THOUGHT

This time, I’ll use energy-rich gamma rays to point out things, but immediately after pointing them out, they’ll be as black as a black hole. Why? Because this time it’s all about censorship!

First, what the hell is censorship? It’s the act of removing some things from publications that are publicly available. It happens mainly because the publication breaks certain laws, e.g. includes hate speech. Sometimes, it is done because the legislator didn’t like it as it may reveal some bad details about him/her. The second version is alarmingly becoming more common; take America, for example. If you’re anti-war, pro-environment, libertian or any other thing that the current administration doesn’t like, chances are high that you’ll be under surveillance. If you’re getting more annoying, then it’s likely that you’ll be abducted to something like Guantanamo Bay, a gulag. If the government fears that they’ll be heavily criticized, then, once you publish anything, they censor it so that it looks like a text breaking certain laws. (Search for a logical fallacy called “straw man”; that sort of censorship extends that one extremely.)

Because of this, once any government receives the ability to censor things, it takes a nice chunk of freedom away. Censorship isn’t good in any way; and for those “But the children!”-screamers, parents are responsible for them, not the government. If they care for their children in the age of the internet, they should take courses about blocking IPs from pages with sexual (or any other, which the parent doesn’t deem right) content. The government has no right to play a parent and never shall have. (Currently, it sadly does.)

Some jerks that dress like politicians are trying to make a grown-up person in Germany not able to buy the so-called “Killerspiele”. That is extreme censorship, protecting as much people as there are in the core of the sun. In this case, the government plays the role of a parent. See what happens?
Another example: Finland. A page which documents the censoring of so-called “pages containing child pornography” (or something like that; I forgot, for I have insufficient memory) is put on the blocking-list for ISPs, thus censoring it. Why? Because the government plays the role of overzealous parents that won’t believe that a lot of pages which are blocked aren’t endangering their children. The actual reason for that isn’t that one. It happens because governments want to censor anything that doesn’t fit their views and as long as the censoring can be kept in a legal grey area. Whether censoring, abducting and other things are actually acceptable in respect to human rights is a good question; but the government doesn’t care, as it naturally seeks to eliminate freedom and human rights.

So long.

[stream-of-thought, several Human Memory Leaks (TM), proof-read once, thus having an extremely high chance of likely and unlikely errors, including superpositions]

Basically, there are two methods of writing something on the computer to print it out: Using a word processor (Word, OpenOffice, KWord et cetera) or a text editor. One may diversify the second into using just a text editor without having fancy output for whatever reason and using it with a document markup language like LaTeX. (I pronounce it “lah-tech”, if anyone should be interested. Including Schaeuble.)

Now, first to word processors: As probably everyone has individual needs which such programmes just can’t fulfil, these are somehow doomed to not be used by academic people; as I’ve already illustrated in some other posts, I regard today’s society as mostly idiots, thus I assume they just try and try and try until it fits them. Also, word processors are “What You See Is What You (Might) Get”-thingies (WYSIWY(M)G). This means that you look at the screen and see what is most likely to get printed; such things intimidate one, as one isn’t sure if that part of the text should be 11pt or 12pt. It reduces productivity and one always has to click on those damn symbols. I hate and despise these. Graphical User Interfaces slow down the process of typing, forcing the writer to use the mouse to format text, instead of typing something like \emph{text}.
One can conclude from these facts that using word processors is only good for quick-and-dirty writing in which one doesn’t use complex formatting and such things.

Let’s take a look at text editors: Generally, they can have a GUI. There are some with it, some without it. First, I’ll use a sharp pencil to point out some good and bad things about using them to only write text (read: pick out eyes). They display what you’ll get without annoying you with damned fonts or other word processor wrongs. That one is good. On the other hand, you can’t format your text well with them, except for markup languages. (I’ll get to that right now.) Thus, simple editing with them is for writing plain text files as communication over the internet (uploading it so the other one may read it; it’s a rather safe way) or extreme quick-and-dirty writing without formatting.

Well, let’s get to these document markup languages: They are a subset of markup languages, which are used for structuring a text. For example, HTML is another markup language; by structuring, I mean things as the italics or bold text, because these allow one to accentuate the text, not blinking marquees that cause eye cancer.
That should be enough for markup languages in general, now on to LaTeX: As I’ve already said, academics need a lot of freedom to write their text. LaTeX gives it to them for the price of exact structure, which academics bring with them anyway. Although the constant use of braces is like juggling balls to me, it’s a Nice Thing (TM): One concentrates on the text, gets used to the oblivious formatting like \texttt (I suggest this one for embedding code in text; for source code, use \listing (moreverb package) or \verbatim.) and one can even place nice (but complex) mathematic equations in one’s text without struggling with some shitty plugin for hours. I highly recommend learning LaTeX to anyone that wants to be an academic (or at least productive writer) later in life; it helps one to be more productive and forces one to structure text, thus subtly increasing the quality of text.

[stream-of-thought, minimal research, not even looked at it a second time, mistakes will be rewarded with -111101010 cent]

He was sent into the cellar to get some firewood. Alas, he didn’t know what he was in for. His name was MTS, or something like that, and he hadn’t got many things. A computer to code, some water, beer, bread and whatever. Then he was sent into the CELLAR, goddammit, stop telling stories. Now, don’t turn off these lights, they’re real cool and shiny.

The lights were turned off.

> It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

shout ‘Hey, suckers, turn on the light! I can’t get your damn wood when I can’t see anything! Jeez…’

> You hear some shuffling and grumbling.
> It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

mutter ‘Don’t play games with me. You know that I’m skilled in typing away your face.’

> The shuffling comes nearer and you begin to sweat.
> It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

shout ‘Stop this bullshit now! Or I’ll cram that wood up your ass!’

> You were eaten by a grue. When there was nothing left of you, he commented: ‘These profane humans. They always swear and do other things. I, a grue, am far too classy for such primitive behaviour!’ Having acquired a bloodstained suit, the grue walked off to his client.

Better luck next time! You have reached a score of -10 of the possible 1000. You have performed 3 actions and have made such bad decisions that even a 3-year old could’ve eaten you.

Although I’m sniping myself at almost every occasion and barely avoid trying to discover the source of the bullet (literally), let alone the effect which it produces, this time my reading on servant leadership has sniped me. It has not only motivated me to think about forms of leadership structures, but also of the current state of leadership in our society; is there an actual “leadership” in social networks? Are any of our “leaders” (chancellors, presidents, et cetera) servant leaders? And so on. Now, let’s get to it:

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