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•June 18, 2009 • Enter your password to view comments.A genuine question regarding God as you see it:
•June 16, 2009 • 25 CommentsEDIT: First, for those of you who’d rather not read this, go to Hammerpants Flash Mob!
Something that popped into my head during a discussion about religious doctrine in another journal led me to want to ask:
What is the accepted answer for why the bible continues to change as it is “updated”, and for why the church makes new decrees regarding what is and is not a sin, and what degree of sinning it is? Why were there parts of the bible, if I am not mistaken, discarded during an initial gathering of holy men?
I understand that men are considered imperfect beings, but the christian God is infallible, right? In the christian way, is this considered intentional – that God expects humanity to live through an imperfect Word, perhaps behaving by the declared letter of the law that could be wrong?
Is it considered more important to follow whatever rules are laid out in your lifetime by other humans interpreting the word of God than it is to follow his actual Intent? Is his intent considered flexible – that when those doctrines change, it is through his intent to have those rules change (vs a mistaken understanding)?
And if that’s the case, is his word perhaps less eternally static than a mobile definition that changes as our cultural values change?
The content that brought this up was a discussion about whether people believe marriage is for a man and a woman, two individuals, or multiple people, which led me to this humorous but incendiary article from 2005 about marriage:
•June 15, 2009 • Comments Off on
You know your day is cruisin’ to be weird when you’ve brushed your teeth with mouthwash (at least I didn’t have to use my finger) and are wearing baby powder for deodorant.
This week is going to be crazygonuts. Wish me serenity, eh?
I’m curious who the “A reader” is who tipped Cory Doctorow to Catherynne’s Young Adult chapter project. I feel like it was probably someone I know.
This is a fascinating article about bug genitalia!
•June 12, 2009 • 13 Commentshttp://io9.com/5287491/female-bugs-evolved-to-prevent-rape
It talks about female bugs forming essentially armored pre-genitals so that it must happen on their terms, and then talks about an evolutionary arms race amongst the male and female duck population, which I had no idea about. :)
I know this is a little wacky, but if you could make one physical change to human genitalia, what would it be and why?
All comments about bigger penii will be met with an eye-roll. ;) You guys know who you are.
Adam Savage talks about the importance of failure (at the Maker Faire)
•June 9, 2009 • 8 CommentsI feel very strongly that this is right and true for me. I hold some of my failures as precious because they are reminders present somewhere in my mind that keep me from (mostly) failing in that way again. Not every failure rises to such stature, but some of the phenomenal ones do. Also, some of the minor ones that had disastrous consequences.
I think one of the major differences between people who “make it” and people who don’t is how we cope with failure. I’ve probably written about it a dozen times, and but I can’t write about it often enough. There is a difference between accepting ownership of a failure and being resigned to a personal flaw. It’s the difference between “I blew that math test” and “I’ll never be good at math”.
I have occasionally had friends leap to the latter conclusion about something, and it makes me want to shake them until Morale Improves: not every experience can be blown into the epitome of who you are, and who you are now does not have to be who you are tomorrow.
Identity is such a funny, fucked-up thing. We spend a good two decades trying to discover “who we are”, and then, with that certainty, we leap into the world … only to discover as we go along that we don’t know who we are after all. Because who we are continues to change, with every experience. As I see it, believing that there is a particular “I” that we are supposed to be is a joke that our obsessively-categorizing mind plays on us – other people must put us in boxes, and we must put ourselves in boxes, and once we’ve grown out of being a teenager, we aren’t allowed to try being someone else for a change without losing our “authenticity”.
I say that a person has two choices: Be who other people have decided you are, or be who you have decided to be. That starts with owning our actions, owning who we are, and ends with the belief that tomorrow we can choose to be a better person, as we define it.
Mmmmm pork!
•June 9, 2009 • 1 CommentI wonder if pork will be significantly cheaper due to mistaken assumptions if and when H1N1 is officially declared a pandemic.
(I was filming outdoors all day, haven’t had anything but an energy drink in my belly, and spent hours filming next to what smells to be a fabulous BBQ joint).
Star Wars: The Old Republic redux
•June 9, 2009 • 1 CommentE3 2009: Star Wars: The Old Republic demonstration
Hands-on: Star Wars: The Old Republic (I linked to this before)
So, we now have Storm Troopers (surprise!), Bounty Hunters, Sith, Jedi and Smugglers. I think it sounds like fun:
The Smuggler is another ranged class, and it was said that they had to find a way for a second ranged class to be iconic in its own way and very different than the Bounty Hunter. Han Solo continued to be the inspiration. The Smuggler uses a unique Cover system, gaining bonuses from finding safe and advantageous places to fire from. You choose a target, and the system points out things for you to hide behind or use to your advantage. Using proper Cover not only offers bonuses, but opens up added abilities for you to use as well.
The goal of the Smuggler is to play smart. Using every advantage you can, keeping the enemy at a disadvantage, and avoiding direct fire in any way possible. The Smuggler, just like the Bounty Hunter, was forced into melee combat to show how the class reacts. The dirty style of fighting didn’t go away at all. The Smuggler just takes a cheap shot, then tries to get back at range. I suspect this class will be using a large number of stuns and similar effects.
One of the things I’m critical about regarding WoW is the way we interact with our environment – we usually don’t. The closest we get is a right-click to activate, though some boss fights rely on putting your back to some rocks or columns, or using basic cover to dodge an Area of Effect blast.
This sounds like a much deeper approach.
PS WHO DOES NOT LOVE THIS VIDEO? It’s like watching a movie trailer. Even if you don’t like video games, it is highly enjoyable.
Protected: Yay
•June 8, 2009 • Enter your password to view comments.Cranky Sken is cranky!
•June 5, 2009 • 6 CommentsSo there was some sort of massive credit card theft revelation, like, two years ago with Heartland Payment Systems. They process over 100 million transactions a month. Anyway, my bank was struck by it apparently, and sent out a massive number of replacement cards.
Including to me.
In an unmarked envelope.
And my current card deactivated today.
So now I have to run home, hope it’s in an envelope I haven’t opened, and hit the bank for a temporary card if not.
Nothing is as delightful as getting “your card is declined!” when you “know” (quotes intended) that you have well more than enough.
Clearly I need to start stuffing a mattress.