mortimer
Freelance Subversive
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I have my own website account for personal stuff, and all the other stuff that was going to my Gmail account is being redirected now to Disroot.org where I’m slowly changing the address over for each mail that comes in. I know Disroot is probably not the best, but it was free, had POP3 and IMAP support (I use IMAP on my phone and POP3 on my desktop) and it’s not used for anything too important.
I used Organic Maps on my CalyxOS phone a few days ago to navigate a 200 mile car drive home to the Scottish Highlands, and it worked flawlessly. The first 50 miles were through parts of Fife that I was not familiar with. I left it on for the rest of the journey just to track my progress and test it out. Very impressed with it. Maps are detailed and downloaded to the device for offline use. I’ve finally managed to deGoogle my life completely and will never use another Google product or service again.
I met Rogan briefly back in 2003 when Stanhope invited me out to his desert party. They were both working on The Man Show at the time and we went out to the studio cos Doug had a couple of things to wrap up before we took off to Panamint Springs. Rogan was sitting at a computer that he barely looked up from. I took an instant dislike to his dismissiveness. I don’t get starstruck easily and back then he was hardly the celebrity he is now (me being from Scotland I only knew him as some half-rate comedian that I never found that funny). Something about his demeanour pissed me right off. I’ve always been the kind of person that goes with gut instinct when I meet someone for the first time (it’s served me well over the years) and my gut told me this guy was a prick. He seemed to come across as having a sense of entitlement. It was a very brief encounter and introduction, but I never forgot it and haven’t been too surprised by the level of fame he has achieved. He came across as someone very focussed and driven on making it big at any cost. I guess we now all see the cost. There was a sweet spot a few years ago when his interviews were good and entertaining but now it’s just him repeating himself all the time and getting the same guests on like his CIA handler Mike Baker. There’s clearly a political agenda to his show and Rogan has been bought and paid for many times over.
The GUI is intuitive. It boots initially into an OS with a bunch of useful tools. The disk cloning software is straightforward and it works perfectly - I can vouch for this since I’ve had to resort to it on a couple of occasions restoring my system from the back up images. It’s also not complicated like Clonezilla.
Foxclone every time. Excellent piece of kit.
It’s hard to know what the right move is in this post-truth world as we all have our biases and legitimate reasons for thinking the way that we do. I remember around the turn of the millennium thinking that the rise of the internet would herald in an new era of enlightenment where access to information would increase the intelligence of literally everyone. Boy, was I wrong. Turns out the Information Age should have been called the Disinformation Age.
I think the rise of Trump is a reaction to a broken system that has become too corrupt and too big to sustain itself. It might not be all bad in the long term, but right now it feels like the world is falling apart. If you look at all systems (particularly biological) they tend to eventually decentralise to function more effectively. The lungs, liver, heart, kidneys, stomach all function independently from each other yet work together to benefit the whole, trading off excess resources for things that they lack yet need. Evolution created this system from what was a primordial soup of waring organisms, viruses, cells, bacteria, etc. Perhaps humanity is on the cusp of that transition into a more coherent functioning planetary system. Countries should use the resources they have and trade the excess for things that they don’t have but need, much like the organs in the body do. Perhaps America needs to decentralise and has gotten too big to function effectively. I don’t know, but these are the kind of things I think about now and again.
There’s a lot about the way the world works that makes little sense so something has got to change. Take a simple example like prawns caught off the west coast of Scotland. How can it be more efficient to send them to China to get packaged before returning again to be consumed? Utter madness! But that’s the centralised system of exploitation. It’s cheaper, but neither effective nor healthy.
Take the banking crisis where money was thrown at the banks to bail them out. What a dumb idea that achieved absolutely nothing. It was like sticking a band aid on a gunshot wound. It stopped the bleeding for a while, but didn’t fix the problem. Then you look at Iceland who did the complete opposite to everyone else and let their banks fail. The bankers ended up in jail like they rightly should have done and now their economy is booming.
I don’t know where I’m going with all this, I kind of fell down a rabbit hole of hoping that there’s a light at the end of the dark tunnel we all seemingly find ourselves in.
Scotland stayed in the UK because people bought into the fear-mongering being spread by the UK government. There were several fronts the UK targeted us with. Pensions was one (which scared all the old folks), currency was another (even though there was no real reason we couldn’t continue to use the pound). The economy was also targeted under the argument that we were too small a country to sustain ourselves, despite having a similar population size to Norway who survive extremely well as an independent nation. Between oil, tourism, gaming/tech industry, and whisky exports we could have not only survived but thrived. One other argument was that we’d have to reapply for entry into the EU and that staying in the UK guaranteed we’d remain in Europe, only for English voters to vote the UK out of the EU several years later. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU but it didn’t matter as it was a UK wide election, so basically we were told to shut the fuck up and put up. This should have been a significant change in circumstances that would trigger another independence referendum, but such referendums require UK parliament approval and the Tory scum wouldn’t let us hold one. Personally I would have been inclined to declare independence unilaterally, but given how 55% of the population were chicken-shits in 2014, it would be unlikely to happen. There’s also the cultural aspect that stops Scotland becoming independent. A large part of the population are Protestant and have been brainwashed through generations to believe in the laughable antiquated concept of King & Country. Basically Scotland has a long history of being kicked in the teeth by the English ruling class. So much so that many people have absolutely no confidence in self-determination or belief in their own ability to thrive and succeed. If only these people who feel that they need to be looked after would fuck off to the England they love so much, Scotland could move forward into the 21st century as a progressive, forward-thinking nation. Independence supporters always get labelled as rascist and anti-English, but the opposite is the truth. We’re welcoming to everyone who wants to make their home here and contribute to making the country a success - English, African, American, Chinese, whatever.
Aye, people criticise the Scottish government but they have short memories. They forget what it was like before devolution and particularly prior to SNP rule. Labour and the Tories never gave a fuck about Scotland. They still don’t. The only sadness is that we never got full independence. Whilst there is indeed a lot to criticise with the SNP there’s also much that they have given us and making sure rural communities get decent internet access is just one of those things. Hell, my broadband is better up here than it was when I lived in the central belt. The National Health Service works better up here too, and free health with free prescriptions has got to be a good thing. Down in England they still have to pay for prescriptions. Honestly, I don’t understand why 55% voted to stay in the UK back in 2014. I guess it’s like people voting Trump - there’s just a lot of fucking dummies out there.
Weather’s shit a lot of the time here in Scotland.
Recently Highland & Lothian Broadband rolled out full fibre here in the Northern Highlands - the installation of which was government funded. I’m pretty rural so I grabbed the basic package at £35 per month (about $45) and it’s more than enough for my needs. However the top package 2000Mbps (up & down) will set you back £54.99 per month (approx’ $71), although that’s an introductory offer and goes up to £89.99 (approx’ $116) after 24 months. I can’t fault the service. No caps, no limits, router is modern with WiFi 6 although I ethernet most things using my old router as a switch. I also don’t seem to be blocked from any websites. My previous provider, BT Broadband, blocked me from The Pirate Bay requiring me to use a VPN. Not so with Highland Broadband. Straight in, no problems.
In all honesty and without any sarcasm that was obviously present in my previous comment, looking in at the US as an outsider, I don’t hold out much hope for America. It’s not just Team Trump, it’s the whole system. The previous lot weren’t much better (and often sometimes worse). Everything seems extremely polarised which will never pan out well. Big corporations seem to control everything (from internet and food to finance and pharma), there’s no free health care (a human right considered by many countries but viewed as communism by America). I could go on and on, but I would only sound unnecessarily negative. A good idea would be to get out and get off an obvious sinking ship. This is probably easier said than done, but there’s always a way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect elsewhere, but I think once the US collapses it’ll be a wake-up call for a lot of countries who will also have to adjust having relied so heavily on America through trade as well as culturally. If too big to fail was a real thing, then we wouldn’t have history books full of empires collapsing. With all sincerity, good luck.
“Is that Kung Fu?”
“No, he’s only had 2 pints.”