On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 4:25 AM, Lyberta <lyberta@lyberta.net> wrote:

 There is a line that you may cross after which there is almost no
 return. If the whole world is extremist and fascist, then you fix it
 with extremism and terrorism.

 y'know... there's a famous black civil rights activist who, when
faced with a fascist / aparheid "law" he was accused of violating,
responded "go ahead and arrest me: because if i comply with your law
it's far worse than *anything* you could do to me by putting me in
prison".

 An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

 you know that that saying actually means that if you take someone's
eye, then *yours* will be taken, right?  it's *not* giving you the
"right" to respond with violent force against violence: it's a
*WARNING* to you that violence committed is a downward spiralling
trap.

 Fuck. I hate this world, I hate myself.

 i have a wise friend who very kindly gave me a definition of stress.
he said it's when people make a comparison between the external
(perceived) world and their internal view, cannot cope with the
difference... and seek to blame the EXTERNAL world.  "i hate your
tie!!  yesss... it's the *tie's* fault!" :)

 ironically i had never considered before the scenario where the
"target" of the emotion/stress *was* actually your "self".

 lyberta, do look up eckart tolle's story, it's very very funny (and
relevant).  ok ok i can't resist telling the tale: he was an academic,
in some of the worst (bitchiest) back-stabbing in-fighting for funding
and "status" academic environments it's possible to be in, and it was
really *really* getting him down.  so one day he woke up and said to
himself, intending to kill himself, "i can't live with myself".

 except, the academic in him went, "hang on a minute, what the hell?
what the hell is the damn difference between this "I" and this
"myself"?? in that stupid sentence!  *I* can't live with my "self"??
wtf??"  and the sudden and revelationary recognition of the incredible
cognitive dissonance between two "things" - two "selfs" - in his mind
which he *wasn't even aware were separate" resulted in what's known in
the trade as a "kundalini whiteout".

 when he came to he found he was still sitting on the bed but he could
perceive things in a totally new way.  i won't go into the rest of the
story but he's now one of the western world's best known "spiritual
masters", so his books (including audio books) are well worth reading.

 And anyway something that is not widely known: when arm netbooks started
 becoming a thing OEMs were putting linux on them( of course). Microsoft saw
 a very threatening market emerging and raged hell upon them that if they
 kept doing this the sales of their other models would suffer due to them
 removing the OEM discount on the windows license.

 i heard they were just out-and-out blackmailing companies.  i've
heard a lot of these stories.

 After that they proceeded
 to change the model so instead of charging per machine they charge per
 model. So basically even if you buy e.g. a Dell Lattitude with Ubuntu
 preinstalled and then wipe it and replace it with an FSF approved distro
 YOU ARE STILL PAYING THE WINDOWS LICENSE. Now some people might disagree
 with me, but for me libre software is a war against oppression and is
 directly competing with microsoft etc( disagree as in that we do not
 compete but exist to fulfeel our own needs). So just for this reason, if
 you need to buy an x86 computer and a libreboot model is not an option it
 is better to buy a system76 instead of e.g. a dell or a thinkpad and then
 install gnu/linux on it.

 Interesting observation.

 agreed.

 I have bought Dell laptop with Ubuntu
 preinstalled as it was the only model with GNU/Linux distro I could find
 quickly.

 well, now you're aware of two other possible companies: system76 and
thinkpenguin.  yay!

l.

arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook
Send large attachments to arm-netbook@files.phcomp.co.uk