Nevertheless I would like to take time to remember his birthday and drink a beer for him instead.
Drink a beer to celebrate life, even though he has chosen a different path.
Since life is what I started to appreciate, with all it’s flaws and bad moments.
Without that same life, there would be no moments to make up for all the bad things that happen.

So for you Dennis, Happy 30th Birthday. I hope that, wherever you are, you will have one yourself as well.

Everything you do comes from a personal inspiration, which can be anything. A nice landscape can be enough to inspire a painter or a photographer to make a painting or picture of it.
That same landscape can inspire a songwriter to write a song about it or an architect to design a building that would look great within that particular landscape. The design of the architect might trigger someone else to invent something to make that design actually possible.
With that invention and the design another person can be inspired to actually build this to become reality. Once that building is there the painter and photographer can gain inspiration from it and make a painting or picture out of it.
That painting or picture might inspire you to… well, I assume you get my point.

Inspiration comes from all around you; the landscapes, painting, pictures, movies &  buildings you see.  The songs and speeches you hear, the books you read and the people you have met.
All of this comes down to a unique combination that offers you an unique inspiration. With this unique inspiration you will be able to also draw, write, design, built or invent something.

Big companies know this, they know that what they make might inspire you to do something better or to find a cheaper way to do the same, since they often started this way themselves as well.
This is just plain simple to realize, since most companies start because someone had an idea, tho hardly ever this was completely new uninspired by anyone or anything else.
The second car company was inspired by the first, Microsoft created Windows after they were inspired by what they saw at Apple, which on their turn saw it at Xerox.
Still they were able to make it their own, innovating all in their own ways. Today we have 2 completely different products from that alone, and the market can choose.
But now many big companies have hired directors and managers which they have to pay millions and have stockholders which they need to keep satisfied.
This is why they have come up with something called “Intellectual Property”, a way to prevent you from doing the same as they are doing in a better or cheaper way.
A way to prevent new competitors from being started, thus killing the free market and gain monopoly, or share it with just one or two other competitors.

Big companies with such attitudes are sponsoring politicians in order to introduce new laws and regulations like SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.
These are nothing but tools to prevent inspiration by forcing people to stop sharing items that might cause inspiration and therefor innovation.
If they were introduced 2000 years ago, there would have been only one kind of bread today, since similar ideas would have been called counterfeiting.
You prolly wouldnt even know what bread was, since spreading the recipe how to make bread would have been considered piracy.
Basically the SOPA, PIPA and ACTA are just acts of despair, acts to maintain an outdated businessmodel, stopping innovation or cheaper alternatives helping mankind forward.
So you are being feared, since you might be the one innovating or coming up with cheaper alternatives,

SOPA has been stopped, but dont stop getting your inspiration,
PIPA has been stopped, but dont stop using your inspiration,
Now stop ACTA, but dont stop trying to inspire others.

Especially nowadays with all the technological gadgets this is really noticable, you can customize ringtones, wallpapers, widgets and attributes to a nearly unlimited extent. That way you are making your gadget really fitting “your own identity”, expressing your own “personality” and in some cases building an “image” of yourself.

For all those people thinking that customising your gadgets are defining your personality, that the physical appearance of some device shows anything of who you really are, I want you to realise that it only shows one thing about your personality. It just shows you are so damn shallow that you think a device can replace a personality and that you have been assimilated by those big corporate marketing specialists.

Now I don’t mean to say that every person that customises their gadgets is part of the big dumb mass. I also put some nice wallpaper on my phone/laptop/computer as well, change the default theme, chosen a song I like as a ring-tone. I am just pointing out those people out there that seem to have taken this to a far extent, that don’t seem the difference between personalising and personality.

It isnt what you own, use or wear that defines you as a personality. It are your dreams and/or ideals that define you as a person. What you are making out of your life, what you wanna achieve and how you want to do this. The choices you make in life, the way you deal with situations you run into and how you feel about these at the end of the day.

So please don’t stop customising your devices if you like to do so, since I also like to do this myself. I just hope that you realise that you really loose your personality the moment that what you own or wear becomes more important that your dreams and/or ideals. That thinking about how you wanna customise your stuff becomes more important then what and how you wanna achieve your dreams and ideals. That choices for ring-tones and wallpapers are becoming more important or an escape for the choices in how to deal with important matters in life.

Just remember: “You are unique, just like everyone else.”

Some might think it was stupid of me not to do so straight away, since deep inside I knew I wanted that, so this special person to me would have had to respect it. Others might understand why I did that, might do something like that on a regular base, and might even have done the same.
Why is it that we sometimes loose ourselves, trying to be what others want us to be? Why do the people we care for most ask us to be something we are not?
Ever since I shaved my head, I started feeling more and more myself. It was me with the long hair when I looked in the mirror, it is me with the shaved hair when I look in the mirror, but I wasn’t myself for the 3 months when I had a haircut chosen because of others.
Now for me it is something simple like an haircut, but it’s amazing how we choose to do stuff for people we care for. People choose hobbies, studies and even careers to please others. They choose or don’t choose to smoke, drink or do drugs. Whether it is to make their parents proud, fit in with friends, try to impress someone or please someone they love.

It’s the end of 2011 and I am overthinking what I have gained from last year, and even tho the results of the autism test I had been waiting for for over 1,5yrs had a great impact on me. Have these results make me over think nearly every important aspect of my life so far, in an attempt to have my life make sense to me and had me redefine myself, it weren’t these results.
But most of all 2011 has become the year that it became clear to me that I should make my own choices at all costs. I might loose some friends, but more important then that is that I wont loose myself. Since at the end of the day, no matter who I spend my life with, I will only have myself to blame for the things I did or did not do.

Another thing which is important to me is that I asked my therapist, after I got the results that I am autistic, if I was ever able to love like people with normal empathic levels. I had been asked the same question a little before and I put me in doubt about my own ability to love. He told me that love comes in many forms and shapes and that every person had to find out for himself what love is. Now it might have taken some time for me to figure it out, but I have found my answer to that. To me love is the ability to take something for what it is, whether it is a person, an animal or a plant. Don’t try to change it, don’t try to influence it, just support it when you need to and enjoy watching it evolve. If you can just enjoy watching it evolve, with or without your support and without the need to get anything in return, I think you truly found love.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and truly hope 2012 will be filled with love for all of you, no matter what your definition of love is.

You have been around the western world for a couple of weeks now, starting to spread the Christmas feeling.
Even though I haven’t seen you yet, I have seen the effects of that feeling.
Houses are being decorated with nice lights, inside Christmas trees are standing proud with lights balls and little angels.
People out on the street are slowly becoming kinder in bigger numbers, even towards strangers, sometimes just by saying “hello”.

Now in less then a week this Christmas feeling will get to it’s ultimate peak, where people will be celebrating Christmas together.
I know from previous years that people will wish each other a Merry Christmas, no matter if they know each other.
They will be chatting, laughing and singing together, they will be more generous towards each other and feel good to see the joy it brings.
And then on Christmas eve, they will be dining and drinking together with friends and family, knowing that feeling is really worthwhile having.

It is on that day that I can look at the world and really feel happy.
Not because I have gotten gifts or am with the people I care for, but on that day, I can see the world for what I believe it can be.
Kind and generous towards every human being.
And yes, there might be a small exception. Even on that beautiful day, but isn’t it great that we can call it an exception that very day.

Now when Christmas is over and you are on your way back to the north pole to see Mrs Santa and all of your elves again, the exceptions start to grow.
And even tho it might take a week orso, soon the exceptions have grown back to be the standard of western society.
People stop chatting together and soon wont show any understanding, the generosity they had during Christmas soon becomes greed again.
The laughing and singing soon diminishes to be something for kids and the joyfull feeling will disappear.

So dear Santa, this year I would kindly request you not to leave after Christmas.
I would like to ask you to stay here and remind the western world of that very feeling they had during Christmas.
Maybe then instead of trying to make more profit; banks and companies will try to make a better world.
They have seen the power of generosity during Christmas, yet they fail to apply it the rest of the year.

So could you stay and remind them to turn their greedy bonuses into jobs for people is a very generous act.
And that people getting jobs, being able to take care of their families, will be thankful and happy.
Could you stay and remind people of the western world to remain friendly to people out on the street, even the strangers.
So less people will feel lonely in this world and less people will detach from society.

But most of all Santa, could you stay for the charities of this world.
It is no secret that during your time in the western world, more money is being donated to charity.
We still have so many challenges like hunger and sickness.
So those charities could really use the donations.

So if you cant stay Santa, for whatever reason. Could you then give people some hope & faith this Christmas under their tree
Could you put some a dose of kindness and generosity in their food and drinks, that will last till you return.
Since I really like you, big ol’ funny dressed man, but I would like to see the western world doesn’t need you anymore.
That above all, would be my wish for this Christmas.

Thank you in advance Santa.

For every question I found an answer to, I found at least two questions with it.
So here I am, nearly 30 years of roaming this planet. With more questions then answers, yet many would say I grew smarter.
I like to think so myself as well, and for many of the questions I have accepted that I wont find an answer.
Now this isn’t because I am a quitter, but because I found the answer to not finding answers.
It’s not that I don’t care about the answers anymore, since there is this curious part of me that would like to get them.
Also it’s not about the answers not being out there, since for the questions that play on my mind the most I know there are answers.
Have I given up on finding the answers? No, I don’t consider it giving up either.

Again, it’s a Wednesday eve, 16th of November to be exact. About 11:20 now. Many thoughts have run through my head and I haven’t written them down yet.
I will write those down over time. But I need to find a right way to express those thoughts in words.
Kinda tricky isn’t it, all these thoughts. But thoughts are more then just words. Often even hard to grasp them with words.
So what are thoughts? Neuroscientists might start about signals in your brains, creating connections in that gray mass.
I would like to use the word big, since if you think about how many cells there are up there, it is quite impressive.
Especially if you realize how they are able to cooperate and control something even bigger.
Your body itself is already many times the mass of your brains, no matter how skinny you are. your brain mass is smaller then the rest of you.

Now your brains are able to control then just your body. Something most of us can do, or are at least capable of doing, is driving a car.
This car has become like a exoskeleton to our body at that moment, controlled by our thought process. Since you do have to think during driving.
Tho I am sure that in many cases those thoughts are limited to “how do I look in my rear mirror” and “what radio-station should I put on”, it also includes more functional thoughts like “what’s my current speed?”, “am I exceeding speed limit?” and “should I brake or not”.
Then there are the questions like “why is this guy in front of me driving so slow?”, “couldn’t that guy have used his indicator?” and “why is that guy put lives at stake by driving like a maniac?”
And even those become irrelevant to the one question one is asking himself “where am I heading? and how do I get there?”. Even when you are just driving for fun, without purpose, and you know you aren’t heading anywhere at a certain stage you will have to stop at a gas station.

At that stage your thoughts are already controlling a path, you know where you are coming from and you know, or dont know on purpose, where you are heading. This can be a short ride to a local store or a long holiday trip to a foreign country.
So at that stage your thoughts are already controlling something much bigger then your body and your car, it’s already a track which you have been in control of. Not exactly, since there where some obstacles to get around, most like require you to at least brake a little, probably even steer a bit.
But overall you were in control of the track, knowing what you wanted to be ahead. Quite something your thoughts controlled, right?

Now I could start about the distances you might overcome by walking, biking, driving and maybe even flying and how they are nothing compared to the distances of the universe from which you might not be able to even think of how to put out your track there.
Instead I would like to use this track your thoughts have controlled as an analogy to your life.
Since whether it is a short or a long one, with little or many obstacles, as long as you know where you are heading, you are in control of it.
Answers to questions related to why others are driving the way they do become irrelevant when you know where you are heading.
And your thoughts arent just signals in your brains, they are your life. They determine where you are heading and eventually who you are.

“Volwassenen maken hier een probleem van. Kinderen vinden het helemaal niet racistisch!”
Zelfs als je dan mening van kinderen tegenover die van volwassenen wilt gaan uitzetten, weet dan wel dat het volwassenen zijn die veel termen hebben uitgevonden. En gezien de eerlijkheid van kinderen op die leeftijd zal ik eerder naar hun mening luisteren(in zaken als deze) dan naar die van volwassenen, die gevormd zijn door andere volwassenen van een generatie eerder.
En over het argument dat kinderen ook bang reageren op pieten, over welke leeftijd hebben we het dan? 2a3jarigen, de leeftijd waarop veel kinderen sowieso eenkennig zijn?
Witte puntmutsen en rode armbanden met Swastika’s zeggen kinderen niets nee, das maar goed ook en we hebben de verantwoordelijk om te zorgen dat ze deze betekenis nooit hoeven te leren kennen.

“Maar het is traditie!”
Ik ben met je eens dat we niet in een statisch geheel leven, dat alles om ons heen veranderd. Echter dienen tradities niet om verandering tegen te gaan, maar om mensen iets te geven wat sociale samenhang veroorzaakt. Juist in een tijd waar de techniek en bepaalde politieke ideologieën dit uiteen lijken te drijven is het juist goed om tradities die zorgen voor sociale samenhang te koesteren. We sluiten geen rassen uit, we beledigen er geen, we kijken met zijn allen uit naar die gezellige zwarte pieten die tussen hun acrobatische stunts door ons van cadeaus en lekkers voorzien.
“Waarom zeuren die mensen eigenlijk zo?”
Als eerste ben ik wel toegeroepen door een kind in de supermarkt asl zwarte piet zijnde, zij het wel dat ik als zwarte piet was verkleed. Echter ben ik ook in mijn leven als brilleJood(Jood ja, over racisme gesproken), beugelbek en professor decibel nageroepen. Dus ik weet hoe het is om het is om nageroepen te worden om uiterlijke kenmerken en zelfs oppervlakkige kenmerken als intelligentie.
Moeten we dan ook maar brillen en beugels gaan afschaffen? Moeten we alle stereotypische figuren in kinderseries gaan afschaffen omdat ze ooit kunnen worden gebruikt om andere kinderen op een kwetsende wijze na te roepen?
En wederom, tegen mij was het bewust kwetsend bedoeld, ik geloof niet dat een kind van 5 in de supermarkt dat kwetsend bedoelde.
“Het is verwarrend voor kinderen als die pieten ineens groen worden.”
Helemaal mee eens, maar het is nog veel moeilijker om die kinderen uit te leggen zodra ze 8 jaar zijn en we ze de waarheid over onze goedheiligman moeten vertellen waarom we de pieten ooit groen hebben gemaakt. Dat “grote mensen” zo verpest zijn door onze maatschappij dat ze zelfs in een onschuldige “traditie” iets kwaads kunnen zien.
Plus in het kader van verandering zou het zou maar kunnen dat we over een paar jaar aliens over de vloer hebben welke toevallig groen van kleur zijn, wat gaan we dan doen? weer iets anders verzinnen omdat we onze nieuwe overlords wel eens zouden kunnen beledigen ermee?

In plaats van ons allemaal zo druk te maken over racisme en politiek correct te zijn, laten we eens beginnen onze kinderen te tonen dat zoiets simpels als huidkleur en een opvallende outfit geen reden zijn om er vreemd op te reageren, laat ons onze kinderen leren dat dit geen verschillen zijn maar eigenschappen. Leer onze kinderen om op ieder levend wezen hetzelfde te reageren en ervan te houden zoals wij van onze eigen kinderen houden. Mogelijk he, mogelijk, hoeven onze kinderen dan nooit te leren wat die witte puntmutsen en rode armbanden met Swastika’s inhouden.

Now symbols can be strong, the more they are being shown the stronger they become.
With this strength they can spread an idea, a philosophy.
And by spreading the idea, they become even more powerful.
That way the circle of symbols goes round.

Now there have been a lot of masks over time, all a symbols of their own philosophy.
Many people have been wearing these symbols to empower them.
The philosophy under a mask is never that of just one individual,
not in showing it, nor in creating and maintaining it.

The Guy Fawkes mask has gained quite some strength as a symbol the last few years.
Guy Fawkes had to fight the religious surpression in the UK, 400yrs later it still exists in this world.
Now I am not religious, but I do believe one should be able to believe as one feels comfortable.
And it’s great to realise that the Guy Fawkes mask is worn by people from different religious backgrounds.

With V for Vendetta the philosophy has grown to a broader political perspective.
Our governments are requesting our silent obedience and approval to matters we havent agreed on.
They use the fear there is nowadays to introduce more and more privacy intrusive regulations.
Yet they fail to be completely transparant about what is being discussed and decided.

Now more recently it has shown that banks and big capitalistic companies arent much better.
We have trusted them with our money and they have been giving it out to their directors with fancy bonusses.
But they have been building a ‘Jenga’ tower, secretly putting some blocks in their own pockets and faking this economic growth.
Now the economy is about to collapse, they wont take responsibility, making the taxpayers fill in the missing blocks.

This has brought us to a situation where 1% of our population that cheated has got everything.
But the other 99% is forced to pay for their lies and deception thru taxes.
Still being forced to pay ridiculous amounts of interest on their mortages, while the interests on their debet accounts are being cut back.
And our governments refuse to take proper action to stop their dirty tricks.

So what’s under the mask? Under the mask is an individual with an idea, a philosophy:

1. One should not be judged by his nationality, racial or religious background.
2. Freedom of speech and free access to information shouldnt be a privilege, but a fundemental right, Every person should be granted the privacy to use these fundamental rights.
3. 1% of the population shouldnt be more important then 99% in a democratic system.
4. People that cheat with ‘Jenga’ should give back the blocks and not be allowed to ever play the game again

11-11-11 there will be the Night of A Thousand Masks, where you can empower the mask,
Where you can empower the symbol, the idea and the philosophy. But also help shaping and maintaining it.
So if you think nothing has to change, go ahead and watch another talentshow sponsored by the capitalistic companies.
But if you have just the slightest desire to make a change, put on your mask on 11-11-11.

But realise that organisations like Anonymous are able to unite people;
from different races, nationalities and religions.
Something our governments are failing at for years now, but what do you expect when those governments wage wars, murder, cheat and lie to us.
Yet they are currently portraying organisations like Anonymous as if they are criminals, terrorists even. Isnt that ironic?

Below is the Hackers Manifesto from Mentor, already written in 1986.
It gives a good insight in the mind of a hacker, what they think like, what drives them, how they look at the world.

I would like you to read it, I would like you to understand.
I would like you to realize who the real criminals are!

The following was written shortly after my arrest…

\/\The Conscience of a Hacker/\/

by

+++The Mentor+++

Written on January 8, 1986
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Another one got caught today, it’s all over the papers. “Teenager
Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”…
Damn kids. They’re all alike.

But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950’s technobrain,
ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what
made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?
I am a hacker, enter my world…
Mine is a world that begins with school… I’m smarter than most of
the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me…
Damn underachiever. They’re all alike.

I’m in junior high or high school. I’ve listened to teachers explain
for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms.
Smith, I didn’t show my work. I did it in my head…”
Damn kid. Probably copied it. They’re all alike.

I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is
cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it’s because I
screwed it up. Not because it doesn’t like me…
Or feels threatened by me…
Or thinks I’m a smart ass…
Or doesn’t like teaching and shouldn’t be here…
Damn kid. All he does is play games. They’re all alike.

And then it happened… a door opened to a world… rushing through
the phone line like heroin through an addict’s veins, an electronic pulse is
sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought… a board is
found.
“This is it… this is where I belong…”
I know everyone here… even if I’ve never met them, never talked to
them, may never hear from them again… I know you all…
Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They’re all alike…

You bet your ass we’re all alike… we’ve been spoon-fed baby food at
school when we hungered for steak… the bits of meat that you did let slip
through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We’ve been dominated by sadists, or
ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us will-
ing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.

This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the
beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying
for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons, and
you call us criminals. We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek
after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color,
without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us
and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals.

Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is
that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like.
My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me
for.

I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual,
but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.

+++The Mentor+++

Allow me first to apologize for this interruption.
I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition.
I enjoy them as much as any bloke.
But in the spirit of commemoration – whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday – I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak.
I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way.
Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.
Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.
And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?

Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression.
And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.
How did this happen? Who’s to blame?
Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable.
But again, truth be told…if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be?
War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler.
He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten.
More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory.
His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words – they are perspectives.
So if you’ve seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked.
But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek…then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament.
And together, we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgot!

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