God on Facebook

From College Humour Visit them here

The British Humanist Society take a stand .. probably.

Well this a start I suppose :-)

It is almost definitely maybe making a stand what what we probably are sure about sort of.

I love the quote frm Christian Voice's spokestwonk Steve Green

"Bendy-buses, like atheism, are a danger to the public at large

Hey if that is the level of my danger to the public I feel a lot better! I have always been told that I am a "servant of Satan" but it seems I may be a "Servant of Volvo"

A bit of a rant - Faith Healing

It has been at least a couple of months since I have had a rant and today I will rectify that as I am monumentally pissed off and I have a feeling I may really "go off on one", so consider this a warning and if rants about religion are not your thing don't read the bit in the box below!.

Here we go..
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that I sometimes get a bit cross about not so much "religion" but "religious people". My last rant was about a certain MLA (like an MP but a Northern Irish version) who believes that being Gay in the eyes of God and humanity is comparable to Child Molestation and Murder. This MP is the chairperson of the Health Committee and remains uncensored and unpunished for such dreadful utterances. This rant is not about her this time, another group of "happy smiley people" have raised my ire.

Every Saturday for the last year or so a local church group have set up chairs, speakers and a big banner in the centre of town. This is a large blue banner claiming "HEALING" in large white letters, soothing music plays in the background and lots and lots of leaflets like the one opposite are handed out by "Happy Smiley People"

There are usually only a few HSP leafleting but today there were dozens of them! Some of which would not take a polite "no thank you" as a reply. But it is not my discomfort at their antics that I am ranting about today.

You can click on the image above .. but for those not bothered the leaflet says ...
"Need Healing? God can heal you today!
Do you suffer from Back pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction,Cancer, Ulcers, Depression,Allergies, Fribomyalgia,Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, or other sickness? We'd love to pray for your healing right now!"
... It continues ...
"God loves you and can heal you from any sickness today"
... and concludes ...
"You have nothing to lose, except your sickness!"

Quite frankly this is appalling! Where I to set up in a similar way and give away "Purple Pixie Dust" making the claim that "Purple Pixie Dust can heal you form any sickness today". I would be taken away by the local constabulary and told in no uncertain manner to cease and desist. Yet Saturday after Saturday there they are under their HEALING banner extolling something that has the same efficacy as my imaginary Pixie dust.

J'accuse - Reeling in the sick with well chosen words.

Now lets be clear here, they specifically ask if you have "Back pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction,Cancer," etc , and then claim "... can heal you from any sickness today". This is not a claim that God MIGHT heal you. This is a claim that God CAN heal you and not tomorrow or the next daty.. but today! As there is a time frame mentioned this adds to the implication that it will happen today. For example "I can fix your computer today" would be taken by 99% of people to mean "I will fix your computer today". There are very very few people, if any at all , that would believe I meant "I might fix your computer today"

To most people the verb "to heal" means to make healthy or restore to health and to be free from ailment. Their claim is "to heal" so the public is more than justified in expecting that they will be made free from illness and returned to health.

For misleading the sick - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME

J'accuse - Peddling the fantasy of efficacy to the sick

Now before I am accused of being "anti-god" I am not! The published claim on the leaflet ".. can heal you from any sickness today" I am not disputing at this time the existence of God what I am disputing is the claim that by whatever method actual measurable things will happen today. There is zero supporting evidence on the leaflet and only anecdotal "Oh I saw [someone] cured of [something] " evidence.
Which is fine but when I inquired about the "Morbidity and Mortality" figures which any orthodox treatment or medical practice would have, I was met with blank looks. M&M statistics record the details of both the successes and the failures. These are very important for the continued development of treatments and ability of a Doctor to give an accurate prognosis but sadly missing from this group's mindset.
Would you feel safe if a doctor treated you on the basis of his cleaning lady telling him"Oh I saw another doctor in a different practice do this and it works".

Were there even the slightest shred of truth in this claim or any noticeable efficacy on the ill why is the NHS not rushing people to the prayer ward rather than ICU? Why do the legions of oncologists not prescribe prayer as the cure for cancer before starting chemotherapy or radiotherapy? The answer to both these questions is because "prayer therapy" to whatever supernatural entity has never had any demonstrable effect! It is simple market forces.

People want to be well
When they are ill they want to get better
They go to the place most likely to make them better

If prayer therapy had any demonstrable, reliable, repeatable effect people would go "Oh that works really well" and all of a sudden we wouldnt need the hospitals we have now.

People have voted with their feet with the option that works most of the time.

For peddling this fantasy of efficacy as truth - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

J'accuse - Gross Medical Ignorance and Misconduct

Before I am accused of ignorance of my chosen subject I was a nurse for many years before becoming a geek and I come from a family of Doctors, Nurses and Therapists so I am very familiar with medicine. Should this group ever have taken an interest in the ethics of orthodox medicine they might have come across the medical bon mot, primum nil nocere (First do no harm) or the more recent addition "and to avoid attempting to do things that other specialists can do better"

They do not do a review of your medical history, they do no diagnostic tests, they sit you down, accept what you are telling them at face value and then ask an invisible supernatural being to make the illness go away. That is all there is, no more no less.
And this in my opinion is dangerous.

For example a man approaches the group one Saturday and presents himself to be cured of Asthma. Unknown to the people praying he is suffering from a psychotic disorder, one of the symptoms of which is very low self image. The prayers don't work. The patient is then left wondering why the treatment did not work or worked with less than a total cure. Since he has low self image he naturally blame themselves rather than God or the people praying for the failure, thus reinforcing his own pathology and making him worse! How does this fit in with primum nil nocere. Do these agents of a supernatural healing entity even care that this might be the case? Do they do even a rudimentary medical check of who they are treating? Are they treating someone with Münchhausen's syndrome? Are they aware that when treating a person with sore shin for pain they in fact may need to be treating for cancer as the pain is caused by a spinal tumour in the sacral area?

It certainly appears they do not!

Do they wash their hands between patients as anyone with half a notion of basic hygiene would do?

It certainly appears from my observation that they do not. I do hope none of the patients has MRSA or C.Difficile!

HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

J'accuse - willfully making a spectacle of the sick in their time of need.

Do they treat the person with the respect and dignity they deserve by treating them in private out of the public gaze. You would expect a doctor, nurse or even an agent of "WooWoo" magic like a homeopathic practitioner to do?

No they do not!

You are perhaps desperate for relief so you sit down on a chair in the center of town on a crowed Saturday morning and allow yourself to be surrounded by people who lay hands on you and pray. In doing so you become the focus of the attention of not only the people praying, but of the passing public who can if they so desire watch as the patients sit clutching their handout hoping that they will be the case that proves the claim for a cure today just like the handout implies.

Like some awful form of "Big Brother" or "X Factor" the town center has for 3 hours on a Saturday become "Coleraine's Got Diseases!" I half expect a preacher with a microphone to declaim "Debbie with the Arthritis in your knees COOOMEEEE ON DOWN!"

For treating the people in need of help with less decency and dignity than a carnival show man. HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!
If you have not realised that the people who come to you for help are regarded as objects of public spectacle. HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!
If you are doing it deliberately you are without doubt loathsome attention seeking whores who use the sick for your own proselytizing purposes - HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME!

Is it just me? Am I the only one that finds this horribly wrong and a ghastly abuse of those in need of real help and medical support?

I think that you (the group) should

a) WASH YOUR HANDS BETWEEN PATIENTS if not for their sake for your own!

b) At least pay lip service to the fact that you could potentially be causing harm and offer proper non-religious medical counseling for the cases that God chooses not to cure

c) Take the process of praying inside NOW and allow their "patients" the dignity of privacy afforded by every orthodox medical practice and the lion's share of the alternate ones too.

d) Be considerably more honest about the prognosis in your leaflet.

"We will pray for your healing, however while we believe that God can cure you, this claim has not be substantiated by the same rigorous methods and standards you demand from other medical practitioners. These methods and standards are enshrined in law for your protection - we do not offer these standards as part of our service.

Indeed it would be dishonest of us to say that God Will Cure You. Likelwise we do not mean to suggest in any way that a cure will happen today or in fact any time soon. God may or may not help you or he may help you in a way that you don't expect, (this may include death - we just can't say at this time). In short we just don't know if this will work for you.

If you do get better we reserve the right to claim that our prayers cause it but should you not be healed or get worse ... well we are sorry but God moves in mysterious ways. These ways may seem entirely arbitrary but we just don't know the mind of God. Please don't ask for the number of people who were NOT cured today as we don't appear to know that either. We don't keep medical records like other more orthodox medical practitioners so we don't know which prayers work best if at all.

***PLEASE NOTE*** God at this time chooses not cure amputees or people afflicted with genetic disorders"

This would at least be a more honest approach! Oh and while I am on "honest approaches" One would hope that the earthly agents of a supreme being would at least aspire to honesty. But I now know this is not the case, I was approached by a group from the same church whilst out for a walk by the river not long ago. They approached me initially saying they were on a "treasure hunt" and needed my assistance in finding some of the stuff on their list. However after some beating around the bush what they REALLY wanted was to find out if I had any illnesses.
Yes one of the items on their list was
"DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE ILLNESSES..."
I was gob-smacked at the temerity of it!
The group consisted of 5 or 6 some of whom where young children, such a good example of "ethical" religion at work, but hey! it is lying for their buddy Jesus and that makes it fam-dabby-fecking dozy!

If I complain, which I have, there is an inertia inherent in the powers-that-be to get involved in something to do with "religion" the police believe it to be a council matter and the council believe it to be a police matter. So I am left with having to cope with a status quo that stinks of all that is wrong with religion.

Because I don't know about it therefore it doesnt exist

Gentle reader I was challenged the other day by a passing "person of faith". In the summer we have have a plethora of missions one of which "New Horizon" had as a guest speaker this year Dr John Lennox Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist. This has had the side effect that we now have "people of faith" who now have a scientist who can be waved at recalcitrant heathens like my self as proof that both god exists and there is a scientist that can prove it.

Now I have no great problem with Dr Lennox he is a fine mathematician, he writes a good book, I may not agree with what he says but he is being horribly misrepresented by those that listened, well I assumed they listened but I feel very probably they didn't. (If you are interested there was a very good debate here between Dr Lennox and Professor Richard Dawkins)

According to the book waver who accosted me as an out an proud atheist, it was ALL explained by Dr Lennox. The world's beginning is explained by the bible Dr Lennox and he is a scientist says so. Evolution doesn't exist Dr Lennox and he is a scientist says so... are you seeing a pattern develope here? To cut a long story short what I was challenged to was "how could the universe be created out of nothing". Now I have no answer for that but I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of what is going on, but for some time there has been head scratching about virtual particles, quantum perturbation, Willis Lamb in 1955 proved the existence of virtual particles that appear out of "nothing" (He got the nobel prize for it) He was able to show that matter in the form of "virtual particles" pop in existence and whilst cannot be observed directly their effects can be seen and measured. These virtual particles appear because of quantum perturbation. Now there is a theory that posits the "big bang" was in fact a massive quantum perturbation where there was more virtual matter than virtual antimatter created so there was a "bang" of sorts and because there was more matter our Universe was the matter that was left behind. I am not pushing this as truth, the maths that promotes this is very hard and I don't pretend to understand all of it. However I have given it the time of day and as we as a species learn more and do more experiments the balance of probability will push one theory of what happened more than another and I will watch this with interest. But there is very little to gain in the static world of the supernatural explanation. I have no interest in a following a supernatural reason because it never changes.

But I was told this is totally wrong and instantly dismissable because "Dr Lennox didn't mention it at all and he is a scientist and nobody I know has heard about it but you" Now to me this means "because I don't know about it therefore it doesn't exist" and this is meant to convince me?

~sigh~

Blasphemy - The ticket to hell has never been funnier

A word of warning .. the image below is rather blasphemous so if such things annoy you please don't click on it, for I would not like to offend. Well not often.

I was sent this today. and it kinda tickled my fancy.

Irreverence to door step evangelists

Over on Panagenda's Blog there is a post about a visit he had from the Jehovah's Witness it sounds as if Florian gave the man a polite but firm dismisal. Sadly gentle reader when they come to the front door of the McDonagh clan they seldom get quite what they expected. Over the past 25 years there have been many visits and for a while I thought they (the JW's) had created a special "Bring enlightenment to the Pagans Wing" but perhaps I was just getting a tad paranoid. To start with a simple firm "no thank you" was enough but it would seem that there was a clip board somewhere with a check box against my address that put me on the "re visit - a lot" list.

Now to be fair, as a devout agnostic I allow for the existence of all deities even the Flying spaghetti Monster so I generally make it a rule to tolerate those of faith as long as they don't start appearing on my doorstep, uninvited and start spouting whatever brand of absolute truth their particular deity is fond of. It becomes, in my eyes anyway, a sort of in your face spiritual spam which sadly Messagelabs can do nothing about. After all I don't appear in the JWs services and start singing "The Internationale" and quoting Nietzsche. Although the thought has crossed my mind. The crunch came one day when a JW, his wife and assorted little JWs appeared at the door. A JW posse intent on once and for all convincing me that Jehovah, like Persil, would wash my soul a more dazzling blueish white than the combined forces of Methodism, Presbyterianism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism or Islam. Being told by a 10 year old that the world was about to end and that an eternity of teeth gnashing, torment and being made to administer Exchange 5.5 for "old nick" was the straw that broke the camel's back. The conversation went something like this... (names changed to protect the guilty)

JW Minor (approx 10 years old) handing me a leaflet.. Good afternoon. Can we talk to you about the future?

Me .. No thank you

JW Minor .. It is really very important you know your soul could depend on it.

Me .. No honestly I would rather not.

Daddy JW incredulously.. You are not worried about the fate of your eternal soul?

Me .. No not in the slightest.

Daddy JW .. Ah you must be saved then?

Me .. No, but i was talking to god last Wednesday and she didn't mention anything about it.

Mummy JW .. [GASPS]

Me .. I am a Follower of Daanau. My family tree is ancient and we trace our roots back to the Tuatha De Dannan. Every Wedensday we meet in an oak grove beside the river and have a bit of a bonfire, drink mead and sing songs. If she feels like it Daanau comes down and has a bit of a chat and lets us know what she would like us to do, not do and what her plans are. You are more than welcome to come along, she likes to meet new people and she is intimately acquainted with your Jehovah. Although she says he can be a bit morose at times always wanting to smite things, appear in burning bushes or send out gangs angels with burning swords. She told us that the world is not going to end any time soon unless we do it ourselves. The future, it seems, is in our own hands.

Daddy JW who has gone a bit pink .. Blasphemy!!

Me .. It is always a good thing when you come to the self realization of your own ideological failings.

Daddy JW .. Not me, YOU .. there is only one god and he is Jehovah!

Me .. Nonsense there are LOADS of gods, the Hindu's have millions which can make prayers quite long. I have accepted the fact that Jehovah exists and paid him no disrespect so how can you consider that blasphemy? Are you saying that Jehovah in the past did not smite, appear in burning bushes or send out angels with firey swords? Is Daanau mistaken in her character assessment?

Daddy JW ... errrrrrrr

Me .. I am finding this conversation rather hard at the minute because when we talk about Daanau we should really be naked. It is a hard and fast part of our religion.So could i ask you to step inside and remove your clothes if we are to continue in this vein.

Daddy JW .. I WILL NOT!

Me .. Now come on that is a bit rich. You come to my door uninvited and expect me to listen to you tell me a god i have have met and talked to doesn't exist and you aren't willing to respect my sincerely held religious beliefs in the furtherance of your aim to save my soul. Sorry that is just a little bit hypocritical. However I will let that pass. I however will have to take my clothes off ....

I start to unbutton my shirt. I get as far as the third button when ...

Daddy JW .. Stop! There are children present I cannot allow this! I think we had better leave now.

They turn en mass and scurry down the drive

Me .. OK not a problem, but I have to say the Mormons were much more accommodating, they had a cup of tea, a ginger biccie and a nice chat.


I have never had another visit. Do I feel guilty about the disrespect I paid this family and their beliefs? No i don't , they threw me the ball and I simply hit it in a different direction to what they were used to. You don't want that to happen ... don't throw me the ball.

Burning question - is being follical challenged on the pate and gifted on the chin part of the requirement to be considered a "guru" ?

BleedYellow's Sametime server is a wonderful thing especially since you can have a peek and what all the movers and shakers have decorated their faces with. (Ladies are of course are exempt this observation). I am having a gander at the fizzogs on there right now and there appears to be a rising number of those being in possession of a "roof from the which the snow will slide easily" (so to speak) and some form of hirsute facial fancy whether it be a beard, tache, goatee or just long nose hair.

I don't think there is an ipso facto rule here, just a growing preponderance towards facial adornment in the upper echelons of the black belted dominoista's,. A notable exception would be Chris Blatnik. Well the chap that extols us to design clean UI's would probably not want to have a cluttered face so he can be excused on the grounds of the doctrine of signatures (that and his has note from his boss).

Likewise Mr Brill, given his recent comments on a recent post, where it all got a bit ... well ... hot and heavy ... is probably better off because it looks unbecoming for the arch prelate of all things Lotusy to have spittle caught on his beard. Not that I am suggesting in any way Mr Brill got excited during the exchanges, indeed he was a paragon of restraint! However other combatant's fingers were waggled in his direction with some force and it would seem that words were sprayed rather than said.... but I digress

The likes of Mr Duffbert , Mr Davis , Mr Grasso , Mr Banderhoff, both Mr McDonaghs, the tartan clad Mr Buchan and many many others all have wonderfully coiffured facial hair.

We are the members of the previously ultra secret FHLGO (Facially Hirsute Lotus Guru Organization) and unlike Workplace we aren't going away! So you men who prefer to purvey your geekiness in a hairless and baby-bum-esque way. Prepare for Lotus Guru 2.1! Lock up your wives and daughters, set phasers to "shave", the Beards and mustaches are coming and WE ARE "HAIRY"

Steve
Spokes-tache for the FHLGO!

The "My Album Cover" meme

I have been following the "My Album Cover" meme that was doing the rounds a few months ago, and it occurred to me that there must be some truly weird but REAL album covers out there and yes true enuff there are .. here are just a couple I have found.
The rather cheerily titled Freddie Gage Opus, the first in the "It is perfectly OK to wear white socks and shoes" 6 record Box Set.


And the unforgettable classic now digitally remastered and reissued as "want a sweetie little boy?"

The number of the beast - and i am it (well today anyway)

No this is not another heretical rant about things religious ... just I now have the number of the beast on Planet Lotus .. Bugger the Free Presbie Pastor was right I AM the beast! :)

BTW Thank you all for reading my blog :)

Steve

Never ask an Irish man to tell you his deep and sensitive thoughts.

There is a very good reason for the title of this Blog entry.. you should never ask this question of an Irish male because generally he wont have any .. well that is not strictly true, he will have but they will be mainly deep and sensitive thoughts about himself.

The idea for this wandering thought came to me in the post match thirst-quenching session . (The match in question was Ireland vs Scotland 6-nations rugby .. we won .. sorry Bill) There we were, maintaining the fiction that should the Irish Rugby Football Union have rung we would have stubbed out or ciggies, downed the last dregs of our current pint, thrown on the green jersey and taken to the field and shown those young whippersnappers how rugby should be played. The conversation turned to the current captain and official Irish-"tottie magnet"-in-chief Brian O'Driscoll and how it would be rather nice to be him for a few days. A general consensus was reached that yes it would be rather fun. One of our number, a single gentleman, articulate, bright and relatively rich was the only dissenting voice. Had he pranged his Porsche? Was he not able to fit in his skiing trip to the Alps this year? Had his portfolio sustained substantial losses?
No, twas his girlfriend....
"She is clever than me" he told us, grimacing into his Guinness, "She earns more money that me. she's more interesting that me. She can explain the offside rule in soccer and damn it she is hornier than me! ... So sod being Brian O'Driscoll I would much rather be a woman!"

The world turns and the weird just gets weirder.

An embarrassing lapse into adolescent bad behavior

One of these days I will post about something Notes'y but apart from having just upgraded to V8.01 on two of our 15 server and a host of clients, which was remarkable in in unremarkabilty. I fear that is more a comment on the ease of upgrade than on any professionalism on my part.Not, I hasten to add that myself and my team are not professional at all times (just in case any management types are reading this).

To the topic in hand or at least in the title above ... I am a heathen, heretic and potential spawn of Satan to many up here in Northern Ireland. Which is odd, because were I the fruit of Beelzebub's loins I wouldn't believe in my father which could lead to certain Freudian problems in by psyche.

Psychiatrist: Well Mr McDonagh did you love your parents?
Me: Well no, my father was the first lord of Sheol, Guardian of Gehana and nemesis of Jesuits everywhere. But as there is no such thing as hell or demons my father is a logical impossibility and therefore so am I.

I can hear the little cash registers go KERCHING as I type this.

I digress ....

Needless to say I am not demon spawn even if the local pastor of the Free Presbyies may think that I am. I am merely an "Evangelical Agnostic" spreading the good word of being un-convinced of the benefits of bathing in blood of the lamb or the probity of a wrathful god, talking snakes, the occasional talking donkey and chatty if inflammatory shrubbery.

A conversation at lunch yesterday turned from EDI to things spiritual and I was asked was I saved ....Rather than answer yes or no, I made he mistake of pointing out to the "more-convinced-person-of-belief-than-me" person that he was, as a percentage, more of an atheist than I am. Since I am officially unconvinced I give the benefit for the doubt to Ahura Mazda, Brahma , Al'lah, Daanau, Odin and the plethora of other deities. Whereas he denies the existence all of them with the exception of his brand of celestial CEO. This basically makes him 99.9999% atheist and me 50%.

This was of course said with my tongue (both ends of the fork) jammed firmly in my cheek. However for some reason, his reply that I was destined to spend eternity in a lake of fire with tearing out of hair and gnashing of teeth (teeth will be provided for those dentally challenged - like me and most other rugby forwards). This reply, which normally follows such flippancy, for some reason rankled more than normal. I am sorry to say I got on my high horse and things got perhaps a little too heated. He was only a young chap and the sort of critical thought I was espousing was perhaps not something he had come across before certainly not at the speed and with the vehemence I used.

As a result last night I did feel rather bad about the grilling I gave him. T'was then I recognized that I had reverted just for 5 minutes back to the adolescent hot headed oaf I thought I had left behind in the early 70's .... I apologized privately this morning.

Hey ho ... I am adding be "more tolerant" to my list of new years resolutions even though it is nearly the end of Feb.

JavaSlabber (tm)

Bout Ya!

A lovely Sunday morning the sun shines and there is a warmth to the proceedings that hints at springness. :) Being involved in the arts (on an amateur basis) I was having a look at some arts related sites and came across this...

Apen Discoorse

Tha Airts Cooncil o Norlin Airlann haes trystit a Wechtin an Waants Spierin o tha Airts o Airisch an Ulstèr-Scotch. A hinnèrmaist Fynnin is jist new gat an ower tha monds incumin, tha Cooncil is fur pittin ower tha fynnins tae tha Airisch an Ulstèr-Scotch leid shaidins tha baith, forbye tae tha hale feck o resydentèrs.

The’r fur fettlin a rin o gaitherins fur apen discoorse an tha Cooncil is fur awnin straucht wi tha effeirin curns an boadies thir lane. Wurd o thae gaitherins wull be gien oot wi advert?semenn forbye.

Tha Cooncil wud be hairt-gled o aa scrievit repones tae tha Fynnin gin Frideh 15 Uptober 2004.

Ye’ll can hae scrows o tha fu Fynnin, forbye tha Throchin Jimp Wittins in Airisch an Ulstèr-Scotch, frae www.artscouncil-ni.org (PDF) ur frae tha awnin boadie condescendit oan ablow. Gin ye spier, ye’ll can hae this rede in tha follaein lay-oots forbye: Bäg Prent, Computèr Däsk, Soon Tape an Braille.

We’d be ableeged gin ye’d lat ken gin ye wad hae a fen furtae inpit a repone.

Now you may be wondering if this is in English well it is and it isnt. This is the "offical" Ulster-Scots dialect that we heathen northern irish speak. Not the soft brogue of the Paul Mooney's nor the casually rolled R's of Will Bill Buchan's of the world. This is proper spak nane o this nansence spak forby heddins.

It has long been my aim to port javascript to Ulster-Scots and coming across this has stiffened my resolve to move this one step further to realization. JavaSlabber V1.0 is now officially in developement!

Slaun!

Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

Was broswing the TED web site ... and came across this lecture by Howard Rheingold. I read his book Smart Mobs back in 2003 and as a modern "prophet" he saw the advent of Web 2.0 ... however before I start waffling on let me (like Duffbert) recommend the book.I would give it 4 out of 5*'s.

This lecture isn't directly about what we as Domino geeks do, but it is a very pleasant and challenging 20 minutes and perhaps does have ripples that will affect us in our chosen professional niche.

Go have a listen, you can down load it for your iPod on this page to. Got to Here

If you haven't come across the TED website I also cannot recommend it highly enough!
These others i found interesting too.

Jeff Han's Mutli Touch Interface

Golan Levin's Scribble

Jeff Bezon on Innvovation

Enjoy

Favourite Heretical Quotes #1

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." -Mark Twain

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." -Nietzsche

"To believe is to know that one believes, and to know that one believes is no longer to believe." -Sartre

"If Stavrogin believes, he does not think he believes. If he does not believe, he does not think he does not believe." -Dostoevsky

"If your faith is opposed to experience, to human learning and investigation, it is not worth the breath used in giving it expression." -Edgar Watson Howe


"For while I am opposed to all orthodox creeds, I have a creed myself, and my creed is this. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but is long enough for this life; long enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed. But this creed certainly will do for this life." Robert Ingersoll

"Sunday School: A prison where children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents." HL Mencken

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth." -Umberto Eco

and my personal favourite ...
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire

More Heresy from the Evangelical Agnostic

Ho Hum, the weekend again so it is time for another EA rant.
The Title of this one is...
"dearly beloved god gave you a mind use it or your CHURCH will do your thinking for you".
oops no thats a sermon for another day.... when I am really neurked by the God-Botherers and Tooth Fairy-ites.

This rant was inspired by the fact that Pope "Bendydick" cannonised our first Irish Saint for a long long time. Blessed Charles of Mount Argus has been hanging around in the saints green room since he popped his saintly clogs (he was born Dutch) in 1893. He got his "Blessed" in 1988 by JPII and now he is the full monty, a REAL saint who can become in the fullness of time a "Patron"

I wonder what he will be the patron saint of .... carburettors perhaps or those strange "splorks" you get at BBQs... you know the thing half spoon half fork.. yes the patron saint of splork-use has a certain cachet. I wouldn't mind being the Patron Saint of Splork-Use.. or perhaps the Patron of non-offensive body odour ? Hmmmm

havent we enuff saints? No-one seems to know how many.. some say 10,000 others 3,000 but HEY you can never be too thin, too rich or have too many saints!

Evangelical Agnostisism

Yes I am an agnostic and I am here to spread the good news of "not knowing"!

Basically I think of it like this, if you are a member of a "faith" based religion then you don't believe in 99.99999999999999% of the other available gods, goddesses and assorted tooth-fairies. Since I as an Evangelical Agnostic don't know whether any of them exist and I am willing to give them all the benefit of the doubt.Then you, if you are a member of a faith based religion, are considerably more of an atheist that I am.

I can go to bed happy.

Steve