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Of Blasphemy and Trigger Warnings

Though I don’t have the formal education on this, like some do, to point to primary sources, but Medieval thought in general held sin, especially blasphemy, to cause actual harm in the physical world. This puts a different spin on witch trials and inquisitions, since committing blasphemy could be considered no different than assault. One Of Blasphemy and Trigger Warnings

Separate the Church and the State

I ignore such salacious, morally complicated stories as the Kim Davis fiasco, but the bleating on Facebook has been hard to ignore. I have little true opinion about it since it has no direct bearing on my life, but it does serve as a working example of competing loyalties that demand full allegiance. As a Separate the Church and the State

Photos: Allegheny Valley Bike Ride

Inspired both by Ed’s posts about riding out in Oklahoma County and by the fact that I finally took Functional out on a non-commuting ride this season, here’s a very photo-heavy post of the route I did with some friends/in-laws. For the Pittsburgh area, it was a very flat ride with some nice views along the Photos: Allegheny Valley Bike Ride

Evidence is Not Enough

Carl Sagan, as usual when it came to epistemology, was wrong. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is applicable when speaking of empirical, falsifiable claims. Fine when you’re dealing with the hard sciences, or if for some reason you’re a positivist (impossible to be one, so we won’t go there today), but achieving a functional navigation Evidence is Not Enough

Photo: Jay

I’m not too keen on photos of myself, but Hot Metal Studio did a great job of making me appeal to…myself. The session was for the new book’s author photo, but this isn’t the one I’m going to use.

Doubleplusungood Thoughts on Slavery

Growing up with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a favorite movie, I got the impression that slavery was all about capturing young able-bodied children for mine work. Roots sat on the head-end of my timeline but if I saw that I’d have additional prejudices about slavery. Most of us who have grown Doubleplusungood Thoughts on Slavery

The Epistemology of Road Signs

There are about four stop signs near my house on the way to the bus stop that I generally ignore. Two of them literally have no consequence if one is obedient to them or not. I guess I should explain that I’m riding my bike when I fly through these, but some people have a The Epistemology of Road Signs

Getting Trolled By Video Game Music

I listen to a playlist of video game music at work or when I’m writing. Like film scores, most of it is designed to be unobtrusive enough to help someone maintain focus on something else. There are two songs in my playlist that intruded into my attention the other day though, through tiny idiosyncrasies like Getting Trolled By Video Game Music

“Look at Me. I Did It Too.”

God’s not in the business of sticking around only to cover up for your stupidity or hubris, though I am sure there are provisions sent that can account for that. To a certain extent God honors what a church body corporately focuses on—their “mission,” if you will—at least insofar that the body adheres to God’s “Look at Me. I Did It Too.”

Being Necessary to Create God

I’ve mentioned it before on here plenty of times, but I note the not-very-groundbreaking, Voltairean idea that a disbelief in God will necessary a man to find divine attributes in the physical or abstract—not metaphysical—universe (as such, Volataire’s quote is more accurate if we put “find” instead of “it would be necessary to invent him.”). Being Necessary to Create God

How to Stay Sane

It bears repeating: God doesn’t owe you a damn thing. That He doesn’t owe you anything doesn’t mean He doesn’t offer anything. It’s self-evident in many ways that, if you are reading this, there are some things He’s already given to you, and continues to give. There’s a reflection of this duality in the two How to Stay Sane

The Serfs May Not Talk Amongst Themselves

Serfs in Santa Monica can’t make agreements with other serfs to have them stay over their house because of arbitrary rules…rules that were created by lords who have nothing to do with the potential transaction. From Forbes: The Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica has instituted the nation’s toughest regulations on short-term rentals like Airbnb. The Serfs May Not Talk Amongst Themselves

Xenoblade Time of Day Desktop Backgrounds

A very non-serious post. I scrounged up from different sources these three desktop backgrounds that feature the intro screen for Xenoblade Chronicles, that shows the different times of day. I had to do some Photoshop work on them to get the positioning, proportions, files size, and colors mostly coordinated between pictures. I think they’re aesthetically Xenoblade Time of Day Desktop Backgrounds

Physical Limits

This article raises some interesting questions. How far should a scientific discipline go in its theories of “the possible?” before it stops being a science? For all it’s been romanticized, no one mentions the study of science can be an exhausting rat race with professional jealousies and money grabs. I’m willing to believe that half Physical Limits

The Occident Is Doomed

Back in my day, I had an outspoken atheist professor who said at the start of every semester that if we didn’t like something in his class: “Tough shit. Suck it up or leave.” I didn’t care because he was funny and was good at learnin’ me logic and philosophy, and I actually got to The Occident Is Doomed

Bad Guys and Ancient Knowledge

I’ve come to appreciate writers that don’t characterize immoral actors in their work as complete devils. Things that are considered immoral now, but commonplace in past times, is often depicted as being perpetrated by people of ill-character and worth. I’m willing to believe people who perpetrated bad “institutions” (nearly everyone) in the past were normal Bad Guys and Ancient Knowledge

Why We Do Shadow Work

I’ve seen Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day blogged about and linked from many sources the last few days: Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations. It has slipped into our routines stealthily; most of us do not realize how much of it Why We Do Shadow Work

Photo: Pittsburgh Sky

Pittsburgh is very hilly and very overcast. The correct combination of these two things can yield some great sky and cloud photography. This isn’t great photograph per se, but it could have been with the right equipment and not a so-so phone camera. The right photographic “raw material” is there. This was taken during the Photo: Pittsburgh Sky

I Bought A Bike

A breather post in between marathon writing sessions and some serious future posts. I bought a mountain bike off of Craigslist last week: a late-80s-to-early-90s Specialized Hard Rock. Functional has been in the shop for the past few weeks getting a tune up, so I thought it’s a good idea to finally get a backup I Bought A Bike

Switched to WordPress 2011 Theme

After a bunch of plugin and theme updates, and a WordPress update, the WordPress 2015 theme I was using wasn’t playing well. That is, if you consider not showing any posts at all as “not playing well.” So I switched to the 2011 theme, which always seemed a little more stable to me than other Switched to WordPress 2011 Theme

Catholicism’s Social Teaching

Dropping in quickly again to mention Just Thomism’s post on the Catholic Church’s socio-economic policy, as stated in its catechism: The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the Catholicism’s Social Teaching

Two Books of Note

Dropping in here for a moment between writing PBS and living a normal work-family life. Upon a recent visit to amazon.com I saw one of their “recommended books”: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. Despite something of an embarrassing cover featuring a photo of that Nazi treasure hunter Two Books of Note

When Living is a Crime

I’ve said it before on here. Other, more adept and well-known writers have said similar: a non-belief in God requires, philosophically, that one must find or apply Godlike attributes to something else. It’s an accidental side meaning smuggled in Voltaire’s famous quote: “If God didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him.” Related to When Living is a Crime

Imagery in Halo: Reach

Here’s a neat bit of imagery I noticed at the end of the Halo: Reach game. Some backstory (and spoilers, obviously): your player-character arrives on the scene in the beginning of Reach, on the planet Reach, as the replacement for the Spartan’s recently-KIA sixth member. Hence, your player’s name is Noble Six. The end of Imagery in Halo: Reach

A Possible Metaphor

When there’s as decent amount of accumulation of snow or ice, especially on the street, and it rains, parts of the snow or ice on the ground melt and some doesn’t. It depends on the thickness of the snow/ice, how dirty it is, the grade of the hill it’s on, the type of ground it’s A Possible Metaphor

Book Review: The Ghost Box

The Ghost Box is Mike Duran’s third full novel, about Reagan Moon, a journalist of the paranormal who gets caught up, to put it mildly, in some otherwordly happenings in SoCal. I don’t dabble too much in modern science fiction or paranormal (see below), so I can only really competently comment on Moon’s first person Book Review: The Ghost Box

Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea

I normally pay no attention to legislative news because, as Michael Corleone said, politics and crime are the same thing. Inordinately fixating on the schemes of social deviants does not reside in the realm of the sane. But since the issue of net neutrality has some personal impact as a software engineer, I have some Net Neutrality is a Bad Idea

The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People – Pale Blue Scratch Email Newsletter #2

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your art.” -Gustave Flaubert The protagonist of Pale Blue Scratch, Elisabeth, is known by her colleagues to be a bit of a impulsive decision-maker. This trait is somewhat at odds with her vocation as a professor, journalist, and member The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People – Pale Blue Scratch Email Newsletter #2

Honest Movie Poster: Spirited Away

There are honest movie trailers and then there are honest movie posters. Here’s my honest movie poster for Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Now get me some bath tokens! Edit: The “bath house is a brothel” theory is contentious. It’s irrelevant to the story at large; just a point of interest. Edit II: This poster is Honest Movie Poster: Spirited Away

Is There an Ether or Isn’t There?

I posted these questions on Facebook and didn’t receive much response, though I should’ve known that site isn’t the greatest medium (*rimshot*) to field science questions that aren’t in meme format. I came across the article linked below while doing book research, and it’s actually an excerpt from a book called Transcending The Speed Of Is There an Ether or Isn’t There?

I Still Live

Progress on Retardo Montalbán is going well. I should have a editable draft finished very soon. I don’t like being silent here for too long but I also despise meaningless posts, so here’s some things to mitigate that. You are currently viewing WordPress’ 2015 default theme with very little modifications on my part. I have I Still Live

The Christian Case for Santa Claus

Yes, it’s fine, in this modern day, if you want to emphasize the St. Nicholas version of Santa Claus. It’s also a fine thing if you want to play up the Sunblom version of Santa Claus as well. I don’t find rejecting either one as particularly bad, but what I object to is rejection of The Christian Case for Santa Claus

There’s No Arguing With Disembodied Concepts Labeled “Science”

Taking a quick break from Retardo Montalbán to mention this. Science-lite articles using “science says” verbiage are bothersome reification fallacies, since science doesn’t “say” anything; people do. On the other hand there’s a different kind of fallacious appeal smuggled through, since using “science says” doesn’t exactly invite criticism of whatever “it,” as an object, says. There’s No Arguing With Disembodied Concepts Labeled “Science”

Coming Out of the Idolization Closet

I’m already sort of breaking my “no more posts until the book is done” rule already, but this was too delicious to pass up: “The Case for Idolatry: Why Evangelical Christians Can Worship Idols”. Secondly, and even more significantly, we need to read the whole Bible with reference to the approach of Jesus. To be Coming Out of the Idolization Closet

Taking A Short Break

Not that I am particularly prolific on here, but I’m going to be taking a shortish break from posting while I finish up the first few drafts of Retardo Montalbán. There will be more drafts while Jill does her editing thing but that writing won’t be as rigorous or demanding…unless the bean bang completely misses Taking A Short Break

Salvaging Some Knowledge

Good thoughts from Ed’s latest post: One of the biggest problems I run into is this knee-jerk reaction that our cultural substrate is the human default. It seems nobody wants to understand that what we have today is an anomaly, an intellectual tradition more radically different from all others than any of the rest are Salvaging Some Knowledge

Myers-Briggs Test Results: INTJ – The Conceited, Nit-Picking Sociopath

EDIT for all the people finding this post: I didn’t write the quoted text myself. It’s found at the page linked below, on the 16personalities.com site. I specifically picked the negative section because lots of personality quizzes give glowing praise as results, and the 16personalities site is one of the only ones I found that Myers-Briggs Test Results: INTJ – The Conceited, Nit-Picking Sociopath

A Stupid Poll About Writing

I received an email asking to promote the results of a poll, as seen in this post from the Daily Beast. Even though I’m actually doing what was requested by linking to it in this post, I responded to the email and declined because I’m not into charities I’m not personally involved with, and because A Stupid Poll About Writing

An Update on the Works In Progress

I am currently on the first draft stage of Retardo Montalbán, and I have onboarded Jill Domschot as the semi-formal editor of the project. We have a verbal agreement for services and payment, where I will remite payment at the end of her editing duties. So this public post carries with it the accountability factor—mostly An Update on the Works In Progress

N.T. Wright on Christian Art

When you see a beautiful chalice, it has a double beauty. If it’s well made, it has beauty for what it is. But if you know what it is, it also has beauty because you know what it’s meant to be filled with. The present world is like a chalice. God has made it as N.T. Wright on Christian Art

Living In Taupeville

Once in a while, Relevant Magazine will post something not so completely drenched in Millenial Christian cheese sauce that it’s worth noting. Via Wintery Knight, “What If Having an Extraordinary Life Isn’t the Point?“: Some have grown tired of the constant calls to radical change. They are less sure they want to jump on the Living In Taupeville

The Paradox of Obedience

Jill’s post about the simpy interpretation of this survey of the hierarchy of values among religious people gave me agita—not anything Jill said but the fact that a self-styled smartypants can’t process the inapplication of the simplicity of surveys*. This is a roundabout way of saying people and their belief systems are too complex for The Paradox of Obedience

Dark Is the New Black

Spurred to action by squinty eye strain and this thread about Google Drive not having a dark theme like Gmail does, I tinkered with the CSS on the Typo theme I use here to make it mostly dark with a not-quite-white text, bucking the design trend of Apple and every website in existence that relies Dark Is the New Black

Nikola Tesla Was A Weird Guy

From My Inventions (free pdf here): I was about twelve years old when I first succeeded in banishing an image from my vision by willful effort, but I never had any control over the flashes of light to which I have referred. They were, perhaps, my strangest experience and inexplicable. They usually occurred when I Nikola Tesla Was A Weird Guy

Using jQuery To Translate Websites

If you would permit me a wholly web development-related post, I recently finished a translate jQuery script for my friends’ charity site, Mission to El Salvador. Technically, the script doesn’t translate the English to Spanish, but it replaces the English text and (sometimes) HTML markup. I was forced to do it this way because WordPress Using jQuery To Translate Websites

What I Am Working On

I was tagged by Jill Domschot, who wrote Anna and the Dragon (read my review here), to write a post on what I’m working on. I barely talk about current book stuff so I badgered asked her to tag me when she was soliciting to be badgered asked for participants on Facebook. 1. What am What I Am Working On

Addendum To “Correct Religion” Post

See here for the original post. To clear up any confusion, it’s important to make the distinction between gnostic and agnostic atheism. Gnostic atheists—the specific ones I addressed in the post—specifically claim knowledge of God’s non-existence. I take “knowledge” in the vaguely epistemic sense. Agnostic atheists claim a non-belief in deities but are open to Addendum To “Correct Religion” Post

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 8

I’m currently vacationing in Massachusetts, home to Elizabeth Warren and her corporo-fascism. A new Cheerios commercial portrays a competent dad. Interesting for its novelty but especially attention-starved social justice warriors are going to Tumblr the new paradigm. The Folly of Scientism – “Advocates of scientism today claim the sole mantle of rationality, frequently equating science Links of Possible Relevance, Part 8

Suffer(age) the Little Children

Vox Day posted recently about female suffrage. Talking about “their votes are equally incompatible with the long-term national interest as the other classes of current non-voters”: This can be done using a variety of metrics, including what Shelles describes as another possibility to the only way. Just to give one example, if the reason children Suffer(age) the Little Children

The Cockamamie Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889

While reading The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier, I came across one of the earliest forms of stupidheadedness in the American government, concerning property: On March 3, 1889, [President] Harrison announced the government would open the 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for settlement precisely at noon on April 22. The Cockamamie Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889

Photos: Listen to Metal Stickers

I made good use of the “Listen To Metal” stickers I helped Seth with. This was placed next to a map of the Pittsburgh subway system. When I checked last it was taken down. I have no idea what the pink smudge on it is: On a Pittsburgh Steelers promotional poster: On a pillar on Photos: Listen to Metal Stickers

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 7

I made a silly video of a polar bear “dancing” to a Meshuggah song. Ed links to an interesting article about the HTML5 canvas tag and a possible use/misuse to track client-side activity. We something of an ongoing discussion on how to resolve it (somewhat) with user-defined javascripting. Germany government might revert to typewriters for Links of Possible Relevance, Part 7

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 6

“Nice” people might be immoral. Also, any casual observer of human nature already knew this. No need for a study. [HT: Jill] The cupcake bust. Easy credit = bubbles. As if this never happened over and over again in the past. How families lose a lot of money in a few generations. Your band does Links of Possible Relevance, Part 6

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 5

It occurred to me recently that I still haven’t gotten sick since will before the past winter. See here for my “hacks,” though recently my vitamin intake has been sporadic. This isn’t really a Link of Possible Relevance proper, but more just unmitigated bragging. Hobby Lobby blah blah. It was an okay decision but arguments Links of Possible Relevance, Part 5

Words Mean Things

If Seth activated comments on his blog, I might write something like this on a recent post of his. Instead: I think it’s helpful to recognize and factor in for scale. Some software dev firms are too small to really have a “human touch” to be of value (I personally don’t think any company would Words Mean Things

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 4

Archie comics now has an openly gay character. Soon to come: the first character openly not caring about who other people doink. The economics of WALL-E. The site of Aristotle’s Lyceum is open to the public. I like grass-fed butter, and I like coffee, so… Math metal, lit’rally. Yet another “man up” post for Father’s Links of Possible Relevance, Part 4

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 3

Michael Bay might direct the live action version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s no supporting links on that page so I’m doubtful. Also, if it actually happens I will curse Bay’s name with my last breath. Why a boom in skyscraper constructions is a sign of economic downturn. This video will make a man out Links of Possible Relevance, Part 3

Invert Your Characters

I have a story idea that’s been germinating for some time*. The element of the two main protagonists I want to share is a rather common one: one of them has the “special powers” and the other acts as the “guide” and liaison for interactions with the normal world. As it is now, the “powered” Invert Your Characters

Links of Possible Relevance, Part 2

The quintessential Enlightenment-nonsense song gets the comic treatment. A List Apart, instead of being a resource for UI/UX industry thought and trend, will soon be a platform for constant social-political hand-wringing, finger-wagging and other such compound-word descriptors. Such is the chosen way of all tech sub-industries, it seems. If you’re a man, you need to Links of Possible Relevance, Part 2