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User Journal

Journal Journal: A statement from Edward Snowden

http://wikileaks.org/Statement-from-Edward-Snowden-in.html?snow

Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC

One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.

This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised â" and it should be.

I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.

Edward Joseph Snowden Monday 1st July 2013

User Journal

Journal Journal: Idealist Geeks ?

Just heard the term "Idealist Geeks" over the BBC worldservice

The guy was talking about folks like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden - digital age kids (geeks really) who are really good at the technology that spy agencies (like NSA) just can't do without

Of all the people in the world, why we Geeks have to take all the responsibilities all by ourselves ?

User Journal

Journal Journal: Is Slashdot afraid of the truth ??

The Boston bombers are MUSLIMS

Those who slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York were MUSLIMS

Same with the people who bombed the Madrid train station --- MUSLIMS, --- the those who bombed the London subway --- MUSLIMS

It's the MUSLIMS who have created all these havoc onto us, but yet, if anyone dare to tell the TRUTH in Slashdot, they will be modded down ...

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3663921&cid=43488935

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3663921&cid=43489101

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3663921&cid=43490981

Why is Slashdot so afraid of the truth ?

The truth is very simple --- ISLAM IS VIOLENT

Time and time again THEY have attacked our society, from the World Trade Center to London tube to Madrid train station to Boston Marathon

I am an American, and I am VERY SICK AND TIRED of the ISLAMIC VIOLENCE

If them MUSLIMS want to live in America, they better live peacefully.

If they can't, or do not want to live peacefully with the others in America, they should move out !

We can no longer tolerate people who want to bring their RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE into our society --- if they want to kill, they can go killing their own kind in Iran, or Iraq or Saudi Arabia, or Yemen or Egypt or Turkey

Stop making troubles in America !!!

User Journal

Journal Journal: Persistent problems for open-sourced program 1

The idea of open-sourcing is great - that everyone gets to see the source code of the program, or even start experimenting with it, implementing ideas / features that were not yet in there.

But there are problems too ...

Case in point ---

http://old.nabble.com/Pivot-Table,-a-revisit-td31307325.html

http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/faq.shtml

I was like typing "pivot table" on a search engine and click away ... and before I know it I ended up on the two above links

The program is Gnumerics - an GNU implementation of spreadsheet

The wanted feature is "pivot table"

The problem is two fold --

1. No one cares enough to code

2. No one wants to include that feature in the official release of Gnumeric

And judging from the date stated, that "pivot table" had already been requested for the past few years.

Hmm ....

User Journal

Journal Journal: 100 dams to be built in Africa

There have been a lot of reports on land grabbing by Chinese in Africa, and the latest report is from the famed Oxford University of United Kingdom - a paper just published ( @ http://oucan.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/blog/14059-big-is-beautiful-megadams-african-water-security-and-chinas-role-in-the-new-global-political-economy ) is claiming that the Chinese are planning to build 100 hydroelectric dams in the African continent !

That will surely be a grand scale ecology disaster in the making.
Android

Journal Journal: Coding Android in Assemblies

Link @ http://www.eggwall.com/2011/09/android-arm-assembly-device-set-up-part.html

I just came across it, don't have time to try it out yet.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Very troubling news about what happened to Christopher Stevens before he died !!

There is a report from Middle East claiming that ambassador Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, was raped before he was killed by a bunch of Libyan gunmen.

http://www.tayyar.org/Tayyar/News/PoliticalNews/ar-LB/usa-killed-lybia-zek-970.htm

Additional information disclosed that it was the Libyan security team which revealed the location of Mr. Christopher Stevens to the attackers

From - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57511043/assault-on-u.s-consulate-in-benghazi-leaves-4-dead-including-u.s-ambassador-j-christopher-stevens/

"Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack"

More information at http://www.inquisitr.com/330504/ambassador-stevens-was-raped-before-his-murder-reports-claim/

User Journal

Journal Journal: Very weird display 2

If I log in my own account, I can't find my own comment - as well as the replies to my comment

But if I log out and access slashdot as an AC, I can see my comment

Case in point -- TFA http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/10/0245230/how-spyware-reaches-oppressive-governments

I have a comment - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3105111&cid=41284963

It's just that when I am log in, as Taco Cowboy, comment http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3105111&cid=41284963 and all the replies beneath it are gone

But when I log out, all of them re-appear

Why is that??

User Journal

Journal Journal: What the hell is this, Slashdot ? 5

What are you trying to pull, Slashdot ?

This is the second time in one week I got the pink-color warning : " Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet ... "

Excessive bad posting from this IP ?

Go screw yourself !!

User Journal

Journal Journal: Slashdot threatens to ban me ! 1

Whoa !

I just got a note from Slashdot that, because I have post a lot of bad comments they are threatening to ban me

I do not dispute the fact that some of my comments might be offensive, but then, not all comments from me, which were modded all the way down to "-1 Troll" are bad posts

Like the following example

http://idle.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3007729&cid=40785819

In the above comment, I posted a link to a video which shows an ant, under stressed, committed suicide by exploding itself, and my comment was posted under the thread " exploding termite species discovered ", url:
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/12/07/26/232211/exploding-termite-species-discovered
but it was modded all the way down to troll

And you know why?

For some reason, there's a bunch of kids in Slashdot who really don't like me

Whatever I post, no matter if the comments make sense or not, they will find ways to mod the comments down, and they also threatening replies, under "AC"

Like the following example -

The thread:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/08/22/0311210/earths-corner-of-the-galaxy-just-got-a-little-lonelier

and my comment:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3063883&cid=41078941

My comment was modded to +5 Insightful, before that bunch of kids came in and started to down mod it

I only show you two examples out of the hundreds of my comments which had been treated similarly

I never complain to anyone about this, but, when I received a threatening note from Slashdot that they were going to ban me because of "troll" postings, that became the last straw

Instead of investigating why my comments getting modded down to "troll" - and identifying who are the one who did the modding, you will be surprised that many of those who modded my comments down share the same IPs

It's an open secret that there are those whose life are so miserable that they had to register multiple accounts on slashdot so that they can get multiple mod points (and multiply it by 15, if they manage to gather enough good karma) and then spent more time targetting people that they don't like

It's also an open secret that those people are also responsible for astroturfing certain brand(s) of IT product

In other words, they are paid trolls

Instead of targetting those paid trolls, Slashdot choses to target me

Fine, Slashdot, if that's the way you want, go ahead and ban me, because I ain't take no threat from nobody
User Journal

Journal Journal: What would happen if Apple Inc becomes the sole sponsor of the Olympics?

With Apple suing the world, and the Olympic Games just started in London, I can't help but imagine the scenario of Apple Inc being the sole sponsor of the Olympics

Now that the London Olympic Games already barring people wearing Pepsi t-shirt from entering the Olympic venue, would Apple impose even more draconian measures?

User Journal

Journal Journal: I can't submit anything ! 1

I think the submit thingy of Slashdot is broken

After filling in every necessary item inside the submit pop-up screen, I clicked the "Preview" button, and then ... nothing happen

At first I used google chrome, then I switched to FF, and encountered the same thing. I switched to IE, again the same thing

Can someone please fix this asap ??

User Journal

Journal Journal: Wow ! I got an "Is there a God?" ad

I knew I did the right thing when i decided not to disable ad on slashdot

I just got the "is there a God?" ad !!

And they even entice me with "Six Reasons that God Exists" if I only click on the ad

Should I click on it?

I am tempted to know why they have only six reasons, and not seven, or eight, or nine hundred gazzillion reasons

Bug

Journal Journal: Is Linux getting bloated ? 2

I have dealt with Linux since the beginning

Even before Linux, I've gotten my finger wetted with many flavors of Unixes

Lately, however, I got the feeling that Linux itself might be getting bloated

Case in point --- http://lwn.net/Articles/498135/

In the lwn article, it talks about Linux distros that are getting ready to ditch the Compact Discs (CDs) because their distribution has grown much larger than the 680MB real estate of a typical CD

We used to complain that Microsoft Windows are bloatware

We used to congratulate ourselves on the simplicity, the usefulness and the compactness of the Unix/Linux daemons, that we can do so much with so little

Sadly, those times seem to be over

I'm afraid Linux has enter the bloatware arena

Advertising

Journal Journal: I've decided to not disable ad on Slashdot 4

When I first signed up to Slashdot, it was so brand new, there were no ad anywhere

I do appreciate Slashdot's generous offer to allow me to disable ad when I'm visiting, but I think I'll continue to allow ad, and, from time to time, I can even click on some of the interesting ones

Not that I'm crazy for online ad, no, I'm not that crazy yet

It just that, throughout these years, my many visits to Slashdot has exposed me a lot of interesting ideas and insights.

Not disabling ad on Slashdot reflects my own appreciation of Slashdot, and what Slashdot stands for

Thanks, Slashdot !

May you have a great number of fruitful years ahead ! :)

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