Category: English blog

Birt þann

Iceland new government to stop EU accession right away

It has been reported (Icelandic) by Morgunblaðið (mbl.is) that Iceland new government is going to stop EU accession of Iceland right away. This is no surprise, since Iceland new government is made up of right wing extremist that are against EU and Iceland EU accession, due to there xenophobic views on Europe and other countries and cultures, in Europe and other parts of the world if it fits the agenda.

This is bad news for Icelandic people, as for the result of this they are going to see worse economic outcome in the next few years, how fast this is going to change depends on the market reactions to this news. It is clear regardless, the effects of this blocking of Iceland EU accession is going to be felt soon. It might be soon as matter of weeks, but no more then one to three months at most. It is clear that Icelandic people are going to pay greatly for this stupidly of voting this two parties (Independence Party and Progressive Party) to power again. It is going to be costly and messy affair that is going to make the current recession in Iceland last for more then 20 years, with capital limits and even import limits in the long run when things start get real tough in Iceland (this is a common response in Iceland to a repression, it is not going to be compliant with EEA rules).

Birt þann

Mynd frá Evrópusambandinu þann 15. Maí 2013

Hérna er mynd úr Evrópusambandinu þann 15. Maí 2013, myndin er tekin í Flensburg, Þýskalandi rúmlega 8 km frá Danmörku (ESB, en ekki evrusvæðið). Þessi mynd sínir bara ágætlega stöðu mála í Þýskalandi. Þrátt fyrir efnahagskreppu og önnur vandamál sem eru til komin vegna kreppunar.

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Í Flensburg, Þýskalandi þann 15. Maí 2013. Þetta er sveitamarkaður sem þarna var til staðar. Smella má á myndina fyrir fulla stærð. Höfundaréttur Jón Frímann Jónsson.

Það ástand sem ESB andstæðingar á Íslandi lýsa er einfaldlega ekki til í Evrópu. Jafnvel þótt svo að vandamálin séu bæði mörg og stór núna dag hjá mörgum ríkjum innan Evrópusambandsins í dag vegna efnahagskreppunar og bóluhagkerfa sem hafa sprungið á undanförnum árum.

Birt þann

The negative effects of Facebook

I have now, at 02:00 UTC put my Facebook account on deletion schedule in about 14 days. The reason is simple. I find that rules of Facebook to be working against me. In my case is that I want to meet new people. Facebook strictly (by there own rules) does not allow this. Since Facebook is meant for existing social contacts. As such, it is not tool to find new friends and new contacts. The thing with me is that I like trying to make new friends when I feel that is possible.

I am in no way new on Facebook. I started my Facebook account back in the year 2007. That is good 6 years active on Facebook. That is a really long time for being on a social network. During this time the mood on Facebook has changed. It was nice at first, mostly because Facebook was new at the time and people used it to connected to new people or long lost friends (at the time). Now it is not. It has turned into something else. I do not have the word for it. I did try and make new friends on Facebook. But recent changes in Facebook means that is now impossible. I did make new friends on Facebook that I now hold quite dear, even if I have never met them in person yet (working on doing so. But it is going to take a while due to me being poor and the travel costs are high).

There is also other aspect of the Facebook that I had not considered properly. Being always connected to people can be bad, in fact. It can be worse then being stuck with people all the time. We all need a break from each other on regular basis. Facebook in theory (as intended to work) does not allow for that option. It also „adds“ new social obligations to people. That they might be inclined to follow for a short period of time, until they start to ignore them completely. This has happened. Something else is also happening. People are moving away from Facebook. They have as I have descried here. Discovered the negative effects of Facebook and do not want any part of it. So they delete there account and never look back.

I am never going to return to Facebook. At least I do not expect to change my opinion on it due to this discovery of mine. I do not like this negative effects of Facebook on relations between people. It is damaging and often this damage is permanent and in worst cases cannot be repaired at all. I am not going to leave the social media just yet. I am still going to be on Twitter and Google+ for now. There is also one thing about too much information. It is damaging and unhealthy in my view and that is what Facebook does. It gives people unhealthy amount of information about other people. This breaks down relations between people and has damaging effects on the social structure in the long run. That is just my view. I have no data to support this, so this is not scientific claim.

Birt þann

Why Facebook is the biggest pile of crap ever invented

You know what Facebook is? A social network where you cannot meet new people. I am not joking. They say so them there self right here.

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Facebook. Where you cannot meet new people at all! For a social network. That is not social at all.

Not only did they force log me out of my account when they did this. They also forced me to cancel my outstanding friend requests with the threat of blocking or delete my account. But you know what Facebook also does not. Provide you any way to keep track of friend request. If a friend request is not answered. I assume it has been deleted. I have no way to know if it just in place with people that I have send friend request too. That is because Facebook does not tell me what friend requests I have sent out. In fact, if I forget I have no way of knowing at all.

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Facebook forced me to cancel my friend requests with the threat of blocking or deleting my account on Facebook. I am going to take the effort off there hands. In two days time (20th of April). I am going to be off Facebook for good. Since I am not going to accept this type of crap from a company that claims to be running a social network. But in fact is in it self is so anti-social it forbids you to meet new people online. In two days time. I am just going to stick with Google+ and Twitter. I do not accept this crap as I say from Facebook. It is unethical and in fact Facebook is choosing my friends for me. This is nothing else and is never going to be anything else.

Bye Facebook! I am not going to miss you since you started to behave like an asshole.

Birt þann

The internet company that you cannot contact via email

Google Inc is a internet company. But the thing is you actually cannot contact them directly via email or support. Since neither can be found on there web site. Here is a image to prove my point.

Google.inc
Google cannot be contact easily. There is no online support to speak of (below basic minimum). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This is the sorry state of Google Inc. They might be worth US$ 71.71 billion today. But they do not have any customer support to speak of when it comes to things like Google Adsenes, Google+ and more. So if you hit any issue with Google services. You can be sure that you have no way to let them know of the fault in question or make any suggestions or complaints to them. This is what happens when Technocracy got into the corporate world.

Birt þann

Xenophobic minister of Ministry of Interior in Iceland

Ögmundur Jónasson is the minister of Ministry of Interior in Iceland. He is a xenophobic towards everyone that is not a Icelander. But not only that. He is also authoritarian in nature. For the past few months everything that has come from his ministry in Iceland only is about banning things.

What Ögmundur Jónasson has stated he wants to ban in Iceland or limit to foreigners how want to live in Iceland.

He wants to ban online poker in Iceland. Regular poker for profit is already banned in Iceland.
He wants to ban online pornographic material in Iceland. Distributions and owning pornographic magazines or other types of such material is forbidden in Iceland by laws already. He wants to censor the internet in Iceland in order to „protect the children“ as he explained it in the news.
He wants to ban foreigners from owning a house or a land in Iceland. If people how are not Icelanders want to own a house or a land in Iceland. They have to apply for special permit in order to do so. This is going to apply to everyone. Not just for people how are from outside EFTA/EEA/EU area (that Iceland is part of). He seeks to justify this by quoting danish laws in this regards. Danish laws that might not even be in force today.

This people have already been successful in banning strippers. Along with prostitution (Swedish model) in Iceland. Both bans have resulted in more problems they where meant to resolve. Along with making the ban on alcohol advertisements even stronger then it currently is in Iceland.

Since Ögmundur Jónasson became minister of justice affairs in Iceland. His suggestions on what to ban in Iceland has grown ever longer. It is unlikely that Ögmundur Jónasson is going to keep his Ministry after the election that take place in April. This is why he might be pushing out this wish list of bans he wants to put in place before the public remove him from office. But there is a great risk of damage he can do in this amount of time.

Icelandic news and more information

Aðeins Íslendingar eigi fasteignir (Rúv.is)
Frumvarpsdrög kynnt um breytingar á lögum um eignarrétt og afnotarétt erlendra aðila (innanrikisraduneyti.is)

Ögmundur íhugar að refsa fólki fyrir að eiga klám (DV.is)
Varsla á klámi verði bönnuð og lokað á efni erlendis frá (eyjan.is)
Kynþokkalist eða klám? (Vísir.is)
Klámtakmörkun ekki ritskoðun (mbl.is)

Birt þann

Writing is a job and it is not easy doing it

I got a comment today on my last blog post on about asking for donations on Iceland geology blog. It was of the same nature as before. I should not ask for donations in order to survive the month. Because when I had payed all my bills I had nothing left to buy food with. I do not know what this people where expecting me to do. But I guess they where expecting me to starve and end up in a hospital as the result. To be clear. I do get some money from Google Ads and Infolinks. But this income is little and I only get paid from it every 2 to 4 months (Google Adsense). I haven’t had a payment from Infolinks in over 6 months now. This is because my blog on earthquake and volcano activity in Iceland is not a high volume traffic web site. The reason for that is simple.

It is new and building up a strong and steady readership takes a long, long time. It actually takes more then 10 years. Here is a good example with Universe Today. That blog was created in the year 1999. I did find it in the year 2003. That is 4 years later. By then he had decent amount of readers. There is a difference between me and Universe Today. The creator of Universe Today had a job that he was able to live off while he was building up his blog and space news do not require constant attention (if you want close to real-time information on event) as earthquake and volcano activity often does. It also takes time and often effort keeping the geophone network up and running properly. Software updates, hardware fixing (if needed) and buying replacement parts when something breaks down due to old age (and a lot of usage). I also review earthquakes that I record. Make gif images of them if I need to post them online and a lot more that I do in the background when I am preparing a blog post for my blogs (this goes for all of them). Checking history of the volcano or earthquake area is something I also spend a lot of time on. As history is important and I need to know what has happened in the past (if possible) in a volcano or a fault line area. So this is a lot of work for me. Often taking hours to days from start to finish. Then there is maintain the WordPress software, upgrades, reading emails that I sometimes get and many more details that I have to attend to.

When I ask for a donation. I am not begging [internet begging]. As in return people get a working blog (and ebooks when I publish them) from me with updated news on what is happening in Iceland. A working geophone network that I maintain with my own cost (and it is not free to run it. Far from it) and time. I am no more begging then Universe Today is begging by asking for donations them self. This is also not a volunteer work that I am doing (more or less). As the cost is just too high for me to carry alone. I can’t afford to hiring a team of people helping me with this. As then I would have to pay them salary, so they can pay there bills and buy food for them self and there families. I live a lone, so I just have to pay for food for my self and pay my bills for my self. People have no idea about the work I put into this blog. What I have mentioned here is just half of it. But you can be sure that I put a lot of effort into this blog and I am going to continue to do so.

Blog post updated. Minor text fixes applied.

Birt þann

Why don’t you just get a job?

Today I got a complaint about my Iceland geology blog. It was not about the blog it self. It was about me asking for donations so I can survive the month of January. The complaint was that I should not ask for donations for food. That should come out of my own pocket. Ignoring the problem that all of the money I can get from social welfare in Iceland did go in January to pay the bills. Leaving me with nothing to buy food. I have often solved this issue by increasing my overdraft at the Icelandic bank. Something that I consider a bad idea (I consider all loans a bad idea now. Just like credit cards. Not the pre-paid ones). But given the fact that I have been having money issue for some time now (few months). That is no longer a options for me. Since my overdraft is now high and I cannot and I do not want to increase it any more. I am also sure that the bank is not going to increase it for me even if I asked for it.

My overdraft is now at 3.701,76€, 27.624,31DKK, 4.922,48USD (current exchange rate against ISK). That is far too high in my opinion. How it got there is a rather simple matter. How it is going to get resolved is also a simple matter. But it is going to take time for me to fix this. The question on why I can’t get just get a job to solve this is a interesting one. As writing in it self is a job. A lot of work in fact. There is also a question of if anything happens in Iceland I won’t be able to update in close to real time what is going on. As I do now. I had to get a summer job in the year 2011. That is the same year as Katla volcano dedicated that it was a good idea to start erupting. This was also the summer a minor eruption took place in Hamarinn volcano. Because I had a job (to pay down my debt at the time) I was unable to watch and update my on regular basic what was going on. I got to complaint about that in the comment (it is there somewhere. I just can’t find it). Since I had to sleep and go to work the next day after.

I did answer the complain email. Explaining in simple terms that I needed this to be able to pay for food. The replay was that food expenses should come out of my own pocket. Not asking for donations. It also sad that I should ask for the danish welfare state to help me. Something that cannot be done yet. As I have income from Iceland (not good one). I have also not been long enough in Denmark to get all the rights as a normal danish person. That takes at least three to five years of living in Denmark.

My current budget problem is a factor of two things. Bad exchange rate in Iceland and small amount of debt. As I had to buy new glasses and a washing machines so I can keep my cloths clean. I also had to get a loan from the county I live in for the deposit insurance on the apartment I now live in (I pay that last). For the period of three months (most of my overdraft comes from this) I had to pay double rent. That was expensive I did try to avoid it, but that failed. Too add on top of that I had to pay taxes in Iceland for the year 2011. I did spread that out over a period of 12 months. But due to this budget issues that I have been having. I have been adding on top of that payment for few times now. But I am going to stop paying that in August. Then it is finished. I finish paying for the glasses in May. So my bills are getting fewer with time. As I am working on solving my financial problems. I am planning on being debt free in about two to three years time if everything goes according to the plan I have set-up in regards on solving the money issue that I have.

As for getting a job. I have a job in my own view. It is a job that involves me writing about volcano and earthquake activity in Iceland, Canary Island. I also write about space and the geology of the Falkland Islands regularly. Too bad that this job pays almost nothing at the moment. Since it is quiet in Iceland and Canary Islands (there is no volcano activity in Falkland Islands) and I have not seen any space news that I find interesting enough to write about. I like having this job, since I like writing. Since I am self-employed. The issue is that this job pays almost nothing and I have to depend on the social welfare from Iceland, unstable Icelandic Krona exchange rate. I am thankful for the donations that I get. They do help. But my problem are now so large (compared to my income) that I am going to have issue for more months at least (I think) until this starts to get solved properly. But I do hope that by September things are mostly resolved. At least according to my plan. I am going to be mostly debt-free by then. Just owning the county (kommune) I live in here in Denmark money and my bank in Iceland. Everything else I have finished paying up by that time. It is going to be difficult until September at least. But after that I am hoping for easier times.

I can get a second job to get more income. But that would take away from me the time to write about volcano activity in Iceland (and Canary Islands) and provide current up to date information on what is going on in Iceland. Or in Canary Island for that matter. I can’t do both properly. But I always have the cost of living, paying bills and so on.