C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

I was unable to blog last Sunday due to the fact that I had left my laptop at Jake's house so I thought I would do a quick update for what I have been up to since then.

Pioneer day: drove up to salt lake with mom and Liz  to watch fireworks with Alex and Elisa. ended up watching them in the backyard of a house that Elisa was house-sitting. Afterwards played an enjoyable game of apples to apples with everybody.

School: registered for some classes today but am still unsure exactly what my schedule will look like for the fall. Currently I am registered for a Microbiology class which should be really fun and I am looking forward to taking it (which is something I might reconsider when I am in the thick of it because this class is considered especially rigorous). I am wait listed in two classes that I will have to see if I can get in or not on. One of them is an Anatomy class which is class that I have wanted to take but have been concerned with the workload it expects, also the class that I am wait listed in is a 9am class which is something I would have to consider and weigh against my resolve and motivation to succeed in the class. The second is a Philosophy through Literature which sound really interesting to me and is something I would like to take, however I don't know if I can justify taking it or not. I mean if I already have the self discipline to at least attempt reading philosophical texts on my own what would a class do for me? I realize that being in a class would give more rigor and structure to my learning as well as access to someone knowledgeable in the subject to answer questions with but I don't want to take classes and spend the tuition money on a class that is irrelevant to what I would like to study if I am capable of doing so myself.
Another thing I need to consider when registering is leaving a slot open for a math class for me to take, which could be difficult to get into. I just really hope I can test into a level 1000 or higher class other wise it will mean a whole more semester at UVU instead of the U of U

Math class: have been struggling a little bit in this class but not because I find the material too difficult I just have had a hard time going and managing my day around it. I find it kind of hard to go to the class and sit through a 2 hour lecture when I feel like the most important thing I need is practice with the material and not so much instruction. Also I find it hard to be expected to not use a calculator for many of the concepts in the class when I know that in my following classes I will be allowed to use one, but I suppose it is all for the better because I really  do need the practice with  my computation and arithmetic skills

I Pledge Allegiance

Getting caught in a rainstorm on the way home make you wonder if life is all about staying dry

If current trends continue internet servers will consume more power than air travel

Ugh I have been sleeping all day. I feel horrible. Being so backwards is so frustrating.

It must make me look pretty strange when I hop on facebook and consider posting or liking a comment and only then realise that I would be posting at 4:40am and decide against posting because it would show that for whatever reason I was not only awake but on facebook at such an absurd hour

Woo! Rockin dance party, all danced out for a while

We Could Have Had the Moon, Instead We Get Afghanistan

*Introducing the Google+ Start-Up Guide* ...

Introducing the Google+ Start-Up Guide I have been having the same conversation with many of the friends I invite over from Facebook. They are having a hard time figuring out how everything here works. Google+, I realize, is a concept that is a bit hard to grasp. It's a blend between Twitter and Facebook, private and public. There are no friend requests or even friends. Just people. People you circle and who circle you, and depending on what they think about you they share more or less with you. The end result, is a post that is more meaningful and relevant. You can scale a post based on what the appropriate audience is. You can share messages with a circle, multiple circles, or even people directly (or even emails). All this is new, and new things always scare people. Naturally we are people who are against change. We resist change because change requires energy, whether it be physical or mental. But as history can attest to, we need change. I have seen many guides out there that attempt to lower the learning curve but no one wanted to go read a multi-page article about how to use a social network. And so I decided to give it a try, with a short presentation instead, almost like an intro video. I have been spending the whole summer freelancing as a full time job and wanted to use my design and user experience skills toward a fun side project that would let me go crazy. I wanted to create something that tells you only the bare minimum of what you need to know to get started and something that is easy to digest. Over the past week, what started as a small side project became my main project. This presentation is my attempt at lowering the energy required for change. (Hope all the work pays off) I would love this guide to become "The Guide" all the new folks see. Let's make this this spread like wildfire! If you got improvements please send them my way and I will credit you in version 2. Cheers. +Cy :) P.S. I got the idea of using G+ as a slideshow from +Vincent Wong's awesome presentation.If +Guy Kawasaki or +Robert Scoble is listening, you guys would be rockstars for sharing this! The Google+ Start-Up Guide (49 photos) View or comment on Andrew Ungerman's post » The Google+ project makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real-life. Join Google+

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9 billion people+1 planet=?

This discussion explores the promise and perils of thenext 50 years. Can humanity, heading toward a population of approximatley 9 billion, advance economically without overheating the planet? Can food and water supplies be sustained without erasing what's left of wild nature?

Space Shuttle: The complete missions -- by Nature Video

Excerpt from Contact by Carl Sagan

Like doctors and lawyers, the vendors of religion rarely criticize one another's wares,Joss observed. But one night he attended services at the new Church of God, Crusader, to hear the younger Billy Jo Rankin, triumphantly returned from Odessa, preach to the multitude. Billy Jo enunciated a stark doctrine of Reward, Retribution, and the Rapture. But tonight was a healing night. The curative instrument, the congregation was told, was the holiest of relics-holier than a splinter of the True Cross, holier even than the thigh bone of Saint Teresa of Avila that Generalissimo Francisco Franco had kept in his office to intimidate the pious. What Billy Jo Rankin Brandished was the actual amniotic fluid that surrounded and protected our Lord. The liquid had been carefully preserved in an ancient earthenware vessel that once belonged, so it was said, to Saint Ann. The tiniest drop of it would cure what ails you, he promised, through a special act of Divine Grace. This holiest of holy waters was with us tonight.

Joss was appalled, not so much that Rankin would attempt so transparent a scam but that any of the parishioners were so credulous as to accept it. In his previous life he had witnessed many attempts to bamboozle the public. But that was entertainment. This was different. This was religion. Religion was too important to gloss the truth, much less to manufacture miracles. He took to denouncing this imposture from the pulpit.

Joss argued that in ever religion there was a doctrinal line beyond which it insulted the intelligence of its practitioners. Reasonable people might disagree as to where that line should be drawn, but religions trespassed well beyond it at their peril. People were not fools, he said.

 ***

"The theologians seem to have recognized a special, nonrational--I wouldn't call it
irrational--aspect of the feeling of sacred or holy. They call it 'numinous.' The term was first
used by... let's see... somebody named Rudolph Otto in a 1923 book, The Idea of the Holy. He believed that humans were predisposed to detect and revere the numinous. He called it the misterium tremendum. Even my Latin is good enough for that.
"In the presence of the misterium tremendum, people feel utterly insignificant but, if I read this right, not personally alienated. He thought of the numinous as a thing 'wholly other,' and the human response to it as 'absolute astonishment.'

Now, if that's what religious people talk about when they use words like sacred or holy, I'm with them. I felt something like that just in listening for a signal, never mind in actually receiving it. I think all of science elicits that sense of awe."

"Now listen to this." She read from the text:
Throughout the past hundred years a number of philosophers and social scientists have
asserted the disappearance of the sacred, and predicted the demise of religion. A study of the history of religions shows that religious forms change and that there has never been unanimity on the nature and expression of religion Whether or not man..."Sexists write and edit religious articles, too, of course." She returned to the text.
Whether or not man is now in a new situation for developing structures of ultimate
values radically different from those provided in the traditionally affirmed awareness of the sacred is a vital question.
"So?"
"So, I think the bureaucratic religions try to institutionalize your perception of the numinous instead of providing the means so you can perceive the numinous directly--like looking through a six-inch telescope. If sensing the numinous is at the heart of religion, who's more religious would you say--the people who follow the bureaucratic religions or the people who teach themselves science?"

Twilight festival: The Decemberists

Wow! So much fun! Loads of fun energy. This was much more fun than last week was glad for sure I cam up and was glad to have the fun with my friends. I even went crowd-surfing! It happened faster than I thought it was. Felt like too many people touched me when I was done

The average depth of the Great Salt Lake is only 16 feet with a maximum depth recorded in 1987 of 45 feet. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Salt_Lake

Never let school get in the way of your education

"never let school get in the way of your education"-mark twain

I really like this quote and it's spirit of separating school from education and learning which is something that I think we too closely associate together these days. For me it encourages a more "can do" attitude for me, that if I truly want to lean something I am not bound by the limitations and walls of a classroom to learn it. I strongly feel that in todays hyper competetive and globalized world we must learn and progress with whatever means available (which I also believe are plentiful)
But at the same time it is saddening to come to the realization that, yes despite schools best intentions they do in fact get in the way of educationg and learning. I suppose this is a necessary trade off when leaning and educating moved into the educational instutions and classrooms of our day. I wish there was some way for schools to reconcile the true capacities and aptitudes of students while accomodating the diverse learning styles of students.

What is a cats favorite color? Purrrple.

7 unique and creative uses for Google+

Does Washington have a spending problem or an income problem?

historically high rates of spending and low rates of taxation have combined to produce a chain of deficits that are also the highest since WWII.

"Not since the enormous effort required to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan in WWII has the gap between Washington's spending and its revenues been so large, as a portion of the economy. Then, taxes were increased sharply to pay for the war, but spending increased even faster. In recent years, Washington has increased spending while cutting taxes"

What has produced these huge budget gaps? Tax cuts and wars have been big factors, as have recessions and expanded spending for health care in both Republican and Democratic administrations. For example:

• Income-tax receipts are down sharply since the Bush tax cuts. In fiscal 2000, the year before the cuts began to take effect, receipts from the federal income tax on individuals amounted to 10.2 percent of GDP. That figure was down to 6.2 percent of GDP last year.
• Spending for the military and for homeland security has risen substantially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Spending for national defense rose from 3.0 percent of GDP that year to 4.8 percent last year.
• Non-military spending also has continued to rise. President George W. Bush pushed through an expensive prescription drug benefit for seniors in 2003, the largest expansion of Medicare in its history. In the financial crisis of 2008, Bush also pushed for and signed for a massive banking bailout. In early 2009, President Barack Obama pushed for and signed an expensive stimulus measure, and after a long fight in Congress he signed another expensive plan, the health care law, in March of last year, aimed at expanding coverage for millions who lack health insurance.
• Two economic recessions have had their effect. The recession of 2001 began in March and lasted until November. And the worst downturn since the Great Depression began in December 2007 and continued until June 2009. In both cases unemployment remained high for long after business activity began to recover, holding back both wages and the taxes that jobless workers would have paid on them.

We won't attempt to assign blame to one party or the other for the deficits. There is plenty of blame to go around, some of which rests with an American public that won't accept cuts in the largest categories of public spending, and also resists tax increases on anybody but "the rich."

fotonica - flash game

this game embodies a design and style that is rarely seen in games to day , and as far as flash games go this one is superb in its highly stylized GGI wireframe world. This games highly stylized design may be distracting at first but really shines through when you realize that many games these days rely upon highly detailed graphics, this game bucks that trend in gaming and returns to the "more is less" thought pattern that has been so lacking in games. The idea of simplicity in the game runs even deeper than the graphics, you only control the game with one button, which at first seems far to simple but works and allows a more immersive gameplay than a gamepad with two joysticks or 16 buttons. check it out and here is hoping it makes it onto mobile platforms
demo found here

The future of education: "flipping the classroom"

A video from youtube of a ted talk about khan academy...awesome.
Sal (the main guy behind Khan Academy) really presents a solid case for the future of education. a future where students are learning at their own pace and become empowered and inspired by their own progress. a future where teachers can actually teach and intereact with students individually instead of standing in front of a chalkboard. This really is the future of education, a virtual classroom that is free for all to use.
I have registered into Khan Academy classroom and have already ranked up 2 merit badges and 2,908 points, wanna join and see if you can beat me?

What the web needs to be about

I have been taking a remedial math class for the past couple of weeks and have been poking around on the web for some useful resources to help me learn. One of these incredible assests that every single user of the web has access to is Khan Academy, this is probably one of the most useful websites I know of for learning as it covers topics ranging from basic addition and subtraction to calculus and even the recent finacial crisis. Each topic is carfuly and slowly explained in a way that really invites you to take a part in the learning. and has even implemented a sort of virtual classroom that will test and present excersizes that you need to lean and ranks you progress with a points system which I can see as an excellent way to encourage students to engage with material.
I think this website is some of the best examples of what the web needs to be about: open, free, skill/knowledge based. While I can see the importance of social media such as FBook and Twitter as important parts of the web (this is witnessed by the indispensable use of twitter in organizing protest in Egypt's uprising/Arab spring). But with sites like Wikipedia, TED, Youtube, and Khan Academy you really get the sense that the web has allowed for more democratization of the world and allows you to expose yourself to beneficial material. I see sites like these really working to make change and opportunity in the world and makes me wonder how as these websites grow in importance to the world what impacts will they begin to have on our day to day lives. But as our oppoutunity to access this material grows it is important to note that there are still those who do not have the same access to this information as we do and makes it all the more important to close the "digital divide" This is truly an amazing time to live in
the web is something that I believe in, I believe in its amazing capacity to connect us with information ,people (but let me be clear: the web does not replace person to person social interaction),cultures and viewpoints. The web is a place for information and ideas to spread at a rate never before seen or comprehended and this I believe is important to protect and cultivate as we move forward

The state of the blog

(the following was written on my phone so there are invariably many mistakes and misspellings, you have been warned)

I feel pressed at the moment to address some ideas and feelings that I have about this blog.
For the past couple of months I have be make an effort in earnest to try and post something no matter small every day and to this task I feel as though I have done so but I have come to realize that while I have made a strong effort to post everyday I have done so at the detriment of content that is important and interesting to me and others. In particular I have come to the realization that posting links and web content is interesting and relevant does not fulfill the scope I would like to see here.
I believe to be few among many to have the fortunate opportunity to interact and consume interesting knowledge and ideas. But in this age of constant consumption shouldn't there be an equal amount of creation and interaction? What does it mean if all I do is dissect and absorb all this information that we are so fortunate to have access to without in some way recognizing what I have learned by contributing my conclusions or ideas about a whatever interests me. While I accept that one does not "build" an argument or understanding without first understanding the constituent parts I am urged to put more effort into consruction some of my own thoughts and ideas. Which is why I write this, that moreover I have recognized that in order to more fully understand and internalize the many ideas and concepts that I interact with and investigate on a near daily basis deserves a platform to test out and hopefully presesnt new and interesting material from my original perspectives. Doing this will develop my skills as not only a writer but also a thinker and ensure that I have suffeciently understood the material I am presnted with at hand. I plan to do this not to assert some prideful individualistic know it all attitude but to show that if I am to take the time out of my day to learn something or better myself, I too should also set the time aside to write and share thoughts on an idea to better form and understand ideas. Doing so will also have the added benefit of allowing me a more accurate record of my daily doings than say link poted here would. 
Which is why I will now make the concerted effort to not only post everyday but to also find something worth writing about and sharing it here

this is a test post! I am currently blogging...

this is a test post! I am currently blogging directly from google+! to do this you have to have the blogger setting that allows you to post via email. once you have this set up just merely make a circle with the blogger email that you set up in its own circle. once you find something you want to post from google+ to blogger just add the "blogger" circle and it will email it to your blog, simple as that! View or comment on Andrew Ungerman's post » The Google+ project makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real-life. Join Google+

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plasma donation

been back donating plasma for the past week and a half or so and every thing has been going great except I have been having some pretty uncomfortable stomach aches that come on about an hour or two after the donation and last for a couple hours. I will plan on talking to them next time I go into donate (maybe wed or thurs?) hopefully this isnt something that would defer me from donating but I dont know if I would even want to donate if I keep getting the stomach aches. I suppose it is time to start looking for a real job...

Why I will never pursue cheating again

good write up on the state of cheating in higher education. This NYU professor has decided that pursuing cheating among his students is simply not worth his time
"My role is to educate and teach, not to enforce honest behavior. This is a university, not a kindergarten". Ultimately he came to the conclusion that
   "Cheating (on a systematic level) happens because students try to get an edge      over their peers/competitors. Even top-notch students cheat, in order to ensure a perfect grade. Fighting cheating is not something that professors can do well in the long run, and it is counterproductive by itself. By channeling this competitive energy into creative activities, in which you cannot cheat, everyone is better off."

Dangerous Knowledge (Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics) -BBC

How do we know "infinities" exist if we have never seen the "end"? Wouldn't it be better to say indefinite instead?

Man it sucks to have a crappy sleep schedule...

Good idea: include pure capsaicin (the chemical compound that makes hot peppers hot) into oft-abused perscription drugs to deter snorting

Smoking is a filthy, disgusting habit

No corn plants exist in the wild. If man stopped cultivating corn it would die out in only a few years

Survival of the Kindest

AN ALTERNATIVE TO “NATURE, RED IN TOOTH AND CLAW.” CAN A VISION OF A MORE EMPATHIC WORLD CHANGE THE WAY WE BEHAVE TOWARD EACH OTHER?

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”

Altruism vs. Selfishness

THE IDEA THAT EVOLUTION EXPLAINS SELFISHNESS WELL AND ALTRUISM POORLY IS STARTING TO STINK. CAN WE PLEASE BURY IT NOW?

Evolution helps explain all behaviors.The idea that evolution explains selfishness well and altruism poorly is so dead that it is beginning to smell. Can we please bury it now? Evolution explains the full range of behaviors, from extreme selfishness to extreme altruism. What evolves in any particular case depends upon the underlying environmental conditions, which are fairly well specified by now. No one should be surprised anymore by the raw fact that kindness exists in nature. The frontier of science has moved on to a more refined set of questions.Altruism is only locally disadvantageous.Darwin clearly understood the fundamental problem associated with the evolution of altruism: It is locally disadvantageous. Place an altruist and a selfish individual next to each other and the selfish individual wins. How can a behavior evolve in the total population when it is never at a local advantage?Darwin also clearly understood the nature of the solution: Altruism is advantageous at a larger scale. Groups of altruists out-compete groups of non-altruists, even if altruism is selectively disadvantageous within each group. This is the theory of multilevel selection, in which different traits are favored at different levels. The term multilevel selection wasn’t coined until later, but the whole point of group selection theory was to solve the problem posed by a conflict between levels of selection.

Frans de Waal on Political Apes, Science Communication, and Building a Cooperative Society | The Primate Diaries, Scientific American Blog Network

cool interview on some themes that I find really interesting. Namely the relationship we have with the inherent qualities of our nature as primates and the flexible changing nature of culture. or in other words what do they mean when they say that ‘the roots of politics are older than humanity.’

one particular question i the interview seemed to frame what I found interesting and framed my interest into the two views of human nature as one side viewing humans as ever combative, violent and power seeking while the other notes the seemingly contradictory cooperative and altruistic behavior

Johnson: Where does Peter Kropotkin fit into this history of animal behavior?

De Waal: Ah, Kropotkin. That’s much earlier, of course. Kropotkin was a naturalist, he was also a prince, and an anarchist. He was many things. Kropotkin believed that the roots of solidarity and cooperation could be found in nature. He argued that survival of the fittest could result, not only by competing with others, but also by cooperating with others. He was inspired by his research in Siberia where animals experience very harsh conditions and where cooperating was essential to survival.

In that sense he was very different from Thomas Henry Huxley. Kropotkin loved Darwin but he opposed Huxley because the latter presented a very narrow view of Darwinism, one that is still with us today. The modern day Huxley is Richard Dawkinswho is also a combative atheist, like Huxley was, and who portrays nature as a field of combat where the strongest wins and where everything is regulated by self-interest. Huxley couldn’t imagine how morality could have evolved, even though Darwin himself wrote extensively on the topic. So Huxley was a much more pessimistic and narrow-minded Darwinist. Kropotkin opposed him for that reason because Kropotkin saw a great deal of cooperation in nature just as Darwin had.

but why is it important to know our "roots" and the way we behave and interact in the natural world before we had technology oozing from every pore of our society? becuase as noted by De Waal this should help you better understand the environment in which our biology is most familiar with

 You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society. Of course, I’m not saying that you can derive moral rules from nature – that’s deriving an ought from an is, as the philosophers say – but you do need to know what kind of animals we are if you want to design a stable society. 

also there was some interesting commentary on American culture from De Waals who originally hails from Holland and only recently gained citizenship

When I came to this country I was struck by the amount of violence on TV and in the movies. It was a much higher level of violence than I was used to but people seemed very comfortable with it. Then there’s the puritanism, this extreme obsession Americans have with sex. There’s not less sex in American society than in European society, but people are more obsessed with it. As soon as there’s a naked breast on TV half of the U.S. faints apparently and need to write their senators about it. But, on the other hand, people are very helpful and less jealous of your success. Holland is a very small country, an egalitarian country, where if you want to be successful you have to hide your ambition. That’s also true for Japan. In the U.S. if you’re successful it’s appreciated, even rewarded. In that sense they’re much more generous than many European countries are. But then if you don’t mention what you have done in your life people in the U.S. think you’ve done nothing. It’s a very different way of operating in the two societies.

on the our sense of fairness and equality which has been show to be remarkably similar in higher primates we can draw parallels to our own political and cultural landscape

I think the sense of fairness in humans is very strongly developed and that’s why we react so strongly to all the bonuses received by Wall Street executives. We want to know why they deserve these benefits. The anger we have towards Wall Street is probably a very old primate reaction that relates to cooperation. If you are a cooperative animal you need to watch what you get. If you, or even a whole community, invest in something but then a few individuals receive a much larger return, it’s not a good arrangement. If it happens consistently, it’s time to look for an arrangement that is more beneficial. That’s why we’re so sensitive to how rewards are being divided.

Johnson: You would argue, then, that a sense of fairness and equality is an innate feature of our species. How does that get sidelined? Is it beaten out of people through propaganda?

De Waal: Yes, to some degree that is happening. You justify the inequalities by saying some people are just better and smarter than others and the strong should survive and the poor can die off.
Johnson: That sounds nearly identical to what Herbert Spencer said in the nineteenth century; that the poor were a drag on a nations economy and should die off.
De Waal: Yes, he claimed it would be better if they died because he thought that’s what happens in nature. This view came to be called Social Darwinism, though this is really a misnomer because Darwin himself rejected it. I have two problems with that whole viewpoint which is so popular among conservatives in the United States. They claim you need to organize a society based on competition because the strong will advance and the weak, well, that’s their problem. They assume that the way natural selection operates is the way that society should be structured. I’m not sure that society should be structured along the lines of natural selection. So that’s the first problem.
The second problem is the assumption that nature is purely driven by competitive processes. Darwin himself understood that this was not the case when he wrote that “struggle for existence” needed to be taken in a very broad sense. It may mean that an individual has a better immune system than another and that’s why they survived to leave more offspring. Instead of direct combat, which is the terminology that Spencer and Huxley used, it is more about who is smarter, who detects the predator earlier, who has better ears and eyes, etc. All of these things play a role, it is not necessarily combat between individuals. The conservative view of how nature operates and how we need to apply that to society is extremely distorted. It is a very deficient ideology in my opinion.

and on the future he notes

Johnson: Given all of the problems that we face today as a species, are you hopeful?
De Waal: I’m hopeful about most of the issues except for the environment. I’m hopeful about the social issues. I think we can handle six billion people, or whatever it’s going to be, because of the increasing integration in the world community. But as far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we’re stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation. On issues such as global warming and the deterioration of the environment, I just don’t see the steps taken that need to be taken at this point. But if we can solve these problems I think we have a chance.

Ladybug Metamorphosis

went out to do some much needed reading on the new hammock we got, but found it to be covered in ladybug larve! they look just like these

Twilight Festival: Explosions In The Sky

I will have to say this probably wasn't my most favorite concert that I have been to. Lost of moshing and pushing! I can't handle that stuff I am just a tender guy who wants to enjoy some music without having to worry about falling over and getting stomped on.
Hopefully the next twilight concert will be a little more relaxed

Math

Ugh this class will be the end of me. I feel like I have been working all day to try and get caught up but I have seriously under estimated how long it would take. I am not worried that I won't be able to get caught up in time for the upcoming test on friday, I just wish I was caught up with all the homework last tuesday.
For the past duration of the class I have been "sitting in" but now that I have decided that it would be a better deal for me to stay @ UVU for another semester or so I need to get UVU to allow me to register and get much needed credit.
As for the class I am learning what I need to be learning but there are a few things that kinda suck
1) this class is every day
2) it is @ 9am
3) the homework while not conceptualy challenging is alot of repitition which is what I need I suppose.
Now I just need the tenacity to stick with math for the rest of my university experience so I don't get behind in my math skills.

Am I on the right platform?

posts like this and this make me think if I am on the right blogging platform. Do I really own this blog? could I take it down on a whim and place it somewhere else?
it makes me think how hard would it be to just build my own website, i think I would enjoy doing that and it would teach me alot of cool skill. the only drawback I see is that it would be really difficult to integrate some of the mobile features such as SMS to blog or email to blog which seem like needed features.

or I could just come to the reality that nothing is forever and I should just chillax and blog more (instead of post links which I should probably just use FB or G+ for links)

BBC Nature - A rare he-she butterfly is born in London's NHM

A line down the insect's middle marks the division between its male side and its more colourful female side.

Failure of the butterfly's sex chromosomes to separate during fertilisation is behind this rare sexual chimera.

If this doesn't make you feel small nothing will

Provo Municipal Council Meeting

Jake and I attended today's council meeting and would have to say that it was somewhat more enjoyable than expected. The first half an hour or so was spent recognizing an employee of the month in the parks and rec department along with recognizing the beautiful homes the the Edgemont  neighborhood.
while this wasn't very exciting some time was set aside in the meeting for some public comments which resulted in some very engaged citizens concerned about a new ordinance in Provo and some potential ethics violations against councilman Steve Turley.
I was glad I went because I was able to hear these public comments about topics I was not aware of. I am grateful I live in a community that has a least a few concerned citizens that are willing to take the time and present complaints and concerns to a seeming open city council.
While I don't have many thoughts due to ignorance on my part of the issues involved on the allegations against councilman Steve Turley I do have some opinions of what I could gather from the comments on the residential ordinance passed.
from what I could gather I understand this ordinance allows property owners more leeway in allowing how much paved surface is allowed on their property. while this sounds like a pretty mundane topic this had citizens of the Joaquin neighborhood rightly concerned in my mind. From my understanding this has the potential to decrease property values and remove needed green space all for some extra parking. From my perspective the parking issue of the Joaquin neighborhood involves two major players, BYU and the Residents of the neighborhood. I would like to make the distinction of certain residents of the Joaquin neighborhood as there are the families and longtime residents along with the sizable BYU student population which shrinks and swells during the school year.
One of the issues that was not mentioned in the public comments was BYU's parking policy, I see BYU's policy as a large player in determining the issue of parking in these neighborhoods. From what I have seen (which I will admit is not much) is the BYU has not made a substantial effort to reduce the amount of student traffic. From my recollection BYU has consistently lacked an effort to sway students to use alternative forms of transportation which would in turn reduce the need for large, expansive and expensive parking facilities on and off campus. BYU does not offer enough of a subsidization on bus passes for students leaving little incentive to shell out the cash for one. As a cycling advocate the whole issue of on street parking v.s. on property parking is not a problem that is easily tackled with one solution such as the one proposed by the city council. Transportation issues such as these can easily be alleviated even if only a slight amount by incentivising alternative forms of transportation such as bicycling or transit which could easily reduce the number of cars seeking to park in the Joaquin neighborhood especially when it is so close to campus.
while I do admit a degree of ignorance on my part please excuse me if I am misinformed on this topic. I understand that these are complex issues that can be difficult to try and hash out on a keyboard in a few minutes. for instance I realize I offer no solution to the students who may choose to bicycle or use transit while in Provo but also have a car. also I recognize that for some bicycling or transit is simply not an acceptable solution for some, all I seek to express is a desire to see this issue as not of car drivers v.s. Joaquin residents v.s. BYU students but as an issue that is more inclusive of low impact transportation such as bicycling or transit.

When will we face the fact that no one will ever cost us more jobs than Wall Street did in 2008-2010, no one will ever kill more Americans than the 45,000 who die every year for lack of insurance. Our enemy is corporate greed and those pretend that such greed is patriotism.

search book reviews from bloggers

yet another reason why google is a better company than facebook

Why why I quit my job: one reporters expereinces of leaving a dream job for his beliefs

Teller Speaks!

this one is goin out to my friend sam

Will I go to University of Utah? To hard too say right now

selection from "Contact" by Carl Sagan

For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration.

The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it. Some people found in the skies an aperture to the religious sensibility. Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos.
Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy.
At the very moment that humans discovered the scale of the universe and found that their most unconstrained fancies were in fact dwarfed by the true dimensions of even the Milky Way Galaxy, they took steps that ensured that their descendants would be unable to see the stars at all. For a million years humans had grown up with a personal daily knowledge of the vault of heaven. I the last few thousand years they began building and emigrating to the cities. In the last few decades, a major fraction of the human population had abandoned a rustic way of life. As technology developed and the cities were polluted, the nights became starless. New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology. Without even noticing, just as astronomy entered a golden age most people cut themselves off from the sky, a cosmic isolationism that ended only with the dawn of space exploration.

DNA is now DIY: PCR machine for only 512$

Orientation

Man orientation was soo painfully slow! Serious death by powerpoint
While it wasn't a complete waste of time because they did show some important information, it was just really slow and boring. 
Riding transist has been ok so far but it still takes along time. I don't know if I could do this for school or not but we will have to see. I would still like to try and see if I could get some work and a place to stay in slc.

Whew! Made it all the way to the university of utah via public transfer. Now just to make sure I get home...

PROTIP: Place peanut butter on BOTH sides of PB+J before jam to avoid soggy sandwich

Finished "The Dispossessed" by Ursula LeGuin

What happens when the freedoms granted by law are tempered by the conventions of society/cultuere?
Is "freedom" merely abiding by the norms of society? 
It seems difficult to imagine ones self as free when one is tethered to societal expectations

Applying for a job? have to take a stupid personality test? here is the answer key: Answers to the Unicru personality test

Top of squaw peak

"What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection"

[13 September-23 November 1949]
[Chester, Pa.]

During King's second year at Crozer Theological Seminary, he took a two-term required course in systematic theology, Christian Theology for Today, with George W. Davis. For the first assignment of the first term, Davis asked his students to use George Hedley's The Symbol of the Faith, an examination of the Apostles' Creed. In this essay, King follows the book's structure and argument closely. When he discusses the "probable" influence of Greek mythology on Christian thought, Davis prods, "Is there any doubt about it?" On balance, King shows himself willing to abandon scriptural literalism, remaining confident that this would not undermine the "profound foundation" of the Christian doctrines. Davis commented, "Well done," and gave the paper an A-.

In order to understand the meaning and the significance of any doctrine or any creed it is necessary to study the experiences of the individuals that produced them. Doctrines and creeds do not spring forth uncaused like Athene sprang from the head of Zeus, but they grow out of the historical settings and the psychological moods of the individuals that set them forth. All ideas, however profound or however naive, are produced by conditions and experiences that grow from the producers' environment.

In this paper we shall discuss the experiences of early Christians which lead to three rather orthodox doctrines--the divine sonship of Jesus, the virgin birth, and the bodily resurrection. Each of these doctrines is enshrined in what is known as "the Apostles' Creed." It is this creed that has stood as a "Symbol of Faith" for many Christians over the years. Even to this day it is recited in many churches. But in the minds of many sincere Christians this creed has planted a seed of confusion which has grown to an oak of doubt. They see this creed as incompatible with all scientific knowledge, and so they have proceeded to reject its content.

But if we delve into the deeper meaning of these doctrines, and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation, we will find that they are based on a profound foundation. Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically untenable, yet we can never undermind the foundation on which they are based.Davis corrected "undermind" to "undermine." As Dr. Hedley has so cogently stated, "What ultimately the creed signifies is not words, but spirit." \[Footnote:] George Hedley, The Symbol of the Faith, p. 7.\

The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of developement. It seems quite evident that the early followers of Jesus in Palestine were well aware of his genuine humanity. Even the synoptic gospels picture Jesus as a victim of human experiences. Such human experiences as growth, learning, prayer, and defeat are not at all uncommon in the life of Jesus. How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being?

We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. I need not elaborate on the fact that the Greeks were very philosophical minded people. Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him. We must remember that the Logos concept had its origin in Greek thought. It would {was} only natural that the early Christians, after coming in contact with the Greeks would be influenced by their thought.

But by no means can we designate this as the only clue to the rise of this doctrine. Saint Paul and the early church followers could have never come to the conclusion that Jesus was divine if there had not been some uniqueness in the personality of the historical Jesus. What Jesus brought into life was a new personality and those who came under {its} spell were more and more convinced that he with whom they had walked and talked in Galilee could be nothing less than a divine person. To the earliest Christians this breath-taking conviction was not the conclusion of an argument, but the inescapable solution of a problem. Who was this Jesus? They saw that Jesus could not merely be explained in terms of the psychological mood of the age in which he lived, for such explaination failed to answer another inescapable question: Why did Jesus differ from many others in the same setting? And so the early Christians answered this question by saying that he was the divine son of God. As Hedley laconically states, "the church had found God in Jesus, and so it called Jesus the Christ; and later under the influence of Greek thought-forms, the only begotten Son of God."\[Footnote:] Hedley, op. cit., p. 37.\ The Church called Jesus divine because they had found God in him. They could only identify him with the highest and best in the universe. It was this great experience with the historical Jesus that led the early Christians to see him as the divine son of God.

The second doctrine in our discussion posits the virgin birth. This doctrine gives the modern scientific mind much more trouble than the first, for it seems downright improbable and even impossible for anyone to be born without a human father.

First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker.Davis underlined "to" and corrected it to "too." To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "young woman." How then did this doctrine arise?

A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin's First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought.

A more adequate explanation for the rise of this doctrine is found in the experience which the early christians had with Jesus.Davis corrected "christians" to "Christians." The people saw within Jesus such a uniqueness of quality and spirit that to explain him in terms of ordinary background was to them quite inadequate. For his early followers this spiritual uniqueness could only by accounted for in terms of biological uniqueness. They were not unscientific in their approach because they had no knowledge of the scientific. They could only express themselves in terms of the pre-scientific thought patterns of their day. No laws were broken because they had no knowledge of the existence of law. They only knew that they had been with the Jesus of history and that his spiritual life was so far beyond theirs that to explain his biological origin as identical with theirs was quite inadequate. We of this scientific age will not explain the birth of Jesus in such unscientific terms, but we will have to admit with the early Christians that the spiritual uniqueness of Jesus stands as a mystery to man.

The last doctrine in our discussion deals with the resurrection story. This doctrine, upon which the Easter Faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction: that Christ conquered death. From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting. But here again the external evidence is not the most important thing, for it in itself fails to tell us precisely the thing we most want to know: What experiences of early Christians lead to the formulation of the doctrine?

The root of our inquiry is found in the fact that the early Christians had lived with Jesus. They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality. This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die. And so in the pre-scientific thought pattern of the first century, this inner faith took outward form. But it must be remembered that before the doctrine was formulated or the event recorded, the early Christians had had a lasting experience with the Christ. They had come to see that the essential note in the Fourth Gospel is the ultimate force in Christianity: The living, deathless person of Christ. They expressed this in terms of the outward, but it was an inner experience that lead to its expression.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hedley, George, The Symbol of the Faith, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1948.

Holman, C. T., Psychology and Religion for Everyday Living, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1949.

Micklem, Nathaniel, What is the Faith, Nashville, Tenn: Cokesbury Press, n.d.

THDS. MLKP-MBU: Box 112, folder 14.

Far best is he who knows al things himself; good, is he who hearkens when men counsel right; but he who neither knows, nor lays to heart anothers wisdom, is a useless weight.
- Hesiod

how are lightbulbs made?

You are insane if you live in utah valley and drive to the stadium of fire. Serious bumper to bumper traffic. Many cars were half empty! BIKE FTW!

books have come a long way

Wedding day: up early, almost late, waiting, 1,2,3 smile!, lunch yum! Reception=awesome backyard and even more awesome people. Good luck brother!

A photo taken in Naco, Arizona (1979) of a volleyball game between Mexican and U.S. citizens, using the border fence between Mexico and Arizona as the net.

Be thankful if you know your multiplication tables

“There are things we know we know about terrorism. There are things we know we don’t know. And there are things that are unknown unknowns. We don’t know that we don’t know.”

the scale of the universe

San Francisco to Los Angeles on Public Transit: 30 Hours, 14 Transfers, & Only $45.25

would like to try something like this someday

tribe meets white man for first time

social contract theory and injustice

watched first episode of the HBO mini series John Adams with Sam and Jake last night and it provoked some thoughts
First episode begins with John Adams defending a British Captain in court who was in charge of the soldiers involved in killing 5 civilians and injuring another 11 in the Boston massacre. This was a great place to begin the narrative of John Adams life because it shows his devotion to upholding the virtues of law and order in the tumultuous time the colonies were facing.
while I certainly agree with John Adams in the virtue of upholding the law I wonder what the appropriate response would be to an unjust law?
Is it ever right to commit an injustice? I would say no, it is never the right thing for someone to willfully commit an injustice.
however as noted first by Socrates and by later philosophers we have a duty of respecting and upholding the law with just reciprocity. The state and the community I live in have provided me with among other things security, peace of mind, an education, clean air and water, and to a degree representation and due process as a citizen. These things have afforded me certain luxuries that I would not have had other wise had.
But on the other hand I recognize that the state is not inherently virtuous and does not always act with the intent of justice in mind. written into our founding documents are the explicit recognition of slavery as an institution. Slavery and racial inequality are obviously unjust acts, yet they were permitted and allowed as acts of law.
What is the just response to injustice? Is reacting to injustice with injustice the ethical thing to do? Is it unjust to break the law even if it is an unjust law?
With this in mind I am led to agree with Jake: the individual must act with justice and virtue even in the face of breaking an unjust law.

Deferred yet again from donating plasma...

Moab

picture time before we took off for a day of rafting on the colorado river

all ready to rock the river

Demolition Derby!

just to give you a sense for how white trash a demolition derby is..