Religion as mankind’s smartest invention

January 25th, 2012, 13:21 | 5 comments

There was a time when religion made me see red. This “opium of the people” that made them lethargic and mad – how nice wouldn’t our world be if it wasn’t for religion!

But that time was when I was 20 years old.

Then followed a period when I respected religion, since something practiced by so many people must have a point. I respected people’s need for ceremonies, but I still saw it as a need.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to admire religion as man’s greatest invention. I now look upon religions as philosophies rather than churches. What is a religion if not a distilled society – a way for humans to describe themselves and their experiences with the lowest common denominator in order to understand themselves.

This is most evident in the polytheistic religions. There were many gods, and each of them represented a typical story in the lives of humans. The stories functioned as a guidebook as for how to live. We make a mistake if we think that these people were “stupid” enough to “believe in” various gods. Instead, they were smart enough to make their abstract lives concrete enough to fathom. Just like we do today when we say that someone is a careerist and someone is a bohemian. Or a John Doe for that matter. We simplify and idealise.

In a way, religion is what makes us human, since animals don’t practice it. Everyone who, like myself, is hopelessly in love with humanity should hail our amazing capacity for abstract thought. Yes, I’m a religious man!

Not to be continued – I respect my own attention span.

Category: English, Esoteric, Personal
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Avföljningsregler på Twitter

June 3rd, 2011, 11:15 | 1 comment

Tre saker som får mig att avfölja twittrare (här gäller det Sverige):

1. Folk som bashar Pär Ström. Anledning: Det sker inte av politiska skäl, utan av sociala. Att klämma åt Pär Ström med någon fyndig formulering som i bästa fall kommer retweetas är ett sätt att säga det som alla andra säger, att följa mobben. Genom att upprepa det som det coola gänget på skolgården säger vinner man respekt. Dock inte hos mig. Oavsett vad man tycker i politiska sakfrågor bör man kunna mötas som vuxna människor, anser jag.

2. Folk som frågar vad engelska ord heter på svenska. Ja, vi förstår att din engelska är helt fantastisk! Så bra att det rentav ofta sker att du får upp ett engelskt ord i huvudet i stället för ett svenskt. Och vid dessa tillfällen måste twittra om detta i stället för att slå upp ordet. Du är så cool! Och om någon nu betvivlar syftet med dessa tweetar, vänd på saken och fråga dig hur många gånger en twittrare frågar vad ett svenskt ord heter på engelska. Som Majbritt sa: Just det!

3. Folk som twittrar om sina baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarn.

Category: Esoteric, Swedish

Se Bamse lacka ur på Lille Skutt!

May 19th, 2011, 21:19 | No comments

Ritad av mig för ca 17 år sedan. Inte helt inaktuell! (Se även HD och HAX.)

Category: Esoteric, Politics, Swedish
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Safari drives me mad

May 9th, 2011, 22:06 | 7 comments

I just want it to work. It doesn’t.

Safari eats memory and gets slower and slower the longer you use it and the more windows you have open. Sometimes I spend minutes (at least half minutes) waiting for a new window to appear when I toggle through windows. The only thing I see is the rainbow-coloured ball, the most consistent feature of Mac OS X.

My Imac is from 2007. I guess that’s pretty old. But still. I have maximum ram. And it’s fast enough for the graphic design I do. But to surf the web in Safari is apparently much more demanding. And yes, I have installed Click to Flash.

I’m just a human being. I just want to surf the web.

Why is this happening? Why is Safari slowing down not only my computer but *myself*, since I have to stare on the screen every time I wait, since just maybe, the wait won’t be half a minute this time. (But it always is.)

I think it’s happening for a reason. It’s telling us that we can’t rely on technology, that old values like being moral and Lutheran in your desktop hygiene wasn’t such bad ideas after all.

We must impose window hygiene. Close a window after you’ve opened it. Don’t let it linger in the background cause you want to “read it later”. Not only does it slow down Safari, it also adds to my bad consciousness over not getting things done. So I must be moral and get it done immediately instead. Read that article. Act upon that window that is open only as a kind of reminder of something you need to do.

Then I must impose the shutting down rule. Remember when computers were shut down at the end of the day? Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. It’s the digital equivalent of cleaning your desk when you leave work. Maybe that’s what Safari is telling me I should go back to.

I tried Chrome. It wasn’t as slow as Safari, but had other problems, the main one being a total anarchy when toggling through windows. It was usually impossible to get to the window you wanted through toggling; you had to use the mouse – I hate the mouse! – to go to the MENUUUUUUUU and choose the window you wanted.

And Chrome also slowed down after a while, when you had many windows open, despite Google’s fancy cartoon (I read all of it) said each window would sort of run on its own motor. What happened when Chrome slowed down was … nothing! You entered the address and pressed enter and Chrome wouldn’t register it. You had to be SLOW with Chrome. I learned to type the address, then wait 2-3 seconds, and then press enter. What’s the point with a browser that renders the pages fast if you have to wait for several seconds before the page starts rendering? The whole thing reminded me of the old times with Quark Xpress, where you couldn’t work too fast, since you knew the program would crash then. (Why don’t Adobe make a web browser btw? I’m usually no fan of monopolism, but when the alternatives are Safari and Chrome – be my guest!)

Another problem with Chrome was the URL auto-fill function. It became increasingly slow, and it was often faster just to type the URL by hand instead of typing f, waiting 5, 10, 15 seconds, and then seeing Facebook come up as the suggestion.

Or aren’t you supposed to have 50 windows open at the same time? You should see my desk – my real one I mean. I have my own kind of order. Apple and Google obviously don’t approve. They say: Clean up your desk!

So now I’ll try to start living by those standards. I will close down windows that I don’t need (despite I use them every day), and I will quit the browsers at the end of the day. In short, I will be moral. And I hate it.

Footnote: This post was written quickly and in anger! I have not edited my lousy English and I have not even read it through. Why should I? I don’t have any ambitions with this blog anyway. That’s the spirit!

 

Category: English, Esoteric
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I love stamps

March 4th, 2011, 18:30 | No comments

Don’t you? :)

Category: English, Esoteric
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Avslöjande: Det är jag som är …

November 12th, 2010, 9:25 | 2 comments

Jag kommer ut! Läs mitt pressmeddelande och förundras.

Trevlig helg! :)

Category: Esoteric, Personal, Swedish
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The art of shopping

July 18th, 2010, 16:38 | 1 comment

Mask of Dionysus: 50 cent.

Found at the Nowkoelln Flowmarkt.

Category: English, Esoteric
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Amigo in the night

July 1st, 2010, 23:26 | No comments

It’s too hot these days to do anything else than getting soaked in rosé and going to parties. So instead of posting something more “culturally challenging”, I’ll share with you some photos that my friend Robert took of me when we were on our way to Berlin Hilton last night. Très fab, nicht war? :)

I always carry with me the little black notebook. It’s about 1,500 percent more effective than an iPad. It’s cheaper too, but the backup solutions could be better.

Protecting my patch … Last time I saw this tag I sat handcuffed in the back of a police car.

BooooOOOOooombastic! Love those Nikes.

Just put your lips together – and blow!

Category: English, Esoteric, Personal
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Egentligen skulle jag vilja

May 19th, 2010, 12:24 | No comments

Jag googlade frasen “egentligen skulle jag vilja”. Svaret blev några spridda drömmar:

Jag tycker att det är bra att fråga sig då och då vad man skulle vilja – egentligen.

Category: Esoteric, Swedish