Micro-Thoughts

• Some people have things to say and some people have to say things.


• There are c. 6.5 billion people in the world. If the average person lives 76 years, 27740 days, It means that throughout the world an average of 236880 people, a nearly a quarter of a million, die every single day.


• An argument that people commonly make when trying to justify bad conduct is to compare what they've done to something irrelevant but worse. "Yes, I may be a bank robber, but at least I don't rape, murder, butcher and eat little girls, like some people." As if that makes bank robbery okay in comparison. Wrong actions are wrong regardless of how much wronger the actions of someone else may be.


• Why do I feel like a man who's just been told: "This thing is called a parachute. When I give you a shove, count to ten and pull on this thing!"?


• People sometimes say: "I'm self-taught." But aren't we all? And did you learn anything?


• On NPR a while back I heard a learned scientist say: "Most if not the majority of stars in the Milky Way have planets."
  
  "Most if not the majority??" Exactly how many make a majority in this scientist's universe? Does a majority not qualify as "most"?


• To some people the primary objective of any software company is to try and cheat customers out of as much money as possible while providing as little as necessary in return. Most of those people are used to using Microsoft software, so there is a basis for their feeling that way. Therefore, the knee jerk reaction is to get new software and to start complaining about it. I wish I could introduce them to the world of open source software, where things just work right most of the time.