Leauki

Reply to It's been a long time in Blogging JoeUser Forums

[quote who="Jafo" reply="1" id="3728918"] So... how has everyone been? Still here....[e digicons];)[/e] [/quote] Yes, I remember you! :)

It's been a long time in Blogging JoeUser Forums

It has been many years that I have been active here. I don't know if anyone of the old crew is still around. I don't know if anyone will even see this post... tell me if you do. I had moved from Dublin to Zurich and back and back again. I also continued blogging, although on my own site. I will perhaps become more active here again. In 2014 or so I posted here after a long break to refer to my blog posts about South Sudan and the CP/M operating system. (No-one can argue that I

Reply to Slavery in War on Terror Stardock Forums

It could be worse. :-)

Reply to Slavery in War on Terror Stardock Forums

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Reply to Patience in War on Terror Stardock Forums

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Reply to Middle-Eastern Christianity in International Stardock Forums

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Reply to CP/M in Art, Science, & Technology Stardock Forums

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CP/M in Art, Science, & Technology JoeUser Forums

A while ago I started a series of articles about the history of MS-DOS and CP/M. I think I will continue the series soon, hence here a link to the first of these articles: http://www.desertpenguin.org/blog/cpm/

Middle-Eastern Christianity in International JoeUser Forums

This year the state of Israel has (finally) recognised the Aramaean nationality . This is likely the first recognition of the existence of the Aramean nation since antiquity outside religious recognition of their several churches (including by the Ottoman government). Israel has now done for the Aramaeans what it has done to the Jews before and recognised a secular existence of a nation; even though, iro

Patience in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

It is not easy to write about certain things. The capital city is easy, and so are funny stories about flights in small aircraft and descriptions of tiny but widespread towns in the middle of nowhere. Even slavery, after the fact, is a lighter subject than some. And so it took me a long time before I could write this. This is what I also saw. Read more: http://www.desertpenguin.org/sout

Slavery in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

I met four former slaves. One of the reasons I wanted to see South Sudan was that I wanted to speak with locals liberated from North Sudanese slavery. Christian Solidarity International arranged for me to interview former slaves. They also provided an interpreter. The subject of slavery fascinated me all my life. I could tell you the usual story of the sophisticat

Reply to My political compass 2013 in Politics Stardock Forums

Economic Left/Right: 4.25 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.74 Not bad for a reactionary lefty like myself, eh? Another funny question assumed, for some reason, that a television station funded by the state can be "independent". However, questions about social security and taxes are always a problem for me. Do I support lower taxes for the rich? I actually don't. But I am an advocate of land value tax and they are talking about income tax. I am against income tax.

Reply to My political compass 2013 in Politics Stardock Forums

It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society. Wow! So what do I say? Do I agree? I don't think that personal fortunes are made by people who "simply manipulate money and contribute nothing". I happen to understand banking and finance a bit and I know that what many regard as "contributing nothing" actually allowed for all of the major improvements society under

Reply to My political compass 2013 in Politics Stardock Forums

So, basically, I will assume that by "humanity" they mean "those people we like" and answer as if I didn't like them to make up for the bias.

Reply to My political compass 2013 in Politics Stardock Forums

I find some questions rather impossible to answer. For example: If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. The question assumes that "serving humanity" is the opposite of "the interests of trans-national corporations". I happen to believe that joint stock corporations represent (at the very least a subset of) humanity and that thus what serves them, i.

Reply to Microsoft Sells More Than 200 Million Windows 8 Licenses in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

SkyDrive (or OneDrive as they call it now) was useful when it was available to local users. Now you need to log on to your computer using a "Microsoft account" to use it. That's out of the question for me. It breaks PowerShell remoting and other features that rely on same username/same password combinations on all my computers.

Reply to I'M BACK!!!!! in Misc JoeUser Forums

Here!

Reply to A General Solution to Poverty in Economics JoeUser Forums

[quote who="Turchany" reply="117" id="3424466"] Quoting Leauki, reply 116Who really does profit from misery? Do corporations enjoy the prospect of poor customers? Who needs people people? Capitalists don't. Capitalists want to make money. They need rich people. You don't seem to understand how global economy works. Without poor countries globalisation would end, so it is the interest of developed capitalist countries to keep as many countries

Reply to A General Solution to Poverty in Economics JoeUser Forums

[quote] The problem: People are starving while the disparity between rich and poor is growing. Meanwhile, class, ethnic, religious, etc. divisions are created, nurtured and exacerbated for the profit and power of people who are fundamentally sociopaths, and profit from misery. [/quote] People are starving. That is a problem. The disparity between rich and poor is growing. Why is that a problem? Class divisions are nurtured by people who talk about class

Reply to Surface RT revisited Summer 2013 in Personal Computing Stardock Forums

I tried to buy a Surface RT but Microsoft have devised a very strange marketing strategy. In late 2012 they had a strict policy against selling an expensive tablet in a country filled with rich yuppies that buy absolutely anything that has a USB connector (Switzerland) so I couldn't buy one. Then, when Microsoft finally agreed to sell the Surface RT in the market most suited for yuppie toys (Switzerland), they devised the brilliant strategy of insisting that the multilingual Eur

Reply to South Sudan Levels 2 & 3 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Level 3 is the short description of the local town north of Aweil. Interviews with former slaves will follow.

Reply to South Sudan Levels 2 & 3 in Current Events Stardock Forums

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South Sudan Levels 2 & 3 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

I published the next article on South Sudan and two picture galleries. http://desertpenguin.org/south-sudan/south-sudan-level-2-aweil.html

Reply to South Sudan Level 1 in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote who="Dr Guy" reply="6" id="3322578"] From the sound of it, you were trying to conquer several fears at once![/quote] Yeah, one at a time would have taken too long. :-)

Reply to South Sudan Level 1 in Current Events Stardock Forums

I am not very tough. Cockroaches freak me out. Heat doesn't agree with me either. And I am afraid of the dark. Finally, I am a city boy and fear the countryside. Ideal holidays for me those were.