There's no place like home - Comments

Sean Murphy: Why Do I Care About Other's Religions?

nospam@example.com (Sean Murphy) — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:41:08 -0500

In the face of everything you've written how do you define and prove unconditional love? That seems to me to be central to a parent/child relationship. Yet it is taken on faith. There is no proof (of which I am aware) that such exists. Yet, would you not do everything in your power to protect your children regardless the cost to you or your life?

I would pose that science has a long way to go before it can successfully quantify and qualify the intangibles (love, beauty, sentimentality) that help define homo sapiens as a species. That religion makes an attempt and, admittedly for some less successfully, helps people come to terms with their humanity should not be tossed aside lightly.

The United States was never formed as a secular nation. Rather, it was formed with the ideal of equity for all. Acknowledgement of the Divine was a central tenet of all period thought and documentation. It was the notion of a specific religious sect having a controlling interest in our system of government that our founders worked to avoid.

I'm not a big fan at pointing out the problems the major Christian religions have (or have hidden). Those problems are pervasive and exist in every walk of life. Do they get the same amount of publicity? No. Did the religious heads act in ways contrary to our current thought? Yes. I would point out that in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, it is run as a country with its own sense of nationality that at times is at odds with the United States. Is it correct? No, nor am I claiming to support or justify this position. Your rant could just as easily be turned to any of the major professions (law, medicine, finance, etc.). Each has their tainted past and continued abhorrent behavior.

I offer you a challenge. For each item you don't like, offer two viable resolutions and ten positive items. Your questions and insight are valuable - use them to close the chasm.

vjack: Time to get a Tattoo?

nospam@example.com (vjack) — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:02:18 -0500

I've thought about Dawkins' scarlet A, but virtually no non-atheists would even know what it meant.

JTankers: The Large Hadron Collider

nospam@example.com (JTankers) — Mon, 5 May 2008 13:11:20 -0500

I very much enjoyed Brian's very inspiring presentation. I too would be inspired except for one small detail that he left out, probably be cause he has not used his inquisitive mind to question what the true risks are yet, as some of his peers are just now starting to do...

CERN predicts the creation of up to 1 micro black hole per second in the Large Hadron Collider and references the 1999 RHIC safety study as proof of safety.
(Rebuttal: But the 1999 RHIC safety study only ruled out any possibility of colliders creating micro black holes based on knowledge at that time.)

CERN predicts that micro black holes will evaporate.
(Rebuttal: But Hawking Radiation has been disputed by no less than 3 peer reviewed studies that found no basis in science for such conclusions.)

CERN and Steven Hawking state that much greater energy cosmic ray impacts with Earth prove safety.
(Rebuttal: But higher energy cosmic ray impacts with stationary particles have net collision speeds of almost the speed of light and send all particles created safely into space, while head-on collider collisions have net collision impact speeds at almost twice the speed of light but are designed to focus all the energy to a single point in space and particles created may be captured by Earth's gravity.)

CERN promised to create and release an new safety report before the end of 2007.
(Rebuttal: CERN's LHC Safety Assessment Group has concluded that particles created by cosmic ray impacts with Earth's atmosphere are safely ejected into space and LSAG stated that they do not assume that micro black holes will evaporate, but CERN never released any safety reports created by their LHC Safety Assessment Group.)

CERN asserts that there is no risk to the planet, even though the Large Hadron Collider will create conditions not seen in nature since the first fraction of a second after the big bang.
(Rebuttal: But the legal action contends a 75% probability of risk with very high degree of uncertainty calculated by a scientist with a masters degree in statistics, and alleges that Chief Scientific Officer Mr. Engelen passed an internal memorandum to workers at CERN asking them regardless of personal opinion to affirm in all interviews that there were no risks involved in the experiments, changing CERN's previous assertion of minimal risk.)

Professor Otto Rossler calculates that a single micro black hole could accrete the Earth is as few as 50 months and Dr. Rossler is world recognized as one of the most prestigious, most eminent, award winning scientists alive. Others including Dr. Raj Baldev, director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, are also warning of a very real, very possible, very present danger to the planet from the Large Hadron Collider.
(Rebuttal?: But CERN has not scientifically refuted his calculations that I am aware of, CERN only promised Dr. Rossler that if they create stable micro black holes that they will stop the experiment immediately. But could that be too late?)

The World might prevent a catastrophy if we delay the experiment until the promised safety studies are completed and peer reviewed.
(Rebuttal?: But then some scientists may not be the first to discover new science and some Nobel prizes may be lost?)

JTankers
LHCConcerns.com

Kevin: I'm a Motivator!

nospam@example.com (Kevin) — Mon, 5 May 2008 09:54:24 -0500

This will be bigger than goatse

Timothy Foreman: The Gumption Trap

nospam@example.com (Timothy Foreman) — Sat, 3 May 2008 09:11:37 -0500

That's a possibility. I was also wondering if one of the floats was bad. I'll look into it this weekend.

Anonymous: The Gumption Trap

nospam@example.com () — Fri, 2 May 2008 17:22:46 -0500

It sounds like the float(s) is/are stuck.
SS

Sheldon: Untangle - An Open Source Application Filtering Firewall

nospam@example.com (Sheldon) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:06:51 -0500

Ye give untangle a try on a spare box sometime just to check it out.
I was using IPCOP, then Smoothwall (no to this one in future) then Endian Firewall (Nice but dans guardian goes overboard) and now finally Untangle.
Very very nice layout and has some really good feature sets, it does lack a web proxy, but for what Im using it for (protecting my home LAN) thats not really needed, also I do admit I would like some easy to use QOS package added as well.
The fact that you can add "modules" so easily as you choose is pretty cool, also it has a really nice report that gets emailed out in PDF format.

I have been using this now for about 2 months and highly recommend it for its ease of use, feature set and stability running on an old P3 2Ghz, 20Gb HDD, 1Gb RAM.
They ask for a far higher spec PC due to the load JAVA places on such things like memory/HDD, but for my small network it is very effient.

Weierd: FIRST Robotics Challenge Regional Meet - Day 2

nospam@example.com (Weierd) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:25:50 -0500

Nice flair!

Chris Johnson: Outage Details

nospam@example.com (Chris Johnson) — Sun, 2 Mar 2008 08:12:24 -0600

Dang. I hate when that happens. A good argument for out-sourcing the pain to a data center / ISP / hosting service, for those who don't geek sysadmin like Tim.

Timothy Foreman: Untangle - An Open Source Application Filtering Firewall

nospam@example.com (Timothy Foreman) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:08:46 -0600

eBox looks very interesting, thanks. I'll investigate it when I have some time.

Dani: Untangle - An Open Source Application Filtering Firewall

nospam@example.com (Dani) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:25:07 -0600

Hi! I think that you should try eBox Platform (http://www.ebox-platform.com). It's a gateway software like Untangle, but it has now QoS, it has Active Directory (which is in the professional package of Untangle), and a lot of modules really easy to use. Really, I think you'll love it

It will be soon included in Ubuntu, so it will be really easy to get it and test

weierd: The youth? They give me hope for the future.

nospam@example.com (weierd) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:40:12 -0600

booya!

Good stuff.

Kevin: Swear Word Replacement

nospam@example.com (Kevin) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:11:42 -0600

Genius. The phrase "Impale it sexually and fervently" doesn't get the play it deserves.

Tim Whitley: Outage Details

nospam@example.com (Tim Whitley) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:02:50 -0600

Yay! Our sysop is the BESTEST sysop in the world! We wuv him! :^)

C Velo: Outage Details

nospam@example.com (C Velo) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:14:16 -0600

OK, it's official - you get the "suckage" award for this weekend.
As an avid user of the "Foreman computer services", I sincerely appreciate all of your hard work (at very inconvenient times for you ) in keeping the server(s) up and running.
Sounds like an El Loro lunch (at least) might be coming your way...