So, I just noticed that I had a relationship change. I expected it to be that pudge asshat foing me... which I wouldn't blame him, I foed him myself. But instead, to my surprise, it was Bill Dog, friending me. Now, I don't mean to be ungrateful, or upset in any way... but as I remember, Bill Dog is a strong conservative, while I'm a rabid liberal... and not just this watered down liberalist crap that passes for liberal here in the USA, but a full on democratic socialist.

So, I put an invitation to Bill Dog: if you wouldn't mind, would you be willing to explain why you made the choice to friend me?

Actually, let's do this as an open question. Anyone who is willing to explain why they friend/foed me, I invite your honest and open comments. I promise, I'll keep my mouth shut, and take my medicine as it is. After all, your justification is your honest opinion. :)

There are two reasons why I don't use GNU/Linux: One is GNU, the other is Linux. Of these, the larger reason is GNU, and specifically the glibc part. The most recent reinforcement of this is Ulrich Drepper's inability to read the C specification.

For those not familiar with the C specification, all identifiers that start with an underscore are reserved for the implementation (see section 17.4.3.1.2). You should never use them in your own code, because your compiler is completely free to do whatever it wants with them. By convention, single underscores are used for global non-standard libc extensions and double underscores are used for compiler builtins.

You can find a number of these in existing compiler. Microsoft exposes SEH with keywords like __try. GCC provides __asm for inline assembly, ICC uses __cpuid for accessing the CPUID instruction, and so on. Clang added __block as a type specifier for their variables that are copied to the heap for use by blocks (closures).

Unfortunately, it turns out that the glibc headers use __block as a parameter name. There are several things wrong with this. One is that they use double underscores at all. By convention, these are reserved for the compiler, while single underscores are reserved for the libc. The second is that they used underscores at all in a parameter. Parameter names are not in the global scope, so they can be anything to prevent name clashes.

The result of this is that, if you use glibc, you can't also use blocks. This is a shame, because we (Etoile) were shipping a working blocks implementation six months before Apple. Well, working on *BSD and Solaris (and probably Windows, QNX and Symbian with PIPS, but not tested there). This problem means that it doesn't work on GNU/Linux.

No problem for me. I only use platforms with libc implementations written by people who can read specs. It may be a problem for some of you, if you use a broken platform with a libc maintained by someone who'd rather salvage his ego than fix a problem, and if it is then I'm sorry for you. My suggestion is that you remember that there are other options.

Looking at various laws, one can easily misinterpret them, or come to a false conclusion. It's pretty much the reason why you need to consult with a lawyer about this stuff.

I'm referencing here http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FunFacts/ItsTheLaw.html and while some of the laws seem silly or retarded, they can sometimes simply be because of differing jurisdictions.

1. While it seems like he snidely side-stepped the law, he really didn't. "O'Neal's Baloon" does not have the same obvious alcoholic association of "Saloon". I would have suggested changing it to something that still indicates alcohol will be served there... your name is the first thing people see about the location.

2. A wine is sold within 22 states, less than a majority, yet a singling out of two states? Retarded... This wine is apparently now able to be sold in all areas where otherwise permitted, but we we will assume that this article was before then. Likely, the wine was blocked in some states due to having a vulgar name.

3. A perfectly reasonable regulation, considering that you can advertise targeting children, and other stuff.

4. There are numerous federal laws that apply to US citizens while abroad. For instance, one cannot engage in under-age prostitution while abroad, even though foreign laws might allow it. Why do we not see a problem with this, but that preventing foreign exchange students to adhere to American alcohol laws?

5. This is an example of a truly stupid law. The idea that a company cannot indicate where their product can be purchased is reasonably retarded. However, there is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

6. This law would only be enforcible locally. Either one would have to travel to the local area, or they would have to seek extradition. That anyone would actually be charged with this, unless it was extensively or maliciously broken, is unlikely. There is simply no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this.

7. There is no reference that I can look up easily to verify the validity of this. However it is not unreasonable, and was likely abused. For example, I just claim to be a reviewer of alcoholic beverages, and anyone who sends me 10 bottles for free gets a stellar review.

8. This law was misread. There is specifically indicated the ability to refute the charges by proving that the container is empty. Considering it is in the garbage, then this is reasonable to assume. If the parents didn't dump out the alcohol before placing it in the trash, then it's "alcohol abuse" lol. Or, irresponsible parenting, by making the alcohol available to a child.

9. This law was misread. Iowa state law provides that anyone attempting to destroy any liquid in front of a police officer is proof that it was intended for unlawful purposes. This is a perfectly normal law designed to preserve evidence. Requiring police to obtain the liquid that has been destroyed and prove that it was alcoholic and intended for unlawful purpose places a burden on the law system such as to make it unenforceable. Here's a hint... if a police officer is coming up to do, don't destroy evidence right in front of him.

10. Running a tab without a bona fide credit card is illegal. Not an unreasonable law... oh, and this specifically is permitted in private clubs, hotels to registered guests, or "retail sales by the managing entity of a convention center, civic center, or events center."

11. This law is referenced as "General Statutes of Connecticut (Title 3, sec. 30-36)", it is however Title 30. It's not unreasonable to require someone a permit to make mixtures of alcohol even if for pharmaceuticals. They likely must pay a larger fee anyways just to be able to fill prescriptions. This $400/year permit also allows them to sell alcohol for off-premises consumption.

12. This is kind of an arbitrary law, but not unreasonable.

13. They're likely not even allowed to have the alcoholic beverage anyways... this law as stated is not unreasonable.

14. Selling to someone with a false or altered license can get you convicted of sale to a minor. Ok, so what happened, is that the police hired someone who was a legal age, but looked very young. That person went to get alcohol with a fake ID. The person selling saw the fake ID, and still sold the alcohol. As a result, the police arrested him and charged him with sale to a minor. Owner gets off the hook by proving that the "minor" was not actually a minor. Legislature then passes law to make sure that sale without a valid license is an illegal sale period.

15. It is not unreasonable to require that a business, once closed not engage in its business. A good example would be, a bunch of friends are drinking at a bar, and are friends with the owner. The bar closes, the public cannot be served with alcohol anymore, but the friends stay and continue to consume alcohol. They need not really pay at that time, or under the table.

16. Public intoxication is a state's right issue, and so it is legislated differently in different states. Once you start looking into laws, you start learning that states really have a lot of discretion to do almost anything that they want.

17. It's often illegal to intentionally cut off even a single part of your child's flesh without a medical license in a real medical procedure, or religious activity. Referenced as: "New Jersy [sic] Alcohol Beverage Control Law (Title 33)" This is actually "New Jersey Permanent Statutes (Title 33)" The best I can find more specific than "the entire Title" is "33:1-12a", but this only applies to wine tastings which require a plenary license. If anyone can find a more specific statute, then I'd be happy to hear.

18. There are specific distinctions in American law between on-premise consumption and off-premises consumption. It would not surprise me if most states prohibit this.

19. This law seems entirely retarded, and the only reference is to "dumblaws.com" ... looking there, I can find the law "referenced" but no reference to the actual law itself. If one can find any case law that specifically states this, I'm going to chalk this up as "this list was compiled by a retard".

20. I'm not willing to look up this reference. However, this law is not unreasonable. If you are selling liquor as your primary business, then do so. One also cannot sell cold beer. Think about this. Person walks in to buy a beer, and it is already cold. What is the reason to have them be cold? So one can drink them immediately.

21. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

22. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although I have been told that Washington state law requires an establishment to sell or provide food as long as it is providing alcohol. The reason for this is to allow someone to "work off a buzz" if they must.

23. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference.

24. Texas law provides that alcohol can only be sold during certain hours every day of the week. This has since been removed, probably because they realized that the statement "anytime on Monday" does not mean midnight before 8 a.m.

25. I'm not going to spend the time to review this one. But considering such an obvious contradiction is highly unlikely, I don't think it is true.

26. Law is referenced to "dumblaws", however the entry is no longer available. Likely because it was false.

27. This law is simply referenced to "Florida Statutes"... I'm not going to go track down this law, especially considering the track record of the stuff before. To me, if you're listing "stupid laws", and your reference is anything but the actual statutes, or case law, then you're useless.

28. Difference legislative authorities come to different choices. If you intend to just point out how varied the laws are around the US, then this is as good as any.

29. Law is referenced to "dumblaws" with no further reference. Although it's entirely possible that animal abuse statutes state that it is illegal to do this. Recall, alcohol is a poison, and humans just have a particular tolerance for it.

30. Note above. It is illegal, because someone did it.

31. Law prohibiting open containers in public apply to nearly the entire United States. Whether in a bucket or not.

32. San Salvador is in another country, specifically El Salvador. The US has some of the most lax drunk driving laws in the world. Do not be surprised.

33. Barring of alcohol while watching exotic dancers is not uncommon in the United States. I know of it being illegal specifically in Washington State and Nevada.

34. This is referenced to "uselessknowledge.com". It is not particularly surprising that someone would pass a discriminatory law like this in the 1940s.

35... 35... oh thank god, I'm done. Those last ones were WORTHLESS...

I'd like to see a "stupid law" webpage that actually requires real verification of the laws before it posts them...

In these times of political conflict, it is most interesting to look back, and witness that, relevant to us today, yet written long ago, the Bible does not stand alone, but also the words of many other people. Though not divine, they may yet be imbued with knowledge and wisdom that remains relevant today. We, as human beings, have struggled and seem doomed to struggle without end for Unity, Justice, and Freedom for our fellow human beings. It fills me with hope though, to realize that we are not beset on all sides only by men who seek the selfish goals of greed and individualism, but we are also surrounded by men who seek the more noble goals to lift up others, and increase the quality of their lives, regardless of their individual worth.
I write this as a prologue to a speech, which could stand powerfully in its own right, and without introduction. This speech is from Charlie Chaplin, performed in The Great Dictator. Although written in 1940, it stands as an incredible piece that cries out for unconditional love, and care of all men. Our actions here affect all who are left once we pass from this world, and all people regardless of creed or belief realize the only noble goal in life is to make life free and beautiful for all men...

So, I leave you with this speech, and beckon you towards the goal of making this world a better place for everyone by providing the fundamentals of human dignity... if you are Christian, then because the Kingdom of God lies not within one man, or a group of men, but in all men... and if you're Atheist, because reason dictates that in any moral system, each person cannot be viewed as anything other than equivalent in worth to any other person.

And now, words once already spoken, yet still well worth repeating:

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate - has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man - cries for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say: 'Do not despair.' The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason - a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!"

Thank you, and if you so believe, may God bless your life, and if you do not so believe, then simply, may your life be blessed

Sometimes, when I have a couple extra pennies, I buy something that just feels good to get, that is completely worthless. I'm no shopaholic, so these are usually simple things.

    I was at CompUSA and found that they had glowing keyboard stickers. Like, stickers to put over each letter, that will glow in the dark.

    I should explain, I've been touch typing for over 20 years, and can usually get 100wpm with 0 errors on most typing tests. I only slow down by thinking. People have watched me programming, typing emails or journal entries like this. A few have commented on it. I'll blaze through lines as fast as they can read, but I'll pause at spoken pauses (ummm, like commas), and when I'm thinking of what to say next.

    At home, I'm usually typing in the dark, with just the light of my monitor, and possibly a TV.

    So I got the yellow stickers (thanks everyone for asking). My shells are green or yellow text on a black background. It's enough to drive most people nuts, if they try to keep up with all my terminals. It's not usually hard. One running top. one tailing the log of most interest. one editing code, and executing it. I may have one with a man page up, and another logged into another machine to reference old code. Add one for a web browser for my email, and another for looking up something specific. So the browsers aren't green on black (except my themed gmail account is pretty close).

    I got glow in the dark bling for my keyboard. :) Ok, I'm easily entertained.

I love Amazon.

    I was helping my aunt put her bookstore online. She has a used paperback store with tens of thousands of books in stock. She's been doing it for over 25 years, and the technology hasn't changed since Day 1. Literally, she's still using the same old cash register as the day she started.

    A few years ago, I suggested putting it online, and/or selling some of her overstock through eBay. I'd say Amazon, but they rape vendors on the fees. To demonstrate what I was trying to explain, I put together a warm friendly front end that would pull the book details from Amazon. It was the best source I could find for any arbitrary ISBN.

    Well, 3+ years later, she gave me the go ahead to start clearing out the back room. Great, I can start doing the inventory, and listing items. Great went to not so great. I picked up a cheap barcode scanner, and scanned the first book. I got an error back from Amazon. My API key was still valid, but they now require the requests to be signed. Digging around a little, this happened in August of 2009. I do receive emails from them, but I never saw anything regarding this. Apparently they gave their developer network 3 months to implement the signing.

    Their signing isn't quite as easy as it seems it should be. Their documentation is now focused on their cloud computing platform. The rest is sparse at best. Most of the references I found talked about how to do it before the signing, which I already mastered. I finally found someone who had posted a function that would sign the request. That took a few hours and a lot of Google searches to accomplish. What a way to support legacy apps. I found plenty of references where other folks had modules written for their software that broke on the day of the changeover. If this had been a production application, it would have been a real headache. Come on, don't change the functionality of the API without clear explanation of how to fix it.

    Now it's up and back running. I'm adding the rest of the required functionality. I could have spent the weekend adding functionality, rather than chasing down a solution to fix what they broke.

Gen yon panse nan Ayiti. Pi bon, voye HAITI nan 90999 a bay $10 nan Kwe Rouj pou Ayiti. Si ou kap bay, souplà bay!

I was watching "Fringe", the episode "Unearthed". A character in the series spoke some Russian, and I set off to understand exactly what she said. They told us that she says, "my little star", and I caught enough that she said, "govorit" at the end of a sentence. (I'm transliterating here. It's pronounced different because the "go" syllable is unstressed, and thus degrades to an open round vowel between /o/ and /a/, which we perceive as /a/. For English speakers the best writing of it would be "gavorit".)

Well, searching online, I eventually found a script, and I transliterated their transliteration back into Cyrillic... and it broke... of course right? So, it took me a while to play around with things until I finally got it all correct. In Cyrillic characters it is:

Ð¼Ð¾Ñ ÐÐÐÐÐоÑÐÐ. ÐÑо Ñï½Â¾ мноÐ? ÐоÑÐмÑf Ñ Ð½ï½Â мÐÐÑf ÐоÐоÑÐÑï½ÂOE?

Transliterated is: Moya zvezdochka. Chto so mnoy? Pochemu ya nye magu govorit?
A closer English pronuncation: ma-YA zvezDOCHka. shto sa-MNOY? po-CHEH-mu ya nye magu gah-VOR-it?
As presented by the script: maya zvezdochka shto samnoy? Pochimu ya ne magu govorit?

The best English translation that I can offer: "My little star. What is wrong with me? Why can't I talk?"

I'm posting this here, so maybe someone else looking for the same text will find it faster, and if they're less resourceful about language translation than I am, they might be able to actually find an answer at all.

According to a research article published in the current International Journal of Biological Sciences, genetically modified corn from Monsanto increases the levels of liver and kidney failure in rats, as well as other harmful effects to the "heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system.

Apparently, Monsanto has wasted no time claiming the study was based on "faulty data" saying that it's own 90-day study didn't show similar problems. Of course, that ignores the fact that the organ failure only starts to show up after "5-14 weeks" according to the abstract.

This is non-tech, but I thought I'd share. :)

    I learned something at 2am the other morning. Driving at night, in an unfamiliar area, isn't always the best idea. I took a guy to his place from a bar, because he was absolutely hammered. File that under "no good deed goes unpunished".

    After leaving his place, I was heading home. I bumped over something at about 20mph. It wasn't much of a bump, but I immediately heard my tires go flat. Like, a dramatic wooshing sound from both tires on one side. I stopped and looked. Sure enough, both tires were flat, but I didn't see any damage to the rims. I assumed it just damaged the tires. Maybe it was some broken glass or something in the road. I was 10 miles from home, but it was cold out, and I wasn't going to wait for a tow truck. I could drive the car, but only at 10 miles per hour. Talk about a less than entertaining drive.

    I ordered tires the next morning, and they arrived today. I pulled the two flat wheels off, so I could get the new tires mounted. As soon as I did, I saw the bad news. The inside lip of the rim was seriously bent. Like, so much that I could put my finger between the rim and the tire. No wonder they went woosh dramatically.

    I went to a few shops to see if I could get the rims fixed or replaced. I already know it's virtually impossible to find OEM replacement wheels for my car. They were exclusive to my car, and only on 3 years, on a very specific submodel, in that style. I was in a little accident in February, and the other drivers insurance company had to cough up $1000/ea for the wheels from the only place they could find them. It took weeks to get them in.

    In talking to them about the damage, they said it was clear that I hit a pothole. If it had been a loose object in the road, both wheels would not have been bent exactly the same way. If it had been a curb, the outside lip of the wheel would have been damaged. So, dumb luck on a dark road in the middle of the night.

    So, that's my rant. I am carless until after the 1st, since no one locally stocks anything that could fit, and no one is doing shipments over the holiday. {sigh}

Anyone that knows me knows, I'm a died in the wool Linux fan. I use Windows as a tool to accomplish a task. That is, if I *need* to run a Windows application, that I can't do any other way, I use Windows.

      Someone was nice enough to donate a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate to me to try out. I had been using XP Professional for my Windows work. I tried, and didn't like Vista. I've retried it several times over, and have been annoyed with it when it does stupid things. I tried a few beta's, and worked with it in normal releases on others computers.

      I had low expectations for Windows 7. I expected a freshly skinned Vista.

      The hardware I'm working on is a AMD AM3 Athlon II x4 620 (2.6Ghz) overclocked to 3Ghz. Asus motherboard, with integrated ATI Radeon HD 3300, and 2Gb of DDR3 RAM. 512Mb is shared to the video card, which I will be fixing sometime soon. This Asus board was the only one that took DDR3 that CompUSA had in stock at the local store. I figured it's easier to stay with this video card for now, and upgrade it later. I also plan the same for the CPU. I'll be purchasing an actual Phenom II x4, as the pricing comes down. I did a little reading, and this CPU overclocked does as well or better than it's Phenom II x4 sister. Hey, can't argue with that, especially with the lowest price tag in the store.

      I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit in it's own partition. I can say, "well, it's not too bad." It's doesn't seem as resource hungry as Vista.

    The only things I've noticed are that there are no Vista nor 64-bit drivers for my old Linksys WUSB11. The fault there is with Linksys not making new drivers for their legacy hardware, not Microsoft It does manage my Belkin USB device well though. Well, it handles it better than XP did. I had intermittent service with it, and attributed that to the device. It works well with the 64-bit Vista drivers. The drivers don't just install themselves, like they're suppose to, so it takes a little loving to make it work. Not a big deal though, everything else went in fluidly.

    I've noticed that Win7 automatically schedules a defrag for 1am weekly. Nice touch. I changed the schedule to daily, and the time to later, when I'm less likely to be using the machine.

    Would I avoid a 64 bit version of Linux for Win7 64-bit? No.

    I noticed something funny. They keep two separate trees for x86(32) and x86(64) program files. Under Linux, with the proper libraries installed, this is unnecessary. I don't know the purpose of this. Maybe it's for organization. Maybe it's because it pays attention to the path. Maybe it just likes it that way. Either way, it seems odd.

    On a 64bit Linux (Slamd64 and now Slackware 64), I've always had almost everything compiled for 64 bit. The only glaring exception was Firefox, because there was no 64bit flash plugin. Since that was resolved months ago, I've used 64bit everything. I have run 32 bit applications, because I was testing something from a 32 bit machine. No big deal there, it just worked.

    For folks that like Windows (like most average home users), I won't scare them away from Win7 as an upgrade path. I warned people off of Vista, because I always ran into problems. It seems like they've done something mostly right this time. :) I still reserve the right to decide that it sucks, if I start running into serious problems. For now though, the install went smooth, and it's working pretty well.

    I just did another Win7 install on an older Athlon64 machine (3000+, 1Gb RAM), and performance wise it seems slightly better than XP.

    As a note, these measurements are "seat of the pants" measurements. They were not quantified with any benchmarks. Really, end users care about how good it feels, even if the benchmarks prove otherwise.

So, I'm watching the Colbert Report, and he mentions that Conservapedia has started a project to Retranslate the Bible using only proper Conservative buzz words. While investigating this, I came across the article for Feminist Bible. In which, they complain that feminist ideas have permeated a number of newer Bible translations. And, well, yeah, Today's New International Version certainly has imposed some Gender-Neutral dialog and terminology.

Here's the problem though, they start talking about James 2:15-16, talking about how English translations make an "ungrammatical" (their words, not mine... I'm a linguist, if it sounds right it's grammatical, it may not be "proper", but it's still grammatical) rendering of a phrase in order to make it sounds more Gender-Neutral. Sure, I totally bet that the TNIV translation has done this, and guess what? It does use the plural personal pronoun to refer to an antecedent of "brother or sister". So, I'm like, "ok, I'll give you that."

But then in the footnotes, I note that they claim that this grammatical error is even in the KJV version, and in most English versions in fact. Ok, now things smell fishy, because KJV translation was done WELL BEFORE any liberal 1984-paranoid feminists could have gotten their hands on it for Gender-Neutral language. So... what's going on here?

I know of a site called BibleServer.com, which is an awesome webpage, because they provide multiple different translations, all easy to access. Ok, first up, the NIV translation. Nope, NIV uses the "grammatical" non-specifically-gendered personal pronoun "him". But, sure enough, KJV does as well. Well, this is really weird, right? Because as I noted before, KJV was well before any potential feminist influence. Well, ok, well, what about trying a different language?

German doesn't normally use their plural pronoun for non-specified or mixed gender, as they have a very DEFINED gender system. In fact, girls are given the pronoun "it", as well as "Omachen" (grandma with a dimunitive). This is because grammatical gender REQUIRES it to be used... it's not anti-feminine, it's not misogynistic, it's just the way the language works. Yet in the Luther 1984 translation, something weird is going on here... they use the 3rd-person singular subjunctive of "haben" => "haette", but they then refer to the singular antecedent with a plural pronoun. What's going on here?

So, let's look up a Spanish translation, "Version La Biblia de Dia". Spanish is a good choice for this, because they only have masculine and feminine, and even if there were a feminist rally, and there were 100 women, and one man in the crowd, the speaker would grammatically and naturally refer to the crowd as "hombres" (men). In Spanish, all non-specific singular pronouns are male, but any and all MIXED gender PLURAL pronouns are male. So, what happens here? Well, here the plural conjugation of "tener" is used: "tienen", and a plural pronoun is used to refer to this "singular" antecedent again. ("les") Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused...

Ok, wait, I know... let's stop all this work, and start walking back in the documents. Let's start with LATIN... good ol' Latin, when I want to know what misogynistic anti-feminists said about a Bible verse, I go to LATIN. Well, here they use the plural conjugation "sunt", and use a plural referent to the a "singular" antecedent again. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!

Ok, that's it... what language was the Epistle of James originally written in? Uh... Greek. Ok, let's go to the ancient greek. James 2, English and Ancient Greek side-by-side. Alright, here we go, we can go looking though this and.... brother... sister... plural conjugation... plural pronoun...

Ok, so, the reason why KJV and "most English translations" have this plural usage here is because the original freaking GREEK had this "grammatical error", not because of an error of the translators.

And Conservapedia rips on NIV all the time for being liberal biased and all, but they're the only people who, BECAUSE of a liberal attitude to update the language, altered the original meaning of the text in order to conform to proper English grammar of the time.

Ok, seriously, these are the same people who are vouching that the KJV meanings have skewed, and that "logos" should be translated with "truth" rather than "word" anymore, etc. And they're talking about how the original meaning is being lost by the modern liberal jerkwads... yet... some of the liberal jerkwads are actually ensuring that the language conforms to modern day grammar, rather than just blithely repeating the same grammatical errors made in the original Greek.

It reminds me of an amusing quote I once read, but cannot find again, so I shall paraphrase: "How fortuitous it was that God learned Greek to write the New Testament... it's however unfortunate that he had not learned the grammar better."

God can't properly agree a pronoun with a singular complex antecedent... isn't this book supposed to be infallible?

Here's a few insights that I've acquired since unemployment. I've been unemployed for about 3 months now, and technically homeless.

    1) Laundry is much easier to do, when all you wear is shorts and sandals. Here in Florida, it's hot, so wearing a shirt is an unnecessary evil, and just gets sweaty anyways. (and yes, I'm in shape enough to do it)

    2) Pants and socks feel funny. I actually dressed up one day and realized that all the extra clothes felt restricting. Well, and hot. I was much happier stripping down and putting just shorts back on. I'm not a nudist, I'm just practical. When it's 95 degrees out, anything you might be wearing is too much. I strongly encourage attractive women to do it too. :)

    3) People with jobs can't come out to play as often. I am job hunting, but since 20% of the population is doing the same thing, I'm not getting any positive feedback. When I want to hang out with someone who is working, I have to wait for them to get off work, and we have to stop drinking early on Sunday night. That slows down my drunken weekends, when they have to get to bed "to go to work."

    4) It can get really boring with nothing better to do. Some of you may have noticed an increase in my posting on here. Hey, I have time on my hands, in between sending off resumes, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

    5) The headhunters are desperate too. Like I said, I'm in Florida. No, I don't want my resume sent off with 100 others, for a 3 month minimum wage job as an entry level programmer in a language I don't know, that would require me moving 1,000 miles. They don't quite understand why either. I don't exactly have the budget to move anywhere. After taxes, I'll be lucky to come home with $1k/mo, and that's not going to cover rent, power, water, food, and gas. I'd also have to break my lease at the end of 3 months, which won't go over that well either.

    6) Picking up odd jobs can be fun. This month, I've:

  Worked on a dozen cars.
  Done plumbing work in a half dozen places,
  Cleaned countless computers of viruses, malware, and stupid things that slow the machine down (how many toolbars do you really need for your browsers?).
  Several days of "personal security" which consists of me owning a gun, which sat in the house, and me being there "just in case" something happened. At least they were good for conversations, or else I would have been bored out of my mind.

    In doing the odd jobs, I've found they're asking me to do them, because they can't afford a "professional" to do them. Either way, when I'm done, it's still done right. I've taken "payment" in food, cigarettes, gas, and places to sleep. I did get someone to buy me a GPS, so I won't get quite so lost in strange cities. It's neat. I no longer have to call and say "I'm at this intersection" just to find out I'm in the wrong city. :)

    All in all, I'd like to have a job again, and my own place to live. Since I haven't slept in the same place for more than about 3 days in a row, I'm getting to see a lot of places that I otherwise wouldn't have had time to. I have helped a lot of people out, and saved them a fortune. I usually tell them what the job would have cost by a "professional", and they "pay" me what they can afford, in the method that they can do it in. I've had some nice dinners in the comfort of someone elses home. :)

    It's been interesting. I'm left with $20 in my pocket and couple 2 liters of soda, and a tank full of gas.

    And as a side note, if you have work for me, I can be almost anywhere if you're paying gas, food, and a place to sleep. :) This is a long stretch from my old 6 figure job, but I am anything but stressed out these days. I have people lined up for the short term of doing things, so I won't go hungry anytime soon.

As any of you who read my journal know, I was laid off a couple months ago. Nope, no luck on the job front, and no unemployment to carry me through.

    I've been picking up the odd jobs here and there, but they rarely pay for much more than cigarettes and gas. Otherwise, I've been living by the good graces of friends. If I didn't have my friends, I would have starved to death over a month ago. Thanks to all of you.

    Now, on with my journal rant. :)

    My laptop died. Well, the power jack on the back died. No power means no laptop. A friend has loaned me his old Compaq TC1000. It's a 1Ghz Transmeta with 768Mb RAM. I put a 100Gb hard drive in that I had laying around.

    I thought it would be a brilliant plan to dual boot it. WinXP on one partition, and Slackware Linux on another. It's working pretty well, but I'd like to share some comparisons.

    Both OS's are completely up to date. In the Windows world, that means it's bloated beyond use. In the Linux world, it's nice and fast.

    With XP, I've removed absolutely everything that I could find that wasn't necessary to save CPU time and memory. I did every tweak I could.

    With Slackware, I haven't tweaked it yet. I did a full install, but only enabled the essential services. I currently have it running Gnome.

    With XP, it was an interesting exercise of copying drivers to a USB drive, and then copying them onto the tablet, so I could install them. After several rounds of that, I got online. It wasn't just the network driver that needed help. There was so much to do, it took me several days to get things working almost properly.

    With Linux, the wired ethernet adapter just worked. The wireless adapter wanted a firmware binary, which I found and dropped into place. I ran into some glitches with the video driver in Xorg, but nothing show stopping. I had Linux running in a matter of about an hour, and a few more hours tweaking Xorg.

    To browse the net, say for viewing here, it was an interesting exercise.

    MSIE on XP is so slow it's unusable. Even when I'm attached to someone's wireless at a good connection, it feels like I'm on a 9600 baud connection.

    Firefox on XP is tolerable for the first few minutes, but then it ends up sucking up too much memory and CPU time. I did several tweaks, but that hasn't helped much.

    Google Chrome on XP is my answer there. It actually behaves moderately well.

    So, now Slackware.

    Even with the limited resources, Firefox on Linux performs just about as I'd expect. It can be a little slow on occasion (as is normal for a Transmeta, from what I've read), but generally it's kicking along just like it should.

    There is no offical Chrome yet, so I haven't tried.

    I was going to try some of the other browser, but haven't bothered yet.

    I'm using this tablet as my GPS also. I had purchased Garmin's MobilePC software a while back. It works in Windows fine, as long as I shut everything else down first. In Linux, it works fine under Xorg, but since it was bundled with it's own GPS receiver, it wants to see that to activate all the functions. I'm still working on that part. I found that it should work, but I haven't made it work yet.

    I'm writing this right now from the tablet, using Firefox under Linux. I had noticed that using Firefox under XP, I could type out lines, and wait for them to display. I could get up to 2 lines ahead, which is very sad. With Firefox under Linux, it's hept right up with me the whole time. That's always nice to see, since I type over 100wpm. :)

    Ok, enough of my random ramblings. If you didn't want them, you wouldn't read my journal. :)

This is a response to a video on Youtube done by a "tooltime9901", who in response to "jezuzfreek777", presents an interesting prompt. What are the "ten commandments" that an atheist should hold. This is so interesting because it comes to the fundamental philosophy of law and morality. Knowing that morality is fairly relative, and that morality cannot be viewed without context of the situation. Thus, there are justifications to killing another human. There are justifications for what would otherwise be considered theft.

Take these as examples. It is well accepted that self-defense is a legitimate justification for causing the death of someone else. Provided that said self-defense was given in a proportioned response. Thus, if someone simply attempts to assault you, you are only justified insofar as assault against that person. However, if an attacker is presenting a force which a reasonable person would find to be equivalent to lethal force, then one is justified in causing that individuals death.

Next, the justification of theft. It is well accepted that aquisition of ones own property is justified, even if the aquisition of that property would otherwise be considered theft. Thus, reaquiring ones own property is justified if someone has your property without your permission. Here is what is interesting though, you are not justified to use force or threat of force to reobtain your own propery. The use of force to obtain property is only permissible when force is being immediately or imminently used against you to obtain property from onesself.

So, we present here the point that we cannot justify a commandment-like proscription against killing another, or obtaining property in the posession of another. While proscriptions of murder and theft themselves are valid, one is then presented with the problem of defining murder and theft such that it accounts for, and allows justifications. This presents a further moral problem in that in defining murder, one can present the definition of "causing without reasonable and fair justification the death of another human being", because then one is presented with the problem of defining what a human being is. One would normally assume this to be an easy task, but recall that often a superior group of people will attempt to justify their actions by denouncing the humanity of another group. Whites denounced Blacks as humans, and thus the justification of slavery of that group, while slavery of whites was generally admonished. As well, the Nazis of Nazi Germany justified the wholesale slaughter of jews and the disabled as those categories of homo sapiens and being insufficient to warrant the protections afforded those of "human beings"

Thus, we are left with the necessity that the only commandment-like proscriptions and perscriptions afforded to us need be necessarily vague, and rather than covering specific details are presented as widely interpreted statements that present the foundation for a legal or moral system to be built upon more exactly. And thus, I can present from that notion the following six commandments, which I feel are reasonable, justifiable and rational. I use the speech of the time of King James in order to present an allegory and allusion to the commandments as they are considered by our modern age.

1. Thou shalt keep the trust of your word.
2. Thou shalt not do harm to others.
3. Thou shalt not endanger others.
4. Thou shalt honor thine obligations.
5. Thou shalt not act with intention to violate a proscription of law.
6. Thou shalt not act with knowledge, or willful ignorance to violate a requirement of law.

These six commandments actually establish the devisions of law within the common law system, and such commandments actually have equivalent notions in the civil law system.

The first commandment, I present as such, because of the importance of the issue. I see perjury and fraud as the fundamentally anti-thesis of reason, which is what a society must fundamentally be based upon. If the system cannot rely upon the word of an individual, then the system itself cannot operate. Thus, since the system must assume that parties are telling the truth, it is a fundamental requirement that this truth be told. This should not be considered to proscribe all lies, as not all lies are damaging to a moral system, however when presenting justification and context to a situation before an impartial party then the necessity of the trust in the words of the parties is paramount. And we should presume that any court, natural or not, would be impartial.

The second commandment presents a fundamental truth. We should not do harm to others. This is presented in commonlaw under the idea of intentional torts, and the third commandment presents a foundation for the idea of negligent torts. In both cases, if someone becomes harmed, either through the acts or the failure to act of another, then that person deserves the right to have their harm redressed.

The fourth commandment seems similar to the first, in that it would seem to require someone to be honest, and this is true, however it is more specific than that. The first commandment establishes the requirement that one be true in their word if there is a trust of that person's word, but it says nothing about when a trust of that person's word is fundmantally necessary. While the first commandment applies obviously where an impartial court is involved, it applies non-trivially to the announcment of obligations to others. This is the American idea of crossing ones fingers while annoucing an obligation, and thus that a trust was never intended in the announcement of that obligation. This commandment however provides that one must always place the trust of ones word in the announcement of an obligation. In the common law system, this commandment thus provides the foundation for contract law.

The fifth, and sixth commandments establish the foundation for criminal law in the common law system. These are specifically different from commandments two and three, in that it establishes that there is a legal doctrine for a society, and individuals are under an obligation (fourth commandment) to obey this "social contract". Thus the legal system should establish two types of criminal law, and while the common law system views both of these types of criminal law as identical, there exists the legal context that one may use a justification that one was unknowing of a specific law in some cases. This commandment thus places that requirement as apparent and opaque, as opposed to the current system that is vague on the issue.

The fifth commandment sets out that there are certain acts that are defined by a legal system to be impermissible. The legal system should define these in such a matter that the acts cause an effect, which the legal system finds intolerable, and thus knowledge of the fact that the action is proscribed is waived by all as being necessary. Only the intent of the action need be defined. The person intended to perform the act, and thus must be punished.

The sixth commandment takes a different tact. It states that the legal system should deem that certain actions must be performed by all within its jurisdiction. Thus, the idea that one must register and obtain a license to operate a motor vehicle on a public street. This requirement, done by the state however, states that it is in the best interest of all to require this, but that failure to perform the requirement does not imply by necessity that a violation of the commandment occured, because there are two parts to this commandment first, the individual must know about the requirement, as no one should be held to perform a requirement without being aware that such a requirement exists. However, this is provided that the individual not be willingly ignorant of the requirement. Thus, a person charged with violating a requirement to obtain a license to drive would not be a violation if the person did not know, and had no reason to know that such a license were necessary.

So, I've probably rambled enough, but this is what I think would be the best foundation for a system of commandments.