Everything must go!

Shave everything to grow a moustache! For cancer awareness!

Absurd? Quite certainly. Come tomorrow, it will be Movember, the month of moustaches and November. More specifically, a month where men are encouraged to grow moustaches to raise cancer awareness.

I have a moustache a year around. Of course, it is usually befriended by a beard that lives below it. Come the first of November, however, everything must go! While it might seem absurd, the point of the month is to begin with a clean slate. Enforcing rules to male facial hair for a month is a bit silly, but I'll take up the challenge. I'll even challenge any- and everyone reading this to do the same!

If you can grow a moustache - it need not be a thing of splendour, although that will of course make it all the more awesome - shape up and shave up on the morrow!

"Promotion, promotion, one time only!"

Facebook offered me to "promote" my post today, saying that it would bumb it to a higher standing in the news feed and mark it as both "important" and "sponsored" for my friends. Harken, and bring me my lance, for the windmills need to be tilted at, promptly!

In other words (and excuse my French), what the hell? Fuck me sideways, if this isn't the second most stupid thing I've heard today (I'll get back to the most stupid thing in a few minutes). Now, I know Facebook is used by many for promotion and such, especially with elections all around, companies and whatnot. I also posted a video from Youtube, and have not noticed such a feature before, so this might be related with that as well. But, but - and I want you to hear that but clonking into place there, since it's especially heavy this time - why should there be a button to promote my posts above those of others in the first place?

I'm sure the part "sponsored" will put some extra weight on the post as a small subliminal stick-in in a corner somewhere, and that's sort of who Facebook is catering for. You're the little morsel that's being handed to the big boys that want your details and money, keep that in mind. This doesn't really tick me, although it's kind of sad to see people flock to a system that is made to sell the fact they're flocking to it. What ticks me is that I'm given the option to, in a sort of micro-transactory way, bump my message above those of my peers.

I know all of the people on my friends list personally at least in some way. I don't friend strangers on Facebook. So why should my message, my little nugget of comedy gold or insight of the day or perhaps a link to the "funny ha-ha" meme I found have the option to be more important than what the other friends that my friends have might have to say?

I have yet to see any of these sponsored messages crop up in my news feed, but I suppose it's only a matter of time. What I fear is that they will be given such priority that, to combat the tide, everyone will be forced to use the promotion system if they want to get their piece of mind out there. This system is made to be another gold mine to the company, without any real value. Instead of letting the reader decide what's important, this system let's the poster do it for them.

Now, the most stupid thing I've heard all day is this. It's a few months old, but it seems the idea behind it is still solid, so I'll give a brief summary. A man lost basically all of his internet user id's, everything he had in iCloud (basically everything) and the use of all his online handles because of very flawed online security services. There have been some arguments about "oh, no, it's the hackers" and some tin-foil hatters point fingers at the fact everything's linked. Both arguments are valid, as such, but at fault here are the asinine security protocols that allowed this to happen.

Basically, if you know someone's email, name and address, you can, from Amazon, get the last four numbers of their credit card number. Not a big deal, right? It's just four numbers. Meep. Wrong. Ever heard of a company called Apple? Yes, that one. Guess what you need to get into their databanks? Those same four digits. How's that for security? Every time you order a pizza with a credit card, someone gets the info to hack into your Apple account. From there, if you're an Apple user, they can wipe anything and everything using the iCloud: all the iPhones (no exceptions) and every Apple computer you might have linked with the system.  

That's the most stupid thing I've heard today, and since these two filled my stupid-quota, I'm going to bed.

The devil you know...

Most people reading this will probably have heard the idiom in one form or another. Usually, in it's full form, it reads "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't." I've had a few discussions about how that could be interpreted, and have come to agree that it is rather open-ended when it comes to what this little string of words might mean.

In the modern world, the means of self exploration is usually psychology. Personally, however, I prefer a more philosophical approach. The forays that are made possible by mind games and personal monologue are, to me, more worthy than lengthy analysis into reflections of thoughts and actions. (Oh, and for those of you that actually know something about psychology, I know it's nothing like that, but I prefer the utterly personal touch of philosophy which I feel is missing from modern psychology - which is still better than anything Freud ever came up with.)

How do these two things link to each other, then? Well, each memory fort I build, thought exercise I undertake and each private monologue I have when cooking tells me more about me. It might not be important, it might not even be relevant, but every time I point the mirror at me, there is no other option but to atleast look at myself. And if I look, I have only two options: see, or avert my eyes.

This is the connection between the idiom and my point today. If I refuse to look upon myself, to reflect on my actions, thoughts and the ways I interfere with the world, I refuse to see what I am or am about to become. I become a stranger to myself. But if I look at what I have done and accept it - not accept as such, but accept that it has happened, it is there - I become the devil I know. And if I know me, I can control what I become. For every response I give, I can give a reason, or atleast a reason for why I don't have one. By reflecting, by looking oneself full in the eye, I can chain the beast and give it direction.

Here's a picture with no relation. This summer there were some really cool storms. I was nowhere near the hearth of any of them, but I was close enough to feel like daring the weather. Extremes are kind of awesome, from time to time.