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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
pw201
|
12:35a |
Morality again There's a popular evangelical Christian argument against atheism which involves morality somehow. In the unsophisticated form it's that atheism leads to immorality (like the caller on a radio talk show Dawkins was on in the US, who said that if he thought there wasn't a God he probably would murder his neighbour). This isn't really worth engaging with, because it's not an argument that atheism is false. In the more sophisticated form the argument is that atheism, if true, necessarily means that morality is an arbitrary personal opinion. But we strongly feel that some things are just wrong regardless of anyone's opinion (in this argument, rape and the Nazis are the canonical examples of things that are just wrong). This contradicts atheism, so atheism must be false. The latter form of the argument came up recently in an interview that Premier Christian Radio's Justin Brierley did with Richard Dawkins after a debate Dawkins was in. Brierley wrote a piece about it on the UCCF's BeThinking.org site. ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) robhu has posted about it on his journal, and has a poll on what people think about the morality of very bad things. Some lively discussion has ensued there. |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
elainegrey
|
5:02p |
Visiting Hawk This visitor was lovely to see when i went to do laundry. I do wish i hadn't had quite so much battery trouble. Still.
It seemed huge for a hawk.... | 
Visiting Hawk
Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats. | |
| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
wechsler
|
12:42a |
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azzazzello
|
3:00a |
Реклама WoW
Сил рекламирует ворлд оф варкрафт =) Забыли подятнуть Тони, Поли и Криса Молтисанти)
"Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in" ("И когда мне показалось, что я уже завязал - они затащили меня обратно!") - эпизод из Крестного отца, который любил демонстрировать Сил в сериале Семья Сопрано. |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
nightblade_
|
6:44p |
Пиратики-пиратики... веселые ребятики. :) В детстве я дико хотел стать пиратом и очень расстраивался от того, что пиратство кануло в Лету. А тут вроде бы 21 век на дворе и нате-пожалуйста, пираты какие-то африканческие кучу судов поназахватывали. Мне тут вот че непонятно: абордажат они с лодок мелкими командами человек по 10. Так неужели ж судовладельцам ломы нанять по пяток спецов из тех же Blackwater, DynCorp, Intercon, ASG или Wackenhut на каждый кораблик да и забыть про эту угрозу как класс? Скажем, снайпера, пулеметчика, гранатометчика и пары штурмовиков явно хватило бы за глаза хоть на супертанкер. Обошлось бы в год где-то в пол сотой процента с одного рейса. Неуж-то все жабой душатся или есть какие-то законы, запрещающие охранять свой груз? Фигня какая-то, в общем. ;-\ Current Mood:  curious |
diffrentcolours
|
10:06p |
Unhectic Weekend This weekend's plans were terribly busy. I had intended to attend John Leech MP's dinner on Friday night, an identity activism day in London on Saturday, followed by visiting ms_saffie on Saturday night, back to London on Sunday to see the 22SGI and then returning to Manchester on Sunday night. Three things put a stop to this - my failing to get much sleep this week (I didn't get to bed before 1am any night this week, and slept really badly), engineering works on the Manchester-London line at Milton Keynes, and the identity activism being on Sunday, not Saturday. So instead, I'm having a nice night in with greyeyedeve and v15u4l_3rr0r watching The Chronicles of Riddick, admiring my bookshelves which are now attached to the wall and plentifully-loaded, and drinking some Jameson in Tal's memory. Tomorrow, I will buy a ticket from Manchester to Oxford, travel down to see Saffie, head to London on Sunday, and take the long way home via Leeds on Sunday night. It'll mean skipping a dinner, and not seeing the 22SGI; but also it'll mean getting more sleep, being in less of a rush and generally enjoying my weekend more. Current Mood:  relaxed |
| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
xenogram
|
12:23p |
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| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
miketo
|
3:21p |
LJ ate my post
I had a nice post responding to comments on my writing hiatus, and thanks to a combination of Firefox, LiveJournal, and Javascript, the post went to where electrons go when they die. I'll make another pass at it this weekend.
Grrr. |
mdlbear
|
2:56p |
Colleen[5] Getting connected Colleen's room at Kaiser has good cell phone reception, thankfully (number
on the Starport web
page, but no Wi-Fi.
I was thinking seriously about getting her an Amazon Kindle (using the money saved
by not needing a second room for Loscon), but it doesn't appear to have a
general-purpose web browser (you can download pages and email them...),
and they quote a delivery time of 3-4 weeks. Scratch that idea.
A smartphone is really tempting. There are two possibilities
there: add data to our current AT&T family plan -- really only an
option if I'd be able to switch it from her number to mine after she's out
of the hoosegow hospital. Or that G1 I've been lusting after... Still an expensive committment.
Actually, the price on a T-Mobile WiFi router looks really attractive. Except that as asavitzk points out, it's bridging in the wrong direction: VoIP-phone to DSL rather than a cell-to-WiFi bridge. Foo. I've seen the other kind, but neither T-Mobile nor AT&T is selling them.
|
elainegrey
|
11:22a |
Neuralgia notes Morning news -- i celebrate Bush's extension of the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary to include the Davidson Sea Mount. 2002 : http://www.sanctuarysimon.org/monterey/sections/seamounts/project_info.php?projectID=100114&sec=sm2006 : http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06davidson/welcome.htmlI spent a long time on a comment about immigration issues. Car rental rates are weirdly variable. But, we have car and one night's hotel for our family visit. Phone calls and spousal conversations later: now have some sketchy plans for next week. I had another morning where i mulled over the trigeminal neuralgia possibility. ( details ) So, this morning, after someone casually said, "Oh you should get that looked into," i struggled with *WHY*. Does the list of annoying conditions i have really need ONE MORE? Christine suggested a staged process with writing my doctor by email, and asking her for next steps. Why, i continued to ask. Christine's point is that a diagnosis, even if it's not one i act upon, acts as a "vote." I become one more in the statistics of this supposedly rare condition and perhaps that will help in epidemiology and research. Another possibility is we have good health care now. If i have the diagnosis now, if the pain gets more frequent and more intense later i won't have to go through the frustrations of getting it diagnosed again. I wonder about preexisting condition clauses. UPDATE: ( LJ notes starting in 2003 ) |
mdlbear
|
1:55p |
Dairy/egg/nut/gluten-free goodies! Pig in the KitchenMy recipe blog is in response to my daughter's dairy, egg and nut allergies. As there is gluten intolerance in my extended family, I've made the recipes gluten-free as well. Sounds awful? Ah, but the food tastes good and the pictures are pretty, come on in! |
marginoferror
|
4:29p |
Sitting down and reading a book This morning I was watching last night's Rachel Maddow Show on her excellent website at MSNBC. She had a guest, Malcolm Gladwell, who had been invited to analyze President-Elect Obama's cabinet and staff picks in the context of his work and research: how to understand success. I was very skeptical of the idea of an author/journalist explaining success to me on popular television, but Gladwell impressed me a lot. His (very briefly expressed) ideas on success sounded unconventional and unusually scientifically rigorous. Also, he said moderately kind things about Obama, which I always appreciate. Anyway, I ended up going to Borders down the street and buying his latest book. In hardback. Immediately. It was, watch the clip at 10:35. Pause it. Ponder. Ponder. Check prices online. Go to bookstore and pay a higher price to have it right away. I had the book and was back at the office at 11. This is very unusual for me. I have read maybe four complete books since I graduated from college. I read constantly all day, but it's all in article form, on the Internet or otherwise. Frankly, I think books are overperscribed. They are long, and inconvenient, and on any topical subject they are eternally out of date. I have trouble sitting still for the whole thing. As a child I used to read books, sometimes the same book over and over and over, but college took that happy habit and abused it so badly I have trouble even walking through bookstores now. Anyway, it's a good book. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He's a good writer (that is critical) and he also seems to be a good thinker (also important!) and I like his work and conclusions. It's not a self-help book but I get the impression that it is helping me. I am reading it constantly - even while I should be working - and stop primarily to ponder, which is something that I like to do when I am challenged with a very new idea. Having finished the first 200 pages in five hours of what should have been work for my employer, only now do I realize where before I had heard of Malcolm Gladwell. I distinctly remember wondering who the hell he was when I read that six months ago. Now I know, I guess. After I read the book I will not be interested in keeping it. It's not that it's not a good book or that I'm sure I will never want to read it again, but I would be happier knowing a friend was benefiting from it than knowing that it sits taking up space on my tiny shelving. Now that I've thought of it, I'll have to root through my other books and see what I can pass along in good faith (and maybe what I should just throw away). |
6ferrets
|
1:28p |
Free soft drink! Someone at Dr. Pepper bet everyone in the US that the Guns 'n' Roses album Chinese Democracy, begun in 1994, would not get released this year. It goes on sale Sunday. "We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28. For many of you, this may be the first and only time you'll be happy to see a new GnR album. :-) |
ang_grrr
|
9:29p |
HIGNFY Paul Merton was off sick, leading to this exchange between host Jack Dee and emergency guest Frank Skinner... ( Read more... ) |
| Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 |
tduglas
|
12:22a |
Мудрость
Чем бы вы ни занимались - ползали по интернету или летали в космосе - везде вас окружает Free Open Source Software! |
| Friday, November 21st, 2008 |
marginoferror
|
3:07p |
Cabinet get
Reports from NYT are that Hillary Clinton has accepted a position as US Secretary of State. NBC is also running with the story that Tim Geithner has been selected as Secretary of Treasury, which will supposedly be announced on Monday. NBC further reports that Bill Richardson may be selected Secretary of Commerce at the same time. We're trying to confirm all of this, but if it's true, all three of those are big news. |
marnanel
|
9:54p |
Tilting-spears A fact not widely known: the crossed axes in my family's arms:  are a reference to the arms of George Shum, who was my father's father's mother's father's father's father: Azure on a saltire argent fimbriated gules two tilting-spears in saltire or, headed proper. Crest — A cock reguardant proper collared or, from the collar a buglehorn pendent gold. (In other words, two gold spears in an X-shaped cross on a silver X-shaped cross with a red border, with a blue background.) Of course we have no right at all to George Shum's arms since they're English arms and we descend from him through a woman-- though in Canada the rules are more egalitarian and permit inheritance of designs through the female line-- but it seemed worthwhile to commemorate him in the design. |
rightc0ast
|
2:53p |
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miketo
|
11:19a |
Notes from the front
Cold
Been laid low for a while now with a cold. My beautiful bride caught it first, mutated it into near-lethal severity, and then gave it to me. Hers was "just" a cold; mine had flu symptoms that came packaged with it (fever, chills, body aches). She says she suffers less because she's tougher than me. I believe it. Despite her 100% Norse blood and my half-Dutch blood, I know I've got a bunch of other recessive genes that turned up dominant and it wouldn't surprise me to find that my immune system has some quirks. That said, I tend not to get sick when others around me do, so when I do get sick it's a doozy.
Cats
We've entered the marginally stable detente phase with our cats. Our elderly lady Vixen wants nothing to do with the hyperactive teenager Sophie, but as long as Sophie keeps her distance things are calm. After a month of owning her, we think Sophie is a dog trapped in a cat's body, because she is much more of a pack animal than a solitary hunter. Also, the disparity in their sizes (15 lbs Vixen, 7 lbs Sophie) prompted Victoria to nickname them Meatloaf and Meatball. I love my wife.
Subwoofer
It's about 90% finished. I need to apply sealant to the stained wood, let it dry for a few days, then attach the driver and plate amp. When it's done I'll post a pic or two. Can't wait to hear it in action!
JavaFiend
Dude, send me your private e-mail address again. I've lost it and would like to thank you for the birthday gifts!
|
robhu
|
6:31p |
Dawkins on morality From BeThinking: Morality
Perhaps the most controversial point in my interview with Dawkins was the admission on the fact that his naturalism does not allow for moral absolutes. It was this area of whether a fixed morality exists, or whether belief in the atheistic evolution of morality commits us to arbitrary moral beliefs, which for me was the most interesting part of my conversation with Dawkins. Here is the nub of our conversation on the audio in this respect:
JB: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement.
RD: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.
JB: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution.
RD: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.
JB: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six.
RD: You could say that, yeah.
This admission from Dawkins (although as you hear on the audio it’s a bit of a mumbled admission) is somewhat controversial and something that I don't think the debate brought out as strongly as John Lennox may have wished.
Obviously the context is important – Dawkins is not saying that "rape is ok" – he believes it is wrong from within his evolutionary perspective. However, he does admit that the belief itself is essentially arbitrary given that we could have evolved different morals – and that there can be no overarching moral fact that rape is wrong, as this would suggest values etc. that eclipse his strict naturalism. Of course, not many atheists actually want to admit that this is a logical outworking of naturalism (though it is very hard to deny) and talk all the time as though they are privy to absolute moral facts. Poll #1301588
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All"I (the reader) believe that rape is wrong" "I (the reader) agree that 'the belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six'" |
marnanel
|
8:17p |
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corvar
|
10:11a |
|
sajith
|
11:09p |
"Comfortably middle class"  People, this is to announce that mat_attack is comfortably middle class by his own admission. But you could tell that already. |
diffrentcolours
|
5:11p |
Today is a Glorious Day for SCIENCE! Scientists test effects of high heels on the body. This is the kind of research I could get beneath behind. Sadly, there are not enough illustrative examples with the article. Some days I swear I'm turning into softfruit. Current Mood: hornyCurrent Music: Atari Teenage Riot - "Death Star" |
aschiohz
|
5:11p |
$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}e^{-x^2} dx = \sqrt{\pi}$
Jeg liker latex (uttales latekk, latech). Fikk liksom ikke nok av det under rapportskrivingen, så nå overtaler jeg folk til å skifte til pidgin og skaffe PIDGIN-TEX. Har vel nevnt det tidligere, men det er altså skikkelig KUUUUUUUUULT. Alle gjør det! Gjør det du også!!!!
Egentlig har jeg mest lyst til å programmere noe. Men jeg klarer ikke å bestemme meg for om jeg skal bruke matlab, C eller lære meg et helt nytt programmeringsspråk. Og så har jeg liksom ikke peiling på hva jeg faktisk skal programmere, for all min programmeringserfaring begrenser seg til matematikkdrid. KNIS.
Kunne ha gjort et forsøk på å implementere matematikkdrid fra fagene jeg har tatt før, som for eksempel LINEÆR ALGEBRA, som en ekstra utfordring, men lineær algebra-boka ligger selvfølgelig igjen på hybelen, og jeg gidder liksom ikke å utlede ting på nytt?
Eller, egentlig så gidder jeg. ER IKKE DET HELT SYKT? JEG GIDDER Å GJØRE TING! JEG HAR ENERGI!!!! OG JEG KASTER DEN BORT PÅ IRRASJONELLE TING ISTEDET FOR Å spare den til eksamensperioden ups
jaja, har man miniferie, har man miniferie. Det gir meg ny energi og nytt giv! Ny motivasjon! Whee!! |
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