I can’t believe I’ve been messing with it for so long.. Microsoft Live Writer is SOOO SLOW.
I’ve switched to ScribeFire… an extension for FireFox.. it is so much better… I guess not as “fancy looking” but it works a whole hell of a lot better… doesn’t take a minute to turn it on and another minute to start typing and 5 minutes to publish.. it does all that really really fast.
so very many things wrong with this… but it seems popular..
A science professor begins his school year with a lecture to the
students, “Let me explain the problem science has with religion.” The
atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks
one of his new students to stand.
“You’re a Christian, aren’t you, son?”
“Yes sir,” the student says.
“So you believe in God?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is God good?”
“Sure! God’s good.”
“Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?”
“Yes.”
“Are you good or evil?”
“The Bible says I’m evil.”
The professor grins knowingly. “Aha! The Bible!” He considers for a
moment. “Here’s one for you. Let’s say there’s a sick person over
here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would
you try?”
“Yes sir, I would.”
“So you’re good…!”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“But why not say that? You’d help a sick and maimed person if you
could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn’t.”
The student does not answer, so the professor continues. “He doesn’t,
does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though
he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you
answer that one?”
The student remains silent.
“No, you can’t, can you?” the professor says. He takes a sip of water
from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.
“Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?”
“Er…yes,” the student says.
“Is Satan good?”
The student doesn’t hesitate on this one. “No.”
“Then where does Satan come from?”
The student falters. “From God”
“That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he? Tell me, son. Is there evil
in this world?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So who created evil?” The professor continued, “If God created
everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according
to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.”
Again, the student has no answer. “Is there sickness? Immorality?
Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this
world?”
The student squirms on his feet. “Yes.”
“So who created them?”
The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his
question. “Who created them?” There is still no answer. Suddenly the
lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is
mesmerized. “Tell me,” he continues onto another student. “Do you
believe in Jesus Christ, son?”
The student’s voice betrays him and cracks. “Yes, professor, I do.”
The old man stops pacing. “Science says you have five senses you use
to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen
Jesus?”
“No sir. I’ve never seen Him.”
“Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your Jesus?”
“No, sir, I have not.”
“Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your
Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or
God for that matter?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“Yet you still believe in him?”
“Yes.”
“According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable
protocol, science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to
that, son?”
“Nothing,” the student replies. “I only have my faith.”
“Yes, faith,” the professor repeats. “And that is the problem science
has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.”
The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of
His own. “Professor, is there such thing as heat?”
“Yes,” the professor replies. “There’s heat.”
“And is there such a thing as cold?”
“Yes, son, there’s cold too.”
“No sir, there isn’t.”
The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The
room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. “You
can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat,
unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don’t
have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero,
which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no
such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the
lowest -458 degrees.”
“Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or
transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or
transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat.
You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of
heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units
because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just
the absence of it.”
Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom,
sounding like a hammer.
“What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?”
“Yes,” the professor replies without hesitation. “What is night if it
isn’t darkness?”
“You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the
absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright
light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have
nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use
to define the word.”
“In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make
darkness darker, wouldn’t you?”
The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This
will be a good semester. “So what point are you making, young man?”
“Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to
start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.”
The professor’s face cannot hide his surprise this time. “Flawed? Can
you explain how?”
“You are working on the premise of duality,” the student
explains. “You argue that there is life and then there’s death; a
good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as
something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even
explain a thought.”
“It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less
fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is
to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive
thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.”
“Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved
from a monkey?”
“If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man,
yes, of course I do.”
“Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?”
The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes
where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.
“Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and
cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you
not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a
preacher?”
The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the
commotion has subsided.
“To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student,
let me give you an example of what I mean.”
The student looks around the room. “Is there anyone in the class who
has ever seen the professor’s brain?” The class breaks out into
laughter.
“Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain, felt
the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain? No one
appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of
empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have
no brain, with all due respect, sir.”
“So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your
lectures, sir?”
Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his
face unreadable.
Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. “I guess
you’ll have to take them on faith.”
“Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with
life,” the student continues. “Now, sir, is there such a thing as
evil?”
Now uncertain, the professor responds, “Of course, there is. We see
it everyday. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man.
It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world.
These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”
To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist sir, or at least it
does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is
just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe
the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of
what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart.
It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness
that comes when there is no light.”
The professor sat down.
my response: light exists, heat exists, brains exist.. the same is not so easily demonstrated about any sort of deity.. in fact.. you can’t demonstrate anything about something that “cannot be measured” as this “genius” student points out that his concept of God is.. read Kirkegaard (also, I want a / in the O in my name :))
ya.. see.. setting up a straw man “atheist professor” like this is also a logical fallacy.. you can’t make up this dualist arguing atheist and take him seriously.. so when you “defeat” your construct that you set up to defeat, you win.. but an empty victory.. kinda like drawing yourself a maze and then “beating it” .. wow.. awesome! It doesn’t make you right.. it makes you silly.
pink unicorns fly at midnight… also.. flibberty flabberty flooo!!!
… that’s my argument.. makes a little more sense too.
in a 16 ounce glass:
I came to this magic after about 3 tries.. the first couple either had too much soda or too little simple syrup or both. I still pounded them.. didn’t want to waste it! Then 4 and 5 were awesome.
WARNING: don’t drink 5 of them.. that’s about half a 1/5 of rum… I priased the porcelin god so you don’t have to. Beware!
I decided to reinvent the wheel and make my own contact syncing for egroupware on the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform.. so C# talking to PHP
the reason is all the others I’ve tried don’t work.. all of them end up in contacts being duplicated. Also my contact store backend is LDAP and uses LDAP address books like egroupware suggests… still.. doesn’t work with their syncing stuff.
I have both sending contacts and getting contacts working now.. and you can currently delete all contacts on the device before you read them from the server… deleting the other way will work eventually too
so nothing ever deletes unless you pick “delete all before import/export” .. then it wipes out everything (right now only local deletes work) and sends all changes over
it also never overwrites a contacts filled in attribute with nothing … there’s always gotta be “something” to overwrite
… so this isn’t syncing.. so much as writing one way or the other and filling in what’s missing, if anything
if anyone out there in the world wants a copy, email me.. I’ll put up a link somewhere later.. I was thinking about making this a sourceforge thing, but really it’s for internal use and I don’t want to “support” it for other people
after visiting the gaping maw of Lawful Good righteousness known as the Jackson County Courthouse (the one downtown.. yes… the hardcore one), I can now notarize the shit outta shit
I bet I do it like 10 times.. ever
Well, Microsoft would have you think so.
The more I work in MS stuff, the more I realize everything is really just dressed up VB… C#, .NET, etc … they just changed the words to make you think you aren’t writing in BASIC… feel good… “u r totally awsum there guy!”
nice one MS.. nice one
Jackson county is the slowest county ever.. well.. I guess I don’t know that.. but pretty slow.
I started this about the 15th of last month.. filled out 2 voter registrations.. last week I was told I had to come in there because I couldn’t mail that in… I did… filled out everything.. called today.. not registered to vote until AFTER the next election, which is tomorrow… so I’m supposed to call sometime next week to see if I’m on the system yet
… of course I can’t submit this notary thing until then because you can’t be a notary without being a voter.. and if they deny you, then they can deny you for months or years or something.. totally sucks..
I bought Shannon and I a new bed from Hawn bedding. Got to test drive it last night.. if you know what I mean.. that’s right.. I slept great! (ha ha)
So it’s a kind of latex (rubber) mattress on a box spring. It’s like rubber out of the rubber tree rubber. I had no idea they’d be comfy. I guess it’s part to do with the box spring too.. that they can make it harder or softer depending on what it’s sitting on. Total was about $1300 .. 15 year warranty… and they moved the old bed downstairs and put this one in for $15… so nice.
Anyway.. Dad has one, Todd has one, and now I have one 
Now I just need a AR15… and a CCWable gun… and a million dollars.
We drank and gambled every day of course… I’m incredibly dehydrated today :) Of the gamble money I brought, I was up about $150 going in to Saturday afternoon (mostly from $5/10 tables at Blackjack) and then I pissed it all away in about 20 minutes on a bad $15 table and then .. roulette… ouch.
we also Cirque Di Soleil (that is possibly how you spell that :)) “O” at the Bellagio. That was quite possibly the most beautiful show I have ever seen or ever will see. Totally worth the money.. shit I would have paid double.
Saturday night we had a little room party and killed all the liquor and the rest of our braincells… we all came back yesterday.
got in last night… ate and slept… sooo very tired.
Everyone had a blast… great 30th bday.
next year is Mexico for Andy’s 30th
tomorrow, well, in a few hours, I’ll be 30
I’m not a millionare yet.. so -1 there
I weigh 220 still… -1 there
but.. I do have an awesome g/f so +10 there
and lots of friends +alot
and a family that loves me +alot more
and a good job ++goodstuff
so.. over all.. not too bad. I can’t spend any of those points when I go to Vegas tomorrow for the weekend, but I might be pretty rich… really… in the grand scheme of things. If we’re talking grand schemes… of which I’m not sure there is one.. but how about the overall? Ya.. the overall.. overall, doing well.