Ask toolbar spyware included with Java installs

Oracle has now started to spread Ask toolbar spyware with its Java installations. Oracle has a nice page on this here, making this look innocent and nice. The problem is that Oracle is lying and this is far from being nice. Since this is nothing but spyware and is going to create a lot of run-time problems with your browser. I am not the first one to cover this, far from it, an article on this subject can be found here with information on how to avoid this problem with the Ask toolbar.

Next time you install or update Java, the Ask toolbar boxes and any other software other than Java it self should be left unchecked like this.

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Oracle Java Ask spyware check boxes. Screenshot that I took.

Oracle should stop doing this. I don’t think they care enough however to do so. So people need to stay aware of this issue with Java installs.

Myndir úr hungursneyðinni í Evrópu (Danmörku)

Í tilefni þess að Vigdís Hauksdóttir hélt því fram að það væri hungursneyð í Evrópu (sjá hérna). Þá ákvað ég að fara út og taka myndir af þessari hungursneyð í Danmörku. Þar sem Danmörk er í Evrópu og einnig í Evrópusambandinu. Samkvæmt Vigdísi Hauksdóttur þá ríkir í Danmörku hungursneyð hérna ásamt fleiri ríkjum sem eru í Evrópusambandinu. Ég nennti ekki að fara til Þýskalands til þess að taka myndir af hungursneyðinni þar. Mér vannst bara ekki tími til þess núna. Myndirnar eru teknar í SuperBrugsen Padborg.

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Voðaleg fátækt í gangi í Danmörku eins og sjá má.

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Þetta er alveg voðalegt ástand í Danmörku.

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Ekki batnar það.

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Það er mikill skortur á matvælum í Evrópusambandinu eins og sjá má á þessari mynd.

Eins og sjá má á þessum myndum er ástandið alveg voðalegt hérna í Danmörku. Engin matvæli til í búðum og fólk svangt og getur ekki keypt sér í matinn og gífurleg hungursneyð í gangi.

Ásættanlegur hraði á internetinu?

Það var eitt af hlutverkum Fjarskiptasjóðs að byggja upp háhraða internet fyrir íslenska bændur. Þetta verkefni hefur mistekist gjörsamlega og líklega á öllum stöðum þar sem átti að koma upp háhraða interneti fyrir bændur.

Hérna er hraðin á internetinu sem foreldrar mínir þurfa að notast við á internetinu. Það á að gera örfáar breytingar á næstunni til þess að reyna laga þetta. Ég hinsvegar veit ekki hversu miklu þetta mun breyta, þar sem hérna er verið að nota 3G kerfi Símans og það ræður engan vegin við þá internet umferð sem er verið að senda í gengum það með þessari áætlun.

Þessi fjarskiptaáætlun er því augljóslega klúður frá upphafi til enda. Í stað þess að notast við lélegar skammtímalausnir eins og 3G og gervihnattasamband (á sumum stöðum) þá hefði átt að leggja ljósleiðara til þeirra bænda sem vildu fá gott internet samband. Þannig hefði líka verið hægt að dreifa annari þjónustu til þeirra. Þá sjónvarpi og annara tengdri þjónustu sem hægt er að bjóða upp yfir ljósleiðara. Þjónustu sem er ekki einu sinni í boði yfir 3G eða ADSL á þessum svæðum. Þetta hefði einnig verið nauðsynleg tæknileg uppfærsla á grunn-fjarskipta netinu á Íslandi. Þar sem ljóst er að fjarskiptasambönd yfir kopar verða aðeins notuð í nokkra áratugi í viðbót í heiminum og á Íslandi.

Þetta fjarskiptaverkefni var hugsað á þann hátt sem íslendingum er svo gjarnt að hugsa í. Skammtímalausnum sem verða svo dýrari til lengri tíma litið.

Why I am a poor person from Iceland

I have always been poor, my whole life. It is not my fault, it is because where I was born and from what my family does (my mother and foster-father) do in Iceland. I also have disability (short of) called Asperger syndrome. I also have poor ability to learn in school. All of this factors is something I had no control over. I also come from Iceland, something that I did also not have control over.

I have tried and failed to get out of this circle of poverty before. The main reason is that my income from social welfare has not increased and is now falling behind on what it costs me to make a living here in Denmark. I don’t know when this is going to be over, or if it is ever going to end for me. At least I hope so, since I don’t like to be in this place in terms of economics (I like where I live). Where I just make due over the month and nothing more. For the past year I have mostly been living on income that many consider below minimal threshold of what most people use. This has started to get to me in more then one way, not only makes this me feel bad. It also often prevents me from working properly on my writing, since I get all tangled up in my worries about money and if I can buy food during the month or not.

The economic principles of my problems

The economic principles of my problems are quiet simple. The benefits from the Icelandic government social welfare are not enough. By the Icelandic government own estimate (Icelandic and the link might not work) a single individual needs to have 291.932 ISK (1.798,94€, 13.420,93 DKK. Current exchange rate.) a month to have it decent if he is living in Reykjavík or capital area, this is without a housing cost. It is a little bit less if the person is living in a rural area or a town in other part of Iceland. For comparison what I get as social welfare today is around 159600 ISK (983,49€, 7.337,26 DKK). This small amount only allows me to pay my bills, current debt (getting lower by the month), rent and nothing more. Currently there is no interest by the government to fix the poor status of people on social welfare in Iceland. Since the current government has it’s ideology in laissez-faire and the idea that is based on making rich people even richer. A bad policy in my view and nothing good is going to come out of it. On top of that I am dealing with poor exchange rate that moves up and down a lot in short period of time. That makes it really hard for me to plan ahead in all this.

Trying to get out, it is just not working

I am trying to get out of this poverty. It is just not working. While donations that I get for my work at Iceland geology blog happen at random and some months I get a lot of donations, while other months I don’t get any donation at all. All I can hope for the year 2014 is that my first published short story that I am going to sell at Kobo help me. Along with more traffic to my short story website. Where I plan to publish more stories in the year 2014 then I did in the year 2013 if everything works out properly. I am also just hoping to win the lottery, it would help greatly in all this. At least I can just dream if nothing else.

I have looked into getting a job here in Denmark. But the companies are it seems interested in hiring people at low wages (under 18 years old of age) rather then to hire person like me at full pay. I also do not hold any degree since I do not function so well in school in terms of learning in the school system. I am trying to make my living off the internet by writing about what interests me. Making a full time income from writing on the internet can be done. But for me I need an eruption in Iceland before that happens, with the work that follows it. In quiet years as has been the case for the year 2013 it is just not going to happen for me.

I am an optimist by nature so I am not going let my current problems turn me down. But this is far from easy for me and has been dragging me down mentally for several months now. I just hope for the best and hope that the good news come one day. Via big lottery winning or an eruption in Iceland. I am going to keep being hopeful and optimist.

Blog post updated at 17:51 UTC.
Blog post updated at 18:23 UTC.
Blog post updated at 18:47 UTC.

The interference of religion into politics

France is now considering banning prostitution in the Swedish manner. A way that has not worked and only given criminals more power over the sex slave in every country that has applied this type of laws. Same is going to happen in France. But that is not what I am going to write about in this post. I am going to write about in short words how religion is interfering with politics in France.

The origin of current anti-prostitution debate in France has no basis in rights for women as is being claimed. The origin is mixed, seeking ideas from radical feminist movements in Scandinavia about victimisation of women that are the basis of that ideology. Crime do exist in the sex trade, as in any other trade in the world. But nothing is going to be resolved by banning prostitution as is being discussed in France. This policy making in France also has a religion ideology behind it. Just as in Scandinavia, where the religion ideology is Christian in origin. In France that ideology is however Islam in nature and has it’s ideas firmly in that basis, along with mixture of Christian ideas from Scandinavia and Sweden. This is dangerous since religion ideology has never worked and is never going to work. This is also going to fund criminal enterprises as it has done in Sweden, Norway and Iceland and other countries where prostitution is banned by law in various manner. This is true for the person pushing for the ban in France, a minister named Najat Vallaud-Belkacem how according to Wikipedia is „non-practising Muslim“. This claim she is making is clearly a bullshit, since there is no such thing as „non-practising“ any type of religion, they can claim it but it is a lie and fabrication. The reason being and this is specially true for Islam and certain branches of Christianity is that obedience and attendance is required by the people. Failure to do so often results in punishments and other social disciplinary actions of the peer-group him self. That is how religion is interfering with politics in France and is in fact pushing this ban forward even if there are no facts at all that support the claim that ban on prostitution is going to resolve anything or prevent crimes against women. The reality is most likely going to result in more crime against women and more human trafficking and sex trade by criminals.

In 2004 (or around that) South Korea banned prostitution on close argument grounds as has been done in Sweden and possibly now in France. That did not resolve anything and prostitution continues to this day. What it has done however is increase crime against women (how now cannot go to the police) and allow criminal gangs to exploit women. This is obviously working against interest of women, how are fully able to control with how they have sex with and for whatever reason they choose. It is also a lesson that moral police never works when it comes to sex. Lawmakers should also not control why people have sex for money and why they do so. For as long they are not forced into this, it should not be an matter of the law. I support laws around prostitution as can be found in Germany and Austria, since that law in fact protect women from criminals and allow crime against women and men to be reported to the police how then can deal with the matter in accordance to criminal law.

Blog post updated at 12:11 UTC on 30-November-2013.

Google Plus customs url might not be free forever

According to Google Terms of Service the new Google customs url might not be free forever.

Custom URLs are free for now, but we may start charging a fee for them. However, we will tell you before we start charging and give you the choice to stop participating first.

Google is at least going to let you know when they start charging money for this „service“. The rest of terms of service can be found here.

Vísir.is ritskoðar athugasemdir við frétt um Smáís

Í dag (25-Október-2013) var birt frétt á Vísir.is þar sem Smáís sakar Netflix um þjófnað og að vera ólöglegt fyrirtæki (streymi er ennfremur ekki beint niðurhal eins og þarna er fjallað um ranglega). Fyrir utan þá staðreynd að þetta er lygi í Smáís þá átti sér stað umræða við þessa frétt þar sem rök Smáís voru tekin í sundur og þeim hent í ruslið. Ég setti meðal annars þarna inn athugasemdir. Núna hefur þessum athugasemdum öllum saman verið eytt og lokað fyrir athugasemdirnar í heild sinni.

Staðreyndin er sú að Fréttablaðið og Vísir.is er í eigu sömu aðila og hafa hvað mest verið að berjast á móti Netflix og Sky áskriftum íslendinga (hver man ekki eftir því þegar Smáís reyndi að banna Sky áskriftir íslendinga. Sjá einnig hérna, hérna og hérna. Þess má einnig geta að samkvæmt dómsúrskurði ECJ þá má selja áskriftir til einkaaðila yfir landamæri á innri markaði ESB/EES).

Það er einnig staðreynd að 365 Miðlar (eða hvað sem þetta fyrirtæki heitir núna í dag) hefur alltaf verið á móti samkeppni síðan hún kom fram á Íslandi. Í dag er Netflix í beinni samkeppni við lélega og dýra dagskrá Stöðvar 2 og það sem meira er. Stöð 2 er að tapa þessari baráttu algerlega og með dýrum dómum. Enda fækkar áskrifendum stöðvarinnar stöðugt og það sér ekki fyrir endann á því ferli. Það er bara tímaspursmál hvenær áskrifendum að Skjá einum fer að fækka á sama hraða og hjá Stöð 2.

Það er alveg ljóst að Smáís er í þjónustu 365 Miðla og hugsanlega fleiri aðila. Hérna er eingöngu um þjónustu við dreifingaraðila að ræða en ekki höfundarréttahafa eins og Smáís heldur fram í sínum málflutningi. Á Íslandi er verið að viðhalda svo til algerri einokun á hinum íslenskra fjölmiðlamarkaði með því að koma í veg fyrir heilbrigða samkeppni. Slíkt hefur leitt af sér hærra verð til almennings á Íslandi og minni gæða og verri þjónustu að auki (háskerpu-útsendingar eru svo til óþekktar á Íslandi eins og stendur) og það er lítil von á því að það breytist á næstunni.

Uppfært: Vísir.is hefur opnað aftur fyrir athugasemdir við þessa frétt eftir að þessi lokun hjá þeim komst í hámæli. Ég tel að afsökun þeirra standist ekki en þeir nota hana nú samt.

Facebook is spamming your inbox

Over the past few weeks I have noticed that I get occasionally an email from Facebook that I did not ask for. This note-faction come from pages that I have not liked at all and I am never going to do so. I have also never subscripted to this pages outside Facebook.

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This is Facebook spam in my email. I have never liked this page and reporting it as spam seems to be useless effort.

The thing about this email, that I did not ask about is the fact that this is paid advertising and nothing else. Facebook does not seem to care that it is spamming its users with this crap. Since this is nothing else and it is also an bullshit.

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As can be seen here I have not liked this page and I am not going to do so.

This new ways of Facebook to do business means only one thing. The end is near for Facebook and they know it, they are maybe good for next 5 to 10 years if they are lucky. This has already started with Facebook loosing users and activity. As has been explained in news like this one here. As for the Facebook page system, it broken and is aimed to be a pay for view type of system as explained in this news here.

For my pages on Facebook, I refuse to pay for them (even if I had money to do so) since I refuse to spam people accounts.

The Kernel is yellow journalism

There is less to the website The Kernel than meets the eyes. This news site appears to be nothing more than yellow pages of the Daily Express. I fully expect them next to start covering alien abductions and pictures of big-foot. There is an interesting information about this news site in the whois information. Mostly that the website kernelmag.com was just created in 2011, so it’s news with less than 5 years running time. They are based in Germany and located in Berlin according to there whois information. There domain is also about to expire next month. They run no advertisement at all and have no source of income that I can see. They clearly do not sell subscriptions to the website that I can see. So how they remain funded is a big mystery to me.

The whois information:

Domain Name: KERNELMAG.COM
Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
Updated Date: 2013-08-05 08:04:22
Creation Date: 2011-11-14 17:39:14
Registrar Expiration Date: 2013-11-14 17:39:14
Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
Registrant Name: Rupert Hoffschmidt
Registrant Organization: Berlin42 Lab GmbH
Registrant Street: Bethaniendamm 19
Registrant Street: c/o Hans Raffauf
Registrant City: Berlin
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code: 10997
Registrant Country: Germany
Admin Name: Rupert Hoffschmidt
Admin Organization: Berlin42 Lab GmbH
Admin Street: Bethaniendamm 19
Admin Street: c/o Hans Raffauf
Admin City: Berlin
Admin State/Province:
Admin Postal Code: 10997
Admin Country: Germany
Admin Phone: +49.1725814448
Admin Fax:
Admin Email: r@hy.co
Tech Name: Rupert Hoffschmidt
Tech Organization: Berlin42 Lab GmbH
Tech Street: Bethaniendamm 19
Tech Street: c/o Hans Raffauf
Tech City: Berlin
Tech State/Province:
Tech Postal Code: 10997
Tech Country: Germany
Tech Phone: +49.1725814448
Tech Fax:
Tech Email: r@hy.co
Name Server: NS1.ASMALLORANGE.COM
Name Server: NS2.ASMALLORANGE.COM

The Berlin 42 appears to be a company in Germany, but from a quick search on-line they don’t seem to make anything at all. I found there Facebook page and it’s close to empty with just 42 followers. Here are the German information about this parent company (what I was able to find and that was just about everything). There current style of headlines is in the manner connect with yellow journalism. The type of news papers that thrive and make it’s there business to manufacture scandals, there main agenda is not to inform people. There main agenda seems to be in my view to create as massive damage in there wake as they can. What is worse, they are succeeding in doing so.

Currently most of not all major e-book publisher have closed down there stores or simply just removed all of there catalogues off the internet. Regardless of content or if it’s offending or not. While I do not object to some control over what is published on-line in e-book (in accordance with local laws) it’s good to have to clear on that murder mysteries does not seem to create any controversy among people, yet for some reason when it comes to nude people it does and is easy to manufacture as an big scandal for sake of publicity (in this case Kernel website). The news of the sweeping ban can be found here (slashdot.org) and here (BBC News).

This type of journalism that is taking place at The Kernel „magazine“ (or whatever) is not going anyone a favour and as I say before it’s creating huge damage to all e-book publishers. Sine now all e-book publishers are being punished for this type of news reporting. Regardless if they write erotica or not, that is clearly not to benefits of nobody. Expect maybe the people at The Kernel magazine (or whatever they want to call them self). There is little to say about yellow journalism, expect it’s disgusting and people who do such a thing should be ashamed of them self and take a course in ethics at some good school (I guess they won’t do that, they lack the ethics to do so in the first place). You can also be sure that The Kernel is a yellow journalism magazine, they have a „resident astrologer“ in the editorial staff. This is just a codeword for bullshit and nothing else. This is what yellow journalism has and is a signature of any bad newspaper out there.

I had not published anything on the e-book platform yet, since things had gotten delayed for me in the past few days for reasons outside my control. While I had not published e-books yet I have my own publishing platform on this website here. I don’t write erotica, it’s not my field of writing. I write science fiction stories and I guess there won’t be a lot of romance in them (at least not for a while I guess) and if there is going to be a romance the stories, it won’t be long or of the nature the yellow journalism is loosing it self over at the moment.

As for the news at The Kernel, it’s just an made up scandals that they are pumping out to gain publicity and short lived fame. It’s nothing else and never was intended to be anything else in my view.

Mynd frá Þýskalandi og Evrópusambandinu

Hérna er mynd sem ég tók í gær. Þessi mynd er frá Þýskalandi sem er næst mér þar sem ég á heima í Danmörku. Þetta er úr smábæ sem heitir Harrislee, þar búa í kringum 11.000 manns. Þessi mynd er tekin fyrir utan eina af dönsku landamærabúðunum í Þýskalandi. Þarna fara danir til þess að kaupa mat, áfengi, nammi og fleira sem þarna fæst ódýrara en í Danmörku (en er samt dýrara en í Þýskalandi).

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Frá Harrislee í Þýskalandi. Smellið á myndina fyrir fulla stærð. Höfundaréttur Jón Frímann Jónsson.

Þarna sést að ástandið í Evrópusambandinu er ekki eins og evrópuandstæðingar lýsa því á Íslandi, enda eru lýsingar þeirra ekkert annað en uppspuni og skáldskapur sem á ekkert skilt við raunveruleikan. Það eru vissulega vandamál í efnahagnum, alveg eins og það eru vandamál í efnahagnum á Íslandi. Vandamálin í Evrópu eru hinsvegar ekki eins og þeim er lýst á Íslandi og mjög langt frá því. Þennan dag sem ég var þarna á svæðinu, þá var mjög mikið að gera í búðinni sem ég fór í. Þessi búð heitir Fleggaard og er ein af stærri búðunum á þessu svæði sýnist mér. Í Fleggaard var troðfullt og brjálað að gera allan þann tíma sem ég var þarna, eða rétt í kringum 3 klukkutíma. Það allavegana sást ekki að í Danmörku hefur verið efnahagskreppa undanfarið, þarna er ennfremur svo sannarlega ekki neitt sem minnir á það ástand sem er ríkjandi á Íslandi undanfarin ár.