December 2016 – JeffHunt

Why I Love Linux

Linux is a computer operating system similar to Apple’s OS and Microsoft. It is free, but although you can usually get it without cost, the important thing is that it is free of limiting copyright restrictions¹. You can get it from anyone and do anything with it without incurring the wrath of big companies or encountering limitations deliberately designed to make things difficult for you.

¹ There are limitations but they are designed to prevent anyone from introducing restrictions, so you can do pretty much what you like with it as long as you acknowledge where it came from and don’t limit future users.

It is free. It is secure. It is fun. It is powerful. It is easy to install and to replace. On the very rare occasions when something goes wrong you can simply bung in another copy and carry on. It runs on cheap hardware. The applications that go with with it are legion, excellent and also free. I can’t actually think of any reason why anyone would use anything else.²

²Actually I can: Linux is not often pre-installed and you will need to find a copy and learn how to get it and install it. Also there are a few proprietary applications, and pieces of hardware, that you may be using that are dependent on one of the closed operating systems. If these are a problem to you it is worth seeking help and advice to wean yourself off of proprietary things that don’t work and take the plunge.

https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major is worth look
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php where you can buy a flash drive ready to install and will not need to do it ever again.
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major gives a good summary of what is available and advantages and disadvantages.

Android on most portable devices is a version of Linux.

Losing English Plurals to Māori Sensitivities

I love the Māori language, but I get a little miffed when I am told I am not allowed to pluralise words in English if they have a Māori origin.

An example is: Māori belong to Hapu which belong to iwi when in fact what is meant is that Māoris belong to Hapus which belong to iwis. [Māoris belong to sub-tribes which belong to tribes]
The argument is that the Māori language has no ‘s’ in it and therefore the word Māoris cannot be used.

My argument is that the Māori language has the very sensible arrangement of two definite articles, one singular and one plural [te and nga giving te wahine – a woman and nga wahine – women]. The English language however does not have this and so it usually needs its ‘s’ to pluralise. When a word is being used in English it becomes an English word and has no choice but to conform to English language conventions.

It seems rather insulting to both languages to say that Māori is so weak it cannot lend its words to other languages and that English is such a muddle that it can throw away its pluralisation rules.

Just saying.

Saving space with fewer gots

There are too many gots in the world
If you go through a piece of written or spoken language and remove the gots you will find that the clarity is seldom damaged and often enhanced. In fact it is almost everyone’s habit to add a got to every have regardless of whether it even makes sense.
Eg ‘Have you got any cake?’ The questioner almost certainly wants to know if you HAVE any cake. You have probably got cake on hundreds of occasions but that is no use if the cupboard is now bare. The question they really wanted to ask was ‘Have you any cake.’ Shorter simpler and more accurate.
What about ‘I have got to go.’ How does that differ from ‘I have to go.’ Minus a got and more accurate and precise.
Try taking the gots out of something you read, listen to, or say. You will be surprised how many can go and actually improve the quality of the language.

Voluntary Euthanasia

I believe that I have a right to a humane end to my life when I am ready for it. I would expect a doctor to be involved to make sure it is successful and painless and I think I will have to accept that there should be a third party to referee and make sure it is truly what I want and that my doctor is giving me wise advice. But why on earth would I want someone else, particularly a person confused by a christian upbringing telling me what I am allowed to do, when it cannot affect them or anyone else?

At present I am very happy and would like to live forever but I know I won’t. I will steadily deteriorate until I am a burden to myself, my family and society. When that happens I may want to ask to go. If I do, after a brief consultation I would expect to be killed. Why would I or anyone else want anything different? I might be in excruciating pain and begging to go. I might not know who I am or where I am and be in constant fear. Please, if I have asked to be euthanased when I reach that sort of despair – let me go.

The counter arguments seem to be:
1. We are religiously bound to live as long as we can. No, we are African apes. Once life has no value to us we are of less value than an a worm. Let us go.
2. We will put doctors under too much pressure or they may kill people unnecessarily. No, we trust doctors with our lives already – we have nothing better and there is no reason to believe our doctors will become incompetent or serial murderers because of euthanasia laws. there are already checks on medical practitioners.
3. There may be pressure from third parties/family to end a life prematurely. No, only people who request euthanasia while they are fit to ask (I do now) will be euthanased and there will be some sort of referee to make the final decision (usually this will be a trivially obvious).

4. Non-rectifiable mistakes will be made. Of course they will, they always are but it is not very hard to judge that someone who has accepted euthanasia is now in a state where life is not worthwhile. The mistakes will be insignificant compared to the premature suicides, horrible suffering and fear engendered by the lack of euthanasia law.

Please, lets have a sensible humane euthanasia law before I have to consider putting an early period to my life to escape a horrible slow lingering death.

How I know there is no god

1. There is no evidence for a super human who worries about Homo Sapiens. This puts god in the same category as Father Christmas, fire-breathing dragons and Little Red Riding Hood. Lots has been written and asserted about these things but they remain fiction.

2. God is undefined. To exist something must have a specific definition and be falsifiable. It seems to be generally agreed that all gods created the universe but every other attribute of god is flexible and changeable. God’s sole achievement is to have created the universe which is simply to say that the universe exists which is to say nothing of any significance. To be taken seriously god must have some measurable quality which can be identified as god. This does not happen. The various religious texts are patently wrong and silly and therefore cannot be taken as god’s word and therefore evidence of a god.

3. God not only doesn’t exist but the belief in this phenomenon doesn’t work. There is an argument that goes: ‘Everyone needs some higher authority to motivate and discipline them and so let’s have a god regardless of the evidence.’ Yet the clear historical evidence is that most wars, torturing, persecution of the weak including animals, children and women have been perpetrated by people of a religeo-superstitious nature. Most beneficial advances and behaviours have been perpetrated by scientific and logical thinkers. In general, the more superstitious is a society then the more evil is its moral attitudes.

The evidence as it seems to be now: The universe is simply here, resulting from a ‘big-bang’ about 16 billion years ago. No one knows how this came to happen. Life is simply a chemical process relying on an unstable chemical DNA, which given enough time – about 2 billion years – and the forces of natural selection results in billions of somewhat dysfunctional and useless but rather fascinating life forms. And so here we are. Definitely not intelligent design but muddled into existence and needing to make the best of it. All we have is our temporary existence. The best we can attempt is be rational and nice.