Older blog entries for cmm (starting at number 13)

I see there is a way to get Advogato headlines over RSS.

what I don't see is a way to get individual diaries over RSS.

I think it's a shame.   there are several people here whose diaries I'm very interested in.   the "features", on the other hand, are for the most part completely uninteresting.

since I'm not at all about to volonteer to implement the missing functionality, please see this entry for what it is: pure whining.   thank you.

(I won't say anything about the relative merits of RSS and, say, NNTP.   no-no.   RSS would be perfectly fine.   this is the brave new world.)

chalst writes: I should qualify this I guess: I wouldn't like to see recentlog degenerate into a soapbox, but I find the free software community here on advogato to be a generally well-informed, diverse, and rational community; precisely these properties make me interested in hearing political views here. I'd be interested to hear more points of view from Israeli's in particular: what was behind Sharon's huge electoral gains?; what do Israeli's think of the new coalition?; how hopeful are Israeli's about the prospects for a workable peace settlement with the Palestinians in the next few months and years?

heh.   let's see...

first of all, I don't find the free software community (and the segment thereof present here) particularly well-informed or rational.   sure, better informed than the general population, but is that really saying much?   rational? I dunno; I don't find the love for free software to be a very rational thing.   there are plenty of exellent emotional reasons for people to want to belong to this community, but that doesn't have anything to do with rationality.

now here goes an Israeli point of view (you asked for it):

Sharon's huge electoral victory indicates that he understands the Israeli public better than his rivals.   it also indicates that Israelis are coming to realize that "the situation" won't end any time soon.   I'd also like to thank Belgium for their help.   I mean, Sharon's international image is a huge fucking caricature as it is, but the Belgians have just reached the peak of the grotesque.

the new coalition is not finalized yet.   the way it looks now, it seems to be a surprizingly accurate representation of the current public moods and preferences.

I can't speak for all Israelis, but I'm not very hopeful about the conflict ending quickly.   "palestinians" and their puppet masters need to realize that Israel is not going away any time soon; this realization is bound to take a long time to sink in, as the Oslo accords have set their hopes too high.

(it looks like when I write here at all, I write about politics.   that's because I'm not involved in any free software any more.   is there a way to kill an Advogato account?)

yakk: good link, thank you. I quite agree with Lerner. in fact, I think most Israelis (at least the thinking part of the population, and that's not a small part) would readily agree with what he writes.

but your referencing Lerner's article does not in any way justify the dishonest bullshit you wrote here earlier.

let me address your points one by one:

• murder of civillians: where in the article you link to is it said that the 3 murdered people were civillians? free hint: don't call people who shoot at soldiers civillians, because they are not. seek better info before you speak.
• inflammatory rhetoric: no, just propaganda. and believe you me, incredibly benign propaganda compared to what Arafat says to his people.
• religious and political persecution: what? a cleric is heard saying inciting things. a cleric meets with a head of a known terrorist organisation. so the cleric is detained, questioned for 3 hours and freed. this is not political persecution, and not religious one either, sorry. it's not persecution at all -- Israel is at war, you know.

it's the little spins and exaggerations that are most damaging, more than blatant lies.

think before you speak.

re: Debian: dan: the only way to change the package version that I know of is to add an entry to the top of the changelog file in the ./debian dir. it's magically picked up from there when you build the .deb. ugly, but kinda makes sense in the heavily perlificated Debian context.

rakholh: see me not swallowing your political flamebait. and kindly shut up, or post your juvenile drivel to USENET or something.

wow! it looks like jimb is here.

graydon: why exactly do you call the proposition that it makes the more-rapidly-reproducing people reproduce more if we go away an absurdity? it seems blindingly obviously true to me. unless, of course, you think that if in 20 years Canada (just to pick an example) becomes deserted due to the current generation not reproducing, it'll stay deserted. now that is indeed absurd.

the point being that humans are now the dominant species, and so they will naturally fill the available space as long as they fill comfortable. so if you make room, others will take the room. you need to convince more people that lots of room is desirable. until you do that, it doesn't matter at all whether or not you, personally, reproduce.

dria: if there is some part of the world where selfishness is not a survival trait, I'd like to know where it is ;).

rakholh: don't take offence where none was ever intended. and no, no sane Israeli would consider CNN impartial, myself included. and no I do not intend to discuss the Mid-East issue any further with anybody. I'm fucking sick of it. it's obvious that the final equilibrium includes both Israel in some form and "palestinians" in some form, and all the steps towards this equilibrium are going to be bloody. and that's the big picture, and the details are in the end irrelevant, and all the people close to the region and in it should take care to not be killed in the process.

hacking: no hacking lately. it looks like learning Common Lisp is very detrimental to one's productivity with lesser languages. I don't know what to do about it, in fact -- I'm close to being completely blocked...

want politics? get politics

well, nah. get some meta-discussion instead:

I really really don't want to see any political discussions on Advogato. I mean, is there any hope (or, in fact, any desire) for a rational discussion of the Middle East situation with an obviously very young and impressionable Egyptian while the rest of the people here either don't care (understandable) or do care but get their facts from CNN and the like?

that was just an example. it would be sad to see a discussion of the US elections or religion, too.

if you have a need to vent about some highly flammable topic, do it on USENET or something. and if you vented here, then yes, be sorry.