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Cake day: July 10th, 2020

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  • Why do you think so? With a cargo bike, the weight is always to be moved whenever you lean to the sides. The bike itself weighs more because you have to create the structure that holds the cargo on a longer bike: higher weight and longer lever (technically speaking) means you have to make everything two times stronger, not just one time stronger.

    Also, a trailer gives you the possibility to get through narrow edges better, because it can move. With a cargo bike, you have one long non-bending bike. Also, you can disconnect the trailer and use your hands to get the trailer to the offloading site, be it indoors or somewhere else, where bikes might not reach that easily.

    I seriously only see benefits. I’ve yet to read from someone to show benefits of cargo bikes. I’ve had this discussion quite a few times, but that never happened.


  • I personally don’t really understand the hype for cargo bikes. Sounds to me like something that can be sold because it’s a novelty. A regular bike with good (!) bags can carry quite a lot, and a bike with a trailer even more. And it is modular, meaning that you can just disconnect the trailer or the bags, and you have a regular bike that weighs way less. Also, with a trailer, you don’t have to balance the weight, and they can have additional brakes.

    I just don’t see the benefit of cargo bikes over bikes with modular equipment.





  • How come we don’t riot yet?

    • I guess because a part of society still wants to become the abusing part and works hard to achieve that goal. It is my opinion that these are typically people on the scale of the anti-social disorder, meaning that they have a lesser compassion, some even have none. That is meant literal. This can actually be physically measured and is a real thing. For anyone interested, look up “mirror neurons”.
    • Another part of society suffers from learned helplessness and is just doing whatever they are told - the school system prepares a lot of people to be like that. (See below for more of my personal view on this.)
    • And then there’s the part of society that can’t be fooled and wants to riot, but is prevented by the first group, supported by the second group. Some estimates say that the first group is roughly 20%, the second group is roughly 60%, and the third group is roughly 20%. Though, this is really not something that is established. But I fear it might be correct.

    If this is indeed so, then we are royaly fucked. I have no idea how to solve this. I have some ideas, but… damn. This problem is so fucking huge…

    Right now I’m leaning towards working with children. I was working in the mechanical engineering business before, but I recognized that the products that are created are not making the world a better place, but are abusing the human being and fuck our environment. I realized that the chance of working at a good place is rather slim, so I turned elsewhere. I always like to play with kids, and wanted to become a child carer in my youth, so I tried it out and it was perfect for me. Over time, I learned more about society and children, and it became my opinion that one way to combat these problems is to be there for kids. To love them how they are, to not pressure them into molds, to let them play and live out their natural motivation.

    I wanted to say a bit more about the school system. I mean… we all have gone through 10 years of “don’t ask questions, just do, like everyone else in class - if you don’t, you’ll have consequences”. That is one fucking hell of constant shaping and molding. I worked in an elementary school for two years. I’ve seen my share of children suffering there, after at first being eager to enter school, because everyone told them it will be good and nice there, and that the kids will be more grown up there. The first few weeks are typically awesome for the children. Then the horror sets in. They don’t want to draw the same letters again. They already did it, and they think they’re already good at it - and they are mostly right about it. But, of course, everyone has to work through the same sheets. They ask their parents and their teachers why they have to do it. The answer is like that:

    “We understand that this is not fun. We also had to do it when we were young. We did not want to do it, too. We can not explain to you why we are doing it like this, because we don’t know ourselves. You MUST suffer through this, just as we did. There is no way around it.”

    Of course, not literally that anwer, but that’s the basis of it. Children realize that this is really bad, but… it can’t be changed. Some children ease rather quickly in their destined mold and will get good grades. They will end up in the second group. Some children can’t deal with the situation and suffer greatly from it. They will get bad grades. Some of them will not forget this and end up in the third group, but some will suffer themselves into their molds and end up in the second group. And then, of course, there is the first group, and even when we see children as something innocent and peaceful, there indeed were children who were clearly abusive and manipulative. “Do my homework for me, or we won’t be friends anymore.” These things happen, and worse.

    One example I’ve noticed, which still lingers in my mind: There was a girl that was rather young for school. She was just 5 and a half when she started school. Regular age is 6-7. But she was really clever. She was really eager to joing school. She loved to count, she loved to do maths, and she loved to play physical puzzles with me. She had an outstanding three-dimensional imagination. A gifted child with a lovingly happy soul. She lit the room with her smile and her motivation.

    Just 2 months into school, and that motivation flew out of the window. She hated school. Do the same shit over and over again - even if she already knew how to do it? She couldn’t understand why, and people couldn’t give her a response that makes sense. What is this shit that is happening? Why are people here so dry and sad? When it came to using substraction, she could not do it at all. I’m absolutely sure that she is not too dumb for that. Not at all. She just didn’t want to learn a new thing, which she then had to do over and over again, without anyone explaining to her… why?

    Damn, this poor girl. She must be in third grade now. I hope she will end up in the third group. We need clever and motivated people in that group.


  • There was one story where this was quite literally the case: A group of people working in a state organisation to check on taxes in the context of high profile companies like big banks and all that found out that there is something going on in one of the main banks in that area. They started to focus their work on that bank. That’s exactly their kind of work. That’s what they are supposed to do. Then, people in that group were actively drawn away from that case in rather obvious ways by their superiors. One dude continued to work in that direction, and actively tried to fight the apparent corruption that was ever more obvious to him.

    In the end, his superior (also a state official, not from a private company or something) sent him to a psychiatrist to check if he was fit to work, and of course the result was that he was “not sane” and not fit to work. Everybody distanced themselves from him. His coworkers, and even his wife. Not because they thought he’s insane. But because they knew what’s happenening, and everybody just wanted to continue their life without being in the focus of powerful people. Understandable, but still…

    It took years of hard work with lawyers to overturn that diagnosis. The psychiatrist got a slap on the wrist, and that’s it. If you’re interested in that case, search for “Rudolf Schmenger” and “Kommerzbank”.


  • I have depression since 10 years. A lot of professionals diagnose a lot of bullshit, honestly. I’m not saying this lightly. But I have to say this after being in my situation, and visiting doctors of multiple different professions.

    I frequented a psychiatric ambulance at the beginning of my illness. I had appointments there, diagnosing sessions. Due to multiple reasons (illness of one therapist, pregnancy of another therapist, and meeting the head therapist), I had 4 people diagnosing me, from the same unit, in the same building, all working as collegues.

    • The first thought I’m depressed because of my alcohol problems, because that’s the first thing she asked about, and of course the first thing I’ve answered. I told her that I don’t even drink anything anymore, because my current illness (then it wasn’t known if it is depression) makes me incredibly sleepy and nauseous just from one single beer. She took my answer as a lie, and therefor I was an alcoholic who tries to act he’s not one.
    • The second one thought that I was depressed because I used cannabis 8 years prior to that. It’s obvious that cannabis causes this, the therapist suggested. So, again, the diagnose was quick, and based on the first issue she heard about, because that was how that dialog was going - by pure chance.
    • The third one was sure that it was my heroin addicition I had for 1.5 years, 12 years prior. It was again obvious to that therapist, and it was again the first thing she asked.
    • The fourth one simply said I’m an impostor, because I told her that I nearly fainted when I heard a joke that was too funny, and that I never experienced that before. She simply stated that she doesn’t know what would be wrong with a joke. Laughing is good, she said, and not a sign of depression.

    That was my first experience with therapists. It was a load of fucking bullshit. It sadly took 8 more years, and a lot of stupid therapists and doctors, to find one who could actually help me. And she only took 2 sessions to find out that I do not only have depression, but also generalized anxiety. She deduced that from me telling her which body parts of mine hurt the most when being very quickly exhausted from attempting to doing sports.

    All other professionals simply told me that I shouldn’t be so lazy and do more sports. I always told them that I never had an issue with being unfit, muss less nearly fainting from laughing, or getting visual glitches when walking for 10 minutes (really meant literal), and that I can’t do sports because my current conditions doesn’t let me.

    Nearly all of them. Really, almost every single doctor and professional, made me feel like shit and suggested that I’m just lazy and that I want to avoid doing sports. They were all wrong, and honestly, most were assholes about it. I’m quite grumpy about this.

    Professionals don’t have much time, and they do indeed want to help. One way to look in the mirror and think of yourself as a person who also does his best and is able to help all his patients is this way: Whenever there’s a patient where you have no idea how to help them - just tell yourself that patient is faking it. Done. This way, you don’t have to take time to actually find a solution, while securing the desired status of the all knowing god in white.

    It sucks, but that’s what I think is going on.


  • The majority of westerners have lost their fucking minds.

    While I do agree on that, I think it would happen to any group of people. Regardless if they’re westerners or easterners (correct term?), no matter the skin color and all that. People are prone to these things, to manipulation.

    It seems to be the case that if you have working mirror neurons, but are not used to use ratio and common sense to check on what you’re copying from others, you are simply doing that: You copy whatever others are doing. You support the current thing. You say the words others are saying. You say the phrases others are saying. You do the things others are doing.

    Mirror neurons make it possible to have compassion and empathy, they are important for a functioning society where people help each other. Mirror neurons activate parts of the same regions that somebody has active you are obvserving. If you do have too few mirron neurons, you won’t help others, you lack compassion - literally. If you have too much, they would render you unable to help others with their suffering, because you suffer just as much. You want to be able to help a person with a broken leg, and not be clouded by induced pain (brain regions). So a good amount of mirror neurons is a good thing.

    People who have too few, or none at all, are called psychopaths. Newer term is anti-social disorder. These people, when it gets extreme, don’t care one bit if there is a burning human being in front of them. It’s nothing but an interesting spectacle. People in prison are typically higher on that scale. Just as much as people in upper corporation management, or - you may have guessed it - politics. These people have no issue manipulating others for their personal benefit. And that includes, of course, manipulating people who have more mirror neurons.

    Now, this wouldn’t work with people who have enough education, and are used to use their brain to check on what they are doing. Does it make sense? Is it actually benefiting me? If people are not able to do this, if they are helpless, they will blindly and naively - literally - copy what others are doing. The more often they see it, the higher the chance they’ll also do it. That’s why you see repetition so much on TV. Be it advertising or politics.

    Hm… I’m not sure why I wrote this down right now. But… here we are. I hope someone was able to take something away from this that is useful.

    Edit: Some links that might be interesting:






  • I also never had problems with that. Almost all players come with the needed codecs. If you need more, it’s a matter of looking at the optional dependencies or taking a look at the official wiki to know from which official repo to install the needed codec. But that’s only for uncommon codecs.

    The regular user should never have to deal with this with pretty much any distro I know of. Where did you have problems?





  • This is what most Europeans I know don’t WANT to realize. It’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the country we’ve went to make our products. Somehow, this seems enough of a excuse for many. It’s really sad. People understand the issue, but somehow they ignore the factual reality. Maybe because it’s not a physical reality that can be seen or touched. We read about it, we see statistics, but we don’t really know the people we abuse for our products.

    Maybe it is a bit like meat production. Everyone knows how it is done. Most think that these kinds of animal abuse are not okay and should be forbidden. But the next day, people go into their favorite shop and proceed to buy the cheapest meat they can find.