by Jonny | Jan 1, 2011 | Updates
2010 has been an interesting year. I’ve been through my ups and lows throughout this year, or to even say that 2010 has been my worst year is a long shot off. But people say that new years are a fresh start. I just hope for the love of everything that is me, my new life in a foreign country is a good one and one that continues with the career of my life. Life is a lot like a job to me. However successful you are in life, reflects usually on one’s well being and happiness. I just hope I do the right things in life.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8WmsqA7Fvc
I know I’ve expressed I have an asshole of an uncle, in my “asshole of an uncle” blog, but I’m not so sure whether he is an actual asshole or not. Well okay, he is an asshole, but not that much of an asshole; if you get what I mean. Whatever the case, he isn’t as bad as I thought and maybe he just had a bad day when I made that blog. But whatever the case, its a new year and I’m willing to give people second chances. 🙂
I think I can make a decent life here in Taiwan. Though I’m a little scared. Life isn’t as what I’ve dreamed about or what I’ve wanted it to be, but sometimes you can’t choose the direction in life you want to go. Sometimes you just take the option in front of you and hope for the best. This is the case in my life I feel.
by Jonny | Dec 5, 2010 | Updates
As an avid supporter of WikiLeaks and the leaking of information which the government intends to hide, I have been following the recent release of 250,000 or so leaks from U.S. Embassy cables. People will argue sometimes that the leaks are insignificant, if they are so insignificant then why is there all this hype secretly behind government doors suggesting the closure of the site and its organization. Senators have even called for the execution of Julian Assange the said founder of the organization itself. So if the leaks are insignificant, why call for the killing of the person leaking the information.
I mean lets look at the facts here and lets look at what WikiLeaks is. It is a website which leaks information given to them. Remind you of something? How about newspapers or news corporations who die to get their hands on leaks such as these. I don’t think any government in the Western world let alone the United Kingdom (Where I’m from) has the right to stop the disclosure of this information, as we live in what is called a democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to do whatever the fickle sticks you want. Or do we pay the price, that we live in a society where things are censored because our governments don’t want information released prior to release. If that is the case, tighten up on data security. The guy who leaked this information should not have been able to download the information. 250,000 documents is a lot, it is logical to think that it would have taken a long time to download all that. Where were the security measures to stop that. Perhaps to a degree there should be things that governments need to hide for national security, however what falls under that umbrella are things they shouldn’t hide, though which are because of the initiatives in place which allow them to hide things which they don’t want in public viewing. Yes, it can be abused, and just as we see in these leaks is information that should not be under the umbrella of “Classified” or “Top secret”. They could do the same with tax payer dollars, class it under some classified document which no one can view unless authorised and say that the money was spent for something top secret, such as building a nuclear bomb to destroy Chicago or something ridiculous like that. The point is whether you can trust politicians, because one way or another you’ll always get a bad set of grapes in the bunch, who will try to distort, lie and cheat.
The second thing I wanted to talk about was the accusations against Julian Assange, with Swedish authorities accusing, then retracting, then going back their original assessment in trying to get Julian Assange arrested & perhaps tried over a sex charge. Doesn’t it seem weird that at the time of the release of these documents, he is being accused of these charges while also being hunted by interpol for the same charges. Though the charges by these authorities not being enough for British authorities to arrest Julian Assange, seeing as these assertions hold no bearing? I mean Interpol is ridiculously placing Julian Assange on its top wanted for sex crimes which doesn’t contain enough evidence for his actual arrest in countries such as the United Kingdom where he staying. They placed him on the top wanted… that in itself is absurd. Top wanted people should be reserved for people like murderers, killers, mass murderers, rapists (Of which Julian hasn’t been convicted of) or anything like that. It just comes strange to me that this revelation is released for his arrest when the U.S. embassy cables have been released. Seems way, way to convenient for me and I’m not an avid believer in conspiracies.
Man. I don’t know what is going on in this world right now. But it is pretty damn crazy.
by Jonny | Dec 2, 2010 | Updates
Life in Taiwan
Life in this country doesn’t look too bad especially for my future. However I have to move into this other apartment where my uncle isn’t as he is the biggest idiot I’ve witnessed in my family. The goods here aren’t as cheap as I thought, and clothing is quite expensive, if not even more expensive than back in London. Not sure if I could setup a business, however some of the electronics are cheap, so I’ll have to be very selective.
My internet sites
Namely my armoured vehicle website is doing best. I’m continuing adding articles of high quality and also blogging on the recent incident in the Korean Peninsula. That has brought in a little traffic and November saw the highest amount of traffic this year, hopefully December shows similar results. As for my webmaster website, I’ve only added small amounts of content, as of recent, however in terms of traffic, just in the month of November I have got more traffic than any previous months in that year combined. So I’ve done well in that aspect, seeing I do next to no advertising.
by Jonny | Nov 23, 2010 | Updates
If it already isn’t obvious that I’ve moved to Taiwan (Cite: Touch down)… well, the decrease of articles is an indication there lack of articles being submitted in this dear blog of mine. It is mainly to do with the connection speeds in Taiwan or more so, what I was offered and pushed into getting.
I went into the purchase “office” of where you sign up for an internet connection and they offered me various packages of all sizes and they incessantly offered me the cheapest and crappiest internet service I have experienced since I had dial up 50k internet. The internet speeds are so poor (ADSL) that I cannot view YouTube unless in 240p quality, which by the way is the lowest viewing quality, however loading pages also isn’t exactly too fast either. Sure I’m half way across the world though friends I have in this country have lightening speed broadband. I kept saying to the person I was dealing with that I create and upload websites to the internet. Yet the son of bitch kept offering me this 512kb ADSL broadband, citing that it was adequate for my needs. After reviewing the connection speeds, I promptly phoned them saying I needed faster internet and went with their highest package, the 20mb / 2mb package. Which is a huge step up from the internet I’m currently getting. I get the idea the guy was trying to save me money, but for gods sakes, when someone is insisting that they want to take a much more expensive package; as a salesman you give him that package; especially when explained it is needed. Solely because of this man, it has taken me 40 minutes to get all the information on this specific article on this blog with pictures and speed tests findings.
I haven’t been able to update my other websites with new articles since I cannot find it in myself to use internet which is going to annoy me to no end. By this Thursday, I should be getting this faster broadband, which I hope is much, much faster; since it is quite expensive. Just to anyone who purchases internet in Taiwan or perhaps any country, sure you can try the lowest package, however if you need the internet for webmaster related tasks, 512kb won’t cut it, especially since you aren’t going to always get the highest speed offered. (*512kb) Just go for the next package up. I purchased the 20mb broadband since I needed it for viewing videos online and since I download a lot of music.
Back to learning Chinese…
by Jonny | Nov 13, 2010 | Updates
I’ve made it to Taiwan, half alive. We stopped of at Bangkok international airport and from there we made our way to Taipei. I flew with Eva Air, the major Taiwanese airliner in Taiwan. The food on the plane was nice and decent and the free drinks were great.
Taiwan from what I have seen is an interesting country. In some way’s it is good and in a lot of ways it is quite bad, especially if you want to settle and live on a small budget here. The goods from a £ to NT$ perspective is very good, what I’m trying to say is that the goods are really cheap. I managed to get a computer case with a large fan inside it for £10, then I got a 400 volt power supply unit for £20. In the UK I would have had to pay much more. As for the internet, alright, I’m paying around £7 for 512kb upload and 512kb download, the man was pressuring me to go for the 512kb package even though I hugely expressed interest in the 8 MB package. I’m thinking of upgrading since the page loading speed is dismal in comparison to my UK internet.
You are probably asking what is so bad about Taiwan?
Taiwan itself is a country which relies on foreign trade which is what it’s economy thrives on and is what its people survive on. However it isn’t this which bothers me. It is the conditions in which some people can live that bothers me. I looked at some areas and places where people I saw lived and I was shocked. What we can consider as “flats” in the UK they consider 2 rooms, at least with flats in the UK you have more than 3 rooms at least of nice size. However here in Taiwan, you only have rooms the width of an alley way. Put it simply, the places people live are tiny. They are liveable however the word “cosy” doesn’t come to mind for me.
If you have a decent amount money or a decent job, then I think Taiwan would be a nice place to live. Though then again that does fall under a category where most countries are that way. However doing a comparison of Taiwan and the UK, I’d rather live in the UK in terms of housing, however I would also rather live in Taiwan because it is refreshing to see a country like this. Whatever the case I am here now and tired of blogging. I’m going to get some shut eye and then look around and I’ll be sure to get some pictures up later on, if I can be bothered. 🙂
by Jonny | Nov 8, 2010 | Updates
It is two more days until I finally get on the flight to Taiwan.
It will be an interesting experience going to country where they speak a totally different language, which I’ll have to learn and pick up as I live there.
I’ve renewed my web hosting for 2 months, so my sites will still be active, if I somehow manage to not find an internet connection there. (Which is ludicrous if I don’t or am unable to) I’ve also renewed my domain names for another year. Except for one problem, with this domain (jargoned.com)… I hadn’t realised that it needed renewing and already transferred it to Name.com from GoDaddy as I really dislike GoDaddy’s user interface. Whatever the case, this site might be down for a week or so with a domain parking page on it. I’ll have 30 days to renew it from its expiry date, so it isn’t as if I’ll be losing this aged domain name.
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