brainless

without knowing which holes have been used to crack that guy's website: Some people are too lazy to fix an ages old security hole because it's so old that everybody should have patched it - because what's the use of trying an ages-old exploit which most people have fixed...? (of course, this thought does not apply to pieces of software which can be "asked" for their version, thereby giving away possible open holes...)

Im glad that sigs cant be hacked lol ..

actually, sigs can be hacked (you'd need either access to the forum's database with your own or admin privileges [or those of any other group allowed to change other people's sigs]). Your sig is as vulnerable as all of this forum
Another way to gain access to your sig would be hacking the database/replacing any pics on the server they're hosted on...

There's one very important thing to remember everytime you complain about Linux' user-friendliness - Among most of the people using Linux, there is no such goal as to get Linux installed on all desktop PCs (as, for example, Microsoft has for Windows) but a rather simple goal: Make Linux as easy to use as possible.Yes, easy - Let's say you wrote a text but when you're finished, you realize that you have to move one line to a place five lines down in the text. What do you do in Windows? [many people I know delete this line and type it again but that's plain stupid so let's forgetabout this way] You mark the line, hit the "copy"-button [well ... I rarely meet people who know about ctrl-c], move the cursor down to where you need it, hit the "paste"-button [the same goes for ctrl-v] - done.In vi [a text editor on many Linux systems], you can do this with one command [right, since I don't have a linux installed anmore, I don't remember it :/]......so Linux is actually easier to use than Windows - but way harder to learn.another mistake many people (including me) make is to try as many distros as possible, hoping that there's one among them which they can use right from the box. As there is about no such thing, it's better to pick one, maybe two [ask some Linux geek about which one to use] and stick with it. This way, you'll learn at least this/these two distros, that's easier than trying to find some config file and trying to find it where it was in the last distro you tried and take a long time before you realize that you're trying to do it the Mandriva way on a gentoo machine...

typomage: because it can be something beautiful and acutally I don't _know_ that it will be going on (because it's kind of not possible to tell about the future with 100% accuracy) but I just suppose that I'm not going to break up......and during my thinking last night, I came to the same conclusion as you, shadow - I'm actually living what I preach <_<anyways, I'm not sure anymore what I was thinking about when I typed "I can't deal with this alone" but last night it felt kind of right to type this o_OI suppose I just had to let out that it hurts me to be separated from since three and a half day but I kind of cheered up when I received an eMail from her this reading she got home safe and would like me to visit her ASAP ("and if you can't find a way to come to Poland, I'll have to come to Germany again..." )

I remember the Metacrawler, too ... but except for some specialized search services, I ended up using Google, just like many, many other people :/I remember that there's some kind of project trying to rebuild the Google indexing/search engine but without any censorship, back when I had a first look at it, it was in early beta stage and I was busy with graduating from school and now I can't find it anymore

ok, this is the situation: About 3 months ago, my former gilfriend broke up with me (for reasons none of the people I spoke to understood - even though these people are usually honest to me and don't hesitate when they have to tell me I'm wrong...). After this relationship I had kind of finished with the sexual contact- and "girlfriend"-stuff (yes, it is possible for a man to have too much of it) and was actually happy living my life without a girlfriend around me; I even made two girls who dared to take the first steps towards me kind of sad that I was not interested in having a girlfriend (well ... I hope I made it clear enough that it was a personal decision of mine, not something about them) - and then I drove into "holidays" to lead a workcamp near Cologne [that's a city in Germany. Don't worry if you never heard about it...].When the late-evening-talks [somewhen in the first days] in this workcamp turned towards relationships and who had left a girlfriend behind, just about everyone learned that I did not have a girlfriend and actually had no intentions to get a new one.Someone in the middle of the last week, I've spent some time in the evening talking and playing cards with a guy and a girl from Poland and shortly after he left to go to sleep, she had some kind of problems with her blood circulation and asked me to hold her hand ... and at some point, we both fell asleep.The next morning everyone wondered why I hadn't been in my bed last night, the following evening she asked me to hold her hands again - and stupid me did it......well, we ended up being a couple and I actually miss her since she drove back to home......and after all this, there is an even more troubling question: Why did I (some people might be able to guess what I mean) end up with a (practicing) catholic student of Germanistics from Poland??? apart from the nationality, all the attributes I just mentioned are something I absolutely dislike ... I could live with student of Germanistics, but a Catholic? a Catholic?!? but I think it's a good sign that I actually cried when she got on her bus back home, I haven't done that for anyone before...(yes, I have lost my calmness and am in a troubled state of mind since about three days and I fear that I can't deal with this alone...)

well, it would be nice if the israeli army withdrew from the Lebanon and destroy its weapons but that probably won't happen

Since Monday morning, 7 o'clock, a UN resolution demands ceasefire - but I fear it won't last long...

A little later, according to the israeli newspaper Haaretz [1], israeli soldiers killed one person opening fire on them (I am aware of the fact that, if the Haaretz' way of telling the story is true, this was an act of self-defence for the israeli soldiers).

At about 10 o'clock, according to the irish BreakingNews [2], israeli forces opened fire on a group of armed persons "approaching in a threatening way", hitting one; the israeli army claims self-defence...

According to an news.com.au [3] article, israeli officials claimed that attacking possible Hezb Allah-reinforcements or -positions would be defensive military actions (the UN resolution only called to stop all offensive military operations). How attacks on convois delivering supplies for Hezb Allah-fighters look like has been shown by the israeli air force earlier: Last week, leaflets have been dropped above a village near the Lebanese-Syrian border warning people not to step on the streets since everything moving would be considered Hezb Allah-activity.
Later that day, a convoi of people fleeing to Syria (about 3,000 persons), escorted by Lebanese and UN troops passed this village and on its way to the syrian border, it was attacked by an israeli drone which killed one and injured seven before it was shot down by the troops escorting the convoi...

The same article also says that Hezb Allah spokespersons said that any israeli soldier on lebanese territory would be engaged. Following the israeli thinking, this would only be defensive action...

[1] http://www.haaretz.com/news/peretz-israel-unifil-officials-coordinating-land-handover-1.195119

[2] http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/08/14/story272087.html

[3] http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

adriantc: please, watch your language. Blaming "the Jews" has been quite popular for hundreds of years ("they" killed Jesus; "they" poisoned the well; "they" spoiled the harvest; "they" endagered Germany...) and, in some cases, people go as far as claiming that there is a jewish race. Even though jews make up about 80% of Israel's population, all Israelis I have met so far [i admit I can count them all using only my fingers] were jews but spoke out against any military action other than self-defence, and bombing a village a few hours after some rockets have been fired into Israel did not count as self-defence but as "cruel" and "criminal".

Yes, Israelis who dare to participate in a meeting of adolescentes from Palestine, Israel and Germany are probably open-minded without having to meet Palestinians, but: This makes it seven exceptions from "the Jews". Look up the name "Uri Avnery" and find some more exceptions from "the Jews"...

 

adriantc wrote:

 

The Bush administraton was right ... a new world order is necessary, a new world order that would bring peace and stability to the world. I really can't see where is the place of USA in this new world order.

 

 

I can't see where there is a place for _any_ kind of nationalism in a world order which is supposed to bring peace and stability. Western/Central Europe are beginning to form some kind of a nation which will, once it is united, be about as strong as the USofA. The european draft constitution of two years ago had a clause reading "All member states obligate themselves to increase their military abilities on a regular basis" and gave the control over a european army to be created to the heads of the member states. The European Parliament would have to be informed about decisions of these people - and most heads of states around here are not even elected by the people themselves but by persons elected by the people (and at least in Germany, the head of state usually does not even represent a majority of the people but only about 40% of us...

*cough* *cough* *cough* Israel keeping peace???

Dragonfly: actually, there is noone to point a finger at left but an entire region with Israel in the center. About 60 years ago, you might have been able to point a finger; nowadays children are being raised to hate the other side.

What happens down there is no war - War has strict regulations (look at conventions like the Geneva Convention and, sorry, I don't know the english name for this, the Hager Landkriegskonvention [a convention on how a war has to be fought so it can be called a fair war; however ridiculous calling war "fair" sounds]). which are supposed to protect civilians, medical personnel, wounded soldiers and soldiers in general on both sides. For example, if you're fighting a war, you may not attack places where you might injure or kill civilians and you may not block medical convois etc; this would be considered a war crime.

Before I go on, I'd like to stress that there is noone left to point fingers at but everyone [yeah, except for some minorities which call for a peaceful solution - but they are minorities on every side involved].

Without any speculations on who might think to gain something from this violence, this is what happened:

1) About two weeks ago, a group of Hizb Allah (aka Hisbollah) fighters attacked an Israeli patrol near the Israel-Lebanese border, killing 3 soldiers and capturing 2. In attempt to rescue these soldiers, an israeli tank followed the Hizb Allah fighters but drove over a land mine which caused the death of this tank's crew (4 soldiers).

2) Hizb Allah offered an exchange of captives; the two israeli soldiers against Hizb Allah fighters in israeli prisons.

3) Israel refused to trade and its army crossed the Israel-Lebanese border; apart from killing dozens of civilians, the israeli army bombed bridges and the largest power plant in the lebanese South in the first move.

cf. IslamOnline.net [1]

In the following days, the israeli air force bombed the [by that time already closed] international airport of Beirut and interrupted the Beirut-Damascus highway and bombed other targets around Beirut; killing three and injuring 40 people;
air strikes in south Lebanon killed another five civilians and injured an unknown number; raising the number of Lebanese casualties to 66.

In the meantime, Hizb Allah attacks on northern Israel killed four Israelis and injured "more than 150".

al-Jazeera [2]

In the meantime, the fighting has gone on. Hizb Allah badly damaged an israeli war ship using a drone packed with 40kg [90lb] of explosives and Israel destroyed more lebanese infrastructure and both sides killed some more civilians...

...all this looks kind of like the theory of "Bomber Harris" in WWII who thought the german people could be brought down if the allied air force only dropped enough bombs on german civilians. We all know that it took another year of fighting on the ground until Germany accepted defeat (well, at least in most parts. There are still some people around who dream of Großdeutschland :/).

Some people in the israeli military seem to think that the Palestine resistance will crumble if they only drop enough bombs on them. Among the Palestinian side, however, voices are being raised which support Hizb Allah's claim that the two soldiers will only be released if Israel releases prisoners as well. [Remember: These people are political prisoners. Many palestine people in israeli prisons did nothing worse than raising their voices in favor of a state Palestine and the israeli soldiers did nothing except being Israeli people. Now go and find those who are morally right...]

Think again - some people on the Palestinian side of the border think Israel will give in if they only fire enough rockets on israeli cities ... Does the israeli government show any signs of retreating to the "green line"-borders of 1967 which is, among the palestinian leadership the Israel which will be accepted by them?


[1] http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[2] http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

anyways, I guess there is more to come "down there". The syrians are talking about joining on the lebanese side; therefore Iran will follow - and the USofA want to attack Iran since quite some time...

(oh, by the way, something to think about: I would be able to pack a drone with explosives if anyone told me how to apoply the latter one and the drones used by Hizb Allah are equipped with a video camera which allows the pilot to see where he is flying it. Even though they received eight drones (one was used to nearly sink the israeli ship; seven still exist) from Iran a couple of years ago, they probably did not need iranian help to use them now...)

----- NOTE -----

I am willing to discuss this matter up to today. I will be cut off from the internet for the three weeks to come and I will probably not be able to read anything but mainstream news. I suppose I'll be ready for discussing the events of the coming month in about a month...

Question: Is it cheating when someone does not hide or try to hide that he's going out with someone else? After all my experience, the usual "boyfriend-girlfriend-stuff" does not work for me and I have stopped looking for "the one" and the people I go out with know this. I don't have one partner whom I support but, as far as I can spontaneously tell, about four (don't worry, they know about each other, some of them even know each other and they support me as well...)

I doubt that all of the call center-agents choose this job on their own, free will; at least not in Germany where the social system was reformed to cut into the freedom of people requiring the state to help. It's still possible to get welfare cheques (checks?) but what people on welfare get is too little to live but too much to die and they are offered work from a federal agency. If they refuse to accept an "acceptable job", there welfare payments can be cut. If they refuse thrice, they can be kicked out of the welfare system completely, i.e. they don't get any money from the state anymore (thanks to Red Help and other associations supporting people regardless of what jobs they accept and which not...).I understand and accept that the definition of "useless" work can not be done in a matter which makes everyone agree and yes, if anyone else in here had made an attempt of describing useless work, I would have disagreed...In my opinion, the economic system should change into one where people don't need to work to be able to live but to work because they want to (well, if noone wants to clean the streets, noone should be able to complain about dirty streets. If everyone wants clean streets, they can share the work. If anyone wants to call someone to offer them someone else's work ... they can do so [if _they_ want to, not if their boss wants them to. And there should be a file of people who don't want to be called which can be checked _before_ the call is done, there are reports of cases in which the number which was called is compared to a "don't call me"-list after the person has been called...]

looking at the way society works in many places of the world, you're right, Opaque.I'd rather stick with truefusion, "a life can be called successful even though the person leading it did not end up having a huge bunch of money".Healthy food can really be achieved quite cheap but this does not make it fair; though it probably doesn't bother anyone's conscience whether the food he buys has been produced in a fair or unfair style if he or she never heard about the circumstances in which the stuff we buy is being produced [in the long run, McGarbage does not offer cheap food. Example cheese burger (1 Euro a piece at Mc): Bread; Meat; a slice of cheese; some ketchup --I know, this is not complete but that's the expensive part of this burger when you leave the personnel cost out--. You can get fresh bread similar to that of the McMurder-Burgers in your local bakery, approximately 20 cents; The meat will be about four bucks per kilogram - something around 80g of it runs into one burger, that makes the meat-part of it worth about 33 cents; I don't know about the prices of cheese but one slice can't cost more than a few cents, let's make it 5 so we have a round number when we add the cost of drop of ketchup worth 2 cents. If my math is right, this makes a home-made cheeseburger cost 60 cents plus energy plus what you consider your price. Actually, the Mc-Burger should be way cheaper since they buy lots more than the average person... but after all, the Mc-Junk is not even healthy so this piece of calculation is destined to enter the trash can...]. As I don't want to destroy Opaque's scheme of 3 elements which make up the quality of life, I'd suggest to make "conscience" a sub-thingy of "family" - how can you be happy with your life if you don't have a good conscience? I surely don't live up to the moral standards I'd like to see around me but I am not employed in a fair way as well (a. forced labor; b. my "wage" is 8 bucks per day...)Back to topic: well, if everyone was an investor, who'd do the work? Trying to become an investor, you lose time which you a) can't buy back with the money you get later and can't use on Health/Family. On the other hand, erasing Investors from "the system" -- this can't be done by reforming society. It would take a revolution both in the mind of each individual and the structure of society; Discipline among those who have been raised in the "old" society would also be required. Actually, I can think of other ways which could achieve this goal but they're somewhat far-fetched and not ready for presentation to the public yet --. I'd say under current circumstances, a life is successful when the person leading it is happy, really happy and not a "I hide my trouble behind a smile"-happy...

I've got most of that, Jimmy, though my boots are somewhat better than the standard german army boots (steel caps instead of hardened leather; Goretex-fabric in some less stressed parts of the boots -> your feet get less sweaty after walking a while in the boots) ... I'm not that much of a climber since I've been born and raised on flat land <_<Most of my camo stuff is simple night camo, i.e. black, since I often stroll around at night and don't want to be seen immediately by everybody [and that's _not_ because I'm doing illegal stuff but because I prefer to be alone, usually] ... but I've added some patches to my backpacks and bags (large backpack: a red star with a broken gun on one side and a Pumuckl-patch on the other, a german flag with the slogan "Deutsche Waffen/Deutsches Geld/Morden mit in aller Welt" ["German Weapons/German Money/Kill in all the World"] and some buttons ("Mehr Bildung fuer Faschisten" [More education for fascists]; "Fire your boss"; some more which I can't tell without having it with me); black bag: "Kein mensch ist illegal" [Noone's illegal]; dark blue bag: "Asylum: Do we care or do we calculate?"; other black bag: "Racism sucks" ... and a plain olive bag for occasions in which my patches might get me into trouble )......and I got some curious looks when I walked through the train station today with my bags packed for 5 weeks [about one week at home; three weeks in a workcamp; one week of work before I get the next chance to wash my clothes -> I need to carry a lot of them with me], most of them attached to the backpack and the boots hanging from them... stupid me forgot that the boots are more comfortable than the sneakers :/what inspired me to get one was that a) it was dark-coloured (olive-black; perfect for my needs ) and it's versatility in use - headwrap; scarf; headwrap+scarf; headwrap+scarf+face cover; triangular bandage in a nice size and I can undo this shemagh faster than if I had to remove a cap, scarf and a piece of cloth covering my face - well, these points did not really inspire me to get one, I just stumbled upon it while I was shopping for shoe polish stuff --I'm going to test whether the boots last longer when they get some attention once in a while... my last pair of boots fell apart after three years or something without any care except for me removing some dirt off them every once in a while-- and I had to get my order above 25 bucks to save some postage

About a week ago, I dared to order a Shemagh [aka Palestinian/Arab Scarf; http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/], even though I have bad experiences with ordering scarf-like items via the web, the last thing of this type I got was a black piece of cloth which was supposed to be used as scarf/headwrap (and has a size of 50 by 50 centimeters, that's barely enough to fit around my neck once...). This shemagh, however, is about 110 by 110 cm or, in other words, more than four times the size of that other piece of cloth. When I simply stuff it into my bag, it is not larger than two of my fists and packed neatly (but without pressure) it is about as small as 5 or 6 CDs in slim cases...

It took me some time (and a little help of Google) to figure out how to wear this thing as headgear - but it feels like this is definitely worth it. Even though it has the size of some of my caps, it covers not only the hair but also the face [if I wanted to, I could even cover my eyes without having to un-cover my front neck]. It is comfortable to wear in the sun and blocks most of the wind

All in all it was worth its 10 bucks and definitely has more usabilty than a cap of this price class...

I just thought about this:Using modern technology, lots of work can be done by less people than fifty years ago, e.g. a state-of-the-art car assembly line which once was run by thousands of workers can now be operated by ten people. The other thousands of people can consider themselves lucky since they've got lots of time to spare now.But: In the current economic system, those who don't need to (or: can't) work anymore, e.g. due to having been replaced by a machine, don't have any money to spare.The less money there is to spare, the less people buy (duh? Did I have to write that?).The less people buy, the worse it is for business.Therefore, paid jobs need to be created. As most useful jobs can be automated, useless jobs have to be created."outward bound" call center-jobs are one of these: I did not meet anyone who likes to be called by these guys and gals yet. I did not meet an outward-bound call center-agent who liked to do his job either. well ... this seems to be one out of many problems of current economics - Instead of giving people what they need (need, not think they need), people are forced to do senseless stuff for low wages...

ok, I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry at this story:

After "top terrorist" and "al-Q'aeda in Iraq"-"leader" (yes, I put all of the quotation marks in there on purpose because I guess it'd look stupid putting these in quote-tags) al-Zarqawi has been killed by the US military (or so they claim), a video message has been published in which a guy named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir AKA Sharif Hazaa AKA Abu Ayub al-Masri has been named Zarqawi's successor.
On the Iraqi Government's list of 41 most-wanted persons [1], he is number 30.

According to this [2] al-Jazeera article based on an egyptian newspaper's article, Mamduh Ismail, a lawyer who is known for defending islamist groups, said he had met Sharif Hazaa in a prison in Cairo where he has already been held for seven years. The US military does not want to comment on this yet...

...this leaves some room for speculations on the "al-Q'aeda in Iraq"'s background: It his somewhat unlikely that a terrorist organisation names someone whom they could not contact or not contact to talk about terrorist stuff for obvious reasons for seven years their leader. But what if the "terrorist"'s knowledge is on the same level as that of US intelligence?

[1] http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[2] http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

well, actually we did not make too much of a progress since our ancestors - we still live in caves, the problem is just that these caves are not natural...anyways, I've changed a lot, a real lot, during the last couple of years and now I'm regretting that I don't have much to remind myself of who I was once. I don't want to go back, I'm happy with most of the changes I've made and I'd love to change more but well ... I don't have much to show me who I was except for my memories and those of friends :)yes, there have been times in history when the price was not worth the progress.My favorite point in this is weapons development. We do have loads of cruel and even more cruel weapons around. What do the military people all over the world do? Invest in researching even more deadly weapons...

at least you made a scene out of your graduation which people will remember I'm sorry to hear this ... if it wasn't something more serious, I'd guess you didn't eat/didn't eat much that morning and your blood sugar was very low (though most people can stand going without breakfast for a couple of hours - excitement coupled with skipping the last two meals would probably make many people pass out) or for some other reason your blood circulation was disturbed (something similar to your description happened to me in my last term in school ... in mid-winter, I've been to school in rather light clothing and on the bus home, I was suddenly sweating all over the place and had troubles staying on my feet; half an hour and half a bottle of water later I was alright again...)togi: that's why it's called "Junk Food" [edit]oh, by the way, the paramedics were probably going to measure your blood sugar level (i.e. the concentration of sugar in your blood. A digital device to measure this should display something between 100 and 120 ([mg per liter?] slight deviations above and below are ok); an "analog" thing should display something around the middle of its scale. Even though it hurts a bit when the needle's tip is shot into your finger, it doesn't really bleed (most people lose 1-4 drops of blood; 1 is enough for a quite accurate result)......but if they were going to stick something into your wrist, they probably had other plans, something like an infusion (quite a radical solution if it was about the blood sugar. Water with lots of sugar in it [Coca-Cola products - Coke, Sprite, Fanta: about 36 standard cubes of sugar per litre -- but forget about the "light" stuff to increase someone's sugar level] or other sugared stuff injected orally [i.e. drunk/eaten ] could have done the job as well, usually...

hmm ... I remember that the DPR Korea possesses missiles capable of reaching the US west coast since about two years (back then, this claim was backed by CIA- and DPRK-propaganda), a few months later, Pyongyang claimed to possess nuclear weapons. I've read quite a lot about this back in the days when people were discussing why the Coalition of the Blind invaded Iraq --which did not even have a functional program to develop _any_ WMD back then-- and not the DPR Korea which obviously was near finishing its first nuclear warhead; the nuke claims combined with the rumours about long-range missiles, both backed by CIA reports (as opposed to the Iraq-WMD-issue which was _not_ backed by the CIA) are a real threat to the USofA.The only new thing I see about this story is the missile's name, two years ago people were talking about a modified what-was-the-name-again?-it-definitely-was-no-Tapeodong-thingy; even though I'm not in favor of any military developments (especially not in equipment designed to attack rather than defend), I've got to admit that I believe it's only fair if everyone gets high-tech-war tools instead of only some solitary nations.Anyways, the US Missile Defense System should be more than enough to protect the USofA from missiles launched from as far aways as Asia. According to DARPA Press Releases, it's working and only needs to be installed (well, the test results of the last test were not that good; the missile which was supposed to intercept the "attacking" missile did not even leave the launchpad)...[edit]sorry, I should have backed my claims by looking up the articles from two years ago and this sarcasm/cynism is no adequate way of talking about this situation since it might be a real threat to millions of people (both in- and outside the USofA). But before I do this, I'll leave the comp and head for my bed since I tend to use rather aggressive language when I'm tired and feel unable to participate in long discussions...I'd like to apologize to you for commenting in a destructive manner and thank you for reminding us of this threat (if it wasn't such a sad topic, I'd put a behind this)

Madkat-Z wrote:

I've watched that show as well and I kind of believe that the penities should be worse, because to me an animals, insects, and plants, have just as much a right to life as humans do.

As I'm living in another country, I've obviously not seen the show.

I agree with the second part of your sentence completely, though I think animals and plants have more of a right to exist than humans do (no other species destroys life in such a systematic fashion as we do. As I write this one sentence, a couple of soccer fields of rain forest have been burned down to feed the animals we raise to feed us. well, not exactly "us" humans but some cows which will be slain to feed those who can afford the meat. By the way, it takes about 9 pounds of grass/soy/green stuff to get one pound of meat out of a cow. Let's ignore the meat industry for a moment: Guess how much of the world hunger problem could be solved if the green stuff was distributed directly to the people instead of making it go the way through a cow's stomach? Even in a capitalist fashion, this green stuff could be affordable for most people...)

 

anyways, there's a simple rule of behavior if you take care of an animal which is not able to support itself (though most are if you set 'em free): If you're running low on money, save on yourself and not on the animal. It's not the animal's fault that you're bankrupt, is it? We had some 18 cats a couple of years ago because we didn't get to sterilizing two of them soon enough. Before we were able to give most of them away (to, hopefully, caring hands ), my siblings and me noticed that there weren't as many sweets in the sweets box as usual. Guess where the money was spent instead... (there are five or six cats around our house nowadays, depending on whether the youngest cat makes her kitten stay or not and it's only a matter of months how long the oldest will stay with us, she's about 15 now...)

Encryption can be as basic as replacing every 'a' in the plain text by a 'b', every 'b' by 'c' or, easier for computer users, by hitting the key right or left to the original key (I'll give an example for a german notebook keyboard):

(plain) Xisto IS GREAT
(a-> USBQ28 JT HSFBU
(right) ZTSÜ28 OD HTRSZ
--the fourth letter in the last example is a german Umlaut, a special character. It might not be displayed correctly in other regions--

Well, that's encryption for you. It is, however, not secure since the pattern will repeat and thereby it will become easy to crack. Some smart people invented a secure (well, as secure as encryption can be. If you lose the secret key, it's not secure anymore but hey, that's the human factor) encryption method working with a pair of keys, one of them public and one private. Unlike other encryption methods, public key-encryption works better the wider you can spread your public key.

Whoever wants to send you an encrypted message uses your public key to encrypt it - but this message can not be decrypted using your public key. Your private key on the other hand enables you to decrypt it.
Using this method, a text (or file) can even be "signed" by you - use your private key to encrypt the text or create the text's signature and it can be decrypted/validated using your public key...

...this method is used in the proprietary PGP("Pretty Good Privacy")-Software and the compatible, free Open- and G-PG("GNU Privacy Guard")-Software and some other software to encrypt your communication.

If your private key-file falls into the wrong hands, however, you should be quick to spread your revokation certificate (a file PGP/OPG/GPG can generate using your private key) so people know for sure that your private key is not private anymore (well, it might still be secure but everything that prevents someone from using your private key to decrypt your communication is a simple passphrase like you can set for e.g. a web service)...

by the way, "Xisto IS GREAT" looks like this when encrypting it using GPG and a 4096bit-key (i.e. the one I'm mostly using):

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----Version: GnuPG v1.4.3rc1 (MingW32) - WinPT 0.11.8rc1
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=vib9
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

try guessing that...

I just read in another thread (about how to say "I love you" in other languages than english) that someone in here doesn't say it because it "gets tossed around too often".

 

I think it is not being said (or at least thought) often enough. Why? I'll try to explain:

 

At least among many people I know, saying "I love you" implies "I want sexual contact with you". If someone says "I love you" to gain sexual contact, I agree with those who claim that these three words are being tossed around too much - if you want sex without any commitments, why don't you say so?

 

Oxford Advanced Learner's of Current English

love 1) have strong affection or deep tender feelings for [someone] 2) [...] 3) have kind feelings towards [someone] [...] 4) be very fond of; like; find pleasure in [something] [...]

I agree with those who think that it is not necessary to have a strong affection or deep feelings to everyone but I do think that most places could be more bearable if everyone loved (as in 3) the people around him or her. I often do things I would not do out of personal motivation because I'd like to see someone suffer less or have an easier life. I'm not saying that I'm going totally out of my way to please someone else, it's just that I take some seconds to keep a door open for someone else, offer help if I'm not busy myself and I've always got an ear open for other people's feelings and problems. I consider "Person X had a problem" an acceptable excuse for not having done something less important or for getting less sleep than I'd need to be fully able to work the next day.

I also don't easily hurt or injure other people. They've got their own problems to worry about, why should I add to them?

 

I think all this can be summarized as in: "3) have kind feelings towards" other people.

nice hint, I'll try it next time I get my hand squeezed in anything

anyways, do not lightly believe that nothing serious happened ... when I was at university a couple of months ago, a person I occasionally sat together with joined the group with a bandaged hand. What happened? I'll quote her...:

I've been stupid ... I'll tell ya what happened: Marion tried to drive her car. Marion opens the door. Marion climbs into it. Marion reaches out to grab the door like she always does. Marion pulls. Marion forgets to remove her hand from between the door and the rest of the car. Marion ouch. Marion opens the door. Marion closes the door properly. Marion more ouch. Marion calls herself an ambulance. Marion's doc says Marion broke her hand...

thanks for the hug gaea, that was exactly what I needed when we had reached the train station Clara didn't have that much time for me since she noticed that her train was about to leave...even though you are very right, I let incidents like this spoil a day ... this world could be a so much nicer place if everyone cared for other people but sadly many people only care about themselves or, at best, themselves and their friends...

Today was one of the few days in the last month I was really able to enjoy but close to the end of it, some punk named "Rabbit" spoiled it all

 

I've spent the weekend at the local Youth Media Camp and met some great people, today was the camp's last day and I left early to reach a "Stop Deportation"-demonstration in time for reports from a local refugee camp (the situation in there seems to be very, very bad; stuff like that would be called "unacceptable" in a prison - spoiled food, families completely separated for several weeks, doctors who refuse to treat severe but treatable sicknesses, ...) which was color- and powerfull since refugee camps are something not everyone in Germany dislikes (whereas there are thousands on the streets to protest against Nazi marches, most just stand around somewhere to say they've been on the streets) and after this, a (girl-)friend, let's call her Clara --she doesn't like to be mentioned with her real name-- of mine planned to stay over at my new flat to have a look at it...

 

...but when we moved into the City Park to raise some funds to support a camp blocking Germany's second-largest refugee camp (including toys and games for the children, nice food for everyone, some docs offering free treatment to the refugees, ...) and it was all nice and fine, eventually we met a friend of Clara's who offered her a free ride home (instead of a 20 bucks bus ticket). While we were sitting in the grass, some punk named "Rabbit" thought it would be cool to put a knot in my beard. He didn't understand the meaning of "no", "No", "NO!", "stop that" and "<bleep>* man, you hurt me" and even when I twisted his fingers he did not stop. After what seemed like half an endless time to me (Clara told me that it all happened too fast for her to realize what happened), one of his buddies jumped in to rescue me, kicked his steel-capped boots into Rabbit's leg and yelled that he was sorry for Rabbit's behavior and we should try to get away. Imagine how it feels to be pulled up from the ground by a strain of hairs about one inch (2.5cm) in diameter...

 

* sorry, I couldn't help swearing at that time, I bleeped it out myself

 

I detest the use of force against people in any way and I fear that I'll hate me for twisting this guy's fingers but if I hadn't done it, he would probably have ripped my beard off my chin and ... well ... I just had to get this written down somewhere since Clara took the chance for a free ride home anyway and there's noone I can turn to around here and even if I could reach anyone I know around here they aren't the kind of person I'd feel comfortable to bury my head on but there's always some good advice here

itsmyard [0]Avalon [0]
kylelnsn [1]
Saint_Michael [0]
Agentb [1]

(did I get the voting format right? yes, I am too lazy to look it up in other SOTW contests and yes, it's my first vote in here)

I award my vote to kyle even though I'm not that much into manga gfx - but this person's eyes are somewhat amazing ... though I'd like to see it without the stars in the lower right corner, just about everything else in the picture is rounded and they somehow disturb me...

My current situation probably affects my vote as well but this is not the place to discuss it (EOD right after this sentence)