Blog: Blogs

Words of Others I

I asked him whose food it was. He said it was free. "Yes, but who donated it? Who's laying it on?" "It's free because it's yours," came a reply.


A lesser known aspect of predators is that they protect species lower in the food chain, and allow ecological niches to exist that provide habitats for species that would otherwise not be able to live in the area.


Sun Tzu, whose name was Wu, was a native of Wu. He excelled at military strategy but dwelled in secrecy far away from civilization, so ordinary people did not know of his ability. Wu Tzu-hsu [King Ho-lu's advisor], himself enlightened, wise, and skilled in discrimination, knew Sun Tzu could penetrate and destroy the enemy. One morning when he was discussing military affairs he recommended Sun Tzu seven times. King Ho-lu said: "Since you have found an excuse to advance this shih, I want to have him brought in." He questioned Sun Tzu about military strategy, and each time that he laid out a section of his book the king could not praise him enough. - Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yueh


The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people.

And today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.

The only requirements in modern industrial society are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all, simple OBEDIENCE.


It was dubbed the Stork Derby by the media, and the strange contest quickly became national and international news. Attempts by the Supreme Court of Canada to invalidate the will proved unsuccessful, mainly due to the document's meticulous preparation, and excited copywriters began to feverishly speculate about who might claim the cash.


Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.


Violence: This can be avoided, if there is a will for it.


Intollerance is the first sign of inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas a truly profound education breeds humility.


A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country.


Mongols are fanatics. They adore the Dalai Lama and obey him blindly. If he tomorrow orders them go to war against the Chinese, if he urges them to a bloody revolution, they will all like one man follow him as their ruler. China's government, which fears the Mongols, hooks on to the Dalai Lama. ... There is calm in Tibet. No ferment of any kind is perceptible. - Sven Heddin 1909


The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit.


Most people fail to realize that 7/22 was an act of desperation, in part because they lack the intelligence and knowledge to draw the inevitable conclusion that the demise of the European race is imminent.


Anything that is right for a group to do is right for one person to do.


Being tried in a court set up by war criminals, there can be no justice there.


We are the only hope for the survival of Israel.


ON EDUCATION (probably to be moved to its own article)

Neither do I believe that education raises intelligence, this is another Cultural Marxist fantasy, one it shares with classic communism, as Stalin and his buddies believed that educating the underclasses was going to turn Russia into a nation of super people. It didn't work then, and it will not work now.


We're trying to educate your child for the third job and the fourth job and their fifth job, not just for the first job. So we want to give your child certain habits of mind, certain ways of asking questions, of sorting fact from fiction, of analyzing information and data, that can be adapted to jobs that we don't even know exist yet. And so how do we get that complex of skills? It can be in a variety of different majors or concentrations. How to deal with ambiguity, moral and ethical reasoning, how to adapt to a changing job market and changing interests of their own. You work hard to do the best you can do (the best that people have been recorded to have done, like a Willy Mays catch), but the way you stay there is to try and improve that tomorrow, and I think we have to do that with our education.


Specialization is for insects.


The arms embargo was void as a matter of international law, to the extent that the embargo interfered with arms aquisition by Bosnians who were potential genocide victims.

The protocol also recognizes "the inherent right to individual or collective self-defence" and to "self-determination of all peoples."


Those who are repeatedly passive in the face of injustice soon find their character corroded by servility.


Authoritarian regimes create forces which oppose them by pushing against a people's will to truth, love and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce further resistance.


For knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.


Crisis is not negative, it is the only time you can apply real social change.


First, If any man declare his judgement in the things of God contrary to the Clergy's report, or the minds of some high Officers, they are cashiered, imprisoned, crushed and undone, and made sinners for a word, as they were in the Popes and Bishops days ; so that though their names be cast out, yet their High Commission Court Power remains still, persecuting men for conscience sake, when their actions are& unblamable. ...

Fourthly, if we go to the lawyer, we find him to sit in the conqueror's chair though the kings be removed, maintaining the kings’ power to the height; for in many courts and cases of law the will of a judge and lawyer rules above the letter of the law, and many cases and suits are lengthened to the great vexation of the clients and to the lodging of their estates in the purse of the unbounded lawyer. So that we see, though other men be under a sharp law, yet many of the great lawyers are not, but still do act their will as the conqueror did; as I have heard some belonging to the law say, "What cannot we do?"


The McCarthy Period, as its euphemistically referred to showed quite clearly what happened to the loner in the face of centralized oppression: thousands of people were quietly pulled from their jobs while their colleagues stood idly by or replaced them in an effort to hold onto what they had.


Their powers stem from a revolution worked by the people.


Having successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver's hatch, appeared in video footage of the incident to call into various ports in the tank's turret. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner's hatch. After ending the conversation, the man descended from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly re-established the man–tank standoff.


Perhaps the most interesting part of his final post, however, was the observation that the United States is no longer a nation of laws; Ball described what he calls the ‘second set of books,’ which is essentially the collection of policies, procedures, and protocols that courts and executive agencies rely upon. ...

My assessment of this situation, however controversial it may be, remains very clear: the great faceless enemy that opposes us, irrespective of our country of origin, is the institution of government.

Over time, this institution has inserted itself into nearly all aspects of life, such that a man cannot so much as enjoy a pint of beer, discipline his children, ride on the train, go to the doctor, open a bank account, apply for a job, go fishing, or watch a sporting event without the heavy hand of government being involved.

This is a beast that feeds on citizens; the more it feeds, the larger it becomes and the hungrier it gets. Of all the solutions out there, including armed conflict, civil disobedience, self-immolation, active democracy, etc., the only one that truly destroys the beast is starving it– take away the feast of productive citizens and accelerate its collapse.


Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime call Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright. And do not bother trying to argue with me that there is no Second Set of Books. I have my own copies at home. Or at least a good hunk of the important part of it.


The Jaffrey Police Department Policy and Procedures Manual states that if a wife says she does not want her husband arrested, the police are to ignore her, arrest the husband, and get with the prosecutor to see what they can work out.


The only way to avoid a game is to stop playing it.


We return to the silent - crowded - uptight sidewalks with our pockets full of absurdity and compromise between cowardice and illusion.


Labelling someone's action as domestic violence in America in the 21st Century is akin to labelling someone a Jew in Germany in the 1930's.


In the epilogue chapter of the 20th Anniversary Edition of her book The Feminine Mystique, Betty related why she resigned as the first president of the National Organization of Women in 1970. Betty wrote that she "was unable to openly fight the man haters and unwilling to front for them anymore ..."


The East German secret police, the Stazi, had 25% of the population on record as informers.


It's more valuable if the people write it.


Power is the ability to define phenomena and make it act in a desired manner.


Do not let them make me a madman.


Violent emprires are at their height when they don't have to use their power against their opponents. They're at their end when they have to use it constantly.


Before her parents' denunciation and imprisonment, Chang had unquestioningly supported Mao and criticised herself for any momentary doubts. But by the time of his death, her respect for Mao, she writes, had been destroyed. Chang wrote that when she heard he had died, she had to bury her head in the shoulder of another student to pretend she was grieving.


Such a jackboot on one's throat creates atomized people, which contributes to deep despair and depression.


Immaturity is merely the price of that rejuvenation of the white race which is taking place on American soil.


It seemed dreary in the contrast to the fresh glimmer of the star, to be hunting a broken bowl and trying to put it together.


Picasso's later representations, then, in which the self-referential Minotaur requires the gentle guidance of a child is ironic.

The Minotaur is miserably taking part in the human desire of drinking.


The same happens with a watch. It will go more or less well; but if it goes at all it is not so bad. The worse begins the moment it falls into the hands of a watchmaker ... His manipulations will rob it of its purity, and this will never return ...


He was fresh from university and was equipped with only a rifle, a camel and a uniform. His only luxuries were a few books and a Christmas hamper sent by his mother from Fortnum and Mason.

The youthful Cromer might have been a hedonistic, spendthrift young army officer, but by the age of 42 he was ready for huge responsibilities.


The public should be ready, and be happy when science changes its minds and the story changes ...


Everybody knows that everyone is lying.


m (insert here)


You're building a table, you're building a kid at the same time.


Fit in. You'll be happier.


Words are more important than deeds. You can't govern 180 million people by doing things. You can only do it by rhetoric.


A child entering this world must sit in another's chair, eat food from another's plate, sleep in another's bed. Only this way can you find your place.


To chose one thing means to give up another.


When it looks hopeless a decision's what you need.


All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.


He's always engaged substantively in our discussions. It will now be very important to hear him speak forthrightly.


If you don't have personal integrity, you can't be smart enough to overcome that. You can't be good enough at anything to overcome that. You must have a high level of personal integrity first and foremost.


The concept of "era" in the traditional sense is disappearing - or has disappeared - in the 21st Century.


When you pirate a product and the resources are not channeled back to that person who created the product, he is losing out on creating a new product for you tomorrow. So you are the loser. Tomorrow you will not have another product.


If you don't have that mirror to see yourself, I think you are lost.


insert Kairostami


They simply kept trying to teach me at every moment, "Look what you keep losing and what you could be gaining." One cannot gain, if one is not willing to lose something.


Money will drive what the public sees.


The genius thing we did was not give up.


Despair is the conclusion of fools.


There are plenty of rules once you invent them.


We realize we are still apart.


They pass by the castle of Elsinore. The German savant says, "That castle has nothing extraordinary about it." The Danish psychic replies, "Yes, but if you say it's Hamlet's castle, then it becomes extraordinary." Elsinore, that's real. Hamlet, that's imaginary. Imaginary: certainty; Real: uncertainty.


I'm hard on her and she's hard on me. It works for us. It works in the dynamics of our relationship.


The prism through which we see reality is our partisan identity.


Our Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights recognizes the right to defend one's self as a fundamental human right - and to do so with a weapon is something the government of the United States cannot take away.


Cash insulates a company in a bad way. Innovation doesn't happen as much. It's inefficient to have lots of insurance, and that's what lots of cash does. Insurers like it because it buffers from bankruptcy.


Wherever there is power there is subversion.


We have abandoned the sea, mountains, and rivers, only consuming their bounty by means of enormous distribution systems. We go to supermarkets and convenience stores and pay money to receive news of nature.


This place was wrong. It's intentions were pure, but its methods were cruel.


The people who have gotten me through in my life are the weirdos and the poets. The rebellious women and the activists. They were considered the riffraff by the people in power, and they're the ones that make history.


The chaos and the dynamism have some connection. It's not that riots are a good thing. That's the wrong reading. But rather to understand the costs of trying to remove all risks from our lives.


Lots of people in China right now trying to buy back things that mean something to them.


But then you can't do them, because they're lies. Once you know something, then it becomes a device. And once it's a device, it's frozen.


That's merely discrimination. You wouldn't call that ageism? You have no judgment against old people outside of your business hiring.


The biggest champions fail the most. You fail thousands of times in practice to win one championship.


Making a profit is an extremely important goal. Without a stable income, you can't contribute to society. So working hard each day to ensure a profit is the number one priority. But once you have that, it is also important to think about how you can contribute to the community. If local society collapses, so does your business.

If you only pursue profit, something has to be sacrificed. If you look just at the material value of a product, you end up cutting corners in order to increase profits. That's really your only option.

Increasing pure profit would mean a drop in service, and it would also affect chefs, gardeners, and the many other experts who create the inn's (ryokan's) traditional atmosphere.

A relationship matures slowly over many years of use. It would be very difficult to take any one element and try to recreate it somewhere else.

At that time (1800s Meiji Japan) there was no guarantee that the nation would protect individuals or their companies. So from time to time merchants would band together to appeal to the government, or else they might cooperate to help local society and regions grow. That was a driving force at the time.

Japan has many more long-lived companies than any other country.


It's more to do with that they're all in the same place, that makes them into a family.


You can't repeat this, though. Doing the same container over and over again would kill its charm.


I will do as if I was not there.


If you tell me who your heros are, I can tell you how you're going to turn out.


If you're going to start a company, it takes so much energy, it should be something that will [do whatever for you] that it will overcome your feeling of risk.


Even when the tests seem pointless, persistence will lead to answers.


For me, a democracy is when the population proposes laws, for example, a petition, which are adopted or vetoed by the population. Or it's not a democracy, nor even a parody. Europe's true vocation is to make democracy impossible and install a government of experts. I'm against it for the reasons I cited. Democracy is the future, Europe is a regression. Elected representatives means no more democracy.


There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.


The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. "One word of truth outweighs the world." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quoting a Russian proverb.


"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." --Robert A. Heinlein


THEN all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. And moreover in time past, even when Saul was king, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be ruler over my people Israel.


You got enlightenment. You can use it to change the world.


TTTThis

The heart desires, but the body refuses

"The Heart Desires but the Body Refuses: Sexual Scripts, OlderMen’s Perceptions of Sexuality, and Implications for Their Mentaland Sexual Health" (2017) - Sylivia Karen, Rutagumirwa, and Ajay Bailey

Notes:

Tanzania

They found that internalized sexual scripts were the main driver of youth’s vulnerability (i.e., prompted them into risky practices) because these scripts constitute masculinity as very fragile and in need of constant protection, making these male adolescents wary both of female partners who refused them sex and of sexual practices which offered little or no control and power over women (i.e., that raised suspicions about their manliness).

Memo: [2013-02-26 08:36:34]. Before I started data collection I struggled to imagine what my relationship to the participants would be. I asked myself whether they would be willing to open up to me. …I realized that, in order to be trusted by the participants, the personal characteristics of the interviewers, such as sense of humor, dress, and conduct would be more important in establishing rapport with and gaining the confidence of the participants than the age or sex of interviewer.

“…Aging is a painful thing for a man … when a man becomes old all the energy leaves him …the body refuses to respond to desires… the two of you (husband and wife) just stare at each other, the relationship changes… you start treating your wife as your sister! Ehe! A week passes, and another... even a month can pass without doing it (sex), you are afraid of trying, you may perform poorly…Eeh the body may betray you again…as a man you feel worthless… You fail again! …This is very stressful for a man… Your partner may think, ‘Maybe my husband is tired of me or he is running around’… The quarrel starts.” (MzeeMagari)

Specifically, the Jando model honors two forms of masculinity: the man as breadwinner/material provider and the man as a sexual actor. Participants claimed that a balance between these roles is equated with “ideal masculinity.”

men’s power lies in performance and potency,” “an ideal man is virile,” “a proper man is good in bed,” “going several sexual rounds makes a man,” “a man with sexual capacity earns respect,” “sexual potency is central to manhood,” “the level of respect a man receives depends on his sexual performance,” and “without good sex, money and wealth cannot satisfy a woman”.

Participants argued that although a man’s masculinity is demonstrated in part by his ability to provide for his family/wife, being a good provider does not give the man power or control over his woman/wife in both the social and the sexual realm if he is sexually weak.

Commonly participants said that their wives and societal norms set expectations that are quite high. However, most of the participants reported that they have lost their past sexual selves. Instead, they said they rely on “sexual nostalgia,” and they see their youth as a core reference point and ideal for healthy sexuality.

To be honest, impotence is the greatest annoyance in marital life, and it is even more embarrassing for polygamous men like me… The heart still desires but the body doesn’t allow…it is an embarrassment, for sure.

Most of the participants expressed concerns about being deemed an “incomplete or good-for-nothing” man who cannot perform well sexually or control his wife’s sexuality.

the majority of the participants—and especially those with a younger wife or a big age gap between themselves and their partner(s) (including those in polygamous marriages)—revealed that they were embarrassed by their performance issues within their marriage. Men’s superior power and dominance are embedded in characteristics such as having sexual prowess and virility, having sexual skills, being able to achieve an erection, and being able to go several sexual rounds.

These norms discourage men from asking or talking about their sexual weakness/problems. Thus, a man is encouraged to conceal his sexual weaknesses to protect his image as a powerful and proper man. Moreover, these norms deny older men the space to express their fears and anxieties because such behaviour is perceived as womanly and would call their manhood into question.

…to preserve your image you better avoid talking about it …”.

fears associated with silenced sexuality, many men use traditional herbs and home remedies to treat sexual problems rather than seeking out professional health care.

suicides: “Some because they perceived themselves as failures; others because they didn’t have support…Others had maybe lost their hope and their dignity. So they think it is better to die quickly than to die slowly!”

Crowell (2011) and Masters et al. (2013) who maintained that sexual scripts for male sexual behaviour are reduced to sexual performance metrics such as penetration, achieving erection, and going several sexual rounds/demonstrating sexual stamina.

These findings resonate with the argument put forward by Fracher and Kimmel (1995) that sexuality is a site for experiences of power.

TTTThis

Words of Others II

I never want the world to know everything about me. I mean, that’s why I wear big, baggy clothes. Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath. Nobody can be like, ‘Oh, she’s slim-thick, she’s not slim-thick, she’s got a flat a**, she’s got a fat a**. No one can say any of that because they don’t know. - Billie Eilish in 2018 or 19


... throttling the pace of the Blood Orange project to give fans room to breathe, to crafting whole albums the public never gets to hear, to distributing them to friends on cassettes and quietly moving on. - About Dev Hynes


... Thus it should come as no surpise that Trobrianders, like people in other parts of the world, give meanings to things that make them worth more than their cost in labor and the material of which they are made. Long yams, bundles of dried banana leaves, and strings of polished red shell discs all occupy a deep and meaningful place in Trobriand life. These are the things that cross boundaries between people, that connect one villager socially and polically with another. Malinowski wondered why men give so much attention to their yam displays. Yams, we now know, are the objects that create relatedness as they cross clan boundaries, establishing long-term relationships between individuals that lead to other advantages, such as land rights, protection, assistance, and other kinds of wealth. Only from this perspective can we understand the political implications of a chief's yam house standing empty or yams becoming weapons as men measure them against each other in a fight for dominance.


We didn't love freedom enough. - Solzhenitsyn


Is there anything that you regret up to this point?

-Regrets? Of course, I have. Had I known this issue would drag out for so long, I wouldn't have come forward. If no one knew, then I could've just lived quietly. At the age of 14, when I should've been studything, I was taken away. Not being able to study is my deepest regret. If I ever got money from the Japanese government, with that money, I was going to pay for the education of the students who can't afford to do so, so they can study. That was my plan. But I'm 92 now. There is no resolution in sight.

-So if Japan admits to wrongdoing, do you have the heart to forgive?

-I do. They say 'Hate the sin, not the sinner.' This isn't something Abe did. It's what the former emperor did. ... You might be hearing this for the first time, but for me, it's so painful to talk about it. At this age, when I should be at peace the Japanese government keeps dragging out this issue. So, whenever I have to talk abou this over and over, I'm heartbroken beyond belief. - Former comfort woman Kim Bok-Dong


Las mezquitas son lugares de erudiciòn y para impartir justicia, por tanto se desarrolla en ellas tanto la vida privada como pùblica.


The Rus have no cultivated fields and they live by pillaging the land of the Saqaliba. When a son is born, they father throws a naked sword before him and says: 'I leave you no inheritance. All you possess is what you can gain with this sword.'


In the reign of this Ptolemy the Jewish books were translated into the Greek language by 72 teachers in 72 days. For this Ptolemy wished to understand the force of the books in the Greek language, since they had been written in Hebrew.


On the Acropolis of the mountain near Antioch, he built a public bath for the citizens, to which the water was conducted through the Laodicean water conduits from the previously mentioned rivers. He also built on that hill a theater, and restored the Pantheon in Antioch, which was about to fall, erecting also the altar.


First of all im going to show you an all rounder. this is bramble. she is a welsh mountain pony. she is strong enough to carry me from place to place, happily. shes a very solid creature. lovely to ride. shes not particularly tall, so shes nice and easy to get on an off. and does the job incredibly well. shes not particularly high status. shes not a fancy color. she doesn't have sort of stylish breeding or anything like that. she didn't come from an exotic place. in fact she comes from the welsh mountains. so shes a native breed of British horse. but she does the job incredibly well. she probably wouldn't have been too expensive to buy back in medieval times. and she doesn't eat too much so shes not too expensive to look after. and she isn't particularly high maintenance when it comes to getting sick or doing the wrong thing or injuring herself. so shes a very solid choice for somebody of middle status to get around. so there's your typical roundsy. the typical practical everyday horse for riding.


In survival you're always doing something, never relax.


He is very good at narratives. At judging audiences. He experiments. The way you launch a narrative. You never know whether it will go well. He listens to the audience. He creates a whole story. The story of him at his rally, which is spread by word of mouth, it's a visceral thing. Most of these people had never gone to a presidential speech before. And if they did it would have been boring, he would have been talking about statistics on the national deficit or something. Trump is not boring. Really not boring. And it started a word of mouth thing which is huge.


Unlike the Mesolithic hunters, who hugged the coastline and river valleys, the first farmers began to break into the interior of Britain, and what they found was a wild and wooded place. birch and oak forests, home to red deer and elk, in the undergrowth bears and wild pig. this wild region was about to be transformed forever by new technologists, shaping and adapting the land to work for them. they weren't simply alongside nature, but ruling over it.

Its thought neolithic culture swept across Britain in only a few generations.

Cereals and domestic animals, and pottery, a completely different diet. but less healthy than hunters with their fresh fish and red deer, according to scientific evidence. a day came when there were too many people to return to hunting. and land ownership. long lives to loose teeth.


Its not the human remains themselves that are the most interesting. Its what was buried with them.


It turned the conversation once again to the FUTURE of Tesla, and away from what was happening in the country today and its challenges.

He sold 360k EVs in the year. and while he had had a hard time delivering on promises in the past, this one he delivered on, and investors were like if he can deliver on this promise, what other promises could he deliver on in the future?


International diplomacy depends not only on the balance of hard power but also on perceptions of legitimacy which depends crucially on soft power, and it becomes more important than ever in an information age.


The social cohesion that results from multiracial meritocracy is also hard power. it is the foundation on which all else we have achieved has been built, not the least of which is economic success - Singapore.


Would anyone really ascribe soft power to a country whose interests clash with ones own? strong deterrence makes it easier for other countries to regard their interests as being aligned with ours, or at least to regard differences of interests as tolerable.

Countries whose values are aligned attract each other. that is trite but true because values are just another kind of interest, or another way of describing or concealing interests.

Throughout history, power on its own has never been enough.


TTTThis

On my list

Lists of things to look into more:

FILMS RECOMMENDED TO ME

  • insidious
  • king of kong: a fistful
  • sideways
  • superbad
  • inside French 2007
  • jeanette: the childhood of joan of arc
  • american animals
  • nico
  • blindspotting
  • paper year - newlyweds encounter a series of challenges during their first year
  • FEELS LIKE SUMMER:
  • Pauline at the Beach
  • A Castle in Italy (2013) - A family is forced to sell their italian home
  • Little Birds - runaways from the Salton Sea
  • Everybody Wants Some (1980)
TTTThis

Linux Notes

The Ableton problem:

  • If you get another Thinkpad230 or Elitebook 2760p, you can slide that SSD in and go. There is less power and no touch screen unless you can find one.
  • If you install WIn7 on an M2, you have to figure out how to do that, then you have to add drivers and disable all the spyware stuff, then install Ableton, and register it again, and add the add-ons. It will be faster, and you can use it on a touchscreen.

Notes on installing Ubuntu Studio

  1. Create USB boot device (5 minutes)
  • On an already-running computer, format USB with Disks
  • Right-click the OS iso file you downloaded and pick "Open with Disk Image Writer" and it should work fine (this program doesn't work for Windows 7 though). If you don't have "Disk Image Writer" I used to use "Etcher." Dismount the drive properly in Thunar or whatever file manager.
  1. Use USB boot device to install on a hard drive (5 minutes or 30 minutes or so)
  • (NOTE: if it doesn't work, maybe you get an error message like "No Bootable Device." Last time it was the OS I had burned to the flash drive. I burned a different OS and it worked. That was detected but failed to install. I tried a third OS and it worked. Another solution might be re-downloading the OS.)
  • Set BIOS to UEFI (It will not install on Legacy)
  • During install, obvious things are obvious. I generally don't do the "install updates during installation" thing, so I don't need to connect to wifi during installation.
  • Check Encryption and LVM (https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/39080/ubuntu-lvm-encryption)
  • Set encryption password. Then you'll set ANOTHER password for Login. You can pick "log in automatically" for this one because otherwise you'll have to enter two passwords every time you boot up. Now you'll wait 5 minutes on a good system or 30 minutes on a weak one (processor) while it installs.
  1. Now you have the OS and have to finish configuring it (several hours)
  • Unplug USB and reboot into OS
  • Now it will probably immediately say you don't have correct language support. IDK what this is.
  • Remove snapd backdoor with
sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd
  • Remove VLC spyware with a few commands, because there's lots of related files:
sudo apt-get autoremove vlc-nox ; sudo apt-get purge vlc ; sudo apt-get autoremove ; sudo apt-get purge vlc-data ; sudo apt-get autoremove --purge vlc ; sudo apt-get remove browser-plugin-vlc ; sudo apt-get autoremove
  • Remove Audacity backdoor
sudo apt-get purge audacity ; sudo apt-get autoremove ; sudo apt-get autoclean ; shred -rf ~/.audacity-data/ ; rm -rf ~/.audacity-data/
  • Now I sudo apt-get update. It will take 5 or 10 minutes. (And upgrade if you want - this might take a while, like 1 hour.)
  • Move the panel to the bottom of the screen by right-clicking it, "Preferences," unlock the panel, and close the Preferences. Click on the dots thing on the far left and move it to the bottom.
  • Go to "Language Support" and ignore the error message and add any extra languages. Add your extra languages, which might take 5 minutes to download. There will probably be no language selector icon though. After this is all updated, I had to right-click the language icon (which was a flag at first), then "Keyboard settings" > "Layout" > "Keyboard layout" section and add a language. Then I right-click "Properties" on it to get it to say EN instead of a flag. It worked with dual imput though.
  • Go to "Power" and set things like how long / if you want system to sleep, what closing the lid does, etc.
  • Copy any existing files over to the new OS. Do this before the next "Install programs" step because some programs are in the "Programs" folder already. Some programs are best done this way anyway because not all download locations are trusted and these are versions that have already been used without noticeable problems.
  • Install programs (may as well do this before the next ("Launchers") step because most of these get put there: Kolourpaint, VC, Thunar, VM. Think about whether you want to install from existing files or if you want to try to install fresh from the internet. For example, last time VMs didn't work because there was no Guest Additions adjustment possible for 19.04 (Ubuntu in Ubuntu I mean; Windows7 in Ubuntu did work for a shared folder), so you want to try a new VM install. However, for VC finding a safe download source is less easy so you want to install from the file you already have. Kolourpaint and Bitwig have install files and don't install from Terminal anyway).
  • Create "Launchers" by finding the program icons in the menu and dragging them beside the "Menu Button." Ones that are already on Studio: Task Manager, Screenshot, Firefox, Audacity (and set pavucontrol stuff cause you won't want to later). Others: Bitwig, Kolourpaint, Text Editor, VM, VC.
  • Add to "Language Support" any extra languages (Do this after updating and upgrading, because it can be finicky). This takes a long time, like 30 minutes, although it might take less if you do it early, so it doesn't want to install language support for every program, which is unnecessary).
  • Log in to TV
  • Fonts: There is a program called "Font Manager" and you can load ttfs through this
  • If the screen keeps shutting off after 5 minutes of inactivity, even though you try to set everything in Power, try turning it of in Screensaver.
  • nethogs monitors internet activity. You will have to enable a component called 'universe'
  • create a new Protonmail (initials as backup)
sudo add-apt-repository universe ; sudo add-apt-repository multiverse ; sudo apt update
  • Go to Software and Updates and turn off all auto-downloads and auto-updates.

sudo nethogs -v 3 

for total ,

sudo nethogs -a 

for speed.

Things to do to a Linux machine. Notes for the next set up:

Virtualbox by Oracle

Note: sometimes when you install, VirtualBox will be broken. One note, the 'guest additions' number must be the same as the version of VirtualBox, according to some people. Just double check them if you have issues. Also, 6.0.8 tried to install 6.0.0's guest additions, and there's no way to tell it where to find the correct thing.

Note: 2020 tried installing from the deb file in my programs folder, but didn't work ('dependencies'). Downloaded again and same. I had to sudo update then it installed from sudo apt install virtualbox easily.

WINE

You don't need Wine for Veracrypt. It has a Linux app, see below.

https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu

If you need it, but it requires installing a few things, including i386 architecture.


sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 

wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

sudo apt-key add winehq.key

for an 18.04 system: sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ bionic main' 

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

To REMOVE Wine adn ass: sudo apt-get remove --autoremove wine-*

but this wiki might not spell stuff correctly. Also, it might still not be added to the program launcher (when you right click and 'Open with other program') until you do this:


sudo cp /usr/share/doc/wine-stable/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/

sudo ln -s /usr/share/doc/wine-stable/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/

(as detailed here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2392017)

FREECAD

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freecad-maintainers/freecad-stable

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install freecad

OBS

Loud hum. Apply an audio filter by clicking on the gearwheel beside the audio input meter and do 'settings' > + > Noise suppression, and drag it all the way down to -60fB.

(requires ffmpeg, which is free and opensource)

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install obs-studio

https://obsproject.com/wiki/install-instructions#linux-install-directions

Old instructions:

  • -Update
  • Do those updates for VirtualBox (for Ubuntu after 19.04),
  • then:
  • Install VirtualBox
  • Created Lubuntu_Nubes and resizing screen works.
  • Create VM for Win7 and disable networking.
  • Install Win7 REMEMBER TO PICK 64 BIT and HOME PREMIUM for 16gb RAM
  • Windows7 also resizing works.
  • Go to Computer in files in Windows, and there should be Devices and Removables and the Additions.iso there. Double click it and install everything. It will ask to reboot and then you should be able to drag and drop
  • the 2 exe files that have to be installed for Ableton to run: vs_redist.x64.exe (both same name).
  • Ableton into the VM (or maybe before the reboot).
  • Ableton should now work, and you have to register it.
  • HOW TO MAKE A SHARED FOLDER:
  • Windows Guest, Ubuntu Host:
  • Go to top menu > Devices > Shared Folders > Shared Folder Settings
  • In "Machine Folders" pick a folder (or create one) - this is making one on your Ubuntu Host. Check 'Auto-mount' and 'Make Permanent' (I don't know which of these is required but I have both checked and its working).
  • OK. Now in the Windows Guest "Computer" directory, you should see a Network Location with your folders name (the folder you selected or made on your Ubuntu host). This folder exists on your Ubuntu host where you put it.
  • MONITOR - to make the monitor right (at least on my 12.5 inch x230:
  • (make shure youve discarded any save state). Settings (from the Vbox program) > Display > VboxVGA. Then restart. Should have a nice stretched screen same size as the monitor

uninstalled virtualbox purged it, deleted urs/share/virtualbox

Teamviewer

  • You might not need it if you put it or already have it in a VM and just use it that way

GEDIT simple text editor

(Note: you have to update first, so maybe sudo apt update && sudo apt install gedit)

  • just sudo apt-get install gedit

Thunar file manager (although Studio comes with it)

  • sudo apt-get install thunar

Photorec - Data recovery tool

  • (Photorec and Testdisk (2 names, dont worry about it).)
  • sudo apt-get install testdisk (or photorec I forget which one, but you just install one).
  • make a folder you want all your recoverd files to go in
  • then to do a scan, type
  • photorec
  • as explained here: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step
  • to delete your files later, open thunar as admin by going to terminal and typing sudo thunar

Disks (actually called udisks I guess)

  • sudo apt-get install gnome-disk-utility

Kolourpaint

(Didn't work for me most recent time)

MIXXX dj program

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mixxx/mixxx sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install mixxx

Veracrypt - install the GUI after the other one

  • cd to directory
  • tar jxf nameoffile.tar.bz2
  • (NOTE: different letters for non-bz2 files)
  • ./nameofthefilethatwasputhereafterlastcommand-x64
  • Installation should begin.
  • SOMETIMES it's located in a folder, and then inside the bin folder (like filezilla)

  • For tar.gz:

  • tar -xzf archive.tar.gz
  • Ubuntu stops asking for password at boot.
  • cd etc/lightdm
  • sudo gedit lightdm.conf
  • edit out the user line with a # at the start of it. save.

Libre Office

Bitwig

  • installs when you double-click the file (about 250mb). It will ask for login when it boots up.

Ableton

installs (on Windows inside VM) when you double click it, of course, and you take the number from it when it boots up, give that to the audacity website in your account, download their file, and drag-and-drop that file into audacity.

Record System Audio with Audacity

  • Install pavucontrol if not already
  • Install audacity
  • Select pulse*
  • Click Record Button
  • Open PulseAudio Volume Control (Search For PulseAudio Volume Control in Dash)
  • Select Recording Tab
  • Now You Should see ALSA plug-in [audacity]. If you do not see ALSA plug-in [audacity], make sure you have clicked Record Button in audacity. You should be running recording in audacity while performing next step.
  • Select "Monitor from and pick system audio
  • It should now be recording system audio

Kdenlive

NOTE: Crashes when mixing images and videos. However, rendering just videos seems to be OK.

Installs with sudo apt install kdenlive.

WHAT IS SAVED ON THIS COMPUTER:

  • Bitwig drums with volume levels I like
  • Kdenlive settings for processing photos
  • Some bookmarks and social media accounts logged in in Firefox on this machine and inside VMs
  • Teamviewer logged in on VM

MIDI KEYBOARD (launch control worked when plugged in. Korg nanokey didnt because it doesn't work with Bitwig)

How to:

  • sudo apt install a2jmidid
  • Put a2jmidid -e & in Setup > Options > execute script after startup
  • Go to connect on qjackctl
  • MIDI tab
  • start Hydrogen H2
  • connect nanoPAD2 on left side to Hydrogen on right side

  • USBs automount. Do disable this, instlal dconf-editor

  • sudo apt-get install dconf-editor
  • (not completed yet)

Notes on deleting hard drives and data

I have read that there has been no case of a drive being recovered after it has been overwritten with 0's.

How to dispose of an HDD - These can actually be securely overwritten. I use "Disks" and just format the drive again, using "Erase." It takes less than 1 hour per 100mb.

How to dispose of an SSD that has been encrypted - (I don't know yet)

How to dispose an SSD that has not been encrypted - Generally, this is impossible, according to people. Because SSD stores data in weird ways, you can't simply overwrite the data the way you can overwrite an HHD. For security, you have to destroy it physically, or if you don't need that level of security you can just run several passes of 0's over it and hope that works.

How to clean "empty" disk space on a drive you're still using - This is for when you want to wipe over the stuff you've already deleted, so you can still use the hard drive, but so the files you deleted won't be recoverable.

Remember: If you're going to do this, delete your "Trash" folder too, first.

https://superuser.com/questions/19326/how-to-wipe-free-disk-space-in-linux

sudo apt-get install secure-delete

Commands:

srm - securely delete an existing file
smem - securely delete traces of a file from ram
sfill - wipe all the space marked as empty on your hard drive
sswap - wipe all the data from you swap space.

Options

    -f  fast (and insecure mode): no /dev/urandom, no synchronize mode.
    -i  wipe only inodes in the directory specified
    -I  just wipe space, not inodes
    -l  lessens the security (use twice for total insecure mode).
    -v  is verbose mode.
    -z  last wipe writes zeros, not random data.

Example

sudo sfill -f /home

After that command, your Terminal will just look like it's timed out for a long time.

When I ran it, I think I had about 550gb free of a 1tb HDD. After about 6 or 7 hours I think, Ubuntu gave me a warning that there was 0 mb of free space remaining. It looked frozen like that for a while. It had created a file in the /home/ folder called "oooooooo.ooo" which was the size of the free space. You can watch this file grow in size as the program runs. You can also see how much free space you have left by the "df -h" command in Terminal.

When its as big as it will get (you can also see this is complete using "df -h" and seeing its now 0 disk space remaining, nothing will happen (except the warning from Ubuntu that you have 0 disk space remaining. What I do is restart now, and when I restart, that oooooooo.ooo file is gone, and you have your empty space again. You can probably also just delete the file if you don't want to restart.

How to clean .cache and other folders on linux:

sudo apt install secure-delete

shred a file with

srm -rfll filname.extension

or a folder with

srm -rfll foldername

rfll does one pass of 0s. You can use srm -r filename.extension to do 38 overwrites ctrl-h toggles hidden folders .cache starts wasting hd space. You can put all it's contents into a newly created folder and srm rfll or r newlyfolder.

to make it faster and less secure, you can do only 2 passes with -l. If you do srm regular 38 passes, I think it takes about overnight to do 1gb. -l does 1gb in like 30 minutes I think.

srm -rlvz *

or srm -rlvz /home/yourPCsname/directoriesyouwanttooverwrite

In this command, * (*)means everything in the current folder * r means recursive which means all subdirectories and their contents are affected * l means simplified, so it does only 2 passes instead of 38. ll means just one pass * v means verbose, so you can see the progress as it works * z means zeroes, so the final wipe is with 0s.

You can do similar things with sfill, such as sudo sfill -lvz /home

which does 2 passes on everything in your home directory

If you want, you can stop thumbnailing with sudo apt-get install dconf-tools: https://askubuntu.com/questions/518889/how-to-disable-thumbnail-generation

In Windows, how they overwrite unused disk space is:

  • Empty temp folder with:
  • Windows button > run > %temp%
  • and delete everything there (skip the files that Windows won't delete)
  • To overwrite unused space:
  • Windows button > run > 'cmd'
  • cipher /w:C\ (or whatever drive letter you want to fill with a big random file)

HOW TO ROTATE PHOTOS (all files in a folder in this example):

terminal
go to folder:
cd /home/COMPUTERNAME/Pictures/Photography/rotate   (rotate is the name of the folder)
then:
mogrify -rotate 90 *png

Sometimes in Linux sound starts to only play with one side of your headphones:

Go to Volume Control and Output Devices tab and slide the volume to full. It worked.


Convert images or resize images

Convert all or pngs to jpgs

  • convert ExistingName.png NewName.jpg (converts that one png to jpg with a new name)
  • convert *.png *.jpg (converts all pngs to jpgs)
  • convert * *.jpg (converts all files including jpegs to jpegs)

  • (older linux use 'mogrify' instead of 'convert') mogrify -format jpg *.png (to convert them to jpgs)

How to use a Cameo Silouette plotter cutter with Linux:

Usually you use their software on Windows.

You can use Inkscape on Linux, but have to add an extension to Inskcape.

You have to add python-USB, but that might not be found even after updating, so you have to 'sudo add-apt-repository universe'

Then you can download the .deb file from here https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette/releases

And you'll have10: https://libertyseeds.ca/2017/12/08/A-better-open-source-extension-for-Silhouette-Cameo-Inkscape-and-Ubuntu/


Export Firefox bookmarks to an HTML file to back up or transfer bookmarks

This article explains how to export your bookmarks to an HTML file, which can be used as a backup or for importing into another web browser.

For instructions specific to these other browsers, see Export bookmarks to Internet Explorer, Export bookmarks to Opera and Export bookmarks to Safari. 

Click the Library button 57 library icon on your toolbar. (If you don't see it there, click the menu button fx57menu then click Library.) Click Bookmarks and then click the Show All Bookmarks bar at the bottom.

From the toolbar on the Library window, click Import and Backup and choose Export Bookmarks to HTML....

Youtube-dl

https://www.tecmint.com/download-mp3-song-from-youtube-videos/

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

but that didn't work so:

sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

then restart the Terminal otherwise it won't work

default folder for downloads is home folder

to download mp3, do:


youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 <http...>
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 

PLAYLISTS:

youtube-dl --ignore-errors --format bestaudio --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 160K --output "%(title)s.%(ext)s" --yes-playlist 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?stuffstuffstuff'
youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 --playlist-start 1 --playlist-end 5 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=xxx555xxx


TTTThis