More Zonkyness

No, Muslims Are Not Terrorists

Nov 142015

One of the worst examples of muddle-headed thinking you can come across on the interwebs in the wake of the latest terrorist attrocities is the notion that somehow Islam is a religion of terrorism. Now don't get me wrong; I'm no friend of any religion, and Islam has some particularly loathsome aspects (it's treatment of women amongst them).

But to claim that Islam is all about terrorism is to ignore the mathematics of the situation; there are 1.5 billion muslims in the world yet only a miniscule minority are terrorists. If Islam really is a religion of terrorism, then there are an immense number of poor muslims out there.

The critcis of Islam will point out that the Qu'ran has phrases like :-

…slay the pagans wherever ye find them

And that is true, but it also has phrases like :-

whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.

Most "holy" books are like this – you can pull out pretty much pull out a justification for anything you want. Any that applies to christians, hindus, sikhs, and just about anybody else. There are good and bad relgious people; bad religious people will support terrorism and good religious people will condemn it.

Yes there are some muslim terrorists and it would be helpful if moderate muslims would declare that the terrorists who commit acts in the name of Islam to be apostates. No other words are likely to have as large an effect as their co-religionists to formally kick them out of the mosque.

There are those who also claim that all terrorists are muslims which is just laughable; there have been many groups that have resorted to terrorism over the centuries. In fact if you analyse terrorist attacks in Europe up until the year 2010, the overwhelming majority were for causes other that Islam :-

Linux Containers: IPv6 Behaving Non-Deterministically?

Computing, Linux, Working Notes No Responses »

Nov 142015

See an updated post here.

I am obviously doing something wrong because computers are not supposed to behave like this, but my Linux containers (despite previous attempts) are booting with IPv6 privacy addresses randomly :-

✓ root@pica» lxc-ls --fancy | grep chagers
chagers   RUNNING  10.0.0.32  2001:8b0:ca2c:dead::5e11, 2001:8b0:ca2c:dead:f42b:6dff:fe16:2f2d  YES        
✓ root@pica» lxc-stop --name chagers; lxc-start --daemon --name chagers
✓ root@pica» lxc-ls --fancy | grep chagers
chagers   RUNNING  10.0.0.32  2001:8b0:ca2c:dead:206b:70ff:fe45:7242, 2001:8b0:ca2c:dead::5e11  YES        
✓ root@pica» lxc-stop --name chagers; lxc-start --daemon --name chagers
✓ root@pica» lxc-ls --fancy | grep chagers
chagers   RUNNING  10.0.0.32  2001:8b0:ca2c:dead::5e11                                         YES

That is not how computers are supposed to behave!

The Mad Psycho-Killers of Paris

General No Responses »

Nov 142015

Let us not dignify the mad psycho-killers who went on a rampage in Paris last night with the title of "terrorists"; there is very little dignity to the title of "terrorist" – they are after all scum of the earth, but these mad psycho-killers are too contemptible for even that status.

If as is likely that the mad psycho-killers were aligned with ISIS, let us not call them muslims; let us instead call them islamic apostates. There is nothing that will insult them and those who would follow in their footsteps more than to call them apostates.

And to those who would blame Syrian refugees (like the fascist I unfriended last night) :-

To people blaming refugees for attacks in Paris tonight. Do you not realise these are the people the refugees are trying to run away from..?

Emails: More or Less Stress?

Computing, General No Responses »

Nov 132015

There was a story this morning about how normal people find a constant flood of emails very stressful because it is constantly interrupting whatever they are doing. As someone who has been emailing since 1987 (with a six month break), I find dealing with it less stressful than phone calls and desk visits because you can leave it until later.

It is definitely true that being interupted whilst trying to concentrate on some tricky piece of work can be somewhat stressful (and it is cumulative). One aspect that was not mentioned is that you have to discard everything you were thinking of and bring some other subject to mind; not always the easiest thing to do especially if you are deep in concentration.

Of course it is also unavoidable, and not always unwelcome. But back to emails,

Don't read emails when they arrive, and if you have a ping that announces each email that arrives, turn it off. Check your inbox regularly – on the hour, every half hour, or even every 15 minutes (although that is perhaps too frequent for when you are concentrating on something). You can change the frequency based on what you are doing – if you're concentrating on a project or for a deadline, check less often.

The point is you choose when to deal with emails.

Another source of stress is the amount of emails in your inbox; your inbox is not a "todo" list. Create a "todo" folder and move emails from your inbox into it, and concentrate on keeping that folder reasonably well processed. Your inbox becomes a cesspool of spam (there's always some that gets through), near-spam, and general information. Of course you can get much more organised than this!

And make your own decision on the priority of tasks given through emails. You may agree with the priority a sender sets on a task, or you may disagree, but you decide.

Ultimately the more control you take over your email, the less angst it causes you.

The Storm In The Red Cup

Religion No Responses »

Nov 122015

Starbucks (apparently a well-known brand of coffee shop for those of us who prefer to make their own coffee rather than pay over the odds for a infusion of caffeine) have introduced a plain red cup for the holiday season, christmas, Xmas, Mythmas, or the Winter Solstice (depending on what you want to call it). In previous years, Starbucks had decorated cups for the holiday season – decorated with snowflakes, etc. In other words generic seasonal symbols.

This year they have gone for a plain cup to encourage their customers to doodle.

For some reason the religious nutjobs (given their behaviour you can't really call them anything else) have taken umbrage at this – claiming that Starbucks are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas. Which demonstrates the emotional maturity of a toddler crying because she can't catch her shadow, as the Starbucks' seasonal cups have never included overtly religious symbols.

There is even one of the less rational Republican candidates for president (which equates to a gibbering megalomaniac) who thinks that we ought to boycott Starbucks over the issue.

When you come down to it, Starbucks has given these religious fruitcakes the opportunity to put Christ into the holiday season by giving them an empty space on their Starbucks cups to doodle their designs.

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