Wisedigs

Imagine you are in your car driving at 120km/h and you realize your brakes don’t work. Eventually you run out of road and you have to make a choice: smash into that tree or fall off the edge of a cliff to certain death? A functional human-being in full possession of their mental faculties would choose the tree trunk. Depending on how clever you are, you might only suffer from minor injuries or no injuries at all.

The driver is the law maker. Law makers have two primary objectives: a) ensure the country is secure enough to a level that corruption isn’t apparent or widespread, b) ensure the laws are ambiguous enough such that the final decision on any matter is left up to the judges. Why is this the case? Laws once in place are hard to change. As a law maker you know you are a human being and you know that one day you, your family, your friends, or someone you know might be prosecuted under this law. In order to protect yourself and the people you care about there has to be a fail-safe, a backdoor. This is where the ambiguity in laws comes in. Judges judge by the laws of the nation, if the law allows for multiple interpretations the interpretation most suitable to the case presented is selected by the judge in an unbiased and fair manner. Judges unfortunately are not unbiased, they are not always just. Judges are merely humans appointed by their leaders. The jury system? Oh please. Do not get me started.

Breaking news: This just in – judges can be influenced by others!

If you were a law maker, would you shoot yourself in the foot? Let’s say you are caught murdering or raping, would you want to be executed? Would you want to be sent to prison for life? As a law maker, you don’t ever expect to turn into a serial-anything because you are not a psycho path and the laws are strict enough to prevent these types of people from getting away. Supposedly. But you might find yourself breaking a law or two, as is common in human nature.

Should we really blame them? Yes and no. No: because if we were the drivers we would make the exact same choices. Yes: because they have chosen to accept man made laws to govern their lives.

Whether you are convinced of the above reality or not, never forget that the statement “ignorance is bliss” is only true for so long; this bliss has an expiry date.

Everyone has heard of culture shock: a state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to a new, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment [dictionary.com]. Generally, it is assumed one goes through this upon leaving their country of residence. Or possibly upon discovering a strange tribe or rural village with unusual habits.

How about traveling from a smaller town, to a bigger town? The feeling shouldn’t really be described as a “shock”, its more like “disgusting”. What the heck am I on about?

In small cities, there is a higher chance of encountering a unique personality vs a personality witnessed before. Everyone is content, people are not too keen on outdoing each other in every department. The environment is relaxed and non-toxic.

Enter the big city mentality: everyone is better than everybody else, they will lie, cheat, steal, do whatever is necessary to protect their image of being the best. Too busy chasing after money to worry about correcting that mentality, or to worry about raising useful offspring. From this we can conclude that big city folks are dumber, in general, than their small city counterparts. It’s simple: when you use up precious brain processing power worrying about how to one-up your neighbour, you end up shutting down the rational and the logical part of the brain. Your brain is no longer giving enough time to other processing units, there is only one unit constantly active using up all the juice. “Oh look she just got a new car” “oh look he just got that $150 haircut” “oh look their house is shinier than ours” “oh look his kids are wearing designer diapers”… It never ends. Everything will be evaluated, judged, and compared to whatever they have.

I actually wouldn’t mind all of this, if people feel like they have to prove they are better than someone else, they have already proved to everyone observing that they clearly are not. What I do mind is the fact that you can’t befriend these people. How can you be close friends with someone who judges the colour of your socks to determine whether or not they are in a higher class than you? “Stop looking at my socks you fool!”. Or one who will lie to you to cover up their shortcomings? Or one who will say anything and everything to their friends, even if it means exposing all of your dirty laundry? I am talking about your best friend. So-called.

It does have its advantages though and supporters of the “big city” can you tell all about them.

It isn’t 100% of the population of a big city that thinks like this, you will find pockets of intelligence dispersed throughout. You just have to be picky. And careful.

1. Laptop/netbook
2. Power extension cord, preferably 30 feet. Funny how people end up surrounding wall sockets meant for vacuums and other janitorial purposes. Not sure on the max length allowed through security…
3. Earphones/headphones
4. Teabags – only if you are super cheap and/or starbucks doesn’t cut it for you.
5. Disinfectant spray – when you have to go
6. Cellphone signal blocker – for entertainment
7. Reading/viewing material (e.g. ebooks) – when you are bored with your signal blocker

Check out the new page added.

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Ahmad Hammado and I am a Computer Science graduate. I love being passionate and motivated about a lot of things, but rarely finding the perfect challenge.

List of passions:

• programming
• electronics
• computer hardware
• problem solving
• design and analysis
• football (soccer in some countries)
• nature
• photography

List of accomplishments

• Starting this blog
• to be continued…

I’ll do my best to keep this updated with things I find interesting and keep it original. The internet is full of duplicated information, a good example is the first part of this sentence.