A small bluetooth peripheral that combines both wallet theft protection and lessens the number of cards you need to keep in your wallet. Pre-order for 50% off only on 12/12/2013 (ok, I waited for the last day to pre-order mine and get a referral link).
Respond to this, especially the "controversial for Americans" paragraphs 50-64 and 178-216
Yet another cutting edge, value adding software project cut because the stock market went down.
The manager who told me in 2001 that any project that takes over 4 months to be complete is a failure, has been proven right in my career more often than he's been proven wrong. 2 quarters, that's all you ever get to show success anymore.
Oh well. This one was good resume fodder for next time. But I'm glad I never got around to buying my own whiteboard pens.
I am significantly less bothered by individual acts of sin, both in others and myself, than I am by collective attempts to redefine sin as not-sin.
Even in authoritarian terms, forgiveness outweighs justice.
Three stories caught my eye this week, and a fourth hidden story was found because of the other three.
Apparently, homosexuals with the help of religious zealots have gained a new level of equality this week, with Lesbians in Florida now able to be charged with statutory rape under a rather odd rape law that that calls statutory rape "lewd or lascivious battery on child". I think that means seduction is now rape. And speaking of seduction being rape, while discussing this case, I had cause to look up The age of consent in Massachusetts, where I leanred that there too, seduction = statutory rape, but ONLY if the person under the age of 18 is "chaste". Elsewhere in Massachusetts law, apparently, is a stricter version which is about sexual penetration and only applies to girls younger than 16. So if you are a slut, you can't cry rape in Massachusetts.
This all jives in with the story from Elizabeth Smart on how overzealous Christian sex ed led her into a polygamous marriage with her kidnapper. I think the same people who wrote that Mormon sex ed curriculum wrote the Massachusetts law on age of consent.
And finally, just to bring it back around to homosexuality the Department of Justice now requires employees to have some pro-gay paraphanilia in their workspace- J. Edgar Hoover and his closet full of dresses would be so proud!
It isn't the fault of the New Atheists- they don't know enough history to know where they went wrong. Mainly because it happened a hundred years before they were born.
Suggest that free will exists and will never be able to be duplicated in an artificial intelligence. 69 replies to my sub-thread.
"We do not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population." - Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, 1939
"God bless you" - President Obama to Planned Parenthood, 2013
Order is the first need of human beings, the only thing that makes life remotely tolerable. Mankind will give up just about anything to get it- freedom, money, family. Better a slave in Athens than a king in Africa!
What changed all that was religion. Religion is the anti-government. Only a moral people can be ruled with few laws; and now that we've abandoned morality to relativism, we need to increase the number of laws and number of prisoners to keep order.
So true libertarians need to be religious- for only with religion, can there be order without laws and punishment.
The arguments I've gotten from atheists in my journal remind me of the atheist pessimist in this sketch. Because there is far more to life than just denying authority.
In our unregulated abortion industry horror is abundant. But that fits with the anti-motherhood crowd for whom human beings are just pests that need to be wiped out.
After a recent car accident, and faced with higher fuel bills and a real phobia about buying new vehicles, I've broken down and done the most gay thing I've ever done in my life.
I bought a 2006 Prius. Used. For a thousand less than blue book.
And now I'm learning to drive all over again.
Things I've learned about driving a Japanese Parallel Hybrid (hate the "Synergy Drive" transmission on this thing):
If the car dies and you can't jump it, check the el-cheapo battery connectors that might have fallen off (Seriously- the prius spent 24 hours in my garage this week because I couldn't boot the computer- and it turned out to be the freakin' 12V battery connector fell off).
This hybrid is the worst of both worlds, it gets its best gas mileage under 25MPH accelerating very slowly or between 45 and 60MPH. Anything in b8etween sucks rocks. That means in city driving, I'm the slowest car on the road, and for entering the freeway, I'm the fastest car trying to get up to speed so I can put it in cruise control.
Light on the gas is best, except when it isn't- and it isn't whenever the speed limit exceeds 45. Then it is best to floor it until you hit the speed limit, and use cruise control. This sucks in traffic.
There is no physical neutral on the synergy drive. If your electronics die and you can't boot the computer, you can't shift to neutral to get the car out of the garage.
Likewise, the back trunk- where the batteries are- only has an electronic latch on the outside. If the battery is dead, you have to get your kid to crawl into the back seat, fold down the seats, crawl into the trunk, empty the trunk, remove the carpet, remove the floor, pull a rectangle piece of plastic out of the toolbox, feel around until he finds the latch with his hand, and then you can open the trunk. THEN you have to remove the toolbox, take out a body panel, and then you'll find the battery.
Despite all of that- I'm getting 45MPG in town- better than my manual Escort ever did. 51 highway- about the same as the manual escort. But it's a way more complex car that I do not entirely understand yet.
Maybe one day I'll add a better HV battery and charger and the EV mode button, then I'll have a car almost as decent as the Ford C-Max. Or, if I end up doing what I did with the Escort, in 10 years when the Prius dies on me the Ford C-Max will be available in the used market in the under $7000 range- and that may well be better.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman
