Monday, August 20, 2018


I saw this headline while on Reddit:


No no no... nope. No. No we do not. No.... If I have not made it clear enough, no.

We DO NOT owe Sinead O Connor an apology. You see, this is the problem.
Hmmm... what to do, what to do?

"Oh my God! The church is a male dominated society!" Yes.

Sinead O Connor ripped up image of Pope ergo she is fighting the system! Ah nope.

So the Church is not a male dominated society then....? Nope.

Hmmm, so Sinead O Connor is not wrong then...? Nope.

This is the problem with society... well one of the problems. The solution to this issue is to realize that both Sinead O Connor and Pope is wrong. Well, thankfully in the case of Sinead O Connor, was wrong.

Solutions are hardly ever black and white. Think about it, when is the last time that an issue in society was black and white. There are questions that are black and white that are in society of course, should children be abused? Nope.

Should the church hide and protect priest, and nuns, that abuse children? Nope.

Is The Church wrong, bad? No. No it is not. This is by the way coming from an atheist, but I have known many priests that were great people, and women that were great nuns. I also met horrible ass hole priests and nuns. So it is more correct to say that the Church has problems, and YES... problems that need to be fixed.

So Sinead O Connor, does she have issues, yes. Is she all good or all bad, nope. Personally I hated her, but when you look past what bloody tabloids say about her, she was just like anyone else, both good and bad. You see, she was no better than the Church she loved to hate so much.

So the questions becomes then, was she more good than bad, or more bad than good? And the same can be asked of the Church. Was it more good, or more bad. Well I think, when you look at Sinead O Connor that she had alot of songs that people liked, she was an artist... that is good. She had an opinion and she voiced it, that is good I think, but again, note that I do not agree with her opinion, but I do like that she voiced it. Did her opinion do more good than bad or vica versa - I think it had no effect. When I think about it, it had no effect. She did not improve anything. She didn't break anything. She just came across as angry. I am not saying that she was right or wrong either, I am just saying that she voiced what I can only believe is something that she believed in.

Then there is the Church. They voice what one has to believe is something that they believe in. Personally, I do not think that the world was made in 6 days. I think that the church is wrong in virtually every aspect of their canon. The only part of the Church that I do agree with is the part about loving your neighbour, being good to the poor and a few other parts. While I find it hard to do these things all the time myself I do find it ironic that the parts of the church that I believe in are the parts of the church that for the main parts that the Church itself does not follow and that is what gives the church its bad name.

So what is the conclusion here. Sinead O Connor is irrelevant in society today. So what, she tore up a paper picture. okay, what good did she actually do? The Church is is probably more good than evil... but are the parts of the Church that are evil are so bad that the Church itself should just be abolished? Probably. But what about the hundreds of thousands of good, kind, generous and loving missionaries, priests and nuns and Catholics? Those who are right in the way people should be and that are out there day after day in the name of Jesus and for the millions of people that they help, what would then happen to all them. You, you reading this. Are you going to help? Are you going to help lepers, feed the sick, clean the poor. Or are you just going to leave it to someone else? Who else then? The government? Ha!

So the Church has problems, definitely. Sinead O Connor has problems - sorry had. But she could only live to whatever age she had, whereas the church is over 2000 years old, and while it is changing somewhat at the moment it has to be noted that it was always changing. It will always change and it does not look like it is going anywhere, anytime soon.

But should we apologize to Sinead O Connor? Well, no? Did we do something wrong? No. Does the church owe her an apology? Maybe, but that is between the Church and Sinead O Connor.

The reason I have written this HUGE reply is the following. Stop pandering to Sinead O Connor. Walk away. If you do not believe in what she is saying - walk away. Leave her alone. Let her voice be that noise in the background that once you stop looking for it, that it goes away. And you know what... the Church. Walk away. Once everyone walks away from it what will happen. The Church will disappear. Society will or will not help the poor. Society will or will not feed the hungry and cloth the needy. But you know what else - society will survive.
I believe that the church is a business. It survives on money, wealth and power. It survives on influence. It survives because like a bully in the school yard that keeps picking on the weakest in the classroom the church needs those not fortunate enough to have an informed opinion so that it can itself stay alive. And if we apologise to Sinead O Connor for tearing up a picture of the Pope, we are keeping the Church real.

Walk away. Just turn away... if you have not looked at Sinead O Connor tearing up the image, do not look at it. Walk away. Look at a video of how electricity works. How economy works. Learn. Learn how society benefits when all members of society are looked after equally and taxes and wealth are distributed evenly among all people. Walk away, and if on your path you see someone homeless, or hungry remember that you can help. You can help directly, you can donate to a charity.

Walk away from the ignorance and hatred of the past and discover yourself in a world that does not need to rely on media like tabloids, and the Church. Keeping walking until you find yourself free from the noise and all you can hear are your own thoughts, beautiful and clean and clear. 


Tuesday, September 5, 2017

41 Years + 1 day

Okay, I am trying this again. I have tried this before... twice. I almost got there, like two thirds of the year in but I began missing days.. and covering up for them and I was loosing track... how many days had gone really? Had I missed a day by mistake? It is a huge commitment writing something each and EVERY day!

But I am a great believer in try and try again. I am going to attempt to generally write something in every day for a whole year. The last input being that before my birthday on the 3rd September 2018. We'll see how that goes I guess.

So yesterday was my birthday. I was gifted, apart from my friends and family and their best wishes of course, a knife set, a lovely new digital Casio wrist watch and a new phone! A One Plus Five. The phone seems blisteringly quick. The knifes seem dangerously sharp! The watch seem frighteningly accurate at telling me, well, the time I guess.

Anyway that is all. I am looking forward to it. A blog a day for a year can I do it this time!

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Space Opera Vs!

Here is a cool little thing I like to do... Get a genre. Find the main TV series and Films in that genre and add up all their scores and compare....

Where do I get the scores? IMDB.com of course. So all of the numbers below that have a year beside them are from IMDB. The first box is my total averages... enjoy!

Today is SPACE OPERA!
(Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, as well as chivalric romance, and often risk-taking.)

Star Trek7.267
Star Wars7.825
Star Gate7.771
Firefly8.500
Battlestar Galactica7.660
Farscape8.250
Babylon 56.988
Andromeda6.600

Firefly Wins Of course....

The OBVIOUS winner here is Firefly with  8.5/10. I was wondering if I should have added in Starship Troopers? What do you think? I have added Andromeda as an "also ran". But when I was looking into Andromeda I was surprised how many of its cast would turn up in other Space Opera.

But there is a breakdown below: 

Star Trek
Star Trek (1966–1969)8.4
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)6.4
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)7.7
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)6.6
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)7.3
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994)8.6
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)5.4
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country(1991)7.2
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine(1993–1999)7.9
Star Trek: Generations(1994)6.6
Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)7.7
Star Trek: First Contact(1996)7.6
Star Trek: Insurrection(1998)6.4
Star Trek: Enterprise(2001–2005)7.7
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)6.4
Star Trek (2009)8
Star Trek Into Darkness(2013)7.8
Star Trek Beyond (2016)7.1
7.266666667
Star Wars
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)8.7
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back(1980)8.8
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)8.4
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)6.5
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)6.6
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)7.6
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)8.1
Rogue One (2016)7.9
7.825
Star Gate
Stargate (1994)7.1
Stargate SG-1 (1997–2007)8.4
Stargate: Atlantis (2004–2009)8.1
Stargate: Continuum (2008)7.6
Stargate: The Ark of Truth(2008)7.4
Stargate SG-1: Children Of Gods - Final Cut (2009)8.1
SGU Stargate Universe(2009–2011)7.7
7.771428571
Firefly
Firefly (2002–2003)9.1
Serenity (2005)7.9
8.5
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 - 1979)7.1
Battlestar Galactica (2003)8.6
Battlestar Galactica (2004 - 2009)8.7
Battlestar Galactica : The Resistance (2006)7.9
Battlestar Galactica : Razor (2007)7.7
Battlestar Galactica : Razor Flashbacks (2007)7.7
Battlestar Galactica : The Face Of The Enemy (2008)7.7
Caprica (2009 - 2010)7.1
Battlestar Galactica : The Plan (2009)7.1
Battlestar Galactica : Blood And Chrome (2012)7
7.66
Farscape
Farscape (1999 - 2003)8.3
Farscape : The Peacekeeper Wars (2004)8.2
8.25
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 : The Gathering (1993)6.6
Babylon 5 (1994 - 1998)8.3
Babylon 5 : In The Beginning (1998)7.7
Babylon 5 : Thirdspace (1998)6.9
Babylon 5 : The River Of Souls (1998)6.6
Babylon 5 : A Call To Arms (1999)7.2
Babylon 5 : The Legend Of The Rangers (2002)6.1
Babylon 5 : The Lost Tales (2007)6.5
6.9875
Andromeda
Andromeda (2000 - 2005)6.6

Star Wars should have scored higher... Thanks Lucas!

Have I left any out? Please tell me what you think at donalod@gmail.com

Monday, June 26, 2017

A Handmaid's Tale

Going to cut to the chase here. This could have been called "A 'Vision Of Donald Trump's World In The Future' Tale".

Bloody horrible existance. Welcome to Saudi Arabia.  
Have you been watching "A Handmaid's Tale"? It is very good. Well acted. You know all the usual stuff, the sets are well lit. The sound is good. These are things you take for granted but they need alot of work in television and film production. What else is important? Hmmm... Well the continuity is good. You know what continuity is? That is when someone is for example holding a cup in, lets say, their right hand in a scene, the camera cuts away from them and then back to them and all of a sudden they are holding the cut in their left hand. You know? What else is important?

Hmmm.

Well set costumes are important. All the clothes look well, Gives a certain look and feel to the program. A feeling of doom and utter hopelessness. A feeling that everything is shit in this world and that there is no hope for anyone. Wait a second, this is reminding me of one more thing that I have left out of my "what makes a good TV or Movie" list.

Yes, that's it. The story. You know like a quality story. Not like Eastenders or Home and Away story. I mean a real story that actually has something to say. Like real meaning kind of stuff. So I don't want to give too many spoilers away so if you do not want any spoilers look away now... go to another webpage. Close this tab on your browser and go elsewhere. Go on....

If your still reading. Ask yourself this. What countries support female genital mutilation? What countries is it illegal to be gay in? Would you visit these countries? Would you support their governments? Support their economies? Well I did some research.


Here is a link to the Wiki page on the trendy FGM...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation

Percentage of the 15–49 group who have undergone FGM in 29 countries for which figures were available in 2016


How about countries that are illegal to be gay in? Lets look into that....

(going away doing some research...)

  1. Yemen
  2. Iran
  3. Mauritania
  4. Nigeria
  5. Qatar
  6. Saudi Arabia
  7. Afghanistan
  8. Somalia
  9. Sudan
  10. United Arab Emirates
Boy oh boy... scary isn't it. Saudi Arabia... UAE. These are countries that we trade with! These are countries that America have done massive arms deals with lately. USA have signed an arms deal worth $110 billion with SA that will increase to around $350 billion in the coming years (click here for link). You telling me that a man as crazy as Trump might not make the Handmaid's tale come true?

I love the series A Handmaid's Tale so much because I hate the point of the story of the Handmaid's tale so much.
Existence is horrible for 100's of millions of women because of religion.
If you are not watching A Handmaid's Tale already, watch it now I would advise. Link to the IMDB page is below.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/

Friday, June 23, 2017

Keyboard shortcuts for Google Sheets

Whats All This Then?

Well what this is, is an extremely helpful list of keyboard shortcuts in Google Sheets. Google Sheets is the equalivant to Microsoft Excel. So these commands are for Windows and boy to I love them. 

Want to insert a row in Sheets?
Insert rows aboveCtrl + Alt + Shift + =
Ctrl + Alt + =

(with rows selected)

Want to delete a row?
Delete rowsCtrl + Alt + - (with rows selected)

Full Page is here with links to Windows, Chrome OS and Mac

Common actions
Select column Ctrl + Space
Select row Shift + Space
Select all Ctrl + a
Ctrl + Shift + Space
Undo Ctrl + z
Redo Ctrl + y
Ctrl + Shift + z
F4
Find Ctrl + f
Find and replace Ctrl + h
Fill range Ctrl + Enter
Fill down Ctrl + d
Fill right Ctrl + r
Save
(every change is saved automatically in Drive)
Ctrl + s
Open Ctrl + o
Print Ctrl + p
Copy Ctrl + c
Cut Ctrl + x
Paste Ctrl + v
Paste values only Ctrl + Shift + v
Show common keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + /
Insert new sheet Shift + F11
Compact controls Ctrl + Shift + f
Input tools on/off
(available in spreadsheets in non-Latin languages)
Ctrl + Shift + k
Select input tools Ctrl + Alt + Shift + k
Format cells
Bold Ctrl + b
Underline Ctrl + u
Italic Ctrl + i
Strikethrough Alt + Shift + 5
Center align Ctrl + Shift + e
Left align Ctrl + Shift + l
Right align Ctrl + Shift + r
Apply top border Alt + Shift + 1
Apply right border Alt + Shift + 2
Apply bottom border Alt + Shift + 3
Apply left border Alt + Shift + 4
Remove borders Alt + Shift + 6
Apply outer border Alt + Shift + 7
Ctrl + Shift + 7
Insert link Ctrl + k
Insert time Ctrl + Shift + ;
Insert date Ctrl + ;
Insert date and time Ctrl + Alt + Shift + ;
Format as decimal Ctrl + Shift + 1
Format as time Ctrl + Shift + 2
Format as date Ctrl + Shift + 3
Format as currency Ctrl + Shift + 4
Format as percentage Ctrl + Shift + 5
Format as exponent Ctrl + Shift + 6
Clear formatting Ctrl + \
Navigate spreadsheet
Move to beginning of row Home
Move to beginning of sheet Ctrl + Home
Move to end of row End
Move to end of sheet Ctrl + End
Scroll to active cell Ctrl + Backspace
Move to next sheet Ctrl + Shift + Page Down
Move to previous sheet Ctrl + Shift + Page Up
Display list of sheets Alt + Shift + k
Open hyperlink Alt + Enter
Open Explore Alt + Shift + x
Move focus out of spreadsheet Ctrl + Alt + Shift + m
Move to quicksum
(when a range of cells is selected)
Alt + Shift + q
Move focus to popup
(for links, bookmarks, and images)
holding Ctrl + Alt, press e then p
Open drop-down menu on filtered cell Ctrl + Alt + r
Open revision history Ctrl + Alt + Shift + h
Open chat inside the spreadsheet Shift + Esc
Close drawing editor Shift + Esc
Edit notes and comments
Insert/edit note Shift + F2
Insert/edit comment Ctrl + Alt + m
Open comment discussion thread Ctrl + Alt + Shift + a
Enter current comment holding Ctrl + Alt, press e then c
Move to next comment holding Ctrl + Alt, press n then c
Move to previous comment holding Ctrl + Alt, press p then c
Open a menu
File menu in Google Chrome: Alt + f
other browsers: Alt + Shift + f
Edit menu in Google Chrome: Alt + e
other browsers: Alt + Shift + e
View menu in Google Chrome: Alt + v
other browsers: Alt + Shift + v
Insert menu in Google Chrome: Alt + i
other browsers: Alt + Shift + i
Format menu in Google Chrome: Alt + o
other browsers: Alt + Shift + o
Data menu in Google Chrome: Alt + d
other browsers: Alt + Shift + d
Tools menu in Google Chrome: Alt + t
other browsers: Alt + Shift + t
Open insert menu Ctrl + Alt + Shift + =
Ctrl + Alt + = 

(with cells selected)
Open delete menu Ctrl + Alt + - (with cells selected)
Form menu
(present when the spreadsheet is connected to a form)
in Google Chrome: Alt + m
other browsers: Alt + Shift + m
Add-ons menu in Google Chrome: Alt + n
other browsers: Alt + Shift + n
Help menu in Google Chrome: Alt + h
other browsers: Alt + Shift + h
Accessibility menu
(present when screen reader support is enabled)
in Google Chrome: Alt + a
other browsers: Alt + Shift + a
Sheet menu
(copy, delete, and other sheet actions)
Alt + Shift + s
Context menu Ctrl + Shift + \
Insert, delete, hide, or unhide rows or columns
Insert rows above Ctrl + Alt + Shift + =
Ctrl + Alt + =

(with rows selected)
in Google Chrome: Alt + i, then r
other browsers: Alt + Shift + i, then r
Insert rows below in Google Chrome: Alt + i, then w
other browsers: Alt + Shift + i, then w
Insert columns to the left Ctrl + Alt + Shift + =
Ctrl + Alt + = 

(with columns selected)
in Google Chrome: Alt + i, then c
other browsers: Alt + Shift + i, then c
Insert columns to the right in Google Chrome: Alt + i, then o
other browsers: Alt + Shift + i, then o
Delete rows Ctrl + Alt + - (with rows selected)
in Google Chrome: Alt + e, then d
other browsers: Alt + Shift + e, then d
Delete columns Ctrl + Alt + - (with columns selected)
in Google Chrome: Alt + e, then e
other browsers: Alt + Shift + e, then e
Hide row Ctrl + Alt + 9
Hide column Ctrl + Alt + 0
Unhide row Ctrl + Shift + 9
Unhide column Ctrl + Shift + 0
Use formulas
Show all formulas Ctrl + ~
Insert array formula Ctrl + Shift + Enter
Collapse an expanded array formula Ctrl + e
Show/hide formula help
(when entering a formula)
Shift + F1
Full/compact formula help
(when entering a formula)
F1
Absolute/relative references
(when entering a formula)
F4
Toggle formula result previews
(when entering a formula)
F9
Resize formula bar
(move up or down)
Ctrl + Up / Ctrl + Down
Help for screen readers
Turn on screen reader support
Learn more about using Google Sheets with a screen reader
Ctrl + Alt + z
Read column Ctrl + Alt + Shift + c
Read row Ctrl + Alt + Shift + r

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Search Concepts We All Should Know - From Google

This is actually pretty reading. I am signing websites up to Googles Search Console and this was one of the pages that was on it. Considering it is Google that supplied this document I consider it very worth reading.

And here goes...

The reports in Search Console are organized according to the general outline of the Google Search pipeline: Content is first crawled (discovered), then it is indexed (parsed and analyzed for content), after which you, the website owner, analyze the search traffic to your site and also consider how search results are displayed to the user or linked to by other sites.

Crawl

Google’s web crawlers follow links and sitemaps to generate a list of publicly available URLs to visit and index for content. This is the first step in the process of being added to Google’s search results.
  • Property
    A generic term for a website or an app that you have added to your Search Console account. You can see a list of your properties on your account homepage.
  • Verify
    To prove that you own the website or app referred to in your Search Console account. A property must be verified before you can start seeing any data for it. You’ll be asked to verify a site after you add it to your Search Console account.
  • Googlebot
    Google’s web crawler. Google has a few different Googlebots that request your pages as different device types (a smartphone, a feature phone, or a desktop computer) to calculate different search results for users searching on these devices.
  • Canonical
    If you host the same page at different URLs, your search results can be diluted across these duplicate pages. For example, you might have the same page at http://example.com/dogs and http://www.example.com/dogs; a search might then show separate, lower ranked results for each page than if you had only a single page. In this case, you should indicate to Google that these pages are the same, and choose one to be canonical (the official page) to show in search results. Indicate canonical pages or sites using a Sitemap, HTML tags, or Search Console settings.
  • robots.txt
    The name of a file on your site that tells Google which pages not to index or show in search results.
  • Sitemap
    A list of URLs in your site that Google uses as starting locations to begin crawling a website. A sitemap is contained in one or more files stored on your website.

Index

The process of visiting URLs and analyzing the content and meaning of each page. This helps Google determine the best search results for a user’s query.
  • Resource
    A web page typically loads many additional resources such as CSS, JavaScripts, and images. Be sure that Googlebot isn’t blocked from accessing any resources that affect the meaning of the page during the indexing process.
  • Render
    Google tries to display all pages that it indexes in order to view the page as a user would. Rendering is the process of displaying the page with the images and layout to help Google analyze the meaning of the page.

Search traffic

  • Manual action
    If your page violates one of Google’s quality guidelines, such as spammy content, it can be subject to a manual action, which will demote it in Google search results.
  • International targeting
    Explicitly targeting your search results at users by language or country. This can be done using hreflang link tags or the country targeting setting in Search Console.

Search appearance

How your page or app appears in search.
  • Structured data
    A public XML standard way of describing information about your pages in a format that the Google crawling engine understands. For instance, you can add ratings, event information, or video information. Some types of structured data are used to create rich snippets.
  • Snippets
    The small descriptive lines of text that appear under each result in Google search results. These are generated programmatically by Google during indexing, and can have visual characteristics known as rich snippets.
  • Rich snippet
    A visually enhanced Google search result, such as star ratings or event times. Rich snippets are often generated from structured data added by the page author.
  • Sitelink
    If your website has a logical hierarchy or structure, Google might display a set of sub-links below the main search result. For example, for an airline site, the main result will be the airline home page, and the smaller links below would be direct links to the booking page, the flight status page, the baggage policies page, and so on. You cannot specify sitelinks for your site.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Blow Up Blocks - Level 4 completed.

I have begun a new game. I am well into it actually at this stage. Lots of nice colors and good level design. That thing I just said, that would be my dream review if someone were to ever review the game. I hope that they would say "The colors look amazing. The world is well realised. The game play is gripping and the level design is awesome!". Yes I would go to sleep that night with the thought in my head that I have made a great game. 


You see, for all my blabbing up top there, that is really what I am trying to do. I am actually trying to make a game that will be brilliant. I want you to play the game and go, "that game was worth every cent that I paid for it! I must tell one of my friends to buy it."

Whether or not you will do that is really not too much of an issue right now, right now I just want to design 30 levels of a game that you will have played in a few hours. I have completed level 4 just last night. I got my Sophie to test the game this evening and she said that she liked Level 4 alright but I do not think that she liked it as much as the other levels. The initial 3 levels are more fun, fun, fun based. Level 5 will be fun for the player as a reward for completing level 4. Anyway... I would say remember the name of the game but that might be counter intuitive as I am still coming up with the name that suits the game the best at this point.

Lets say that for now, the code name is BlowUpBlocks. The final name of the game might of course be BlowUpBlocks, we will see. I'm off to begin work on some particle explosions :)

I saw this headline while on Reddit: In the wake of more news of child abuse bythe Catholic Church perhaps we owe Sinead O'Co...