An interesting thought occurred to me this morning: What if all the descriptions of time that scientists have come up with, are in fact descriptions of the supernatural?
 
From theistic Newton's absolute time ticking away whether anybody notices it or not, to relativity, to personal biological time, what if miracles are just the slight differences between absolute time, relative time, and personal time?
 
My own mental defect, Asperger's Syndrome, certainly has a role in this. I can shift into panic mode really easily, making time slow down for me. I can also shift into a state where I slow down and time speeds up. It costs me- both states can cause migraines, and my muscles and sensory input don't always keep up with my brain- but I can do it. Time is not linear for me, it's more like the multidimensional time of string theory. But it occurs to me that being "personally unstuck in time" could explain a large number of miraculous events that I've heard about.
 
This would make "God", the God of Absolute Time- the cause of all those events that doesn't have any other cause. The original Time Lord. God is from Gallifrey?

Is that they might use it without thinking first.

An admittedly Catholic blogger asks a very interesting question about modern sex education. Why don't modern sex education classes teach anything about what science knows about human fertility?

https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t1/1891258_10152618358089325_546343374_n.jpg

Can a contract signed in an ambulance or an emergency room authorizing treatment be considered free consent?

This question comes from the recent decision in Belgium to extend the right of euthanasia to children. I of course am arguing that euthanasia is never done with free consent even for adults- the pain of the disease is equivalent to a contract signed under torture, and thus cannot be considered free consent.

Just not the true story...
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10360

This is also how they show you "Syria" and an "Arab Spring".

It was how "Neda" was created... in the "Green Revolution".

The Cops.

Never trust them.

And NEVER call 911.

Porn gives young people an unrealistic and unhealthy idea
of how quickly a plumber will come to your house.

You know... since I've written enterprise applications (singlehandedly, and no, I won't tell you which ones) that dwarf slashdot... I might be tempted to write a replacement, given how bad Beta is and how much people are complaining about it...

How would I do it? In the spirit of Open Source, I'd use PostgreSQL as a database backend, as MySQL or MariaDB is, in my humble opinion, inferior to PostgreSQL.

One reason is the syntax of PL-PGSQL vs. T-SQL. I hate T-SQL compared to PL-PGSQL (or just PL-SQL if I'm writing a Stored Proc for Oracle).

After that, I'd model the database to do what I want, and store what I want, and I'd ensure that the data was fully in 3rd Normal Form.

And if you bitch about joins, I'll hit you with a fucking sledgehammer.

After that, throwing up some PHP to format the page is an afterthought. The critical piece is getting the database right.

The database itself would need to be clustered to be able to scale with the load, and PostgreSQL does a pretty nice job of it.

Next week my wife is in Antalya for a conference. The day after she gets back I fly to Manila. I start by going backwards - which I usually try to avoid but it was impossible this time. I go to Amsterdam, then to Tapei and finally I will arrive in Manila. The upside, I guess, is that Schipol is a nice airport. Not as nice as Munich International, but nice.
 
My schedule there is 3 days of meetings, a day off and 3 more days of meetings. The day off we are touring Corregidor and I'm really looking forward to that. I've been to PI quite a few times back in the day when I was a trusty shellback and what not. I flew into Manila when I was just out of boot and on my way to my first command. Didn't really see any of the city though. We arrived late at night and they put us on a bus out to Subic. Should be nice. Nice and hot anyway. I'll be going from highs around 10 (admittedly warm for this time of year) to highs around 30. Between that and the humidity I'm gonna be looking forward to getting home as far as the weather goes. A little practice for when we are in Phoenix this summer.
 
After I get back from Manila I'm home for a few weeks and then I head back to Moscow. I come back from there to Hungary but instead of going home I'll be working at a conference in VisegrÃd. I'm giving presentations on some new mobile tools that we are rolling out this year. It's a nice place but I'll be glad when that is done and I'm back home in my own bed. My sweet, sweet American king size bed that sits up on a frame and box springs. I do love Europe so much but not the beds as often.
 
I've heard - just heard - that there is a way as an American to get a 3 year, multiple entry tourist visa for Russia. I'll be looking into that this summer. That's the only pain to going. Wizzair makes Moscow close and cheap. It's getting the visa that makes it a hassle. I get a visa like that I could just about pop over there whenever the mood hit me. When I wrap up the stuff I'm doing at the Moscow office I really want to get up to our office in St. Petersburg.
 
I finished up the Coursera Android course and I pick up my new Macbook pro when I'm in Manila. Then I'll start working on learning iOS development.
 
Oh - that brings me around to an interesting and tech related thing. I have enjoyed using Android Studio which is built on JetBrains stuff. And last year-ish (2012 maybe even?) I bought licenses for some of there stuff when they did this crazy sale. I'm looking at doing a lot more dev myself - html/js/css stuff, java, php - all kinds of junk. So I figured I'd see about just renewing the license on IntelliJ. The problem is their options just didn't work for me. $100 to renew a personal license is a little steep. I could reimburse it but then it's a commercial license and that's triple. They have a free license for FOSS projects but honestly while I slap open licenses on the stuff I do, none of it meets their criteria for community involvement. I'm not a student either. So I'll be going with other options. Maybe Eclipse

Hey, Slashdot was instrumental in finding Twue Wuv for me, so I couldn't possibly leave it forever. The 14 day comment limit, however, is unfortunate for those of us who stop by only every 6-9 months. :^)

I have read your updates and am interested in your lives and would love to leave a comment expressing as much.

So, hey, Red5, congratulations on the marriage and baby and stuff! And all the other babies that have happened in the past 5 years or so for everybody else! And marriages! And diplomas! And new jobs! And sorry/congrats about the divorces!

Must be a new moderation algo...

    30% Insightful
    30% Overrated
    20% Offtopic

Just spotted that people are stuffing comments into various stories here for the sole purpose of complaining about the /. Beta.

Maybe it's because I only occasionally visit here, but are people really that hung up on the current design?

Hell, I can remember when /. didn't even bother with any testing, period, just shoved changes straight onto the production servers. Fun times. (Not)

Having looked at the Beta, it seems to me a damn sight cleaner that some news sites I can think of*. Ok, the comment view controls could use some refining, but that's the whole point of beta-testing, right?

(*I still have nightmares about pre-2000s ZDNet. Makes the current design look almost pleasant by comparison.)

Things are going fairly well, I think.

I gave up playing WoW. I started playing SW:TOR, but found I didn't have time to play.

The only game I've been keeping up with lately is Second Life.

I've also been getting into Ingress lately. Does anyone else play? I like it because it gets me out of the house (even in these cold northeastern winter days) and I occasionally meet new people.

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created value for shareholders."