Author: cdwan

Ask me a question.

(Idea borrowed from aerospcgrl and mchiadh)

I’m such a sap.

There was a bee in my office, banging its little bee head against my window. I initially thought, “sorry dude, but you have to die.” Then I felt bad … what with my recent attempts to do no harm, if I can help it. So I opened the window and (s)he flew right out.

Now, I know that this bee will most likely die with the next hard frost … but I’m able to completely ignore that. I feel like I could go out and run over a nun at a traffic crossing or something and *still* be karmically positive for the day.

Stolen from jrtom, pointed at simianpower, I bring you The Monkeysphere. It’s the most cogent explanation I’ve ever read for the stunning dual standard that we all exhibit in how we treat the human beings around us.

Picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if you wish. We’ll call him Slappy.

Now, each of these monkeys is every bit the monkey that Slappy was. It’s just that you don’t give a rat’s ass any more.

I’ve been thinking about that senator from MN who is Muslim and wants to swear with his hand on a Koran rather than a Bible … and something deep in my mind kept sticking up its hand and saying “pick me! pick me!” I finally called on it:

You know, they could go to the trouble to actually read the bible and discover that Jesus specifically says not to swear on, by, or to anything. Matthew, chapter 5, verse 30-ish:

But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.

So I guess it’s pretty clear where all this swearing on the bible “is from,” eh?

redmed and I took a class on vegetarian indian cooking last night, and it was the best EVER. There were about 9 students and one instructor. We met in the large kitchen of a local church. The instructor brought a couple bags of ingredients, and taught us how to make dinner. Our bit was the Chana Masala (chick peas in a tomato / onion sauce). It rocked, the food was great, and we went home stuffed and happy.

What a great morning. It’s almost 7, so it’s almost time to start the trek to Boston for our bi-weekly software roadmap meeting. Yay.

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon crawling around in cat poop. I went in the crawl space to run a wire to replace the Cable of Terror that currently supplies 40A, 220V power to our range. I found out that apparently the cats have been getting in there and doing their “trick.” So I tried to be manly about it, got a dustpan and a trash bag, and went in to clean up. About an hour and a half later I had what can best be described as an attack of the crawling heebie-jeebies and got the hell out of there. The wire was only about halfway nailed up, but the cat poop was all cleaned up and I was DONE, thank you.

Went to the inaugural meeting of the Riverside Skeptics. My friend Dan had set it up on meetup, told me about it, and I had RSVP’d. I thought that would be it, but then ANOTHER guy RSVP’d. So, we met Brian. Brian goes to the Providence atheist’s meeting, and seemed to be a pretty cool guy. We talked about how churches shouldn’t be tax exempt, and why you have to swear on a bible to testify in court. Stuff like that. Plus, we ate spinach dip. My long term goal is to get the local atheists to sponsor the missionary trips that I’m already doing. I’d be great PR.

Then I played Gears of War for like, 5 hours.

So yesterday, back in the crawl space. Finished running the wire, ripped the old 2-conductor outlet out of the wall, installed a new 3-conductor one, upgraded the stove to fit the new receptacle, swapped the cables out at the main breaker box, upgraded the entire kitchen with GFCI outlets, and called it a day. I believe that I’m now within sight of “done” on this particular project … the only remaining things that I know about is the ceramic post style wiring in the shudder attic. Just a quick peek under the insulation aaaaaand …. that’ll be it.

Apparently, I’m going to a meeting of fellow skeptics, brights and similarly non-theistically minded people today (3pm at the TGIF in Seekonk. All are welcome).

My prediction is that this will be an unmitigated disaster, will irritate me to no end, and will end quickly. I don’t like most people who self-identify as proud and out atheists, I’ve decided that religion is really good for a great number of people, just not for me, and I hate people who go to meetings.

With that glowing endorsement, come one, come all.

The Kurzweil trifecta is complete. I have now shaken his hand and directly asked him a question. I have gazed upon his leathery skin, and breathed the same air as him.

way more detail than you need

Debate at the MIT Stata center:

4:30-5:30pm Public Debate
David Gelernter vs. Ray Kurzweil
Moderated by Rodney Brooks

Are we limited to building super-intelligent robotic ‘zombies’ or will it be possible and desirable for us to build conscious, creative, volitional, perhaps even ‘spritual’
machines?

$5 on Kurzweil. technolope and I will be meeting at 4pm to secure seats.

I’m becoming fascinated with the prospect of predicting the future. Not in any mystical or astrological sense … but it is inescapably true that the potential for tomorrow is written in signs that I can read today. Specific examples of the tools available are:

(a) population and demographic data
(b) Moore’s law and other technology growth / death observations
(c) previously observed cycles in technology and society.

The summary plan:

1) gather data.
2) Genius!
3) Profit!