The Reality Of The News

There have been a few times where I have clicked on a news article only to realise that I have been hit with a paywall. I don't mean this in any offensive way. "Hit" sounds very serious. No, I mean I have been casually surfing and I click on a news article and then I am presented with the opportunity to log into the news providers website in order to keep reading. Of course, for me to log in I have to pay. This is the paywall that I have been "hit" with. 

 

Some papers like the Irish Times, or simply the "Times" which is the New York paper is it? want to charge. I am fully in agreement with them paying of course. They have staff that they need to pay and research that needs to happen etc etc. Ever consider how much it cost to pay a reporter, ship them out to some foreign county and give them a hotel room and expenses in order to cover a news story first hand? It costs a lot. A lot of money goes into uncovering the truth. 

Then the likes of Facebook and Google and a slew of leeches read that article that the determined reporter gave us and flogs the news off as its own. What does the Times get for all of their trouble and cost. Well someone like me either reads the news second hand and thinks its "hmm, interesting" or I am hit with the paywall. At which I am like - no thanks dude. 

 

The news does not mean that much to me. Or rather, YOUR version of the news does not mean that much to me. I can get it somewhere else, either from a local source on the ground where the news is happening locally, or I can get the news from the article in question off a second hand report who has copied all the interesting bits from the article. Someone who will have read the article and "reports" on the situation pretending that they themselves have uncovered this info. Or simply someone who will say "I have read that this is happening". 

Either way I do not have to pay the Times. But am I killing old school news media. Well, yes. Yes I am. But to blame me personally is interesting. Am I personally responsible for killing paywall news papers? Okay, lets say I am. Am I responsible for letting the Irish language die for not supporting it? Am I responsible for destroying the environment for not using a Tesla but instead using a gas guzzling Ford. 

Basically, everything you do means that you are not doing something else. Of course there are always people in the crowd that are going to shout out that some actions are good and some actions are bad. Supporting Tesla means more zinc production which is destroying land, rivers and communities.  Speaking English mean NOT speaking some other language. If I speak Irish am I killing English? I never heard and English speaker bust into a room of Irish speaking children and scream at them for not speaking the Queens English because for heavens sake English is dying out! But guess what, I have heard Irish speakers scream at children for speaking English.

Does not matter what you do - it means you are not doing something else. So lets take this back to the news. That paywall. Don't want to pay for your news - fine don't. But when Putin is controlling 20% of your social media and all of a sudden you think it is a good idea to begin teaching Russian in the West of Ireland instead of Irish OR English don't try to figure out what happened. You know what happened. You should have paid for the paywall to be gone. You should have paid for proper reporting. 

 

When you pay for the news, in general I am going to say you are paying for real reporting. When you get your news for "free" you are paying with your soul. Again... when you look at the mirror and only see someone morally bankrupt, opinion-less and confused about the world around them remember what I told you. You pay for the news with your wallet or your soul. No one misses the water until the well runs dry. 

The news does not mean so much to me that I pay for it all the time. But I think I know what is going on to a degree. I follow a few different news sources. I am aware that I am however mostly ignorant about the world. I know very little. Can you say that? Look at the attacks on the Capitol Hill in USA or at home look at the rise of right wing anti immigration and anti gay movements that are happening in Ireland. Do they pay for their news? Not a chance.. they are ignorant, live in their own hateful little echo chambers. They are scum. 

Not paying for the news, or more importantly, not caring where your news comes from is a dangerous thing.

Current big events in 2023!

 I just looked back at this blog for the first time in ages. My last blog was about Sinead O Connor. Yuck, what a nasty place to leave my blog. I never liked Sinead O Connor. She make a mockery of lots of the things that I believe in. Anyway, she died some time... could not even be bothered to look up her death.

Sinead O Connor Wiki page if you must...

Yep, she dead. There is a wiki link. Good riddance. 

So what else is happening in the world! Lots of good stuff, lots of bad stuff. Of course I do not believe in a "good" or "bad" in the way that they are terms for "evil" or "saintly" so to me there is simply STUFF happening in the world. Let me make a little list of the biggest things in the world that interest me right now: 

1) The Isreal Hamas War

First off here is a link to the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

  

From my point of view, having read up a certain amount over the years, having seen the news over the years, trying to understand world politics better - I have no idea what should happen.  

2) Ukraine Way

There is no other way to look at the Ukraine war than the following in my opinion. If you support Russia in this you are an ignorant fool. If you have pity for Ukraine then I am with you. 

 

3) ChatGPT4

I have ChatGPT4. It is amazing. I will never get it to write out something here for me without me having explicitly referenced that it was in fact GPT4 that wrote it.

No need for church to see clearly

I saw this headline while on Reddit:

In the wake of more news of child abuse bythe Catholic Church perhaps we owe Sinead O'Connor an apology.

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. 

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!

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 Trek	7.267
Star Wars	7.825
Star Gate	7.771
Firefly	8.500
Battlestar Galactica	7.660
Farscape	8.250
Babylon 5	6.988
Andromeda	6.600

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

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/

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 above Ctrl + Alt + Shift + = Ctrl + Alt + = (with rows selected) Want to delete a row? Delete rows Ctrl + 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