(repost for Steemit)

“寧為太平犬，莫做亂離人” (nìng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luàn lí rén), or “Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period.”

The above line is also known as the “Chinese Curse”, and is often translated as “May you live in interesting times.”

Why do I bring this up? Because we are in a chaotic period. According to StyxHexenhammer666, it’s a moral panic, or shows signs of being a moral panic and it will pass. Now, he might be right, but that doesn’t take away my worry. I read and have read quite a bit. Silly tomes like “Fahrenheit 451”, “1984”, “Animal Farm”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and more of those apocalyptic stories about what might happen when horrible ideas get their foot in the door and are allowed to expand.

Sargon of Akkad mentioned that we needed a manifesto. Here’s a first rough stab at that.

The Shitlord Manifesto (first draft)

By Emiel Kollof

• I don’t care about your race, sexuality or gender. All people should have equal opportunity, but equality must never be forced. Let the people that are the best at it do the work.
• Free speech must be free, no matter how egregious it is to anyone. Violent speech should only be prosecuted if actual violence came of it. Let the idiots expose themselves. Hate speech does not exist.
• Violence without a need is always reprehensible. This includes politically motivated violence.
• The only weapon against speech you don’t agree with, is more speech.
• Don’t assign epithets to people when you don’t even know what the epithet means.
• Any action that disadvantages or maligns anyone because of race, sex or creed is racism, sexism or discrimination.
• You have the right to be offended. Others have the right to ignore you. But you don’t have the right to limit the freedom of anyone because you are offended.
• Religion is not a race. I will criticize your religion (regardless of what it is) if it has dangerous tenets.
• I will listen to your ideas and attempt to shoot holes in it. I expect the same in return.
• Facts over feelings.
• I’m not better than you. The inverse is also true.
• Communism and Socialism have never worked, and will never work. Trying again won’t make it work, so give it a rest already.
• Men and women are physically and emotionally different. This does not imply ability, but it plays a factor in preferences. Also, exceptions exist, but they are indeed exceptions, not the rule, and not in any way more or less appreciated.
• I will not rewrite history, furthermore I will protest the destruction of history even if it offends people. Because if you don’t see the past, you’re doomed to repeat it.
• Echo chambers are where reason goes to die.

I’ve just ended a project where I was working in an Agile/Scrum based environment, with sprints, stories, and deadlines. I kinda liked it, because you collaborate closely with your colleagues, and you pick your own tasks. Things can move potentially very fast, but there are some very glaring downsides. I’ll list them below:

The burndown.

The holy and sacred burndown. People care way too much about getting a Sprint completely burned down. It sometimes makes Agile feel more like a panic room, than a flexible way of working. Especially when you have to wait for third parties. Other squads can really shit in your cereal by letting you wait days for a request to be fulfilled and things get blocked.

The lovely people at Bax Shop (great store if you’re in the Netherlands), where besides Thomann I buy most of my gear, finally sent me my Bugera back. Even though the Blackstar is no slouch (as witnessed by my latest release):

The Bugera just rips it’s head (haha, pun) clean off in raw power. It’s supposed to, it has 20 watts more and it’s a tube amp, while the Blackstar is a solid state one (and a very nice one at that). So I have a mallot for the brutal stuff, and a ball peen hammer for the finesse.

It’s a Blackstar ID:100 TVP. Yes it’s solid state, and no I don’t care. It hits like a Mack truck. Very versatile box that makes interesting noises.

(Repost for Steemit)

First, let’s get this out of the way: I’m an atheist at my core. There’s stuff stacked on top of my atheism to facilitate esoteric reasoning, but there is always reasoning, according to some sort of logic. Having never been indoctrinated with any religion when I grew up, I have no learned concepts for fear of gods or an afterlife. The concepts are alien to me.

I understand that people believe things. I’m no exception. There are things that seem true to me for which I have no evidence. There are things I can’t explain. The difference between a religious person and me is that I don’t mind admitting that I don’t know. I have perfect solace in not knowing, if I don’t need to know to live a fulfilling live (for which my needs are modest and mundane) then I don’t care to.

I have opinions that might rub people the wrong way (big list here). If you examine that list, you might pick up that I’m in favor of complete freedom of speech. This includes things I have disdain for or things I vehemently disagree with. Everyone should have a platform, no matter how disgusting the idea.

You might think: “where do you draw the line?”. It’s really simple. Physical violence or extreme psychological terror (which does not include offense). I also think people should be allowed to have violent speech. The crux is that if actual violence does happen, the person responsible for convincing others should be held responsible.

It’s been a while since I penned something, but I was pondering something that I would like to run by you.

Disclaimer, I am basically left winged. You might not think it judging from my posts, but I actually am. I’m a classic liberalist and egalitarian when it comes to democracy, free speech and how the state should take care of the people. I’m of the school of thought of de Toqueville and his contemporaries. This also means that I personally think that the current “left” has little to do with being left. It seems that what has replaced the left nowadays are whiney antidemocratic socialists and communists. 

An American understands the situation a lot better than most Europeans do. Think about it.

Go to twitter. Search for #brexitday or #article50. Watch all the crybabies flail about and lashing out. Pay special attention to the rhetoric from the hordes of now disgruntled remain-supporters that didn’t actually vote (and who think their voice actually counts when they don’t). Somehow the word ‘majority rules’ only holds sway when it’s in their favor.

Suck it up, Buttercup. Britain is getting out and no amount of cry-bullying and virtue signalling is going to revert or block it. I hope the rest of Europe follows the UK’s example. Unless if the EU suddenly disbands the European Commission and abolishes all lobbying, but monkeys will fly out of my butt before that will happen.