Vendor Fandom
Why is it that people are so god damn in love with their favorite vendors? Is advertising to blame? Are geeks inherently just stubborn motherfuckers? Probably. Let's do a quick dive into this issue.
At work, i often find that people are stuck with one brand, one OS or one technological solution for one reason or another. I'm pretty much agnostic. I like to have the solution that works best for the problem. There are people at every company (i'm willing to wager) who are in a position to make decisions, and who make those decisions based purely on "what they think is right". Objectivity is simply not on the menu. Shit, i know a few people myself.
Sure, for like random Joe-Bob on the corner you can use your own biased opinion to say "Go out and buy X, it's good". But when you are working in a corporate environment, your own opinion can weigh in, but your personal fandom toward a specific solution or vendor, which are usually unfounded, should not be a deciding factor.
I'm guilty as charged: I used to think Cisco is the go-to solution for anything network related. Or EMC for storage solutions. What we should do is, look at the problem at hand: what does the client need done, and what's the budget. Then look at the solutions available using those as parameters. Then use past experience, peer reviews and other metrics to come to a more final conclusion. The process is often shortened to "I like Solaris, so we'll offer a Solaris based solution", even if it is not the best, performance- or feature-wise. The client comes to you, expecting that you have the necessary know-how to bring them the best solution. After all, that's why they came to you, and didn't do it themselves. So when you come up with your solution, and the client doesn't know better, he'll go for the solution because you said so. The question remains: Why did you say so?
A lot of other things factor in of course. How will the devices / solutions be supported? Does the service provider have the necessary people with the needed know-how to use the equipment being sold? Is it the most cost-effective solution, while still providing the minimum requirement? Decisionmaking is a process that can be very personified. One guy gives the go-ahead. He might be the IT-manager, or some senior sysadmin that people trust. I say that in most cases that trust should be evaluated. Especially the people who have been in the IT industry a long time tend to get really bogged down with what they like, discarding all other metrics when they make decisions. They are the guys who get the job done, sure, but what are the long-term costs of their input?
The other option is perhaps worse, where decisionmaking becomes this huge process, involving dozens of people, meetings, commitees, etc. But a simple review of what is being done, before someone hits the "Order!" or "Sell!" button could save the service provider and the client from a lot of trouble down the line.
The problem lies perhaps in organizational structure. The sales guys want to sell, because their salary is dependant on the deals the close. They don't have the technical knowhow. They ask the technical guys. The technical guys tend to be biased for the wrong reasons. In internal processes, the final go-ahead comes from the IT-manager, or equivalent person, who can overrule or veto any suggestion or decision made further down the line. Often to the dismay of everyone else. He's not the one who has to support the devices or products down the line. He just gives the final go-ahead.
Ok this is a very disorganized post, i realize this. But you may be able to dig out somewhat of a point that i'm trying to get across here. Pay attention to the decisions around you, and at least sometimes stop and ask why something is being done. Our industry is in one giant hurry to go somewhere, so perhaps stopping every now and then wouldn't be such a bad idea?
My review and thoughts on The Social Network
Alright, so on to other things from my previous "serious" posts. I finally rented The Social Network yesterday (on DVD no less. They were out of Blu-Rays. How passé). It was kind of a hard movie to get hold of. It seems a lot of people have been renting it recently.
The movie runs about two hours, but it felt a lot longer, for some reason. It basically tells "the story" of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and the worlds youngest billionaire. I haven't read too much about the movie, so i'm not sure to which degree it represents the true story of facebook. In any case, i found myself laughing at times, but on the other hand, feeling very sad for the Mark character. Whether he is a douche in real life.. who knows? A few people maybe. I'm guessing a lot of NDA's have been signed, people have moved on and so on.
The technology in the movie is fairly accurate. The movie fires off with a bunch of tech-talk with Mark downloading images off Harvard univesity websites, and doing some scripting to grab other images. It felt authentic, and i didn't see any "in your face"-problems with the stuff that was happening on screen. Mark used a laptop with KDE, which was cool. It wasn't MovieOS 3.1 or something. He used editors to write code. He talked about Mozilla. Apache. MySQL. It was fun to watch for once; not having to cringe everytime the geek character opens his yapper.
The Mark Zuckerberg in the movie is portrayed as an obsessive, almost manic character. He talks fast, and i can see the thought-patterns forming in his head before he speaks the line. He sort of plays chess with whomever he is talking to, anticipating the underlying meaning (sometimes incorrectly, mostly not) and answering the underlying question, as opposed to the one asked. He is portrayed as verbally humiliating many people with his witty rhetorics. It's fun to watch. I could somehow relate to the character. I often find discussions boring, and people to be very hypocritical and careful when they are talking. It's boring to try to decipher what people are actually trying to say. Why can't we all just say what we mean, instead of what we think the other guy wants to hear? If you want to be a dick, be so to my face, and don't try to hide behind quick quips and facetious smiles. People see through those, you know?
I found myself out of breath many times, because of the speed at which the Mark character is talking. His mind works like a parallel processor, and it's fun to watch. His manerisms get him into a lot of trouble with other people, which is kind of the premise of the movie. "Make 500 million friends, but end up with a few enemies in the process too".
The character portrayed by Justin Timberlake was easily the second best in the movie. He played Sean Parker, co-inventor of Napster and various other internet ventures. Not to be confused with Shawn Fanning, also inventor of Napster, but entirely a different guy. The real life Parker has commented that he is nothing like the character in the movie, and that it is entirely a work of fiction. He does own 7% of Facebook, apparently, so he has been involved, but he commented that he wishes his life was as cool as it was portrayed in the movie. The Parker-character is an obvious comic relief, but also kind of an antagonist, a money-grabbing opportunist, drug user and troublemaker. I still found myself liking the portrayal a lot, and i think more highly of Timberlake having seen this movie. A great role.
All in all, it makes a good point. If you have certain characteristics, you are not easy to approach. You may be the most skilled hacker in the world, but if your people-skills suck, you'll die alone. Rich, but alone. The question is, do you want to live your dream, or be someone you're not? Facebook has over 500 million members. What started out as an "exclusive" invite only club, is now a common household name. And at the center of this company, valued at 25 billion dollars, is Mark Zuckerberg. Perhaps a lonely guy with more money than he can ever hope to use. Maybe he has lots of friends, and is nothing like the movie portrays him as? I think he's the sort of distant guy, who you hear talk about, you see in pictures, but who you never truly know. Kind of the personification of the American, capitalist dream. But still too distant to make out. A modern enigma.
Christian tradition disappearing in Finland
I say, good on you!
There's discussion in the Finnish media about tradition (read: christian tradition) disappearing in our schools. Some schools are downright outlawing songs and plays that portray christian values. Funny by the way, how the word christian, no capital C, is listed as misspelled in WordPress / Chrome.
This whole issue just makes me angry. And to top things off, one of our tabloid "news" "papers" have started a poll, where people can vote to either keep or abandon these christian traditions. At this time, something like 34 000 people have voted, which isn't a lot. They should have added boobs. Or something. And now the headline is "Removal of christmas traditions causes minor citizen uproar!". Free advertisement over an issue they have no control over, and that the majority doesn't really give a shit about. Good work.
Basically songs that come from christian hertitage, anything containing jesus, god, angels and other christian bullshit, are being removed from Finnish schools. Christmas celebrations are in no way affected, but the issue is that "tradition" is being trampled.
So my question is, do we need religion to have tradition? Do we need the bible to have morals? Scarily, i've heard that an atheist cannot have morals, because the bible, the word of god, is the only source that teaches morals to people.
I think not. We can still celebrate, and have all kinds of fun without religious context! It's like people want to continue old traditions just to continue them. How many people in Finland are actually Christians? I mean people who pray, go to church and read the bible? Not too many people i would wager. So what's the fuzz?
"My Daddy and his Daddy before him always dropped bricks on their cocks. So you, my son, will continue to do the same thing!"
-"But why Dad, why?
"Because it's always been done that way. Now get ready, here it comes!"
Wikileaks and the revenge of Anonymous
Let's get a few things straight. Anonymous is not an organized group. It's a bunch of people, mostly hailing from the online forum 4chan, who are out to do anything they damn well please. They are seldom politically motivated, and usually just do whatever feels like fun at the time. They do not have a leader. If Anonymous posts something, it's just.. a guy. A regular person acting as the voice of this internet flash-mob, if you can call it that.
Basically how it goes is: Someone thinks something needs to be done. They make a post on 4chan, and if this person is successful in rousing enough interest, something happens. This is a pure game of luck. Most of the time, people will call you names, and tell you to go have intercourse with your mother, or a goat. But sometimes, you can get enough people, critical mass, and then get them to do something.
Various things 4chan "anonymous" has done in the past, include: Posting threats on the door of a Swedish forum operator (a forum which allows the posting of child pornography) and videotape the proceedings, to placing pubic-hair inside various (mostly Scientology related) religious books in bookstores around New York. Now, this random "Eye of Sauron" has turned it's gaze upon those who seek to harm wikileaks.
Operation Payback is the name of this particular set of fun. Some anonymous created a tool called LOIC (low orbit ion cannon), which works on all platforms and makes participating in a distributed denial of service attack so easy, that you hardly need any skill at all. This is not hacking and most people using LOIC have no idea of what they are doing. Basically it has a nice GUI which allows you to type in a target website or IP, and then hit "Fire!", to start attacking the host. Just like in the movies. So far they have targeted the Swedish Justice department, taking down their site for a good while, disrupting mastercard.com, and even causing payment verification to fail according to some reports. Visa.com was next, after they announced their block of wikileaks. Amazon was on the menu today.
Basically it's just people doing stuff that seems fun. Like people demonstrating without really knowing what or who they are demonstrating for. They see it as fun, being a part of something bigger. Again: It's very vaguely co-ordinated, and a group of Anonymous can disperse as quickly as they gathered. Next week maybe they will paint penises on bus stops. Who knows.
I'm not quite sure these DDOS attacks are a good thing. First of all they are not hackers. They are script kiddies at most, and i would bet even they would be insulted if these people were given that name. Yes. I think Visa, and Mastercard, Amazon and Paypal, Easydns, and a number of other companies need to think very carefully about what they do, if they intend to keep their clients.
I do realize the government can do really scary things, especially the US government. But you need to keep in mind that the people of this world will not look at your cowardly actions for much longer. You need to draw lines, agreed. But do so across the board. And once you go down the path of censorship, there is no turning back. If you do choose that path, go all the way. But don't block one site, and leave others, like Paypal, still accepting donations for foundations supported by the Ku Klux Clan, an inherently evil racist group. You can't donate to promote freedom of speech, but you can donate to support racism and hate.
Am i the only one who does not find any sense in this?
The other half of me thinks that the attacks on these companies serve no purpose, and are no better than the people opposing wikileaks. Isn't preventing these sites from being accessed the same damn thing? Preventing these companies from exercising their own brand of freedom of speech? Though they have acted cowardly, and clearly under duress, do they deserve the same treatment. I haven't decided. But i do think there is an inherent "Lulz"-factor in all of this. Visa denies donations to wikileaks, and they are taken down, costing them money as well. While i don't condone clearly illegal activities (both those against wikileaks, and the companies mentioned), i don't feel sorry for them either. You reap what you sow.
Somehow there is a curious sense of justice and irony to all of this, dontcha' think?
Wikileaks and The Coming Revolution
God damn it! I kind of promised myself i wouldn't write this post, but i'll do it anyway!
So the topic of the past few weeks for anyone who has even tried to follow the news, has of course, been wikileaks. For those box-dwellers among you, Wikileaks is simly a site that accepts "leaked" information sent to them by anyone. The recent hubbub started when US Private First Class Bradley Manning (currently in prison) sent in what would later be called the "Collateral Murder" video. This video shows a US helicopter gunning down innocent people, among them, two children (who survived with serious injuries), and two Reuters Journalists, who did not survive the attack.
This leak did not go over well with the US government, and the game was on.
So the next big releases concerned "war journals" from Afghanistan and Iraq, detailing many of the reported incidents of casualties and other such events. In them, we can find out how many friendly-fire incidents there have been, and how many civilians have died since 9/11. Someone equated this to one 9/11-event every 8 months. And where are the memorial events for these people? Observances of silence? Haven't heard anything so far (no pun intended).
The thing that broke the proverbial camel's back was what has become known as "Cablegate". The release of over 250 000 variously classified US embassy communiques. Basically messages sent between various State leaders, US embassies around the world, and the US state-department.
Wikileaks reportedly received these from Pfc. Bradley Manning, though this isn't entirely certain, as far as i know. Wikileaks are releasing the cables in small increments, to give justice to the material being released. So far, around 1000 documents have been released. Which means there is a lot to go, and a lot of embarrassing moments various politicians.
The response so far has been US pressure against sites and service providers, such as Amazon, Paypal, Mastercard and Visa. I'll go into more detail later on. Basically they are thinking pretty one-dimensionally. Stop wikileaks.org, and stop the problem, right? Wrong. There are as of this writing over one thousand mirrors, providing the same content. Even though the US government is known for being pretty fucking stupid, they cannot seriously be this naïve. Once information enters the internet, it can never be taken out again. Ever.
So how did the US government think to stop this problem. Here are a few examples:
- Probably coercing Mastercard and Visa to stop taking donations to wikileaks. Wikileaks has lost a lot of money over this issue. Visa and Mastercard are both citing Terms of Service violations, but they have been vague at best, since there is still no idea of any law that Wikileaks might have broken *anywhere*. They are distributing already leaked material. Once it was leaked, it ceased to be private, and therefore, the only guilty party so far, is the person or persons who exfiltrated the data from "Secret" US government networks, such as SIPRNET.
- Secret in t his case meaning that about 3 million people worldwide have been granted access to the same data.
- Probably coercing Paypal to kill Wikileaks' account, and so deprive them of funds that people would have donated through paypal, which i previously thought was a pretty decent company. Not anymore.
- Note, that while wikileaks is in breach of Terms of Service, you can still donate money to such admirable organizations as the Ku Klux Clan through paypal. So get those dollars flowing people!
- Forcing Amazon to stop hosting wikileaks.org in their cloud service. Of course, the DDOSing of wikileaks.org placed significant stress on Amazon's infrastructure, but again, citing TOS violations are pretty funny.
- I can't even being to list all the similar items either on sale, or hosted at Amazon, providing equally "damaging" information, but Wikileaks was apparently different. Or then you just wanted to play nice with the Government bullies.
- Forcing various DNS service providers from hosting wikileaks DNS records, therefore making you unable to access wikileaks.org by name.
- This as we have seen is -- uh -- very effective. Over a thousand mirrors have cropped up so far, offering the same exact site as the now downed wikileaks.org. Also if a DNS server is removed, you can still access a site by its IP-address, unless they take more drastic measures, such as DDOSsing sites (such as wikileaks.ch, which is down from having to serve excessive requests). Speculation suggests the attackers are affiliated with the US government, who are waging a desperate and inane war against an "enemy" they do not comprehend.
- Telling various government agencies and institutions that accessing wikileaks or any of the published cables is illegal or against regulations. These include at least the state department, military institutions (like soldiers overseas fighting for this very country). Rumors are even abound that schools are suggesting or prohibiting students from discussing or writing essays on the subject. I will repeat that these are unsubstantiated rumors.
So where do things stand now? Julian Assange, the "leader" of wikileaks is now in Brittish Custody, and soon to be turned over to Swedish authorities for trial on two alledged sex-crimes he committed. Now, while most media sources speak of rape, this is not the case. Is a journalist someone who does not check their facts? I think not. Rape has never been the charge. In stead, the crimes is that when two people agree to consensual sex in Sweden, and during intercourse, your condom breaks, the woman can sue you. Two women did. Two very interesting women. One may or may not have CIA ties. The other, a noted feminist, studied an article on how to take legal revenge on men before suing Julian.
As soon as news of the arrest came out, talk of extradition to the US appeared. Curious. A bunch of idiots have suggested he might be tried for treason, and various other ludicrous crimes. How can a non-US citizen be accused of treason? Well, in works by various other idiots, is now a revamping of the old espionage law, that would give US authorities the leverage they need to prosecute pretty much... anyone anywhere for spying and causing harm to US interests. I have no doubt in my mind that the Swedish authorities will hand him over just gladly, bending over to the will of the US government. If Julian is extradited, which is very likely to happen (if he isn't assassinated first), he will probably never see the light of day again.
While my sympathies are with Julian and his family, taking him out of the equation will not affect Wikileaks in any way. In fact, it will only re-envigorate the cause. He would become a de-facto martyr for this "cause", if you can call it that. Wikileaks will live on as long as the people decide it will. And there is no amount of government hoo-haa they can pull out of their ass that will change any of that. If they want to do something, i suggest owning up to the diplomatic disasters they themselves have created over the last few decades. The age of diplomatic secrecy and fucking the people of this world in the ass is over. As in nature, either you adapt, or you die. In this case, we can't lose. Either governments will change to face this new reality, or they will crumble like a deck of cards.
Next in line is an exposé on the corrupted world of US banking! Rumors say it's Bank of America that is being targeted, with some 5 gigabytes of data leaked from the hard drive of a bank executive, supposedly revealing a culture of corruption, fraud and worse. I say go for it. If it costs us a re-collapse of the global economy, i say bring it. I am not afraid.
The world is in need of a decent shakeup.
Uncharacteristics.
I've taken to not writing anything about my personal life, but.. it's a late hour, and i'm feeling like shit, so i might as well use this as a kind of diary. I don't expect commentary. Not many people can understand what i'm going through, and that's just fine. This is mostly for me. So i can read about it later. Maybe i was also influenced by E to some degree to write this.
Since the breakup from my 6 year relationship with the first woman i really loved, I've gone through so many stages. I guess these are all in psych 104 or whatever, but it's another thing experiencing them on your own.
I thought i was set. A great kid, a son none the less, someone to carry on the family name. A beautiful wife whom i loved. A burgeoning career doing the thing i love the most. Years worth of un-replaceable experiences, good memories and immortal moments. A home.
Some people say that home is where you are. But when you've built something together, and one of the architects are taken away, it's no longer your home. It's just a storage place for memories.
Granted; good memories never fade. Bad memories stick around just long enough to teach us something, but they are gradually put aside. It's how the human mind works. The brain can't handle too much of the bad stuff, or it malfunctions and you become incapable of performing anything but the most basic tasks; if even those. I have what is called a high thresh-hold for activity or performance. I can take higher than average loads of crap, before i become unable to go to work, meet people, do things. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable.
We've sat on the beach facing the Mediterranean, felt the fine sand under our toes, looking at the sunset. Feeling the salty breeze on our faces. Being happy, smiling and looking at each other. Ate rabbit stew up in a restaurant in a small village in the Sierra Nevada mountains, with an entré of Jámon Serrano. Climbed up to an old Moor castle. Climbed the Eifel Tower. Walked across Paris to reach the Louvré which looked a whole lot closer on the map. The gargoyles of Notre Dame. The steps leading up to the Sacre Coeur. Standing in the middle of Time Square. Looking across the bay toward the Statue of Liberty.
Sitting on the couch watching Eureka, or Alias or something. The small things. Saw the whole of Alias almost in sequence. And this was just a few months ago it feels.
Since i have partially eidetic memory, and a visual memory in general as well, i can't look at certain items anymore without feeling such deep sorrow. I remember where almost every DVD in my shelf was bought. When we first watched it. I had to replace about 3000 euro worth of furniture just to be able to live here. And here i am, still stuck in this 95 m2 appartment, with jack-all to do, and a brick where my brain should be. Just writing this makes me cry.
As i've concluded to so many people: all i have is a pile of good memories and the question of why.
Why do nice guys finish last?
Playground of the Giants
I've been giving megacorporations a whole lot of thought lately. In this article, i'll be looking at three of them: Microsoft, Google and Apple.
First, let's delve in to the big G, Google. Google is a verb. How many companies have ever become a verb? "Google that.". There's a whole lot of buzz around Google, namely that they are some kind of evil corporation, hellbent on world domination. There are a number of things that attest to this. Google is one of, if not the biggest owner of fiber optic cable in the world. This means, they control a large part of the backbone of the internet. They've been quietly buying it up along the years, and i believe they are now in the position of largest owner. The buying started in 2005, if not earlier.
Recently, theybid for a chunk of RF-bandwidth, namely the 700mhz area. This is an area that can be used to operate a mobile telephone network. In the 2007 bidding-competition, this was the C-block. The rules stated, that if bidding on the C block exceeded a certain figure, the winner would have to allow everyone to create applications and devices for that block, effectively opening it up.
“As a result of the auction, consumers whose devices use the C-block of spectrum soon will be able to use any wireless device they wish, and download to their devices any applications and content they wish,” say Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber, two of Google’s Washington-based counsel members, in a post Thursday afternoon.
Google threw in a bid of a cool 4.6 billion dollars right off the bat, thereby unlocking the deal as stated above. They didn't actually have to pay that much (Verizon ended up actually buying the spectrum for a fair 9.4 billion, which also includes other frequencies), but the fact that they could make the bid, means they did.
Google makes money off advertisement. If you use Firefox, and the noscript plugin (very much recommended), you'll notice that most sites use a bit of javascript called Google Analytics. This is the little bit of code that follows you around on the web, and generates valuable marketing data about your habits. This way, marketing companies can make very specific ads, or just change the layout and presentation of their ads, based on how millions upon millions of consumers surf. They also use text-ads in applications such as gmail, to look through your mail (scary, right?), and then produce ads based on the content of your mails. Say you're mailing Tom about a new car, you'll probably get ads regarding cars, auto accessories, cheaper service-plans..
So my question is, can google make it without the ad-revenues? If i suddenly went around like fucking Santa Claus, and installed Firefox on every last computer in the world, along with adblock and noscript, would google go bancrupt? Probably not. They've been adding to their portfolio with things like fiber optics and mobile devices (Android, anyone?). But would it be enough to sustain this behemoth? Who knows. The ultimate goals of Google may only be known to a select few. It's just a proven fact that when any entity gains a lot of power, that results in trouble. Because what do people with power want? More power.
Chapter two in this post is Microsoft and Apple. Both big healthy companies, with a long-running history of weird products, bad products, and amazing success-stories. But one would probably not be without the other. I'm talking about Apple, receiving money from Microsoft to continue operating. This was in the 90's. Now what did this result in, initially? Microsoft products were now available on Macs. Programs like Office and Internet Explorer became available on the Mac platform. But this hasn't quelled the interest for Mac applications, such as iWork and Safari, both of which are living healthy lives of their own. IE isn't available anymore, and the office version is growing a bit old as well. One can dual-boot a mac in to windows, using Boot Camp. No doubt, also a fruit of this unholy alliance.
CNET recently wrote that Apple "owes" Microsoft 30 billion dollars, and as a side effect, most of their success. Had Microsoft not sponsored Apple, they probably would not have gone on to get a significant market-share in mobile phones, computers and software. The iPod is a household standard, and who hasn't heard of the iPhone, perhaps the most anticipated product launch of the 00's. Apple has created a whole breed of geeks. People who follow the word of the Steven, use 100 bucks on their haircuts, drink 10 euro cups of coffee, while surfing wirelesly on their admittedly crippled Mac Air. Whatever they make, these people buy. They do the marketing for Apple. All that's needed is a few select words, usually starting with "Oh and by the way..", and the apple fanatics take care of the rest. Blogs, offices and dinner tables everywhere are filled with discussion on their new product, the price and features usually a mere subtopic. Whatever the price, whatever the problems and obvious deficits, people will buy it. They'll line up to get it.
Funny how one of the most powerful forces in marketing and design today, depended on one of the industry's grandfathers. When has a Microsoft product last seen even a fraction of the hype of an Apple launch? Maybe Microsoft should have added a clause to get a share of the marketing genious that is Apple, in exchange for all those moneys? Maybe there were clauses in there that nobody knows about. But they sure have stayed quiet about the whole deal.
I’m making a public statement
I, xxx xxxx hereby declare that if Timo Soini, of the right-wing populist "True Finn"-party gets elected as president of Finland, i will move out of the country within one month of his inauguration.
The stupidity must end.
Expiring veterans/money
This is just a bit of news i picked up elsewhere, it's probably in all the major news outlets here, so i won't bother with sources. Check any magazine.
There's 87 million euros (that's like a kazillion u.s. dollars) of money that's been collected by different organisations to benefit the veterans of our wars. There are roughly 67 000 veterans left, and two-thirds of them will die within the next five years, according to studies. This means, that they'd have to start giving out cash at a speedy rate, so that everyone get's their share. This also means that people who have donated to the cause over the past decades don't get lied to, and that the money goes where it was collected for.
Let's get a few things straight. I don't disrespect veterans, on the contrary. My grandfather is a veteran of WW2, and he lost 6 brothers to russian bombs and bullets. Others in my family had to go in to exile, or spent weeks in bunkers waiting for the firebombings to stop. My family has seen war.
It's the origanisations i have a problem with. They collect money, yet they are very stringy about where it goes. My grandfather hasn't seen much in way of support, and for instance rehabilitation has been sporadic at best. Why are they sitting on 87 million euro?
Well, one explanation is that veterans need to be remembered after they have all passed, and i agree totally. But for 87 million you get a whole lot of remembrance for a whole lot of generations. With that kind of money, we could send videos and books about veterans to every person in the country for a few years.
Most people, including my grandfather, still live in debt, in a small apartment, in conditions less than stellar. He still has his dignity and wisdom, but i still feel we could give more. He's 87 now, and 5 years is about what i'd give him at most. It'd be nice to spend those last years not having to worry about bills or payments.
So how about it, guys?
I vote we stop giving any more money to these organisations that say they are benefiting veterans, until they actually start doing so. This discussion has been ongoing for a long long time, and yet, it's still one of the most popular places to donate money. Let's just not cheat these people out of the money they've rightfully earned, in the last few years of their lives.