Fashion

I am sick again... what is this... I run, I don't smoke, I eat health'ily (when I remember), I have beer for dinner... anyway, usually even when I'm sick I run on account of it raising my body temperature and helping to kill off the disease, however, this time round... I feel tired just making lunch, so I'm going to have to pass for a few days. It is such a beautiful day outside, so hard to accept the fact that I can't really muster the energy to go even for a walk... so the sure way to make myself feel better is reading fashion magazines.

Fashion magazines are amazing, full of all kinds of interesting ideas, from the totally horrific, to the sublime. And to my great fortune, this month, also hilarious - the fashion lingo section: "Fancy a quick lunchetta?" - we'll have some 'fabola' bruschetta. "Look at her rocking a Robocop jean" - apparently it says a lot more when you're wearing 'a jean' (I hope this is in no way reminiscent of the denim trend of showing off lower than your navel - fortunately it stopped before the fabric connecting the two 'jean' was removed.) , teamed with deliciously feisty glove, and knee high sock. Hahaha... wait, and is that a Gooch (Gucci) boot? (I love it!) I am typing this from my very own HP Vivienne Tam Butterfly Netbook Clutch now successfully running the 'divine' Ubuntu-lucid!

And one of my fav'etta'?: (I don't think I'm getting it... :P)
"Darling, that camel number really adds texture to your ensemble..." what the???.... but it doesn't have to make sense right? it's fashion.

Military Incompetence and Being a Good Person

Living in central London means you hear a lot of drunk people spilling their souls or stomach contents onto the streets at night. This is fine of course, unless you're an insensitive, selfish person trying to sleep. I happen to be one of these people, and try as I may, even considering my almost inexhaustible capacity to sleep anywhere, any time, my sleeping powers have proven worthless. The best solution to this of course is to fall asleep late enough that your slumber is so deep as not to be interrupted by these noises. And for me the easiest way to achieve this is to fall asleep reading a fascinating/captivating book.

On recommendation of a very interesting friend of mine I started reading a book on "Military Incompetence" and it was indeed fascinating reading first facts of various conflicts which the British had engaged in, and then a psychological assessment of the leaders of the conflicts. I am not sure if this is an entirely correct view, but this assessment made me realise that most of the qualities that good commanders/leaders should have, I definitely want - not only that, I see as necessities for being a good/reasonable person.
This of course is a simplistic view - as being a good military commander doesn't mean you're a good person, and being a good person is definitely not going to ensure that you're a good military commander - or is it? I guess what I'm trying to say is that being a good military commander necessitates being in possession of some qualities of a good person (...terribly insightful :P).

Ah, why is nothing ever simple! One of the most interesting point raised by the book is this idea of 'cognitive dissonance' something I am feeling right now...
...as well as sleepy :) Yay! So I'm going to have to leave this - until I thoroughly mull over these ideas and achieve cognitive consonance :D

Lunchtime

So I have again noticed that I am reading too many work related texts, and forgetting who the Prime Minister of Australia is (yes... I have actually done that... Kev, who?... very embarrassing...)... so at lunch I decided to peruse a favourite journal - Foreign Affairs, and found this very interesting article: Hydraulic Pressures - http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66578/james-e-nickum/hydraulic-pressures?page=show.

The whole article I thought was interesting, well written, and especially at the end, some very interesting comments:

As water experts say, water flows uphill to money. The rich and powerful, frequently the urban and industrial, have the biggest pumps. And there often is an inverse relationship between economic rationality and political rationality: the economic laws of scarcity push prices up even as the political laws of scarcity give officials a reason to keep prices down. Another complication is that water problems are irremediably connected, sometimes as a symptom and sometimes as a cause, to many other issues: globalization, demographics, governance, energy, health, the role of women and children, the environment. The world's water problems reflect all the world's problems.

But finally, what made me reflect a little (off topic of the water crises), is the next to last sentence on the issues, and namely the particular mention of 'women'. It didn't say: people, children, the environment, women were singled out. I guess the reason this struck a chord was that as far as we have come in equality in Western countries, there are still so many many places where women are less than people.

Damnit!

How hard is it to install linux on a netbook?!

Hmmm.... well, not as easy as I expected...

1. My netbook has no CD drive (obviously)
2. While my netbook was still running Windows7 (God I hate this OS!) I downloaded the Fedora distro and created a bootable USB disk.
3. Installed Fedora, but wait.... my mouse touchpad doesn't work, and and actually, the wireless driver was not installed (there goes any chance of 'yumming' and finding the mouse fix).
4. Surprisingly difficult to navigate the menus with a keyboard - if anyone knows how to activate the menus at the top with a keyboard shortcut, please let me know I couldn't find anything online.
5. So... now continuing this at home was not an option, had to go into work. However, at work, my network connection is tied to my work computer. Which is a Mac... but that's okay, I downloaded the wireless drivers, and installed them, and went home.
6. They didn't work.
7. :( So, stuff it, neither did the mouse - it's funny reading recommendations on how to fix the fact that the touchpad doesn't work: "just click on Applications -> System -> etc... - but what if my mouse doesn't work?!)
8. Okay, got an external mouse, but the wireless still didn't work. So now, I'm thinking I'll just give up on Fedora, and try Ubuntu... heard it's doing okay these days...
9. Go into work again...
10. Onto the Ubuntu website for netbook installs. Remember I have a Mac at work, so I need to click - creating bootable USB from Mac. Do the thing, and of course, it's considered that if you create a bootable USB/CD from a Mac, you're necessarily going to use it on the same Mac.... ! AH! So of course it does nothing to my netbook when I try to boot from it.
11. So, fortunately, I have a virus ridden, 3 year old Dell that runs Windows/Linux from my thesis days which I won't touch until I get 'that' piece of paper...
12. So, I download the install manager and Ubuntu image from the website onto Mac, transfer it USB drive...
13. And my virus riddden Dell runs out of battery and shuts down.
14. Of course! I forgot I had moved to the UK, so I need an adapter to power the computer, which I had taken home for the weekend, and the batteries are shot. DAMN IT!
15. You know, usually, I'm not so badly prepared... but this moving country, getting a netbook pre-installed with Windows7 and so much stupid dumb software it runs slower than a snail... AHG!
16. Okay, okay, I calm myself down. Can I use the power from the netwook...? no the power cable is 3 pronged... can I use the power cable from a Mac.... no, it's a Mac.
17. Hahaha, so now I a starting to see the 'funny side', so I go get a power cable (I need one anyway)....Boot up the virus ridden Dell, make the USB bootable, and fortunately no visible virus folder pop up as they do....
18. Insert into the netbook, and boot.... so far so good..... finally....

Loss of Perspective

Hmmm... I guess because the Wikileaks issue with releasing the "War Diaries" is really challenging quite a few societal norms, that I am still interested in it. However, I realized to my horror that the state of play that is currently being held - with Wikileaks intending to release 15,000 more files on top of the 70,000 they have already released is a huge perversion. Whereas previously I think the intentions of Wikileaks could have been justified by the need to expose the reality of the war (which frankly I think a lot of people who had ever seriously thought about it would have recognised), now their threats to expose the additional 15,000 is just about showing off - that they can. What honorable aim can they possibly think to achieve by this action? I guess I wait to find out...
On another note, I heard in an interview recently they mentioned that a volunteer was detained by the US at the airport, and their laptop etc confiscated and searched for data. Fortunately we were told it was of course already sanitised - I wonder how? How can you remove data from a HDD securely - low level format? (takes forever!!!) or bring a strong magnet over the drive?...
Anyway, I guess I wait to see the unfolding of the events, and I trully hope that this war is not based on whose ego is bigger... :(

Secrets

After some more thought... (aside note, it's amazing how much time you have to think when you're on holidays, and how sluggishly you actually do it...) I think what I wrote earlier about secrets and whom they belong to is not right at all. Considering that secrets which bring someone to harm are actually no longer yours to keep (innocent or not? - may be a different aspect). It is a different point about whether they should be revealed to the whole world, or should specific organizations be targeted.
Now to roll over and tan... :P

The morality of Wikileaks?

I feel way behind my time here... I just now discovered Wikileaks through browsing TED and stumbling upon Julian Assange's interview - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html.
I take my PhD project as a reason for being so desperately ill informed. And I make a note here that while being an idiot may be a reason for an action, or state of mind as in this case, it's definitely not an excuse.
In any case, it's all new just now, so I have not yet formed an opinion, but I wonder the morality of the project?
My initial reaction is to praise their efforts, but I wonder the implications. It's obvious to say that the media has a huge effect on people, consequently, it's doubtful that the project simply releases material as it comes. Even with best intentions there must be a priority list, and this in itself has the potential to send a message rather than simply reveal the 'truth'/facts objectively.
...........
After some discussion, it seems that the situation runs thus:
1. A secret is always someones private property.
2. Every individual will be against publicity of their personal secret.
3. and, yet, if the secret is big enough we are all for publicity of other peoples secrets... hmm... seems like a dirty motive hiding behind under the guise of higher order morality - freedom of speech and public knowledge.

Although it must be acknowledged, that theoretically it can be argued that a democracy cannot by its tenets have 'secrets' and must be transparent. What is truth and what are facts? So many times a sentence taken out of context can be grossly misinterpreted, a partial image illustrate provide a completely erroneous representation of a situation. Is it possible that it may be unethical to reveal all secrets simply because it is impossible to provide their context and as a result they are in themselves lies.

Life is rarely black and white, there is no truth or fact, just a context or point of view. The history of mankind has demonstrated countless times just how easily the public is manipulated.
Back to the general point however, whether the publication of 'secrets' or rather material which an organization spends effort to conceal from the public (?) is ethical. Gosh, personally, I feel like I am opting out from taking a side because I can think of situations whereby it seems absolutely imperative for a fact to be made public, and efforts to conceal it are a crime. Yet, of course as mentioned above it is private property and public knowledge is a violation of human rights.

Information is power, and there is no way of objectively representing it and letting it loose to the general public whose levels of readiness to accept the information and act reasonably are varied if at all in existence. Consequently it must be controlled and whose to say that those that control it will not manipulate it to their own secret benefit.
Hahaha, now I sound as thought I have my own conspiracy theory... :) But it's just all too complicated.... I guess my final view of the matter is this: every action must have a goal or aim to which it strives otherwise it is not reasonable. Possessing information and control over its dissemination is a way of achieving an aim, not recongnising this is foolish and I doubt wikileaks are guilty of such ignorance.