Why Do We Need Religion?

I used to think that the world would be much better off without organized religion. In many ways I still do.

In the past few years, however, I have talked to many people, religious and nonreligious, people who both have a good "ethical compass" (not to be confused with a "moral compass," which is entirely different and arguably does not exist) and those with little or no ethics at all. The common thread I found was that people who are "inherently" ethical were raised by caring parents, and those who had a weak sense of ethics were raised in uncaring settings. Many of the latter group were highly religious and depended on religion as a crutch to prevent themselves from lapsing into unethical practices.

Generally, people who were raised by parents who did not practice strict or harsh discipline or corporal punishment, but rather took the time to explain why something was right or wrong to the children and trusted them enough to listen and understand ended up not needing this religious crutch. Many of the latter group of people also were highly motivated to learn about the world around them as a result of being trusted and treated as knowledgeable by their parents.

So at least in part, it looks to me like Harry Harlow was right, and people with "wire monkey" parents are socially stunted. They cannot internalize the social contract enough to get along. They need religion as a crutch to keep them in line.

Flying A Cessna 150

Funnest. Thing. Ever.

Wow. My friend Mike took me for a ride in a Cessna 152 a few weeks ago, and ever since then I have had the uncontrollable urge to want to learn to fly. Maybe it is my learning/knowledge addiction, and maybe it is my genes (three grandparents and two aunts who fly, my grandfather flew PB-Ys and Martin Mariners in WWII) but I need to fly. I signed up and took my intro flight on Sunday at IOW, the Iowa City Municipal Airport. I took off, climbed, did various angles of coordinated turns, descents and flew over my house. Then it was time to head back, so I pointed the plane at the airport and flew back. The CFI commented, "you have a really good sense of direction." We did the downwind, base and final legs. I had a lot of help with the landing from my instructor, but I think I probably did 40-60% of the work landing.

Now I have to go and spend some money on an FAA 3rd class medical exam, a headset (I already bought a bunch of books) and other pilot supplies. Luckily Mike has a ground instructor rating so he is helping me with the ground study.

I had been looking for a challenge for a while. I already have a huge internal knowledgebase relating to my job, and going to graduate school in that area is not really possible at this time- there aren't really any Ph.D. programs in "sys admin." MIS does not interest me, and various industry certifications are kind of like the Hamburger U of the IT world. I don't really feel like working in a cube farm all day cranking out code and having to compete with low-paid outsourced geniuses from the Indian subcontinent, so a CS degree is right out. Other than IT and photography, there is really no reason for me to go to graduate school. So, I think the challenge of studying and practicing as a student pilot will be a good way for me to feed the need for knowledge.

I recommend this to anyone who feels they want a challenge of this type. I can't wait to solo.

2008 Jetta TDI!

The 2008 Jetta TDI has been spotted! This is great news, because there are no 2007 VW diesels in this country, due to emissions regulations. Looks like they figured out how to get them to put out less NOx and particulate with 50ppm fuel, without using urea. Also, they look like they are using the 2.0l common rail TDI, with 140hp and 240lb*ft torque!!! Cool!!!

Music

I ordered an M-Audio Axiom 49 MIDI controller from Sweetwater the other day. That, combined with some interesting tools and GarageBand, should be a fun thing to experiment with on my Mac. here is my first loop.

SHOCKER: Steve Jobs Pretends To Invent Volume Shadow Copy

Surprise, surprise, Steve Jobs is claiming that Apple invented Volume Shadow Copy, a feature that has been in Windows since Server 2003. And, of course, in the same breath, he manages to insult Microsoft by accusing Vista of copying OS X 10.2. Ha! Just because you put a pretty picture of a galaxy or something on your version control system does not mean you invented it.

Needless to say, I will still buy a Mac Pro Woodcrest dual dual 2.66GHz box at some point here.

Fun Directory Serivces Command Line

The domain admins where I work called me asking me to somehow identify and remove any workstations in the "Workstations" OU that might be mine. So I whipped up a "little" one liner. You will need to modify this if you want to use it for your own mystery workstation removal task. You'll also need the Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools.

for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %A in (`cmd /c "dsquery computer ou=workstations,dc=your,dc=domain,dc=org -name *"`) do (cmd /c "dsacls %A | qgrep -l your_account" && dsrm %A -noprompt -u yourdomain\your_account -p "removedformyviewingpleasure")


GRRRRR Steve Jobs Is A &$%*@!

This story could also be called another reason why Macs do require IT people for support.

After more than a decade of not owning a Mac (I was in Linux land for six years, and my current job involves being a Microsoft slut) I came back to Apple land with the purchase of a new 15.4" MacBook Pro. The machine is great- I love it, it runs both OS X Tiger and Vista which I need to have on there for work.

The laptop worked great plugged in, but then I got it home and it was discharged from being used without the power plugged in for a while. So I plugged the MagSafe connector in, and the notebook (Apple claims it's "not a laptop" if you call them about this issue...) immediately became unusably hot. It left a red mark on my leg. To be fair, I had heard horror stories about the MagSafe not being quite so safe after all. But after my totally positive iPod nano experience I had faith in Steve. This faith was misplaced. A friend of mine refers to him as The Old Dirty Bastard, apparently with good reason.

Luckily there is extensive documentation of this issue. The ODB has tried to threaten Something Awful for posting pictures of the service manual for the MacBook Pro, which shows the recommended slathering of thermal grease, which is way too much.

So I resigned myself to having to dissect my MacBook Pro. It took me four hours, but I finally discovered absurd amounts of what could only be described as nonconductive gray wax on the three conductive pads of the heat pipes, and the cores of the video, northbridge and CPU. I'm amazed the northbridge actually still works- the glob of wax was half on and half off of the core, and the half of the core that was exposed was discolored! So I scraped that crap off of the cores and the heat pipe, and applied a thin, even layer of nice silver bearing thermal compound to the cores. It took me another two hours to put everything back together, but it works and it now runs much cooler.

Thanks, Apple, way to think differently.

BONUS UPDATE
Cook an egg on your MacBook! This guy prefaces this as a joke. Rest assured, you could actually do this.

The New F-Word

I am going to be a little hyperbolic here, so bear with me.

If there is one thing I regret about the current US administration, it would have to be overuse of the word "folks." If I never hear that word again, it will be too soon. It's used as if it gives the speaker the magical simultaneous ability to both flagrantly ignore his class in favor of the fake persona of a ranch-workin' cowboy as well as distract people from a real agenda of authoritarian transformation.

Somehow, I feel this word is the root of most, if not all, of what is currently very, very wrong with this country.