Well, I must say that yesterday was very rewarding. I spent some time thinking about why I disagreed with PETA's new advertising. I tried to think about why they would do such a campaign and all I can attribute it to is the shock value.

It shocked me, and I thought about it whenever I ate meat or saw anything about the holocaust. I don't agree with it at all, but it's on my mind now. It got me thinking about the parallels with a great character development in a story: you want the reader to respond -- love 'em or hate 'em -- it doesn't matter, because you have got the reader to become emotionally involved with the story.

You see, now we have become emotionally involved and must think about the issue more. Does this mean I agree with them? No, but it means that if I'm to take the issue seriously, I have to at least look more closely at their stance. So, kudos to PETA, but you're wrong.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to spell gurantee (sp?) I was reading a recent thread and in it there are some different ways to spell gurnatee (sp?) and it got me thinking about all the words we commonly mispell (sp?).

Is there any reasons for why we misspell (sp?) them, for instance, there are double letters, or they break certain rules (i before e, except for 12 other cases)? Or could it be that they just do not "look" natural to us? It seems that that is the major criteria for me when I'm typing -- if it doesn't look right, then I'll start to change it.

Even if I know the word quiet (sp?) well, it may be that at that instant, for some reison (sp?), it looks odd to me and I feel I need to change it.

And it got me thinking about fourin (sp?) languages, I mean, will they ever look natural to me? Especially as I attack Japanese, I wonder if I'll be able to feel my way around kanji...

Well, I bought a big ol' thing of pork sausage for breakfast. That, along with some bacon should wrap up breakfast. I think I'll call it pig meal. Maybe I'll have some eggs too, I think PETA is against eggs too... For lunch I've already made a 1.5 lb hamburger. I had to bake a single bun for it, but it should be good to go. I think I'll have some beef jerky with it to wrap lunch up as a cow meal. And then it's dinner. I've put some chicken in a orange/salsa marinade that is outstanding, so a couple of grilled chicen breasts. That will be my chicken meal. And I think just to take it to a general level, I'll have some spam during the day, just to make things interesting.

For those of you who don't know, I'm eating meat to piss off PETA, read my previous post to find out why. I just figured I'd remind people.

First off, let me just say this is a very elementary look at a very complex idea, and I would enjoy hearing what you have to say about this issue, about my comments about this issue, and perhaps even a critique of my logic.

Chacham really is to credit [to blame :P] with coming up with this question: Does evil exist? I have said that there must be a choice for evil to exist, but what about the things we don't choose? The first example that comes to mind is accidently running over someone -- in a choice-scenario you'd say that the person chose to run over the pedestrian, and as such is doing an evil act. However, when you don't choose that can't be evil. Or at least that's how our society views it. I mean, if you accidently shoot someone, they look at the intent of the person -- and since it was an accident, they deem it not evil and thus you are let off the hook. Now, whether they shold focus on intent is another issue I'll have to delve into some time, but overall our society equates evil with intentions.

Ok, so can we say that perhaps there is no evil in the world, only evil intentions? Because it is not the act that is evil (at least we have proven that there are cases in which an act is not evil even though it tends to be viewed as such) but the inferred intentions of the person that we see as evil.

So a recap, more for myself than anyone else: Evil is not equated to a choice, because you can choose between good things. But it requires a choice, and even in that choice it is the intentions of the person making that choice that can be evil or good.

So can we say that a person is evil? Perhaps, but maybe it'd be better to say that the person has evil tendencies. Can those tendencies be repressed, and thus the good comes out? I believe so, because I know many people who did evil things (as society has labeled them) and yet now are 40-something business executives who, as one put it, "had to get it out of his system." With that I think we need to introduce the nature/nurture debate in terms of evil.

Now, I started to look around, and I found this interesting bit discussing the overarching power of repentance in terms of evil. Various googling of "nature nurture evil" will get you similar articles. Now where am I headed? It's toward a recognition that there are evil intentions, and they are both a natural and nurtural (is that a word?). If you do not believe in a higher power, then you can quit this exercise, as you are only responsible to yourself and others around you. Now, if you are religious, you are responsible to a higher being, and that being has communicated through various texts what he/she/it feels is good and what is evil. So that responsibility looms over us, frightening in some cases.

In fact, as a Christian, as I read the bible I find Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." So I can go one step further and say that by grace God has forgiven me of my sins due to my acceptance and realization that Jesus Christ, his son, is indeed the only one who can rectify the evil I do. Because I know Christ, I am able to not worry about the consequences, however this does not mean that I should continue doing evil, as Romans 6:1&2 says, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"

So, I've narrowed down the reading audience drastically, but these are my own thoughts, of which you are free to peruse, comment, and even scorn. I'm not a scholar, I have never done any philosophy, I just sit and think and type. Although before someone yells: RTFA!, I have, for me it's the Bible.

March 15.

This started with doublem's journal entry about PETA and I agree wholeheartedly.

I've been recommending this on campus, and I've been getting flack for it. But that's cool, becuase I want to make a statement about ridiculous people. Now, I'm with PETA for a few ideas, like you shouldn't kick your dog just because your pissed, and you shouldn't skin a cat just for the fun of it (as some of my school's baseball team did). But to go so far as to say that you shouldn't treat a cow bad before it gets slaughtered -- now that's ridiculous.

We eat cows. So, should we make sure we treat it all nice and then lop it's head off? It doesn't make sense! It's like giving a guy 20000 bucks and then robbing him the next day -- you might as well never give him the 20000.

Now, the next point I want to make is that it's absolutely ridiculous that you would compare cows and pigs to humans. They are saying that cows and Jews are equal. I object to that very strongly. One of the letters I saw them send to someone had a statement saying:

Our grandchildren will ask us one day: Where were you during the Holocaust of the animals? What did you do against these horrifying crimes? We won't be able to offer the same excuse for the second time, that we didn't know." The Holocaust happened because people turned a blind eye to cruelty. Will we now turn our backs on cruelty and injustice again? Every time a person sits down for a meal, he or she chooses whether to support the holocaust against animals or to help end it. We shouldn't choose which atrocities to oppose. As human beings, we should oppose all atrocities.

How ridiculous is that? At any rate, I'm going to be pigging out that day on all the meat I can get my hands on. Perhaps I'll try the Atkins diet simply to accentuate the point that it doesn't matter...

If anyone has some good arguments on why to treat livestock better (not pets, I agree about better treatment there) then please enlighten me...

Ok. Opera 7 is now my new baby. I'm totally impressed by the interface especially the mouse gestures. These are perhaps the best thing to happen to a browser interface since the mouse. The session manager is also quite impressive, as it let's me save a profile, for like when I'm wanting nerd news, it opens slashdot, ars technica, the-gadgeteer.com, and pdabuzz. Very handy. Plus, it has the same pop-up managing thing that I loved about Mozilla.
But you know what my favourite thing about Opera 7 is? I can use it on any operating system. I'm a tech, and so I go to fix Win95-WinXP, MacOS, and Linux boxen. On one of my CDs I have opera for all three, and so if a browsers having issues on any of those platforms, I simply install Opera, go where I need to go, d/l stuff, and I'm good to go. Very handy, and much kudos.

Ok. here's a new thought.
Is there a model that could be created that looks at whether a culture will emulate other cultures or will be confident in it's own?

As I think more about it, there are problems, such as Japan, which seems so strong in it's culture at one side (c'mon, all the temples, etc.) and yet has so many bands and styles that are direct transplants from the U.S. Also, Germany, which I would consider an independent culture, also emulates other countries in their styles. Even the countries that I would say emulate a lot, like the Philippines, still keep some of their culture sacred.

Perhaps there are specific functions of a culture that cannot be replaced by others. Perhaps something that is inherent about the strength of that culture. That would explain the strong religious backgrounds of different cultures -- that that is what has made them self-confident.

My parents are linguists. They lived in Bolivia for 13 years, working with a small tribe in the depths of the Amazon jungle to create an alphabet for their language so that it could be written and read and thus preserved. The tribe was called the Esse Ejjas, and there were about 1000 of them who spoke that language. Now, in their language they had a reference to themselves, "people" and then reference to outside people which translated to "real people." My dad told me that that used to keep him up at night, trying to figure out why they didn't see themselves as real, or perhaps in a better sense, valid.

Perhaps they knew they were inferior, that if push came to shove, they would lose. And perhaps that is a gut instinct of a culture -- to emulate and thus be assimilated in order to avoid extinction. But in that, there must be a line that is drawn at which some must be preserved and others that is abandoned.

Well, that's the basis of my thoughts. Perhaps it would be more productive to look at what a culture keeps as it's own and what it allows to be overwritten with other cultures. And then again, who decides these things? Is it just the power of the people? Or has some part of that culture made a decision?

Ok, here's a new idea I've had. What about a political side of slashdot? It'd be for whichever political arena that there are contributers to, not just the US. Things like, which senator to vote for in terms of technology (do they favor internet taxes/more gov't control?). I've found several sites for rating political leaders in terms of environmental issues, but nothing about technological issues. I think it'd be a great addition to an arsenal for us to vote with. Slashdot is big enough.

Well, I've decided to not read the articles. Perhaps many slashdot readers already do this simply out of ignorance or laziness, but I'm doing it out of courtesy for the webmasters of these pages we link to. Many times the humour of slashdotting is eclipsed by the pages that are posted by the owners -- sometimes begging for /.ers to just leave or simply take down all pictures and video. I actually feel very sorry for these people.

I'm not trying to turn this into a "Save the Whales" discussion, which is much more important than this could ever be, but I'd like to think that some people will actually think twice about the "articles" they read.

Alright. I decided to change my major. At least the one. No longer am I an Information Systems (ISY) major emphasizing in Performance Improvement Technology (PIT) doubled with International Business emphasizing in Asian Development (ADR) -- I am now a Human Resources (HRM) and International Business double-major. So I'm staying in the business school.

Why the change? As I started taking the PIT classes, I realized I enjoyed the learning techniques of people and how best to write programs to encourage people to learn. I have always enjoyed training and teaching, for example, when I worked for Starbucks, I did a lot of training not only for my store but for other stores in the South Dallas/Arlington district. I enjoyed writing practical guides to making drinks, writing cleaning instructions that were easier to follow and use. And in fact, some of my instructions are now found in the manual distributed with the La Marzoco espresso machines. So, I thought that writing programs to train people would bring that same pleasure.
But it doesn't -- I hate sitting in front of a computer and just writing PHP, C#, or ASP. I sat down with my mom, who's the VP of International Human Resources at Wycliffe Bible Translators and we talked about what specifically I enjoy. It was not the actual creation of training tools, but the conception and use of these tools. Though I believe that if I conceive an idea, I am capable of creating it, though not as motivated. 2 Corinthians 8:11 is an interesting verse I ran across, But now complete also the doing, so that as there was the eagerness in intending, so also there would be the completing out of what you have. Interesting verse that motivated me to finish writing some programs, and think about finishing in general.

So, there you have it, a new major, I think I'll enjoy it. I'm not too sure about all the negative connotations that HR brings, but I think I'll enjoy what I do. It also gets me thinking about grad work -- like maybe I should do it in Sociology, since that's what i love. Maybe work on theory of training. So anyways, life is always interesting. I heard a good line from some TV show: "If someone's willing to lie for you, they're willing to lie to you." It was The Agency, perhaps my favourite TV show (though I don't watch much TV when I'm at school).

Can you imagine that?

I was browsing around, and I saw a little blue dot. I clicked and found out someone actually takes the time to read other people's journals. Impressive I say.

About the M$ licenses, I got XP for 5 bucks through my school, Office XP for 10, and Visual Studio .net for free for going to an hour demo of it by M$. So, 15 bucks and I'm a little bitch -- works out pretty well as far as I'm concerned.

It's finals, I'm tired, and I need sleep.

Yes, I admit: I am Microsoft's little bitch. I wish I could say that I successfully kept Mandrake but I didn't. I actually have a couple gripes/reasons why I didn't keep it.

I have a Athlon T-bird 1.2 w/ 512 DDRAM, and a GeForce4 Ti 4400. Now, I should be able to run some pretty bitchin games right? Wrong. Under linux, I can't even run TuxRacer over 10 fps!!! Now this just pisses me off. I've tried everything that's been suggested for nVidia cards with no luck. So, no bitchin games under Linux (unlike XP which lets me tear up GTAIII still).

Our router in my apartment is upstairs and I'm downstairs. So I have to do wireless. Now, that wouldn't be so bad, except Linux doesn't see my frickin wireless card as a viable internet connection! So, I can't connect to the internet with Linux. And yes, I've tried everything, and it still doesn't work.

Oh, and I learned C#. How's that you Linux freaks? A Microsoft language to screw up anything good about C++ and Java...yup, I'm their bitch.

Oh, and I just bought a Toshiba e740 and it runs Microsoft stuff. Yes, I even use Outlook for my two POP3 accounts as well as my Hotmail account

And while I'm laying it all out, I did download that single by Justin Timberlake off of Kazaa. I am listening to it right now. I have the little bliss background on my XP Pro desktop that defines my state: even forced ignorance is bliss. And yes, I do have a crush on Britney Spears, she is a hottie. And yes, I do date a girl who says "Omigosh, I was, like, totally pissed off that the Gap didn't have my size 0 pants I'd specifically ordered!" and yes she's really cute. Do you think I'd get something like that from screwing around with Linux all day every day? Nope, I do all my shit in Windows and have time to go out at night.

You think I'm kidding don't you? That I'll end this with some witty comment how I woke up from my nightmare? Nope, I really am that little bitch that yall are pissed off at.

And yes, I did just say yall, I'm from Texas...

HOWTO get modded up. Ok, I haven't been worried about getting modded in the past, but I've kind of started wondering how smart I am compared to the rest of slashdot. Well, it turns out, it doesn't matter. You could be Einstein, but if you don't post early, chances are you won't get modded. so that's point one:

Post Early! When you're given mod points, you don't have time to go through every (1) post, unless there are only like 20 posts. So try to make sure it's about 20 or less. But don't be the absolute first, people discount what you have to say because they believe that you are simply trying to get first post.

Skim the article, and say something that takes as little work to infer as possible. It makes you seem like you know the article in and out.

Never go for the cheapshots like incorporating goatse.cx into the discussion -- chances are that someone who actually knows what it is, much less is smart, will mod you the f down.

An easy way is to post the article "in case it gets slashdotted" this is especially true when dealing with the nytimes.com which requires registration.

Make qualifiers and open ended questions -- An example is, "IANAL,...doesn't that mean that X is true?" See? You've just allowed people to think you're not a lawyer but someone who is familiar with the law. Second, you're letting them respond and perhaps getting them modded up. which brings me to my next point...

Do everything you can to get the guy underneath you modded up. This will then allow you to be read and, thus, be modded up. Use the aforementioned techniques to illicit responses that are actually good.

Use good grammar and vocabulary. It's really handy to pretend you spell everything "proper" So spell it "socialise" or discuss the "folly" of humanity. This will make you seem smarter, and you'll actually get smarter from that.

So there you have it folks, that's my guide to Karma whoring. It's based off of real sociological situations in which percentages are in your favour. Aha! Did you notice? I just sounded really smart by mentioning "sociological situations" and spelled it "favour". You see? It's not that hard and it really works!

Yeah! First post! Wait... Ok, so I get to make some comments that probably only I will ever read, except if I make some witty comment and people are intrigued with my adept writing skills. But a little about me:

I'm a college student. I go to Baylor University and yes I know our football squad sucks, but wait till basketball season...

I was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, lived there for 4 years, then moved to England, lived in a suburb of London called Horsley's Green for another 4 years, and then to the Philippines, where I spent the rest of my pre-college life.
I'm supposedly from California, I claim Huntington Beach my hometown, but I go to school in Waco, TX (and yes that's where that Koresh guy did his thing) and my parents live in Dallas, but they own land in Illinois, where my mom's from, and in California, where my Dad's from. So, I'm kind of a wierd mix.

But this is technology...
When I was a freshman in high school, I was in California, and the school didn't have a systems administrator, and I said I knew a lot about computers and I was given the title of Student Systems Administrator. Yeah, I wasn't ready for that, but it was a good learning experience. I ran a 32 PC lab and two 16 Mac labs. I basically learned Mac then and there, and I was already comfortable with PCs. Basically, I just ran WinNT 4.0 on all the boxens and got a lot of help from other schools sysadmins. I started to learn about network security, stability -- all the fun stuff -- but on the front lines. Anyways, as I was doing all this I kept hearing about this Linux thing and how it was supposed to be perfect. Now, mind you, this was back in 1997, and my brother was in college (Com Sci) and he showed me my first Linux, and he came home for a weekend and we tore Win95 off of my machine (166 mhz :) ) and put on Red Hat 4 or something. We had to do all the compiling ourselves, and it was a mess. I had no idea what was going on, but my brother gave me one of his linux books and said learn.

So, now I'm a Performance Improvement Technology major/International Business major/Japanese minor. I think I'd make a good teacher, an even better sociologist, and a horrible programmer. I can't stand sitting in front of my computer just typing in code -- there needs to be interaction.
And now I have 4 boxes, one's WinXP Pro and SuSe 8, another is Red Hat, another is Mandrake/BeOS, and the other is a mac. Yes, I love all my children, they're all lined up in a row, and I have this really expensive KVM for all four. But that's just fun and games. Oh, and yes, that really is BeOS in there, I love that beast. I fire it up every once in a while just to remember the glory days when I told everyone who would listen that this would bring down Windows and Mac in one blow. But it didn't...too bad, b/c it was good. Now it's time for a little japanese :)
Í@ÁÄ@¾ 'S'R@©èÜñŽ

well nevermind, i guess slashdot isn't multilingual...time for a visit to slashcode...

so, hows my hiragana? and i see some kanzi in there...
anyways, now i'm just rambling and only noon and too many empty beer bottles sit here...