When the internet becomes a source of everyone's opinion and less reliable

It's me again with my tongue in cheek attitude!

Don't get me wrong, the internet is full of information, and I mean good quality information, which is unfortunately buried under a huge pile of dung. You need to get dirty to find a good piece of information.
Like the old guys are usually saying, "when I was young the world was better", I start to dream at the "golden era of internet information" and see the decay of quality in our days.

Of course, back then you had to put some work in having a website, not all idiots had the money to pay for a internet connection and when they did they searched for boobs anyways. There was less information but of somehow better quality.
Today is different, you find everything and nothing, thousands of idiot-proof website building software took care of this, social media raised "opinion leaders", YouTube raised "superstars", every huge company has a forum, then are other thousands of individual forums covering the same products / companies. There is at least a discussion board for each subject you could think of, there are hundred of thousands of search results for each question you could think to type on the search field of any given search engine. You could say that this is awesome, you do not need any specialists at all, just ask Google and you can get your answers. While partly this is true, at the same time is so false, yes you get your answers but, man, you get so much junk answers as it becomes a hard job to go through all the answers and find the good one. And all of this is harder because you do not know the answer, that's why you ask / search.

I know that opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and always the other ones stink, but it becomes everything a "knowledge" based on opinions. I have my opinion too, I use the easy to use blogger, I bash the others on my blog, but I keep it as a blog and not going to the direction of creating pseudo-scientific articles or post my vision of the future or do some perverse paid advertising. I have my opinion and advertise it to be taken with a pinch of salt.

My take on selecting the information:

1. Search for more than one source
Along motorcycles passion (I bashed here anyways the adventure scene, and I will continue to do it but not today) I also build stuff - guitars, arduino based gadgets, raspberry-pi thingies and other home made improvements. Well, from practice I know that there is always more than one way to do something so why stop at the first search result, look into others as well even if you are satisfied with the first answer, maybe is another way available, maybe fits better, maybe not but just look on the next one.

2. Using the brain power to understand different opinions
For example, if you search for which type of potentiometer (link to Wikipedia) to use in a guitar you end up nowhere if you do not use your brain too. One option is to use logarithmic potentiometers or linear ones. Historically the logarithmic ones are called audio tapers because the human hearing is logarithmic and not linear. From this point on you get people fighting which one is better and who is smarter and so on. But here is what I do ....
I get that our hearing is logarithmic if we think from a certain perspective, at the same time I also do notice a linear change in sound. And at least for me a small logarithmic pot depending on the application offers a more on/off effect, while the linear one offers a more linear feel.
Now you can mix and match depending on the application need and the information you gathered from the net. You need a very fine control go for linear, you need a signal that you can heavily modify at the extremities go for logarithmic. I use mainly linear for volume to get a finer overall control and logarithmic for the tone and sometimes linear at the tone, depending on the guitar I build.

3. Use common sense to filter junk
Especially when you search for some medical issues you end up with the stupidest answers although you find people swear by all gods that they do work or whatever. I know that there is some traditional healing science tested for thousands of years, which somehow died when the medicine became available for people. There are some "grandma treatments" who work sometimes better than medicine but... a lot of bullshit is flying around as "grandma knowledge" but it is not. More disturbing is that those people could hurt others by recommending crazy things.
The hardest stupidity I was reading is that you can completely change the color of your eyes. No shit!?!? Yes I know that depending on some stress factors, light and so on the eyes ca be a bit more clouded or change a bit the shade of your color .... but turning your eyes green from black .... hmmm. And the funny thing is that they recommended some stuff to take. Here is where the common sense should kick in!
Or cure cancer with some herb when you are in need of urgent surgery because is already too late ... use common sense.

4. Keep in mind that one man's garbage may be another man's gold / your realistic needs
Of course this does not mean you need to live out of the trash bin, and since we are talking internet is not possible anyways ... but ... if someone says that some device is garbage because bla bla  maybe it fits my bill because I have different expectations.
Returning to my guitars example - is full of people who say that if is not finished with any nitro based laquer then is garbage. I would say maybe nitro is not available for the consumers in my country because is considered toxic, maybe I do not have the tools for nitro, maybe I just like the feel of other finish since I will hold the guitar in hand anyways. So what is for those guys garbage, is for me the tool to work with.
Now you find reviews and "vs."  between all you can imagine that you want to compare. That graphic card vs the other graphic card and so on. I will touch the reviews subject later but now let's stick with the simple part of "x product is junk". I got an Marshall Code combo for my guitar, and for fun, although the internet was full of "oh is junk, I got whatever $2000 combo .... it sounds better" Duh ... you pay under $200 and you expect it to sound like a $2000 one?!?!? Are you a retard or what!?!?
Ok maybe some products which are in hype costs too much - like iPhones, the real price is way smaller, and now everyone who tries to get to the status of quality ups the prices, as long as there are idiots who will pay that 1000 for a damn phone.... but let's return to the Marshall example.
At the beginning I was amazed by the YouTube videos and wanted to buy it on the spot, then I got scared from what I was reading on internet. At some point I was convinced it sucks and looked for other options, but they had the same awesome videos and shit comments.
So here is the mental list I made for the "garbage" that is Marshall Code:
Price - 177
Price of all emulated cabs, amps, effects - I presume is over 20.000 (more than 100 times the price of the Code)
Do I use it on a stage - No
Do I want to have a multitude of sounds with one device - Yes
Do I have space for many amps - No
Do I have the money to buy one of the emulated amps - No
Do I care if it sounds good - Yes but not expecting god like tones.
Do I have high expectations from a low end product - Not quite, but to keep a good value for money ratio
Where I use it - small apartment with a lot of neighbors.

After this small assessment I went for Marshall Code 25, Although I would have liked to feel a rockstar having the Code 100 or ... even better Code 100 Head plus a 4x12" sound cabinet behind me when I make noise. Even a Code 50 would have been an option like the lowest of them all, but I went for the 25.
This is not a review of Marshall code - maybe I will do one later, but I ended up having the garbage which became gold for my need. Is louder than I am allowed to disturb my neighbors, sounds a bit better because I can crank it up more than I could do with a 50 or 100, costed way less, gives me options to explore.

5. Watch out for paid reviews
How many products are declared to be the awesome thing that is missing from your house? How many of them are actually ending in the trash or just gather dust? How many you purchased because of that cool review but you can't seem to get the same quality.
Unfortunately there are so many paid reviewers out there that becomes harder and harder to point them out. I got the thing when I purchased the second generation of GoPro, all the reviews were like there is the one and only camera I would need and is missing from my gear. I purchased it ... I was disappointed. I mean I am able to do color grading and basic color correction, but man it was noisy, washed out, bad contrast and the list can continue. I mean it was overpriced for the quality it offered. Then I looked what do all those reviews had in common.... a certain type of weather and a certain type of landscape and way of filming. When you review a product you need to show also the bad parts not only the good ones, except if you do advertising. In this case, using the GoPro as a motorbike driver with different weather, with different colors, turned out to be not so good for the camera so I ended up using a Garmin Virb which was bashed on all forums by the hoards of GoPro followers, and was way better for the type of usage I needed.

6. Think "balance" when you read bad comments / reviews about a product
Usually when we have something which works as expected we do not "advertise" the product, only if a friends asks us about that specific product maybe we say a bit more than "is ok, I had no problems with it". And usually we tend to hang on the "problems" side, maybe because we learned to do so.
Now, imagine you buy a product from amazon, it does not work as expected, or even worse is a lemon and needs to be changed - you immediately give a bad rating. The product works as expected .... you forget about the rating. This is valid for any type of products, you find only "Ford Focus problems", "Audi q3 issues" or "X product improvements" type of comments, websites, forum topics.
I have never seen things like "Ford Focus Strong points" and even when is a reliability topic is still on "how reliable and when/what should I expect to fail" way of seeing things.
So, for each issue out there there are other happy users who did not had it and maybe will never have that issue, but will get another one about which will complain.


7. Keep an open mind
Even if you do a thing in a certain way there is someone who does it a bit different with the same results. As long as we live we learn and is good to keep an open mind instead of becoming a Grinch and bash an all forums people who do a thing a bit different and/or have a different need than yours.
Keep in mind that there are always more paths to the same destination.



Well, this is a short excerpt of how I try to get the most out of an over saturated internet, from an ocean of ideas and opinions and to select what I consider is helpful for me.

Happy surfing!

RTW with a blog asking for money kind of people

My criticism strikes again.

We all have seen those kind of "travelers" who always try to imply that they do what they are doing, for us the rest of the lesser people.
Few months ago I was reading how such a specimen was bubbling on Facebook about how hard is for him to travel, how many ordeals he needs to endure in order to bring us pictures. Then come home dear, no one sent you there!

How should I put it ... since the edge of civilization people traveled, some more, some less. Some even wrote books about their travels and about the cultures they encountered. Some of those writings are today the only source of historical relevance about a certain place and a certain time.
Later, when we discovered that we can make money out of it, some traveled and continued to write books about their travels. They got money by selling them, maybe they sponsored their next trip with the money from the books. Who knows?!?

There were always people who traveled for themselves and others who traveled to show off. I have no problem with both of them, each on its own they say. I have a absolute repulsion on the next stage, the modern traveler - beggar - prostitute.

If we look at details, every time we can find an excuse: what is wrong that X got sponsored by XZY company? What is wrong that some people donate to some other guy? And actually none of these are wrong! I mean I do not preach here that no one should get something unless every one gets it too, this is small minded.
What I really hate is the big picture, and let's look at it:
One guy or girl, quits the job and suddenly is being sponsored by not one, not two but more companies. Ok ... not that if you would ask any of those companies to get something, you will get it for free, even if you travel a lot.
Now, he / she has a tip-top bike with bleeding edge tech, top of the range clothing (we, the foot-folk will be happy with just half of it or with half of the money they cost so we can get fully equipped).
Some shipping companies even give a discount based on .... I do not know exactly why and how.

Now the trip starts .... he / she will travel in a part of the world for x months. Every day you get to see amazing pictures. They say they do the images themselves, I can trust some of them, I can believe that they are struggling to get that amazing pic - I do it myself and I know how frustrating is when something goes wrong, but I prefer to travel rather than to play self glorification on Instagram.

Now the big questionmarks
1. How the hell they always get good weather - I want to see them soaked, full of mud - usually this is what I get when I travel, not endless days of beautiful sky.
2. How on earth do their bikes look every time like brand new - mine is like a pig after few days, with a bit of luck and rain from the first day.
3. Always some indigenous people are around their bike or on their bike doing nice pics - I may travel in the wrong places, usually I end up with some homeless guys telling me the story of their life.
4. Why do they like to recommend parts and bike models - easy one, they would not spit on the face of their sponsors.
5. How that they get servicing first class even in the remote parts of the world, not to mention .... some of them for free - are you serious!?!?!
6. Are they able to do minor repairs on their own? I bet 90% no
7. Suddenly some locals start to show them hidden treasures of the country - ah ok .... suddenly someone says I make holidays because X is in tow so I can ride along. I do not know if we fit but what the heck ... I will get in the end a Instagram tag.
8. Real travel with having time to make video documentary, photo documentary and write a book ... these people are awesome can do more than we can .... ok ...
9. Where the hell they get internet in the middle of nowhere!?!?!
10. Where the hell do they get power supply .... editing a video takes time, rendering, cutting, post processing ... not to mention the time you work, the time you let the software do their rendering, loading all the devices ... Yes I know ... hotel and motorcycle battery ... but really, for months in the middle of nowhere!?!? how the hell you upload the video to YouTube, how the hell you update your blog daily ....
11. Are they really staying out camping or this is just for the picture, for the rest is the cosy hotel down the capital city.
12. How that their clothes look like new even after months of traveling with wild camping? This is a X files case for me.

Getting past those questions now comes the ugly personality side:
- asking money to continue travel - work you bitch, we all do, work and travel, there are people who do this, even if they take low jobs for one two three months somewhere, they spare to the last dime and then they have enough for the next leg of the travel. I respect those people.
- implying that they travel for me - seriously? I travel for myself, thank you!
- playing the victim card with how much they endure for that travel - go buck a fuffalo! Your choice, you can go home anytime now.
- opening all kind of virtual begging accounts - patreon, crowdfunding and so on ... duuude
- after the travel playing macho at all bikers meetings, being now a paid speaker and except the fact he gets money for this (shows the same ppt for years) sells also his junk overpriced stickers, books dvd
- no real human contact, unless you can be of interest - sexually or financially
- self importance
- expecting to be treated as V.I.P.

What is more disturbing is that they are setting trends, they are advertising overpriced shit which nobody needs actually, the bikes that they ride are not the most reliable but with the biggest price tag, some are talking that they even do not ride all the way, but pay a transport and then just make a picture - actually this explains the three questions I had - clean clothes, clean bike and internet all day.
And on top of that we are reminded gracefully that they are doing this for us!

Do you feel that someone is traveling for you? I certainly not and when I see pictures from the areas I have been, I can't notice that they are hanging mostly on tourist spots and kind of fake world where they are charged to make a picture with some local. After all I kind of feel sorry for them with regard to travel experiences. For the financial joker they try to pull on us ... I resent them. But that's life!

If you disagree .... Please pay for my next vacation!!!!!! I promise to send you pictures

My thoughts - Adventure motorcycling

From the bottom of my bottle while waiting for the Tenere to come and searching up and down on the internet I just got enlightened ...

The term of ADV starts to piss me off, not to mention RTW and half of the so-called community behind it. Kind of putting it now in the shoe blades but the smart guys will get it and will not be offended, for the rest .... I don't care because you would not understand it even if I am drawing it to you.
Looks like is kind of middle-aged man crisis, maybe I should worry because I started to buy this shit "adventure" labeled, supported by very aggressive marketing campaigns. Few years ago I was just going out with my buddies somewhere in the "outback", somewhere where we defined it to be in the ass of the world. Actually somewhere remote where we could get to other places through land or some small forest paths or whatever. Just getting full of dirt, sleeping in tent somewhere in the middle of nowhere, getting awesome (drunk) and next day or sometime in the week returning to the ladies back home with a big smile on our faces and for their despair with a lot of mud on our clothes and stinking like we were coming straight from middle-ages. To our stupidity we did not know we were doing ADV, imagine the drama and the horror when I realized we were just calling this "going with the boys and our toys".

While we were doing this, some two actors and another dude were making a show on Discovery - Long way Round or Long way Down or both. In our stupidity we were laughing that with a crew we could also do it, no one knows what happened behind the cameras and who fixed what. Little did we know at that time that this will be a trend. And GS Adventure will become an icon and launch this entire crazy trend of "adventure riding". Now I am asking why the hell do people need a show to do something they really wanted or if they do it just because they can be as cool as ....
I will not discuss the two actors but I think for them was hard and really the adventure of their life, although full with camera crews, but they don't know better.

The name:
Letting aside that it resembles a certain brand and model, to say "I'm doing an adventure ride" sounds like my best childhood friend and I were doing "an action" or "secret action" while we were trashing our neighbor barn or his shed or whatever neighbor property, when we were 10 years old or younger. For me it sounds silly. What the bleep is an adventure ride? Adventure can mean 10.000 things for 10.000 people so why name it when you can define it? But yes, later I understood what means adventure riding, and we get to the next point....

The location:
To have a proper "adventure ride" or "ADV" or how do you want to call it you need to ship your bike to one of the following locations: Morocco, some other African country, South America - as preference in Peru, Bolivia or Columbia, Mongolia or Australia. For the guys who have 4 balls is North Canada and Alaska, go as far north as earth allows it. Except the guys with 4 balls I noticed that the 3 balls guys have kind of same view of adventure. Pick a shit country with unpaved roads, ship your bike there or as close as possible, make a YouTube video. Bonus for the adventure dirt cheap accommodation and food, like ... make two weeks out of 100 EUR. Well, except that, piss on the country culture and environment because what the hell ... you are a king there with your 200 EUR. And then you see idiots driving with warp speeds through sheep / goats / cows because they can. They could stop and drive slowly but something makes them feel like kings flashing their expensive stuff. Take some photos with pour kids, make an album, write a book, come home and act like a god and keep workshops about your "adventure" to small minded people like you who want to have also an "adventure ride" and gather some pour kids photos.
In my opinion you can do your adventure ride everywhere. Ok, maybe you are not allowed to go through that forest and maybe the quality of the roads is not challenging enough but you still find shitty roads and awesome scenery in your own backyard. Yes, you don't have pour africans in your pictures and you would not get free blow-jobs because you traveled in your own country or neighboring country. Not to mention it will be more expensive to stay at hotels and maybe you really need to try to pitch a tent. Most important have all the flashy things purchased with your MasterCard Gold.

Bike:
If is adventure must be the XYZ Adventure, must be big, around 100 Hp, aluminium panniers like 45L each, on top of that comes some assorted topcase. Now, looks big, has 500Kg, costs like a decent car but you still need to "adventurise" your monster. Just slap the entire catalog of "Some adventure company" without asking if you really need it, then as many accessories as possible have to be branded with the word ADVENTURE. Print a sticker with the url of your blog and slap it on the panniers, so everyone can read your story and live your adventure. Then of course the real "adventurist" needs to have stickers with all countries he was in, even just for 2Km, just slap the sticker if you've crossed a border and bring value to your bike. The only rule is to have as strange countries as possible, if you have UK or France .... sucks big time, your adventure buddies will cast you out for impersonating an ADV rider.
Now comes the middle-aged man, office worker by day, hero by night. He wants a cosy seat - buys a custom one so his buttocks are happy clapping at the end of the day. Over this he fits a gel happy-butt bag, or if he travels with class some sheep skin and fur, whatever ... something fluffy for the fluffy cellulite.
Next step is to have heated grips, even if he drives to Morocco, you never know when the next Ice Age is coming, and besides ... his license plate is just a season one - from May to September. He never used summer cross gloves in December at -5 degrees. That is an adventure, but you call that stupidity. I call that you use what you have and just enjoy the ride.
Next on the list is .... light. Yes you are riding in summer and by nightfall you are already in hotel but you still need those amazingly bright spot lights, and let them on all day because you are visible. In my experience .... if they ignore your headlight they will ignore everything, maybe some police lights will make them aware.
My take on this is that you don't need half a ton iron with 100Hp to drive shit roads with 60Km/h. You also don't need the entire adventure catalog, few things are enough. Actually are people who traveled very bad roads with 50cc mopeds, Harley, Royal Enfield, 125 -250 enduro bikes, sport bikes ... you don't need that latest 1200 engine. Maybe the adventure is on a Vespa rather than on a monster. Or on a Harley ... who knows!?!?! Your bike is not the one who makes the trip ... but you. Whatever ... you will still argue that adventure is only on that kind of bike, and you are true.
On the other hand, why you need 100Hp for solo riding? Your luggage doesn't weigh 100Kg, my 660 Tenere can go with 190Kg, take the rider out and see that you still get 100Kg space to play, out of this maybe 50kg is the luggage .... the legal speeds on highway are also easy to top ... why 300+Kg and a power-plant under your ass?
The must have of a real ADV bike is the mighty CRUISE CONTROL so that you can travel without moving a muscle, just set the bike to 120Kmh and enjoy a movie - buy a Goldwing if you want to take your couch and home entertainment system on wheels ...

Equipment:
Must haves are: 500+ EUR helmet, 500+ EUR pants, 500+ EUR jacket, 300+ EUR gloves, and again 500+ boots. Other than this cheap equipment, you need very expensive function underwear and special socks. Most important is that your equipment is only from top brands and the value is equal with the value of the bike. If you have less .. you are a bad evil man who pretends to be adv rider.
Well, I drive with what I have and my 30 EUR gloves are fine thank you! X or Y or Z brand can also break and tear apart, just that is very expensive to replace. Ride for the fun of it. You don't need that electric heated jacket, put a wind-stopper under the jacket and things are fine. If you are like missus and you are a bit cold even in sauna ... just use thermal shirts or drive your car.

Other equipment:
I noticed that one of the most important things to carry are: big DSLR, and no, not the entry level, some mirrorless for quick snapshots, laptop to keep your blog up to date, external HDD to save the photos and of course a bunch of a certain brand of action cameras. Are you somehow a movie maker or a photographer on the job? Are you going to enjoy the ride or just put some 10Kg in photo equipment.
I do carry a camera too, and I also have the certain brand of action camera and a hated one. But I don't make it as a must. Yes I have a lot of video and photo equipment, I need more than my trunk to carry it all, but when I ride I have the cheapest camera with me and certainly in long rides I leave as much electronic as I can behind. After all I go to enjoy, not to get home to see what I have missed while watching the photos.

The rider:
Now the most annoying part, the ass behind the hole (your cylinder hole) .... usually rude on forums with others who don't share their view on the world of motorcycles, the lesser people who don't ride the XYZ adventure. Typically 45-50+, kids left home, well shaped beer belly in the pants, the hair is how the genetics let it to be or to leave the head, somehow with some good payment so they could afford the very expensive purchase. Highly regarding himself as an absolute authority in travel and ADV, this human species kind of knows which is the right bike, and the right catalog to slap on your bike, some males of the species may have some technical knowledge but man what they can take out of their mouths on forums .... you wonder if they ever studied basic math, physics, chemistry and logic. Naturally, the best toys are the ones with the latest gadgets and you are part of the foot-folk if you dare not to have them or just have a different opinion let's say on ABS. Whatever you say nothing is better than their adventure bike, although it has small tank, less clearance and more kilos ... everything they say starts with "on my trip to X ... bla bla", dude, you can tell that after 20.000Km your whatever accessory is still perfect shape, end of story.
Another trait of this species is that they want adventure but with luxury and comfort, yes we all know that you are a couch potato for the rest of the year, we all know that after a day riding in freezing rain you want a hot shower, we all want this, but ... the fun of adventure is to get out of your comfort zone, to live like the old people did, traveling with their horses for days, being soaked, cold and hungry. But you ride with your electric heated jacket, heated grips and waterproof clothes ....
Maybe the most annoying trait is that you can't forget that you are talking with a well educated man (because travel is education) and with a celebrity at the same time.
Well, this kind of pajama hero makes me sick ... be who you are, and enjoy life because is too short anyways. Don't judge the other bikers only on their motorcycle, maybe they are cool too.

Well .... I have talked enough for today ...
Whatever you ride and whatever you name your trip, just stay safe and enjoy it!

Cheers.

How NOT to work in teams

This is a continuation of the previous post How to work in teams and I will give you some good examples of bad teamwork. Let's say that you already have a team, you formed it by yourself, you were taken as a team member or you just landed there. In university projects as in real life sometime you have to form a team or join a team knowing just a little about your team members. Many teams are build on skills or "politics", politics meaning personal likes or dislikes, or even worse just because they are the only ones who invited you to join, you don't really like them but whatever.

How to work in teams

During my 12 years of experience with teams and working in teams I have worked in many teams, good and bad. There are many theories, some are good just on paper some are good in practice, but each team is unique as its members and what works with one team fails with other. Each team member has a different personality, different aims, different views and different traits. If someone tells you that he will teach you how to have a perfect team and no conflicts is like telling you he will sell you a pink unicorn who poops rainbows.

Targeted advertising - evil surveillance or marketing tool?

Have you ever looked after a product on Amazon and later you see an ad for that product on your Facebook? Or searched online after some things and later you see those things again and again in form of advertising everywhere you go? Well that's targeted advertising, at least a form of it.

Targeted advertising comes in many flavors, some subtle, some annoying and some more obtrusive. I wouldn't go into the direction of conspiracy theory, even if this is the easiest way and the internet is full of that, but I would go more on an analytic view or approach.

(Media) Studies are teaching you just to solve first world luxury problems

I had studied civil engineering so I am a sort of engineer and afterwards I studied Interactive Digital Media followed by a Master in the same field.
During my many years of study I always wondered why we learn only things that solve luxury problems for the first world. Ok, maybe with civil engineering is not the case since you can build houses for the poor and infrastructure, even if in real life they build them by themselves since they can't afford to pay a company, so in the end even with engineering you still solve only rich people problems.

With Media studies is a different world. Since I made my studies at a university of applied sciences the whole study was focused on practice, each subject we studied had also a project attached. This is very well, nothing to complain, nothing is better than hands-on practical stuff. Now comes the part that makes me worry for all those years all the projects I have seen (from my semester, higher semesters and lower semesters) were only useless "first world rich hipster problem solvers".
Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to see save Bigfoot projects, or rain forest or other extreme social stuff. It is not my kind to believe that helping poor african kids by giving them a fish will solve their problem as long as you don't teach them to fish and as long as you interfere with their politics just to keep the money rolling into your NGO.
The thing that scares me is that my colleagues are the ones that will be at one point decision makers, trend setters and will flood the market with this kind of things. All the project I have seen or concepts are futuristic but in a wrong way, in the way that will break your contact with real world and immerse you in the digital world by purchasing gadgets, apps and useless luxury products just for fun or to be cool. I mean ... ambient intelligence for pubs and hotels, augmented reality sport apps, smart fridge, smart kitchen, intelligent car, smart dirty clothes bin, free parking places app, indoor navigation and the list can continue ... but can't we really live without them? Do I need a navigation device for shopping mall? Do I need my fridge to send me email that I need to buy milk? I can see with my own eyes! They are nice to have for fun gadgets but are not necessary, are luxury products that will help out world to become dumb and dependent on electronics.

I contributed at this thing too, was not my thing but you go with the flow, you don't want to be the biggest freak in the class. But all stopped at ambient intelligence where we wanted to combine nature with electronics and we used "real" water and was a big disappointment for everyone that our team didn't made it with digital water, it would have been cool. For my bachelor degree I was the only one to do something useless - a documentary for bikers with bikers. The other were only with augmented reality, intelligent play rooms, virtual reality games, smart elevator full with targeted advertising. This is what is expected to do, to serve the trendsetters, to dream Google glass integration, to dream virtual reality, all for the sake of money.

Why is wrong? You know you learn a lot of things from micro controllers to smartphone apps and you choose to create only things for rich people. Ok, you can't stop poverty or hunger but at least you can try to make more useful things than an app to help revolutions and riots, or a device to help you relax after one day of work that requires a separate room or at least half of it (you can relax at a lake with a book in hands).
A device maybe is never a solution for a poor man but can be for a person in need, for old people, for sick people, for blind people or for deaf people. I don't need a device to tell me how is the weather outside when I get out of bed since I have eyes to look outside and I can see if is sunny or is raining, a blind man for sure will need to know how is outside since the eyes are not helping. But which is the percentage of blind people? How many of them you can target? Maybe 5% of them? As business this is not wise, because if you can target 5% of the world you are rich, if you target 5% of the blind people you need a job.

The studies are preparing you to enter in the business world, to help big companies to go forward and earn more money ... so how can you do this if you are not learned from school to make things only for the rich, useless luxury products. Why they don't teach you about Tesla and to make you curious how to get free energy, or simple basic chemistry to make your own soap and own perfume and detergent? Because you need to produce money. And now if you say "oh, good that I studied social sciences and I help people" let me tell you that you are like me, you help people to remain in the system so you can have a job tomorrow. Social or not social studies are all making the same thing creating jobs and maintaining them by keeping other people dependent to the system and serving the rich by using the poor, and it has to stay like this, you need rich people to make the poor work more dreaming that they will get one day rich, and you need poor to have a working horse eager to spend money on useless stuff in their way of dreaming to be rich.

How we survived until tech era?

Sometime I wonder how the heck did human civilization survived for thousands of years until the discovery of ABS, iPhone, iPad and Facebook.

If you look at any product review that is a bit outdated is obsolete, is a crap is the latest junk you can possibly buy or have. How did our parents survived without them?

I search now for a bike, tried on ebay but see here why I can't find things on ebay that worth the buck. Got over a Decathlon bike and trying to find out what people think about it I stumbled upon this question ... "how the heck we survived until now?" ... really, we have a problem "has no disk brakes" - no shit is half price of the cheapest merida bike that also has no disk brakes.
Do we need disk brakes? Really!?!? No shit! Think about Tour de France before carbon frames, aluminium frames and disk brakes, how the hell they even manage to ride 2 km? Maybe back then things were more harder to achieve but the satisfaction was maybe at least ten times bigger.

Why the satisfaction was bigger? Think about Mount Everest, really, now is full of old dudes full of money who can afford to pay the guys who carry their luxury (and yes, they are human too, not animals but are used like animals), latest outdoor equipment that cost more than a penthouse in London and other things to help them get on the roof of the world. But when was the first time someone on the top? 1953, that's right, 1953! They were not the first to attempt but was the first confirmed success.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 - Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hillary_and_tenzing.jpg

This was way before goretex and other tex and the other tex. Those were balls!

Let's return to the bikes, my grandfather had a bike with only one brake, no cables, just pure metal levers and the brake was not even V-Brake, was applied straight on the tire, and he made the country tour. Take one of today's so called sportsman to do this. 

Motorcycles, disk brake is a standard, you have an older model with rear drum-brake? Then you should sell it! I had one with drum brakes front and rear, according to the vast majority was a piece of junk but according to history was one of the models used on Paris Dakar race. Again, pun one of the current teams to ride a bike like that, no way.

Guitars, I had a guitar from 70's, junk compared to the current ones but those guys could make music with that "crap".

Other examples are: 

library - for idiots, you got wiki; 

books - what!?!? you got e-readers; 

cars - without assisted steering and traction, ABS and other sensors half of the population will die in an accident; 

nature - that's right, how many of you can pitch a tent (old school one) and start a fire just with two matches!?!?

having fun without the world of electronics - actually get a life and stop to see how is your neighbor;

play - analog, not digital, I see less children playing outside, on streets, in forest, they have a playstation;

spending quality time with your significant other - most young couples are very busy with their smartphones even when they are together.

The list can go endlessly and everyone knows that if is older than two years is a crap. Sorry dudes, I still live in my world where is fun to achieve something with a steel bike with v-brakes (btw I can do downhill too with a crap bike, not for competition but for fun!), read books on the porcelain pony, go out and jump in the mud, repair my motorcycle because is too old for the guys from service and they have no idea how to service it without a computer, spend days with my lady while the smartphone remains untouched, get in the forest and make my own gasoline free camp fire, make my own bone rings and other "crap stuff".

The question remains ... how the heck did we survive until iPhone?

Strange human thinking - different half of measures II

Another good example of human stupidity is how racism and political correctness are judged ... yeah, right, you see them in action every day.

Lets take some examples, real ones.
1. A drunk white guy shouts in the middle of the street that the whites are superior race, you call this "white power" and other stuff that can fall into this category.
2. A black guy shouts in the middle of the street, african power, white blood weak blood and some other black empowerment things.

Who is the racist here? Note that the scenario is happening in western europe, home of the white people, home of the anti-racism stuff, fear of extreme and good home of antifa and political correctness,  white neighborhood in mid day.

Well, actually in case 1 this is happening: some black guys and muslims rally against the white guy to teach him a lesson for being racist, some white trash antifa losers who are living on streets join the forces, some other white guys are swearing and tell him to fuck off, finally police arrives and takes into custody the supposed radical right extremist for further investigations.
In case 2 some brothers are cheering their brother's courage and somehow they take part at this, some muslims get offended because they are the superior race, this is what the prophet told them, but they continue their way and the white guys are passing by like nothing happens, except some hippies and antifa who are bravely scanning the area waiting for a white guy to say something nasty so they can start a fight. No police involved.

Actually ... looking from a neutral position both are "racist" according to the actual thinking and then both deserve the same treatment, the only difference is their skin color. I would say they are both proud of their inheritance and are exercising a fundamental right, the right to have an opinion, and this is their opinion. Since when is a sin to be proud that you are white but totally legit when you are black? Where is the equal sign? We try to be equal and have the same rights, right?

Ok, this scenario happened in western europe, white neighborhood. Let's move it to an immigrant neighborhood inhabited by non caucasians: case 1: the white guy would have suffered severe injures until the police arrived. Case 2 would be a fiesta and eventually with a bit of luck would have been a riot and a huge fight with police and a hunt of white trash.
In an eastern european country, the white guy would have been ignored and maybe some drunks would become his fans, while for the black guy ... he would have been told to go the fuck back in his country if he considers this, here is on their ground.
In africa, the white guy probably killed by the furious masses, the black guy ignored and some drunken fans.

Why this difference? don't tell me that us the white people are tolerant and evolved because you fall in the "racist" category. And I ask why this difference of attitude in western world, the holy ground of liberty and right to express your opinion.

Now political correctness, another "please go and never come back" thing.
Case 1. White guy starts to fuck Jesus in train, He is put to respect by the entire train, believers and non believers, because you know, is not nice to  hurt the other's feelings.
Case 2. Muslim guy starts to fuck Jesus, Mary and all the christian saints by alphabet. Ok, he does not know too many so he starts to swear and curse all christians. The public resolution: this circus lasted for half an hour, at least then I had to get out of the train, but the guy remained there. With one exception, one old lady who kindly asked that guy to stop swearing, some time after 10 minutes or so, and she was called a christian whore and got her entire relatives dead or alive fucked ... no one said anything, nor called the police.
So ... where is the difference? Again skin color and muslim religion, please don't hurt their feelings on christian soil, let them treat you like they treat you when you go to their countries, like an infidel, not worthy trash. Not even other muslims got annoyed even if Jesus is considered to be a prophet by their religion, oh yeah fuck the prophet, they are infidels and deserve to die.


Political correctness and jobs.
Me and my buddy, both in a country with other language than english. He black, I white, he Africa, I Europe. Good. Time to make some money and get a  job.
We applied mainly at the same jobs because we got similar skills and the same field so we were announcing each other which jobs we found, sharing the link and sending our applications. We did not know the country language so all the applications were in english. Again, I Europe, him Africa, we said that I will be the first one to get a job since he requires work permit and employers are running when comes to extra papers and take the simplest option.
What do you think? For all the answers I had to use google translate while he had 90% of them in english, while for the rest of them (10%) he complained that they are racists.
Finally? He got a job before me and double paid, with all the hassle of making work permit just to prove they are a multi-cultural company. I say the heck with all this. Since that day I still apply to jobs and I am still too white for them to take me. And is not qualification or work experience that is missing, just the local language.

Political correctness and social interactions.
I go to a party or club, people approach, they take note that they should speak english and they leave. My buddy arrives, yeah the black guy, people are afraid to leave so they chat in english.
Girls, another good experience. My buddy does not care if they are ugly, big or hairy as long as they have a wet hole to park his log. Although now he started to become picky, at the beginning nothing mattered more than the Bermuda triangle. Girls are running from me like hell when comes to english or they start to argue with me in their native language that I am just fooling them, because I must be one of them, I look like them so why this bullshit with english. And to make things worse, I understand their language but I did not had with whom to practice so they speak and I answer in english ... so I am a freak. My buddy comes, "Hey, I am from Africa" and I am like ... "no shit! I thought you are from Norway!" and then english english, sex and english. He also gets free drinks from the bartenders in a way to say "ok, I did a good deed for some undeveloped country".

Actually, after three years in another country I started to really feel the effects of "positive discrimination". Who invented this term positive discrimination? Is discrimination, end of story, is not positive or negative! But, oh, we like to split things and to judge with different points of view. There is not pleasant for my buddy or for me that we are among foreigners, we both miss home and we both feel the need to interact, the difference is again the skin and the way people relate to it.
In our first year of study he even got presents from International Student Service Center, because "aww, he is so far from home! he makes the holidays here alone!" So what? also did I and the other european students, but none of us got anything.

In the end this political correctness is just another form of discrimination, but because we like to consider the discrimination just skin related, they laugh at me when I say that this is discrimination, and I get some answers in the area oh, no you are like us, but we don't want your buddy to feel discriminated, ok so I am white I can't complain, but he can and you want to be sure that he does not complain.
Looking from the other side I ask myself why this people don't feel offended for being "special treatment" like they have a handicap or something. They go, make hunger strike for 2 days and get a visa, social help and other benefits, I go, do it for one week, they get enough of me, call the police and solve the case.

I think everyone should have the right to the same treatment. If he is proud of his white skin, black skin, his viking ancestors, the owners of african plains, bedouin, mujaheddin, owner of the great wall and so on .... we all have the same rights. Judge it with the equal sign.
Don't put the stamp racist or nazi on a white guy because is proud but a "back to the roots" cheer on the others.
Don't judge a guy that deserves less compared with other, we are all human beings, we are all proud of our family, our home land, our history.
I look for example at USA in contradiction with Western Europe. In USA you can have underpants with US flag, if you put out the US flag you are a patriot, and is tolerated even in europe. But when an european takes out his flag then he is a racist, except when the national team plays, then is ok. Even US citizens have a problem with other flags out "he is a racist or what!?!?" and my answer is "hello! You are dressed all in US flag, what's your problem? Can't I be a patriot like you?".

Maybe is time to ask yourselves some questions.

Strange human thinking - different half of measures

For some time I wonder and ask myself how that us, the human beings, judge always with two half of measures.

For example we say: You can't take a life, you are not God to decide about life and death and to decide if someone deserves to die.
Ok, agree with you! BUT for God's sake then how can you decide if someone deserves to live? For example saving someone who is almost dying or already dead, bringing him/her back to life.
Oh, I get it, life is cool, someone in history decided that life is cool but for our ancestors was a real honor to be sacrificed for some whatever Crops God. In Africa are tribes that are still letting the weak ones to go and die, like in the wild. We, the "civilized world" are saying that this is no way, they must be saved and bring them our civilization and manners, by the way which manners?!?!
So you say you don't feel God enough to take a life but you suddenly feel God enough to save a life - half measure.

Cuteness: Oh, this is my favorite! You see a nice squirrel and you pee on your pants with cuteness, you see it's kin, the rat, you jump onto the closest chair shouting that someone should kill it and kill it NOW!
Cats, another example, you see one and suddenly you are in love "oh how cute", the cat is chasing it's tail "oh, it is terribly cute", the cat enters in a chips bag "oh, adorably cute!" ... now you see a dog "cute", dog enters bag "ah, maybe is not so smart, but at least is cute", dog chasing tail "this dog is dumb!"
Even rodent lovers prefer a guinea pig instead of a rat or a white lab mouse instead of a common gray one.
Why? is beauty so important? If you are ugly and live in sewers you need to die but if you have fluffy tail or ass kissing attitude you deserve a life? Wake up people! You realize that the first hours of your life you looked like shit? Should someone killed you because you were such a nasty looking newborn?

Womanizer vs Whore: Keep in mind that I am a male but for fuck's sake why a woman who changes men like her dirty underwear is a whore, every one who does not want to show her the ceiling is hating her, sometimes even the ones who are willing to park their car still are thinking nasty about her that she is a bitch, she is a disgrace bla bla ... you know it, you do it everyday. "Who? that whore who slept with the entire class? What a bitch!" And this is equally judged my male and female population!
Now we take the male whore, here we judge him a bit different. The females are calling him a womanizer but still they  are willing to be around such a successful male, if he nailed so many girls and dropped them next day ... well, then he is worthy, knows how to stick a log into the fire. "I know he loves girls, but I will show him that I can be the one to make him change", or "Oh, he is so experienced with girls, why not? He knows how to deal with a female" ... yeah right, use you, like the whore does with men. Ok, if the ladies are looking a bit weary but sill charmed at the male whore, then the male population cheers his deeds of bravery, his long list of sheets he was into, the money brought to condoms industry and probably without knowing they are also cheering the fact that he just screwed their partner / wife / girlfriend.
I say whores are whores gender independent, low characters, heart breakers, without self control around opposite sex, selfish trophy hunters. But then again it applies only with half measure. Or you can love whores ... but then again with half measure.
 
Try to think outside your box! Ask yourself questions, look from other angle, change the perspective, argue with yourself, doubt the morality and immorality definition but don't do it just with half measures!