Original ExistDifferently.com Weblog of David, a Christian Network and Systems Manager, with topics ranging from Apologetics to Worldview, and some crypto, open source, programming, opinion, and daily life thrown in between.

Thu, 2005-04-28 (Apr 28)

Adults and Debates

Filed under: Blog,General,Personal,Politics,Worldviews — David @ 11:48

There was a really good quotation from someone in “this post at WorldMagBlog”:http://www.worldmagblog.com/blog/archives/014355.html that I like a lot (the post was made by someone with my first name, but it wasn’t me! The comment was made at 9:29am yesterday.):

The quotation is from Dorothy Sayers’ “The Lost Tools of Learning”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=davidsworldva-20&creative=9325&camp=1789&link_code=ur2&path=tg/detail/-/B0007FRAVK/qid=1114706741/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1?v=glance%26s=books (which unfortunately appears to be out of print):

Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees, have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?

I see this in politics at all levels all the time, it’s one of the reasons I got annoyed with politics and stopped paying much attention. I get annoyed with immaturity at this level. On the other hand, it makes good speakers all that much more easy to appreciate!

Sun, 2005-01-16 (Jan 16)

I’m baaack…and funnier than ever!

Not that I’ve really gone anywhere. Or become funnier than ever (I just find and link to funny stuff, in case you hadn’t noticed). I’ve just been busy. And every time I get some time I could be posting, I pick up one of the five or so books I’m reading instead. Come on, it’s only been eight days. Plus work takes a lot of time. If anyone wants to donate a salary equal to that which I’m making now (preferrably more, and no, I won’t tell you what it is :-) I could switch to blogging full time. Any takers?

Didn’t think so. Just in case, the lines of communication are always open…

Anyway, I’ve been reading a lot of good books, which I need to at least link to soon, if not review. And of course there’s the usual day-to-day life happenings, but I tend to forget those after 24 hours anyway, so you may not get a combined update of time I spend not posting here. If you really want to know some personal details, all the other cousins on my Dad’s side of the family came from Illinois to our house today (there’s three of ’em besides my brother and me). The goal? Get a photo taken of the five of us together to give to our grandma (we call her Busha since she’s Polish and that’s how you say grandma in Polish…or at least that’s what I’ve been told my whole live, I don’t exactly speak Polish so I can’t vouch for authenticity) for her birthday this year. Goal accomplished, and my family got a new family photo while we were at it (the last one was from the early ’90s, so it did need a bit of updating!). Plus it was good to spend the day with them, we haven’t seen them in a long time. The five of us have ages that are, youngest-to-oldest, 15, 20, 21, 25, and 32. My brother and I are the youngest. Next are two girls that are the daughters of one of my Dad’s sisters, then the son of my Dad’s other sister. Not like you care terribly much, so I’ll stop the info there. And get on with the humor.

“ForeverGeek”:http://www.forevergeek.com/ (an excellent blog itself) has a great link to an article entitled, “Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?“:http://forevergeek.com/entertainment/is_your_son_a_computer_hacker.php that you must check out. They provide a quick quote from the article so I won’t give you preview…the full article they link to is “over here”:http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html and in case you can’t tell, it’s satire. Very, very funny satire, made more so by the pages of comments you can find at the bottom made by many, many people who actually think the article is serious and publish rebuttals, or just call the article stupid! But the reasons for that are explained in another “Adequacy.org”:http://www.adequacy.org article, “Writing Satire For A Technical Audience“:http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2002.1.28.213530.133.html. Heck, that one might actually be a lot funnier than the first one! Depends on who you are, I guess. If you enjoy those — and still have time left, as they aren’t short — try this one: “Internet Licenses: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?“:http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.28.55410.553.html

ovingMay onway otay otherway tuffsay, oogleGay ashay away ranslationtay “intoway igpay atinlay”:http://www.google.com/intl/xx-piglatin/! ockRay onway, oogleGay! Iway riedtray otay earchsay orfay ymay itesay onway itway, andway itway idn’tway indfay anythingway henway Iway usedway igpay atinlay otay erformpay ethay earchsay: “Ouryay earchsay – “existway ifferentlyday“:http://www.google.com/search?hl=xx-piglatin&q=existway+ifferentlyday&btnG=Google+Earchsay – idday otnay atchmay anyway ocumentsday.”

Anywayway (oops, enough of that — but I was getting fluent at the typing while issuing forth the above paragraph from my fingers (not quite as fluent as I am at speaking it, however)), on to some comics: here are “two”:http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990211 “UserFriendly“:http://userfriendly.org/ “comics”:http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=19990815 that are rather funny, if you know what they mean. I supposed you’ll have to read them to find out if you do. If you don’t understand them, follow the directions in the first ;-)

If you’re ready to be done with the humor for a minute, here’s a link to two of the books I’m in middle of right now. They’re both by “Hugh Hewitt”:http://www.hughhewitt.com/pages/about_hugh.htm. One is “In, But Not Of : A Guide to Christian Ambition“:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0785263950/davidsworldva-20?dev-t=mason-wrapper%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2 and the other is “The Embarrassed Believer“:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849914191/davidsworldva-20?dev-t=mason-wrapper%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2, both are excellent so far and after doing a quick Amazon search, I think I may try and grab his newest book, “Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World“:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/078521187X/davidsworldva-20?dev-t=mason-wrapper%26camp=2025%26link_code=xm2, from the library. Maybe

I’m reading a few other books as well, but I don’t feel like taking the time to find them and put their info in right now, so you’ll have to wait. Go away now. Or read my other entries, if you haven’t. Or re-read them, I won’t stop you. Or get organized with the info over at the cool website called “43 Folders“:http://www.43folders.com/ (trust me, it’s cool).

Tue, 2004-11-16 (Nov 16)

Bible Software and Annon

Filed under: Bible Software,Christian News,Politics,Religion,World News — David @ 01:28

Found a cool site made by “Ken Ristau”:http://anduril.ca/aboutme.html over at “anduril.ca”:http://www.anduril.ca tonight. Good blog with some especially interesting entries on recent politics, I really like the insights on “Kofi Annon’s opinion on how to maintain security in Iraq”:http://anduril.ca/blog/2004/11/kofi-letter-to-allawi.html, along with a great section with “Bible software reviews”:http://anduril.ca/christian/bible-software.html” that is actually how I found the site.

He’s also written some “good”:http://www.christianweek.org/stories/vol15/no18/ristau.html “articles”:http://www.faithtoday.ca/article_viewer.asp?Article_ID=122 on selecting Bible Software and how it can be an improvement to traditional study methods. For those who want something for free (more than free software like “e-Sword”:http://www.e-sword.net and “The SWORD Project”:http://www.crosswire.org/sword/), I suggest checking out the resources he’s linked at his “Bible Study Tools”:http://anduril.ca/christian/bible-tools.html page, it does a good job of finding good online resources without having to wade through even a relatively small Google search.

He also has another blog entry with more links than I have time to read with information about what’s really going on in Iraq, the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, and lots of other “good world news/political info”:http://anduril.ca/blog/2004/10/necessary-links.html. If you’re looking for good sites, I haven’t checked his links out but based on the rest of his site I would probably enjoy them at least.

One last mention…”his link to the Aleppo Codex Online”:http://anduril.ca/blog/2004/10/aleppo-codex-online.html sends you to an awesome site (even more so if you happen to read Hebrew) with an original Hebrew Bible text for you to take a look at and read about. I haven’t had time to get to this one yet either, but consider this link in my post here a bookmark for return…

Overall I’m impressed with his site and the resources he’s found and compiled for others. Sure, Google will get you to all of them eventually, but when a human does the looking and gives you some picks with some original info to boot, jump on it!

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