Truth be told, I actually know Ayoe indirectly through my fiancee Sara Lind, however Ayoe never striked me as a potential world artist until I heard her sing. With a combination of mellow soul and powerful lyrics, Ayoe’s debut-album is a wonderful piece of art that tears up your mind and soul. Not only do I firmly believe Ayoe’s music will appeal to most everyone in some way or another, but I also believe that 5 years from now, such a statement will be so universal that it almost constitutes a given!

This belief was strengthened even further when I accidently turned on Denmark’s DR1 in December and saw Ayoe Angelica as a supporting singer for Ufo & Yepha (for a charity event as far as I know.)

So am I expecting you’re just gonna take my word for it? Of course not!! You can find more information about Ayoe on her own website: http://ayoeangelica.dk/ … Other than that Ayoe also has a MySpace page, a Facebook fan page and a bunch of YouTube videos, one of which is included in the bottom of this post! I hope Ayoe’s music brings you enlightenment as it has me! … That is all!!

Ayoe Angelica – Dr. Jekyll:

Ufo & Yepha feat. Ayoe Angelica (This is in Danish):

Hello everyone!

Dear friend, visitor or whatever your role might be. Please take the time to help me and my fellow computer science students get a free dinner at the Danish restaurant Jensens Bøfhus.

They basically have a small competition running right now, where you can upload a picture and get voted for – if your picture has the most votes = you win! So please help us and vote for our picture – you would make a bunch of poor students happy

So, if you would be so kind to click on this link (no viruses – promise!):
http://jensensb.ziteman.com/mms_sider/mms_nyestebilleder.asp?vote=1C4936BC-3DF0-48DA-B464-C11E0AD6D092

It will simply cast a vote for us in the competition. And remeber, you can vote two times!

Anyways, thanks for the support!! Peace!

After having just reviewed Cuil, the alleged competitor to Google, it’s quite an uplifting feeling to go to http://me.dium.com/search. At the very least, here is a search engine that can actually claim originality. Not that we haven’t seen popularity search engines before, but never in this way.

When you go to me.dium, you are met with your typical search bar and two buttons: Search and I’m feeling social. Also on the page is a list of search strings just typed in by other users. Now for a security guy like myself I’m a bit reluctant to call the “suggestion list” a good idea. Theoretically it’s a good idea because it can give people interesting things to read. I myself found out Bernie Mac apparently almost died recently. On the other hand the list could potentially be a bit damaging if users start typing in personal information like their e-mail address, name, address and so on. It’s a well-known fact that many try to “google” themselves to see how much information is publicly available on them – doing the same thing here might actually lead you into more trouble than you were before you did the search. However it largely depends on the algorithms set into place to control that list and if it’s handled properly it shouldn’t be a problem.

When it comes to the actual standard searching, me.dium does a fairly good job actually. There’s nothing really revolutionary about it, but it does what it’s supposed to and I got way more results than I did on Cuil (however not anywhere near what I get on Google.. but me.dium is still only released as an alpha version so what can you expect really?). The I’m feeling social feature is also quite interesting as it displays what other users like – thereby sorting out a lot more spam- and/or irrelevant sites so that you get a more precise and relevant search. I must say I really like that feature!

Now for the layout. Well, I like the colors and I like the graphics. But what I don’t like is the blatant Google rip-off. I’m feeling social is a very cool feature, but as for the name anyone can see it’s a complete rip-off of Google’s I’m feeling lucky. I would have liked a bit more originality here! The same goes for the search results, which also look way to much like Google’s – actually so much that I would fear a lawsuit had I been from me.dium.com.

So all in all I like Me.dium Social Search soo much better than Cuil and I really think it has some new and cool features. I don’t believe it’s a realistic competitor to Google, as it doesn’t support many of the cool features Google does (define, site, image searching, calculator, currency converter etc.) and I’m a bit afraid Me.dium Social Search can’t handle the pressure of 60.000.000 unique users pr. hour or whatever Google actually handles (probably a lot more) and of course – Me.dium needs to index more sites. That being said, it’s not unrealistic that Me.dium Social Search, given time, could potentially be a competitor to Google – So my advice to the dium.com people: Be original, stay original, increase power and ease of use and just expand with servers and new indexed pages – maybe in 5-10 years people will be using your search engine!

Cuil is in many ways a semi-finished project. It doesn’t have superior searching in any way. It actually didn’t even have any relevant results half the time I searched for things.. Things that Google did have relevant results for.

One of the other things that make Google special is their many functions. As in you can use commands like define: and site: , and even use Google as a calculator with support for trigonometric functions and currency converter. Cuil has none of these features!

Also, when it comes to Cuil’s layout, they’ve said that the picture-paragraph thing is there because users should visit websites based on pictures and not “meaningless” text.  While I can partly agree with this, they do a terrible job of actually making this work. The pictures shown are seldom relevant and you have a tendency to choose the results with the pictures – yet the real information could easily be on a website without a relevant picture. Text is still the single most relevant thing we search for – it’s why we use the Internet.. so that we can share information.. and text is information.. images are seldom necessary..

All in all I’m very disappointed in Cuil and at the moment I don’t believe for a second that it will even remotely be a competitor to Google…

I’m definitely sticking to Google for the time being.

But during all of this over enthusiastic opinion sharing I’ve often come across certain argumentation styles I’ve found .. well, ridiculous! Let’s take a few examples:

Arguments of the form “Everyone knows … “ or “Everybody agrees … “ are inherently false – Always!! No matter what subject you pick, no such subject will be known by all of the general population and no opinion will be shared by the general population. The mere fact that you are having the discussion with someone should tell you that your argument is inherently wrong, as that person clearly does not know or does not agree! This form of argumentation often comes up in emotional subjects like “Everybody agrees child molestation is wrong” – Which is obviously false, since some actively molest children. Or perhaps in another context “Everyone agrees that global warming is real” which is again obviously false, since some don’t believe this to be true.

There is a correct way to use the “Everyone .. something” argumentation form however, you just have to limit your population. So an argument like “All doctors agree ..” might be right, it’s definitely not inherently wrong. Also, in the same category, an argument like “All soldiers know guns can shot” would also probably be correct, while “Everyone knows guns can shot” isn’t!

Let’s take another example of bad use of argumentation: “Abraham Lincoln would have …” - Using what a dead guy might have said, is very very bad argumentation! Actually this is one that Jon Stewart already pointed out (very delicately I might add) on The Daily Show a few months back.

Sadly many actually do this! Like refer to Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, JFK or some other historical figure – but really, how the fuck do you know what that person thinks? Maybe he would have hated your guts?

Hmm another example: “Studies have shown…” A very commonly used argument for some given product or solutions correctness. Yet this seemingly normal expression is probably one of the worst forms yet, since it begs the question: “Which studies?”, and as long as that question can not be answered by the individual, his or her argument doesn’t count for shit! It’s all too common:

Normal guy reads newspaper, sees a headline “Studies show mobile phones cause HIV” and then unquestionably believes this snippet of information to be true. He then tells his friends, his girlfriend, his dad, his teacher, a couple of stoners and perhaps his dog (he’s probably kinda drunk). This then circulates even further with these individuals talking to other individuals, claiming that studies show mobile phones cause HIV and finally, 1 year later, people are so damn scared no one dares use a mobile phone for fear of HIV.

Using an argument like “Studies have shown … “ is the equivalent of saying: “As far as I know and believe …” - that is if you can’t mention the source of course!

So what was this post all about? Well – mainly it was about me getting some frustration out there .. I’m tired of people believing arguments like the above are worth anything, and I’m tired of people unquestionably believing everything they hear or read… So really my one goal here, my one morale, is simply:

Be sceptical – Question everything!!

So we came to the perfect compromise – Silverlake Sauvignon Blanc 2006.. One of the best white wines we’ve ever tasted (which probably isn’t saying much – but we still like it).. So if you ever need to buy a bottle of wine that’s good, but not “get homeless buying it” good – then Silverlake is the wine for you..

At the time of writing, the price for a Silverlake Sauvignon Blanc 2006 was 11,95$.

A s the name suggests I am a sceptic. A sceptic in the sense that I never take other peoples word for anything. I continually try to find the truth behind any subject and I don’t conclude one way or the other without the help of science – I am a true believer of science! On top of being a sceptic by nature, I am also a successful entrepreneur and security professional from Denmark, and this webpage will therefore also include some business related material from time to time – so it’s not all ranting!

Politically speaking I am a liberal! To be more exact I’m probably a socialist liberal, with heaviest emphasis on the liberal part. This will probably also shine quite clearly through my writings.

If you want to learn more about me, please read the “About the author” page which will be edited shortly.

Also, if you at any point disagree with me – please say so! Don’t hold back, simply just write a comment on my post – but if you do write a comment saying “Fuck you! You’re wrong!” Please be as kind as to prove it! If I’m wrong, there should be evidence that shows I’m wrong – so show it to me. I don’t claim to know every detail of the world and I don’t believe that knowledge is constant. Knowledge is ever changing, evolving and improving. So again – if you find anything! Please let me know! Let yourself be heard and inform me of what I have gotten wrong – but then again.. if you’re argumentation sucks, be prepared to get bashed back – hard!

Also a last note to any stuck up individuals: Profanity is crap! I will use any language I so choose at any given time and no one, not a one, shall force me to use a vocabulary they can accept! If you have a problem with foul language, then my message to you is: “Fuck you and get off my blog you fucking asshole”.

That is all

Cheers

Michael