In a state of limbo

Currently I'm in a state of limbo in Norway.  What do I mean by this?  Well I'm waiting for the next opportunity to come along.  So right now this is the state I'm in.

Waiting for it all to unfold...

For the past few weeks I've been out of Norway, getting a tan, getting burnt (literally), and doing some extreme exploration.  By that I mean 6 hour walks.  Come Easter I'll be out of this country as well.  Next destination will be revealed soon enough.

Personally nowadays it's very hard to get inspired, at least personally, and being in this country isn't helping, nor is the office.  I've been very fortunate in my life, to have lived here and there, to have been granted scholarships, to have travelled here and there and everywhere, and to be able to see different aspects of people's thinking and lives.  Not even a million dollars will inspire me, so whatever's gonna happen has to be truly different.  The next step is going to have to be really inspiring.  All in due process...

Remembering Aaron Swartz

Today I'm going to talk about an unsung hero that you probably don't know of, Aaron Swartz.  You might not know who he is, but you probably owe him a lot more than you think.  Aaron was the inventor of the RSS format, and involved in the founding of Reddit.  He pretty much single handedly stopped the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which would have profoundly changed the way we view the web by granting the US government powers to do whatever they want by taking down websites which were merely being accused of copyright.  If this bill came to pass, I can just take down your website by simply accusing you of copyright, and poof, adios to your website.  It's a big win for freedom.  Yours and mine.  In 2011 he was arrested for allegedly illegally accessing labs at MIT and charged with breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, a law passed in 1984 because the US government became paranoid after watching the War Games movie (with Matthew Broderick).  In 2013 he committed suicide and died at the age of 26.  A life cut too short.  He has done more in his life than what many people combined have done in their lifetimes.  It' a real tragedy for everyone that such a bright mind is gone.  I've never met him before, but anyone who defends freedom is a hero to humanity.  If you're reading this you probably take freedom for granted, and let me tell you you, you don't know what freedom is until you've lost it.

Aaron Swartz documentary

What is SOPA?

"It's not enough to live in the world as it is.  You should always be questioning."

RIP Aaron Swartz (November 8, 1986 - January 11, 2013)

Socialised healthcare in Norway

Last Friday, we had a talk session at work where human resources (HR) gave out information on health insurance that's provided by the company that I work at.  You might ask yourself, "wait a minute, isn't healthcare in Norway free?  Isn't it good?  Why would anyone want to buy their own health insurance?"  To the disbelievers who have drank from the kool aid fountain for too long, let me say, it's not too late to discover the truth, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.  And who better to tell you than me, hearing another first hand account from a Norwegian, actually two Norwegians, who were absolutely tearing up the so called "healthcare" system.

Don't get a hard on, she is not Norwegian.

Patient X from work had some back problems, and he went through private health insurance, he mentioned that if he had to go through the traditional system, it would have taken him weeks to get an appointment.  Going through the private health insurance system, only took him one day.  Pretty efficient.  So he saw the physio, had some treatment that was completely paid for by the private insurer.  He had a relapse a few months later and relied on the same private health insurance to get an operation performed on him.  There was no way he was going to go on the "free public healthcare system" that Norway provides (or rather, steals from you through high taxes), and he made it very obvious.  He was really, really, really glad that he had private health insurance.

Patient Y, a rather unfortunate fellow, probably provided the greatest horror story that I have heard in a while.  He had the luxury of first not knowing about the health insurance provided by the company and went through the "traditional" route of going through the absolutely "wonderful" Norwegian healthcare system.  First after many months, he went through a scan and found out he had a brain tumour that was 4 centimetres long.  Now I don't know about you, but if I found out that I had a brain tumour in my head I want it out of there faster than I want a pencil jammed up my ass, and you would think that the doctors would think that, but no, it was worse, worse than getting a pencil stuck up your ass, the geniuses here wanted to "wait and see if it gets bigger".  Yes you read that right, they wanted to wait and see if it gets BIGGER.  I don't know if there was ever a case where a brain tumour was beneficial to anyone, maybe if you're a member of Professor Xavier's X-men?  By the name of Tumouruine perhaps?  Close relative of Wolverine?  But you know, that's just beyond belief.  So this guy, he gave up on the system and sought an expert opinion from experts in the US and they agreed something had to be done.  About a year later he said some top doctor from the Norwegian hospital that he went to apologised for his colleagues' behaviour, but by then he had already had his operation performed outside of the Norwegian healthcare system.  He said the Norwegian doctors were useless, and this is coming from a Norwegian.

Would he still be alive if he had waited?  You know, I highly doubt so, he probably would have died.  But hey who knows right?  After all it's only a life, a statistic in the health care system, you know, just a number.  That's how the public system treats you here, a number, not a human, a number.  Don't forget it.

Don't worry man, it's only a brain tumour!!  Worst case you just become Wolverine Tumourine!

In conclusion, these two people were extremely glad for the private health insurance provided by the company.  In one case, it most likely saved the guy's life.  I would say highly likely it did.  But hey, what do I know?  I'm not Norwegian, these guys are.  All the smart ones know the system blows, only the dumb kool aid drinking morons are the ones praising the system and I bet they're also praising to get more pencils stuck up their ass as well.

To end this post, I'm going to quote what someone else has said, a certain Margaret Thatcher.

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money"

The best advice that I can give anyone living here, is to get private health insurance.  You know, if you cared about your life and your family's.  But maybe.. just maybe, you might live through a brain tumour growing in your head and get to tell others how wonderful the experience was!