Hoax story

Yesterday, someone shared a story that looked like a hoax, warning people against some frivolous criminal schemes involving fake children on the side of the road and eggs in the windshield.  I checked and those two examples are hoaxes:  http://www.snopes.com/crime/gangs/carseat.asp and http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/eggthrow.asp.

I then post a comment saying that they are hoaxes and that one should check the validity of such claims before sharing or re-posting.

Then I got an answer from the “sharer” saying that I was a fool and that he didn’t care much about the fact itself, but just thinking that such things exist is scary enough, and that if I didn’t share his opinion, I would just have to avoid commenting.

Sigh.  I don’t like this kind of situation.  At first I thought I could give some explanations to this guy, but I resisted.  I re-read his response, and I thought that he has too much to learn, I can’t help him .

What I think about that?  Well…

1. His rationale about the fact that I shouldn’t comment because I don’t share his opinion is quite far from demonstrating any kind of intelligence
2. If he only had read the URLs I provided, he would have found that these ideas do not come from criminals’ minds, but only in the mind of some kind of people that like making up stories to scare people
3. A criminal is a criminal, and if a criminal targets a victim, it won’t help if the victims knows about all the hoaxes available on the internet

What did I do?  I went into my friends list and deleted this person from the list.  That kind of person doesn’t deserve one more minute of my time.

Discovering WordPress

Honestlly, I didn’t know it was so complete and flexible… Because of my job (Computer network management) many people have asked me “How can I make a website”.  I always thought it was still a little too complex for someone who had no clue about web hosting, web interfaces and HTML.  However, WordPress is kind of impressive and those who’d like to be informed of the news could simply subscribe to the RSS feed.  I wouldn’t feel like setting a WordPress instance on one of my personal servers or hosting plans (because I don’t want the management overhead), but using WordPress.com is free, so… that’s another great reason to give it a try!  Actually, as some of you know, I’ve been blogging on blogger, which is also great, but I haven’t been following up on the new features at blogger.  I decided to explore WordPress instead because of its nature that was more open-source.  Well… I think!

What made me explore WordPress a little more?  Someone I play badminton with asked me recently what I’d suggest for a small, simple web site.  He’s one of the coach for the kids and teens on Saturdays, and he was mostly looking for a way to warn people when something changes in the schedule, and to publish some text and photos after their tournaments and other events.  So I logged into my WordPress account to see if picture galleries were supported and they are, so I submitted the idea of using WordPress.com and they seem to like it.  We’ll see how it goes from now.

What happened?

Hey…  I decided to keep the http://lubik.blogspot.com blog for more technical, IT-related topics, and use this blog for more personal posts, so I kept the personal posts and I’ll be blogging about a few personal things pretty soon.

Mountain Bike pics!

I finally found time to upload thes pics of me mountain biking that I like…

A new reptile?

Yeah… I finally went out and got a Ball Python… 3 months old. Calm, eats once a week (and eventually once a month!), I like it. I don’t know if it is a female or a male though… Yes, pictures will come eventually…

My favoroite songs…

Just a list of the songs I like most…

- Sting: A thousand years, Shape of my heart, I miss you kate
- Ariane Moffat: Seul dans sa categorie, Se perdre (J’aime bien le “Se perdre dans ses propre mots, entre un un et un zero), Retourne chez elle
- Dave Matthews: Big eyed fish, Crush (funny, a lot of people seem to like Dave’s ‘Crash’, oh, what can a single letter do !), The stone, Captain
- Red Hot Chili Peppers: Death of a martian, Sir Psycho Sexy, Breaking the girl
- Daniel Belanger: Primate electrique, Respirer dans l’eau, Imprafait
- Rush: Animate (Rocks!), Leave that thing alone, Limbo
- Beau Dommage: J’aimais l’hiver, Picbois
- Ben Harper: Alone
- Blind Melon: Paper scratcher, Mouthfull of cavities
- George Michael: Careless Whisper
- Chicane: Calvaire, Tu peux partir
- Claude Dubois: Pas question d’aventure
- Coldplay: White shadows
- David Usher: Joy in small places
- Delirium: Fallen, eternal odyssey
- Eagles: Hotel California
- Evanescence: …
- Gowan: A criminal mind

I like too many of them… gotta go to bed, I’ll add other ones as time goes by… Gnite!

How come Pod is dead?

Yeah… Sorry to let you know that my water dragon died… I’m not sure of what happened but he drowned in the aquarium that is in its vivarium… Can’t exactly what is the cause, either he died of some disease, or he got into the water and was unable to get out… However, there was some plastic plants that were accessible in the water (as always), so I think it should have been able to get out. Anyway, I can’t do anything about it now, it’s gone. It happened a couple of days ago so I had some time to think about whether I’ll get another reptile or not. I’m tempted about a snake. Less agitated, eats once a month… I’ll see later on.

Back to winter Hiking

Hmmm, winter, snow, mountain, ice… Went hiking yesterday. I really love hiking during winter.

I didn’t know what kind of weather to expect, so I brought my snowshoes and crampons… I came back after the sunset, using my Petzl lamp. I felt good, alone, with the snow and the nature. In fact, I had the feeling that I wasn’t really alone out there. Maybe it’s because I was getting closer to myself, or maybe it was something else. Or maybe both.

Once I got down, I saw 2 persons, looking for their 17-year-old kid and his girlfriend. I offered my help… I hiked another 2 hours. It wasn’t easy because I was becoming tired and it is a bit scary, in the dark, alone, in the woods… but at least I knew I had extra food, water and clothes… and when I got back to my car again, I had a note on my wiper, saying that the kid was back and safe, with thanks and their phone #. So I called them to thank them for letting me know and to let them know that I’m also back and safe. I talked to the father, and a few minutes later the mother called me to thank me personnaly…

It is funny to see how the father and mother reacted differently to the situation… The mother looked very anxious and has shown her appreciation in a more demonstrative manner… But they probably felt the same inside.

Rather irrelevant story, but… I had fun yesterday

Skinks!

Recently, I (re)discovered a very nice lizard species: Skinks. In fact, I knew blue-tongued skinks, and I discovered prehensile skinks. Prehensile are especially nice, since they have a prehensile tail, their tail can support the weight of the lizard. Here is a picture of a magnificent one (see left):

I really think it is the ideal lizard: Vegetarian or omnivore (many people don’t like feeding their pet with live insects), and very calm. I wish I could beed them, but I don’t think it is realistic. They cost about 200$ each, and it requires a lot of time and care. I can just hope that skink reproduction will raise in my area.

Another Lizard!

… Ornate climber. Or maybe is it a blue-eyed crested climber… Not sure. It doesn’t have a name yet, so please feel free to send me ideas. It is a male. I think I’ll call him Brutus.