

While we're on the topic of taxes... The intention of rising the VAT in Finland to 25% is pissing me off.

[froody1911]

While we're on the topic of taxes... The intention of rising the VAT in Finland to 25% is pissing me off.

[undetz]

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Read those books I posted links to earlier, they address pretty much all your concerns. Don't worry, you won't be "stealing" anything, the authors themselves put them up for free use in addition to getting them printed and sold in bookstores and via online retailers.

I know this is OT, but:

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I skimmed "http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/98il/ilall.pdf", read thru the 'Against intellectual property' section, didn't really see anything there that convinces me to change my position at present.  The other document is obviously considerably longer so I will peruse that when I have more time & motivation.
 
'Information Liberation' spends a lot of time discussing freedom of ideas / information, which is something I can generally agree with.  But my specific area of concern is work products -- games, movies, books / stories, music -- things that take people time and money to create & distribute, which are in and of themselves often created with the intention of being sold.  Maybe the other book addresses my concerns, not sure at the moment.  This is about the only statement in 'Against intellectual property' that I can agree with without qualifications, at least in the context of my concern:

If we simply imagine intellectual property being abolished but the rest of the economic system unchanged, then many objections can be made.  Challenging intellectual property must involve the development of methods to support creative individuals.

While we're OT anyway, I found an interesting article that has a go at the topic from the historical perspective.

http://technologizer.com/2012/01/23/why-history-needs-software-piracy/1/

[kitamesume]

While we're on the topic of taxes... The intention of rising the VAT in Finland to 25% is pissing me off.

i wonder whats their reason for rising taxes anyway, are they planning to start building a building made out of diamonds or something?
not like they're short on budget or anything, though makes me wonder where the hell does those funds go anyway, as if 25% of like a large corporate with an annual profit of 1billion is small, thats enough to pay 10,000 employees 2,000$ a month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_by_revenue oh hey now, wiki says theres 200+ companies with billions of revenue.

[Ixarku]

The antivaccine movement.

Never heard of them. Sounds like a bunch of lunatics though.

Unfortunately, they are somewhat successful lunatics. They are closely related to the alternative medicine movement. A lot of their known spokesmen are homeopaths (and possibly sociopaths too). Seriously, for anybody who is not an idiot and who is wants to improve the human standards of living, eradicating pathogens should be a priority and it just so happen the vaccination is the only way that has historically demonstrated to work in that quest.

Ah yes, when I hear about this, I always think of Michelle Bachmann believing some random idiot woman that an HPV vaccine caused her child's autism.  People coming to idiotic conclusions despite overwhelming evidence proving a contrary point piss me off.
 
 

While we're OT anyway, I found an interesting article that has a go at the topic from the historical perspective.

http://technologizer.com/2012/01/23/why-history-needs-software-piracy/1/

There's absolutely no doubt that laws regarding IP & copyright need some serious updating for the digital era.  Making backups of programs I've purchased legally has always been a sore spot for me, personally.  Information, that is to say, knowledge, should be readily available, and people who purchase or otherwise legally receive digital work products should have more freedom in what they can do with that information.

[Havoc10K]

I took a while and studied our internet piracy and theft, it's indeed none of those two.
What is commonly called as piracy and theft is only illegal possession.

Following the law illegal possession cannot be prosecuted like theft or piracy, ACTA/SOPA/PIPA actually, although stricter, still can't solve the problem.

It's like with illegal drugs possession, you can have them and answer for possession, but unless they prove to you that you are a dealer, they can't really do anything to you directly.

It seems different but this is exactly the same case.

As for having backups of your owned programs, so long as you possess the actual key or box or whatever the original was in, you have nothing to fear.

[Nikkoru]

The antivaccine movement.

Never heard of them. Sounds like a bunch of lunatics though.

Unfortunately, they are somewhat successful lunatics. They are closely related to the alternative medicine movement. A lot of their known spokesmen are homeopaths (and possibly sociopaths too). Seriously, for anybody who is not an idiot and who is wants to improve the human standards of living, eradicating pathogens should be a priority and it just so happen the vaccination is the only way that has historically demonstrated to work in that quest.

Ah yes, when I hear about this, I always think of Michelle Bachmann believing some random idiot woman that an HPV vaccine caused her child's autism.  People coming to idiotic conclusions despite overwhelming evidence proving a contrary point piss me off.

Sadly, autism is such a debilitating condition and still so poorly understood that it's left many parents desperate for answers. Which is why spreading misinformation and dishonest science about the subject is so terribly cruel.

Honestly, it's not the erroneous information leading to a small segment of idiots deciding their little sunshine won't go near a needle which concerns me - that number will never expand very widely and those people generally have deeper issues.  Every parent with an ounce of common sense will have their child vaccinated so long as vaccinations are available. The issue I have is with those parents who have autistic children being lead to believe their child could have been normal and healthy had they just made that one choice differently. I couldn't imagine just how much that would depress and infuriate me if I were in their shoes.

At least it's been thoroughly discredited now, that took years of stupid and needless effort though.

[kitamesume]

i just made another MSN account so i can make a smurf account for a certain game, now the issue is that MSN is asking for a confirmation e-mail, ok not big of a deal right? well here is the thing, i can't freaking see my inbox, it keeps redirecting to that effing confirmation notice.

[Burkingam]

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Japan has discontinued the MMR vaccination campaign after they have managed to spread the "vaccine causes autism" myth. As a result, Japan still has 20,000 to 30,000 measles cases each years compared to about 200 in USA. I think we are perfectly justified to worry about this kind of "accomplishment".

[metro.]

Garbage trucks that come at 5AM right outside my window.

[hanayome]

Went to school just for a couple of classes. Didn't take place. Straight waste of hours of my short 24-hour day...


Not enough time in a day/life.

[Ixarku]

I can't figure out why I've been so tired lately.  Work has been busy but not unusually so.  People at work, myself included, are variously bitchy or happy at random times lately without a lot of rhyme or reason to it.  I'm worn out a lot lately, like I'm just burned out and can't bring myself to give a damn, and it's pissing me off.  I plan to stay at this job for many more years, so I need to find a balance point where the job & work environment are not driving me crazy.

[metro.]

I can't figure out why I've been so tired lately.  Work has been busy but not unusually so.  People at work, myself included, are variously bitchy or happy at random times lately without a lot of rhyme or reason to it.  I'm worn out a lot lately, like I'm just burned out and can't bring myself to give a damn, and it's pissing me off.  I plan to stay at this job for many more years, so I need to find a balance point where the job & work environment are not driving me crazy.

What do you do? And maybe try exercising more, I find that solves most of my problems.

[1000mAh]

Went to school just for a couple of classes. Didn't take place. Straight waste of hours of my short 24-hour day...

at least you WENT to the school, I ended up (once again) sleeping for 12hrs and waking up ~1h before the school ended.

[metro.]

Went to school just for a couple of classes. Didn't take place. Straight waste of hours of my short 24-hour day...

at least you WENT to the school, I ended up (once again) sleeping for 12hrs and waking up ~1h before the school ended.

Are you passing stuff?

[Nyking754]

when them slaves fan subbers that i keep locked up in my basement doesnt give me my animu on time 

[Ixarku]

What do you do? And maybe try exercising more, I find that solves most of my problems.

Software tester for a 3rd party credit card processor.  Yeah, I definitely need to start exercising again.  Problem I'm running into lately is I'm not sleeping that well, even when I go to bed on time.  Not sure if it's stress, diet, lack of exercise, or any / all of the above.  Bad sleep seems to hit me in cycles -- a few weeks at a time it's good, then it's bad for a few weeks again, then good, etc.  Maybe I'm just in a bad cycle right now.

[Nikkoru]

Japan has discontinued the MMR vaccination campaign after they have managed to spread the "vaccine causes autism" myth. As a result, Japan still has 20,000 to 30,000 cases of the disease each years compared to about 200 in USA. I think we are perfectly justified to worry about this kind of "accomplishment".

If I recall correctly, Japanese public health has been a mess for a while now, the MMR scare was just another example of inadequate competency with the government.

I can't figure out why I've been so tired lately.  Work has been busy but not unusually so.  People at work, myself included, are variously bitchy or happy at random times lately without a lot of rhyme or reason to it.  I'm worn out a lot lately, like I'm just burned out and can't bring myself to give a damn, and it's pissing me off.  I plan to stay at this job for many more years, so I need to find a balance point where the job & work environment are not driving me crazy.

Funny, I feel the exact same way. Even when I should feel wide awake after hours of sleep, my muscles feel spent, my eyes feel droopy, and I couldn't be bothered to do anything unless I overwhelmingly force myself into doing so. I'm a narcoleptic so that's hardly unfamiliar territory, though I think this is mostly due to the season.   

That pressure around my eyelids vexes me.

[Ixarku]

Funny, I feel the exact same way. Even when I should feel wide awake after hours of sleep, my muscles feel spent, my eyes feel droopy, and I couldn't be bothered to do anything unless I overwhelmingly force myself into doing so. I'm a narcoleptic so that's hardly unfamiliar territory, though I think this is mostly due to the season.   

That pressure around my eyelids vexes me.

I know the droopy eyes feeling well.  When I get that, the only thing that helps me is to get up and walk around for a few minutes.  The older I get, the more often I just get plain bitchy when I get tired.  I really have to restrain myself from snapping at people at times.  I've actually found myself thinking that an afterlife which was nothing but a continuous restful deep sleep would be a truly wonderful thing.  The oblivion of a true restful sleep for some lengthy indeterminate period of time, disconnected from physical discomfort, is something for which I could really be enthusiastic.  It feels like I only get glimpses of that occasionally.