Mofomon

Remembering the Armenian Genocide

mofomon — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:04:33 +0000

Today, April 24th, is a day of remembrance for the 1.5 million lives lost during the Armenian Genocide, which took place beginning April 24, 1915. Please take a moment to remember…

Previously, I wrote a series of posts on the topic that you can see here:

Part 1 – The Armenian Genocide
Part 2 – What Transpired
Part 3 – Recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Part 4 – A Survivor’s Account of the Armenian Genocide – My Great Grandmother.

For additional information on the Armenian Genocide check out these sites:

Thank you for taking a moment to remember.

New Theme

mofomon — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:40:43 +0000

I’ve been neglecting the blog for many months now, but to start things up again, I’d like to start with a new theme. Keep an eye out.

Cruise Lines Will Not Accomodate Food Allergies That Require Organic Foods

mofomon — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:54:11 +0000

I’m always hearing from people about how cruise lines are very good about accommodating food allergies. What about food allergies which require consumption of organic foods, such as those people who cannot have the compounds in preservatives and pesticides? Well, turns out the cruise lines will not accommodate these people. I contacted Carnival, Royal Carribean (RCCL), Disney Cruise lines, and a couple others and got the same answer, “we cannot accommodate organic foods.”

So, not only are they irresponsible in terms of caring for those with particular food allergies, but in addition these cruise lines are clearly very much not on board with the organic movement.

They’ve lost my business, have they lost yours?

Not so Halloween weekend.

mofomon — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 08:49:31 +0000

I think for the first time in years I have no actual Halloween related plans this Halloween weekend. Pretty odd. I will, however, be intently watching the USC v. Stanford game.

In more professional related news, I’m keeping an eye on the VS Tech v. Twitter case. Wondering how it will impact Twitter, it at all… (read more about it here).

Woo Hoo

mofomon — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 06:08:40 +0000

Well I might just consider this
If you don’t let me down
If you can keep me happy
Well you can stick around
Now I don’t care for sycofants
They drive me round the bend
But if you can’t control yourself
Then let’s just keep good friends

Recovering from a wordpress update error – “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”

mofomon — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:49:50 +0000

I just experienced my first WordPress update error. I have to say, I was a little freaked out.
I tried to auto update 5 of my plugins. The update page came back and said there was an error, when I tried to navigate to the updates page to try it again the page went blank and I got this lovely message:
“Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute.”

This message appeared on any page associated with the admin/dashboard area. I believe some refer to this as the website being stuck in maintenance mode. Luckily the front end of my blog/website was still running fine.

Here is how I fixed it:

Logged into my blogs root folder via ftp
Opened my wp-content folder which houses the plugins folder.
Renamed plugins to plugins.old
Made a new folder called plugin

Tada! Everything works again. Now you can either reinstall all your plugins or do what I did. I deleted the plugins directory, renamed plugins.old to plugins and tried that. I was able to get back into my admin area and just had to manually update those plugins that were not updated and probably caused the error to begin with.

What do you mean I can’t view this on my mobile device

mofomon — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:26:29 +0000

Have you ever been browsing on your phone and you come across the warning/error message “This content is not available on mobile devices”? It might be a picture, a website, a file, or a youtube video.
This annoys me. You have provided the content on the internet, what do you care what device I’m using to view it? This is equivalent to telling me I can only read my newspaper in my kitchen, not my bedroom, and definitely not in the office. That would be absurd right? Because once you have te newspaper you should be able to read it anywhere, right?
Well, this is absurd. Content on the internet should not be censored this way. I thought it was the information highway, free exchange of information, etc. If this was the case, let me view what you have already made available online using any web capable electronic I own.
Internet content providers should not be able to block phones, googleTV, netbooks, laptops, tablets, or whatever else may be invented in the future.
I understand that some content providers are trying to protect their content for misuse, however, a different way of implementing that has to be found. A better method.

Take the stairs

mofomon — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 08:27:43 +0000

I’m serious… take the stairs.
I constantly hear that 1) we should be saving energy, and 2) we should be more active to improve our health. Well, I have a pretty easy solution, take the stairs rather than the elevator. You get where you want to go, avoid using the elevator (and associated energy usage), and get in a little exercise.

It seems simple but so many buildings, in LA at least, are built so that it is actually inconvenient to use the stairs. I’m not sure why those who design and build these structures construct layouts which discourage the use of stairs, but it is a shame. Running errands recently, I was in a 6 story building which also had a basement. I needed to get to the basement and planned to take the stairs, especially after I noticed the crowd at the elevator bank. Turns out the stairwells are way in the back of the building, totally out of the weigh. This definitely discourages people from taking the stairs.

Anyway, take the stairs. If you want to figure out exactly how many extra calories you’re burning check out this website.

Horrible Bosses

mofomon — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:02:16 +0000

I saw Horrible Bosses tonight. After hearing how funny it was from my friends, I was worried I would be disappointed. Not the case. It was hilarious. The jokes were funny and the terrible bosses made me laugh about one of my own ex-bosses.

It was worth the watch, check it out.

Social Bookmarking Plugin

mofomon — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:08:45 +0000

I upgraded my social bookmarking plugin from Sociable to Share This! I think it looks sleeker and should be easier to use. At least I hope.

I was really hoping they had the google+ button already but it looks like you need to do that manually. You can see the instructions here.

Looking to game on your Windows phone?

mofomon — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:46:22 +0000

For those of you who have Windows based phones, check out this game:

Satalaunch

The game play is conceptually similar to angry birds in that it’s a gravity-based puzzle-game. This current version is free to play and free to download, and you will see absolutely no ads.

Word is there will be releasing a second version with downloadable content allowing users the ability to edit and share levels they create and can directly download their levels into the game (or download other user creations). The website where users will be able to do this is www.satalaunch.com. I believe the level designer is live now!
Look out for several new game-play elements adding a layer of depth to gameplay that would make this game a true-puzzler such as worm-holes and resource management.

Don’t believe me about needing to have this game? Gizmodo called it an App Everyone Should Have.

Iphone users feeling a bit jealous? Don’t worry. They are currently working with an iPhone development company to port it over the iPhone which we expect we will have done soon!

Play on!

Playing SataLaunch

The Armenian Genocide

mofomon — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:17:16 +0000

A few days ago, April 24 the same day as Easter this year, was a day of remembrance for the 1.5 million lives lost during the Armenian Genocide, which took place beginning April 24, 1915. Please take a moment to remember…

Previously, I wrote a series of posts on the topic that you can see here:

Part 1 – The Armenian Genocide

Part 2 – What Transpired

Part 3 – Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

Part 4 – A Survivor’s Account of the Armenian Genocide – My Great Grandmother.

For additional information on the Armenian Genocide check out these sites:

The Armenian National Institute – The Armenian Genocide

Armenian Genocide Information and Recognition

Thank you for taking a moment to remember.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Bruce Fein

mofomon — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 05:19:24 +0000

Earlier today, Huffington Post published an article by Bruce Fein titled “Lies, Damn Lies, and Armenian Deaths.” In the article Bruce addresses an argument that the number of deaths during the Armenian Genocide is inaccurate. I wasn’t there and I don’t know anyone who counted the deaths so I can’t tell you if it was 1.4 million or 1.5 million or 1.6 million… What I can tell you is that many many Armenians we’re murdered. Unfortunately, Bruce goes on to say that he believes that None of the deaths which took place during the Armenian Genocide could be considered part of a Genocide.
He says:

Further, not a single one of those deaths necessarily falls within the definition of genocide in the authoritative Genocide Convention of 1948. It requires proof that the accused was responsible for the physical destruction of a group in whole or in substantial part specifically because of their race, nationality, religion, or ethnicity.

Necessarily? Yes. They necessarily fall within the definition of Genocide.

I wanted to comment on his article and explain to him that my family had first hand knowledge of the motivations behind the genocide, however, the comments are already closed so I will address this here. As I’ve blogged about previously, my family includes survivors of the Genocide. My great grandmothers family was well known and acquainted with members of the Turkish government. When the killings began these government officials acknowledged the killing of Armenians (you know, because of their race, nationality, religion, and ethnicity) but they assured my family that they would be protected. This was a lie. A neighbor heard the same officials discussing that my family was not safe, a few of the family members were able to escape (I use the term escape loosely because though their lives were spared they still suffered a lot). So, Bruce, I think this makes it pretty clear that the deaths were in fact Genocide.

Quit calling my great grandmother a liar. So much for being a “Scholar.”