Congress declares Jesus is the reason for the season

The House of Representatives found time to give Jesus a shout out for bringing us Christmas. My two favorite parts of the resolution:

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

I’m glad they cleared this up. They’re a little late to the party though. I was sold on this years ago when I discovered Christianity gave us Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ludwig was a ninja with math and philosophy.

The futility of ranting

I’m a little bit closer to understanding why rants don’t work. I’m reading a book about interactive fiction and the author makes the point that it started long before Infocom and goes back to riddles. Interactive fiction, which riddles are one example of, engage an audience like no other work of literature.

By presenting a metaphorical system that the listener or reader must inhabit and figure out in order to fully experience, and in order to answer correctly, the riddle offers its way of thinking and engages its audience as no other work of literature does.

Read more...

Soul lost and found

A friend of mine from Huntspatch is coincidentally staying at a hostel two blocks from my hotel in San Francisco. It’s been years and she’s still as beautiful and wonderful as ever. We shared sushi and walked around this glorious, crazy city. I’m still bathed in enthusiasm after we talked about the magic of words and manifesting your will and the rejuvenation of travel. I feel as though a fog has lifted off my spirit.

More on H.R. 1955

The Thoughtcrime bill that passed overwhelmingly in the House is going through committee in the Senate. The Senate bill is S. 1959.

Dahlia Lithwick writing in Slate points out “Harman’s “thought crimes” bill […] does no more than explore whether those thought crimes are a problem.” She follows that up with some snark on the ineffectiveness of Democrats in Congress.

I am profoundly grateful that instead of criminalizing protected speech outright, Democrats merely form a commission that will do a study, which will in turn christen a Drive-Thru Center for Excellence, where they will someday consider criminalizing protected free speech.

Read more...

Doctor Fate

I’m really digging the Doctor Fate part of the eight issue Countdown to Mystery series. Steve Gerber’s writing and Justiniano’s art are my favorite comic book read right now. It reminds me of my enthusiasm in the early issues of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

I came in with almost no familiarity with the helmet of fate. In this series Kent V. Nelson is a disgraced, divorced psychiatrist living in Las Vegas, NV. (Yeah, not Gotham, Metropolis, Central City, etc.) He’s homeless and pulling in money from bum fights. After losing a fight he’s thrown into a dumpster and discovers the helmet of fate. From that point the series has explored Nelson’s past, through multiple planes of existence. The helmet allows him to alter his perception.

Simple truths

“Belief precedes action” is now added to the list of obvious truths I’ve completely missed until now.

I gleaned it from William James’ speech on The Will to Believe. I’m missing something from the speech though. It felt like a fancier version of Pascal’s Wager, not the clarion call to religious belief I was hoping for.

James’ concludes with this quote from Fitz-James Stephen:

What do you think of yourself? What do you think of the world?…These are questions with which all must deal as it seems good to them. They are riddles of the Sphinx, and in some way or other we must deal with them…In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark…If we decide to leave the riddles unanswered, that is a choice; if we waver in our answer, that, too, is a choice: but whatever choice we make, we make it at our peril. If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? ’ Be strong and of a good courage.’ Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes…If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."

Read more...

Thoughtcrime

H.R. 1955 seeks to criminalize thoughtcrimes

The term violent radicalization means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

The term ideologically based violence means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.

There is no definition for extremist belief system.

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Genius

I haven’t seen the frustrations of designers summed up so amusingly before.

Changing the debate on religion in America

I’ve begun to wonder if the movie of The Golden Compass will be the catalyst this country needs for a thoughtful discussion about religion, particularly Christianity. Snopes has kicked this discussion into gear. They said “The 2007 film The Golden Compass is based on a series of books with anti-religious themes.”

Snopes didn’t begin this. The Catholic League created a booklet condemning the movie. From that came the email campaign to incorrectly characterize The Golden Compass movie.

Work Tricks

I work on projects with people I call authoritative non-contributors. Some folks might call them PHBs. These people don’t contribute assets to the project but they have a say over whether it’s ready or not. As the project wraps up and they realize they haven’t left their mark the compulsion to request changes overcomes them.

I find it useful to leave small parts broken right up to the end. This way those PHBs feel they’ve done their part by requesting that small part be fixed. If I don’t then they’ll request something new and probably more significant be changed.