August 16, 2011
August 15, 2011
New Bathroom Fan
I bought a new bathroom fan from Amazon a while back but hadn’t got around to installing it.
Until today. My new drill came in handy as the knock-out for the wiring was in a different place and I had to make a new hole to feed the wiring through. The timer runs a little long so I may turn it down in the future – but the bathroom gets quite steamy so maybe I won’t.
(The fan is actually turning, the flash just froze it in the picture.)
August 5, 2011
July 26, 2011
Caught Up
Today I finished rereading A Feast For Crows and am about to start A Dance With Dragons.
July 14, 2011
July 7, 2011
Why am I reading theology? – Jerry Coyne – WEIT
Under the tutelage of the estimable Eric MacDonald, I have spent several weeks reading Christian theology. And so far, I have learned only three things:
[1] I am spending my middle age reading drivel about beliefs that have no basis in fact. This seems a total waste of time. I could be reading books about real things instead.
[2] Theologians canât write. A lot of what they have to say is postmodern or obscure bafflegab, and Iâm starting to believe that this obscurantism is deliberate because of reason 3 (below). I have for example, just opened my book (An Introduction to Christian Theology, edited by Roger A. Badham) to a random chapter, which turned out to be âProcess theology and the current church struggleâ by John B. Cobb, Jr. (Process theology holds that god is not immutable but changes over time, and so does his creation, not totally under his direction.) And there I find this, in a discussion of Alfred North Whitehead (one of the founders of this âschoolâ):
But each occasion transcends the
causality of the past by responding to
it with more or less originality.
This requires that physical
prehensions are supplemented by
âconceptualâ ones. Thus, in addition
to prehending past events, an occasion
also takes account of possibilities
ingredient in those events or closely
related to them. Just how it relates
these possibilities to the actualities
it feels is its âdecision.â That
means that in a situation that is
inherently indeterminate, there is a
determinate outcome Other
possibilities are cut off.Believe me, the book contains paragraphs far more obscure and pretentious than this one. Can you imagine reading this stuff night after night? Do you see why my head feels about to explode? Eric, why are you doing this to me?
Read on [From Why am I reading theology? – Jerry Coyne – WEIT]
I’ve debated with religionists online sometimes, and it doesn’t take long before they start ‘speaking in tongues’ đ Pure gibberish. And they don’t seem to realise it. Must be a brain thing.
A Dance With Dragons
I probably won’t have finished my reread by the time this arrives. I’m spoiler free but if you haven’t read all the published volumes the following speculation is spoilery since it’s about who is alive at the start of the new volume and who might not be at the end đ
June 22, 2011
A Game of Thrones
After the awesome finale of the TV show Game of Thrones I started rereading the books to get up to speed for the fifth volume which comes out in a few weeks. So far on rereading for the first time after nearly five years it’s remarkable how closely the TV series hewed to the first book, A Game of Thrones. Lines of dialogue were lifted exactly from the book, and many others just shortened a little.
Much closer than any other adaptation I can think of, and the better for it.
June 4, 2011
Apple vs. Wintel
Nice catch from MacDailyNews: as of the close of market today, Apple is worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined. And some tasty claim chowder on this Bill Gates quote from June 1998, regarding Steve Jobsâs return to Apple as CEO:
âWhat I canât figure out is why he [Steve Jobs] is even trying? He knows he canât win.â
According to Wolfram Alpha, using their mean market caps for the entire month of June 1998 (it was a volatile month amidst the boom), the Wintel combination was worth $339 billion, vs. $3.5 billion for Apple. Put another way, Microsoft and Intel combined were worth 96 times more than Apple then. Since then, you get this.
[From Apple vs. Wintel] via daringfireball