[ a fully caused & embodied blog ] [ Good Sense Without God ]
It is in the prosecution of some single object, and in striving to reach its accomplishment by the combined application of his moral and physical energies, that the true happiness of man, in his full vigour and development, consists. Possession, it is true, crowns exertion with repose; but it is only in the illusions of fancy that it has power to charm our eyes. If we consider the position of man in the universe,—if we remember the constant tendency of his energies towards some definite activity, and recognize the influence of surrounding nature, which is ever provoking him to exertion, we shall be ready to acknowledge that repose and possession do not indeed exist but in imagination. - Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action) (1854 ed.)

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Tally: Week of Oct. 19 - 25, 2007

Letters Received: 712
Letters Published: 80

Most Popular Topic: Oregon's Measure 49
Number of Letters: 96
'Yes' on 49: 57
'No' on 49: 34
No position: 5

Next Most Popular Topics:
Oregon's Measure 50: 67 letters
Bicyclists/traffic safety: 61 letters

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Dinesh D'Souza is an idiot.

D'Souza, in the King's College debate, really has no clue what science is.

He says:

... Modern science itself is based on three Christian assumptions that are at root metaphysical.

Assumption number one: The universe as a whole is rational. The universe embodies rationality. ... that matter and objects and planets embody a certain kind of rationality they follow rational principles.

. . .

Number two: The universe obeys laws that are comprehensible in the language of mathematics. ... How does matter obey laws? How does the electron know what to do? ... It follows the laws of Newton's inverse square law, it obeys Einstein's laws.

. . .

A third one: The laws out there in nature are mirrored by the goings-on in my minds. We can apprehnd and understand the laws. Very odd. Why should the goingson within our head match the goings-on in the universe?

Now if you are ...

a scientist or have any knowledge about science, the statements: "How does matter obey laws?" or "matter ... follow[s] rational principles" are at best meaningless, perhaps only ignorant, but more likely stupid.

Matter - electrons - do NOT "obey" Einstein's laws! (And even better, they did not stop obeying Newton's laws once Einstein formulated his!) Scientific laws, theories, etc. are simply our predictive descriptions in a way we can understand, ie.&eg. mathematics. They are not reality! At most, scientists will admit, at times (see Popper), that hypotheses are at best our guess at reality. But in reality, a theory or law is simply our model that seems to work. Nothing more.

What a maroon!

Oh come on!

People! Duh!: "House Panel Screw-Up Reveals Whistleblower Email Addresses Honestly", email is no way to do anything secretly. Why is this lost on people? Computers track everything! EVERYTHING!


(Right Paul? Send me an email if you want. I have been wondering about you -- and everyone else -- too.)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

My Work & Design Philosophy

As I wrote in this post I have recently been very motivated. Motivated in a personal development sense. I hope to write more, but the short version is that I needed to get out of my then current position at work.

So I started looking externally. And in doing so I felt I need to be able to present myself. In fact, I want(ed) to present me as a person and as a programmer so I made some serious improvements to my website.

But, I eventually found an internal opportunity that I hope will pan out. My old boss, though, wanted to know if I might explain why I wanted to leave his team and the department. So I wrote this little story.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Vader Youtube Clip

Sure it is an internet meme with a half-life of .. oh .. already over. But still funny!



[Hat-tip Joshua!]

Sunday, October 14, 2007

PrjPlanner: My Open-Source Python project

I recently have been spending a lot of time feature enhancing and updating documentation for my open-source project: PrjPlanner. PrjPlanner is a project management tool for developers and small teams, hopefully ideal in an Agile methodology.

Well, I just released 1.1.0 -- a major feature enhancement release. I also announced on freshmeat.net.

Doing this project has taught me a lot. Not about the technologies used: Python, Qt, XML, but about myself. This is the most fun I have ever had programming. I have loved using the open-source community's resources (SourceForge, freshmeat). I love writing the documentation for the tool, especially the page on my Agile project management philosophy. I love the idea that today (Oct. 14th) PrjPlanner's website has been hit 829 times for a total of 220 pages! Who are these people?! Have they downloaded the tool and used it? What do they think? And why will they not leave a message in the forum!!?!

But, I was not motivated to work on PrjPlanner because it is fun, but because I have not enjoyed my day job for a long time. And so I began looking elsewhere. Doing so was the motivation behind this work and other efforts. [to be continued]

Purpose of this Blog

Well, when I started I hoped I could be similar (pale of course) to political bloggers such as: Atrios, Glenn, Arthur, etc. But I also have other interests that I could blog about but I have not because I thought this blog was not going to be a personal blog. Of course, I have already made non-political posts, but still I was filtering. Not anymore; hope you do not mind.

Hillary Clinton: Bad for Iraqis, Iranians, Americans and Democrats

This drove me to write this post.

Hillary voted for the Iraq invasion, each subsequent funding request, and the belligerent Senate resolution on Iran.

It should be extremely clear to anyone. Do not vote for Hillary.

Her Iraq related votes:

Her Iran related vote and statements:


Other voices:
Arthur Silber
Chris Floyd

Tally: Week of Oct. 5 - 11, 2007

Letters Received: 661
Letters Published: 80

Most Popular Topic: The Bush administration
Number of Letters: 72
Oppose: 69
Support: 3