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blvr's comments

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

>>If a persecuted tribe in Africa decides to settle down in Antarctica people wouldn't have a problem. But will it be OK, if they invade California drive out the existing set of people there and settle down.

If you think that's analogous to what happened in Palestine you need a history lesson.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Israel live-tweets assault on Gaza

Wow. No. You've got it completely wrong.

Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. History has basically proved that to be true.

What it's not:

1. The idea that Jews are in any way superior. All races have equal rights under Israeli law (although secular Jews have some obligations that other groups don't, i.e. mandatory military service) and Israel has a significant Arab population.

2. Religion-based. Early Zionists were all secular socialists. Religious Jews got on board later when they started to see Israel as a sign from God but the traditional position (and the reason why many Ultra-Orthodox Jews still don't support Israel) is that Jews weren't allowed a nation until the Messiah comes.

Israel isn't perfect (obviously) but your comments are completely disproportionate. You need to tone down the hate.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Todon't

Okay, I'm probably making that mistake because I use Todoist as both calendar and todo list.

There is another option as well as the two you list, which is to remove items off your list as you can't/don't want to do them. Since I never have any more than half a dozen items on any of my three calendar/todo lists I never feel particularly oppressed. But I know that if I didn't have those lists there I'd be forgetting stuff all the time and letting people down - and I know because I never used to use a todo list.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Todon't

I'm glad if going todo-less works for the author but I wouldn't recommend it. I doubt many people have the capacity to remember that meeting you're supposed to have Friday after next at 3:30 or that little bug someone just mentioned over the phone that you'll have to fix at some point when you're back at the office.

Like all things, you can go to far with todo lists. Todo today lists have never worked for me. But I'd be lost without a list of appointments and minor/forgettable actions (filed according to the context in which they need to be done).

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Why the iPhone 5 is too radical

I was thinking the same thing. And it's even more of an improvement when you consider who the smartphone customer base is spreading to. Out of all the tradesmen I know, I don't think any of them have owned an iPhone that wasn't shattered on at least one side.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Apple's iPhone launches no longer excite

Are the new form factors boring? A little.

Would people be going on about how boring they were if Steve Jobs were around? I doubt it.

The biggest problem Apple faces right now is that people expect them to lose their magic now that Steve Jobs is gone. Then as they watch Apple confirmation bias sets in and articles like this are written.

Apple is pretty well equipped to continue leading the tech sector, but this perception people have is going to be a major problem.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Linux on the (consumer) Desktop

As much as I love all these new touch UIs, I can't see myself using them on a desktop PC. The WIMP paradigm has way too many advantages on desktop to just be dropped.

Although if someone took Android and modified the application framework, windowing system, etc. to be a traditional WIMP desktop OS, I think that would definitely interest me.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Is your iPad keeping you up at night?

For those that aren't aware, there's tools to help with this.

    f.lux    | Windows, OS X, iOS (jailbreak needed) | http://stereopsis.com/flux/
    Redshift | Linux, Windows (experimental)         | http://jonls.dk/redshift/
    Lux      | Android                               | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux
Lux isn't as nice as the others because it doesn't change colour temperature, it just puts a red/brown overlay over the screen. AFAIK there's no way to change the screen's colour temperature in Android.

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Things I do to be consistently happy

>>> I'd like to clarify that I see a difference between the so-called Christian "way of life" and the Christian "way of thinking". The activities and behaviours (e.g. hard work, fair dealing, etc.) of the Christian way of life may lead to happiness, but the thoughts and mindset of the Christian way of thinking may not (e.g. guilt over over normal sexual desires).

>>> In fact, I think that many religions, and this especially goes for more severe, "by the book" versions of Christianity, actually make people much less content with themselves, but they carry on spreading themselves in spite of (or because of) this anyway.

Just curious what your exposure to Christianity is?

Reason being is that I've gone from a secular background to belonging to a very devout church and in my experience Christians are much happier. Sexual self-denial isn't a problem and it seems that if anything it leads to happiness, considering the amount of personal problems indulging every sexual desire causes.

>>> Perhaps it is the case that (most) humans need to work in order to be happy. What does this mean when we arrive at a level of technological sophistication that makes work unnecessary?

If we do ;-)

blvr | 13 years ago | on: Beautiful Windows 8 concept

Being a Windows mockup doesn't mean Gnome or KDE can't take inspiration from it. :)

Actually when this was first made (a few months ago) it was just an experiment to see how Metro styles and concepts could be applied to the desktop. Back then the Win8 builds were still all using Aero and there was no hint of a new style, so in retrospect it got quite a few things right.

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