Religion

Moving to New Zealand?

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

Hmm. Norway, Canada, New Zealand. The list of countries I might move to is getting longer.

This is a letter from a priest in New Zealand objecting to the claim that New Zealand is a Christian nation!

If my resistance to deem New Zealand to be a Christian nation makes me a traitor, as Brian Tamaki suggests, take me to the Tower, or the New Zealand equivalent, for it would be greatly preferable to living in such a country.

You might think, then, that I am one of the 48.8 per cent of non-Christian New Zealanders.

I am not. I am an Anglican priest serving an Auckland church. And no, I’m not Bishop Richard Randerson under a nom de plume.

As an immigrant from America I know what it means to live in a Christian nation. That’s why I left. New Zealand’s respect for human rights is why I chose to live here as a permanent resident.

Before Christians hasten to denounce my position, take a close look at the only Christian nation. To be fair it should be described as a Fundamentalist Christian nation.

Such Christians, in my experience, imagine that no faith is more loving or forgiving than theirs, while hating and devaluing all other beliefs. They are totally intolerant of criticism, especially of the Bible they hold inerrant and the doctrines they draw from it.

This is a wonderful letter outlining what is going on here in the US.

You can follow up reading that with a listen to this NPR debate about “Is America Too Damned Religious?“. I’ll have to listen to this.

h/t to PZ Myers for this.

Life

WWJD?

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

Finally, an answer to that age-old question: What Would Jesus Drive?

Apparently a Ford Pickup Truck. While drinking Jack Daniels and shooting a .45.

This is a pretty awesome video.

God’s only kid
needs a ride that won’t skid
Ford is what Jesus would drive

Twelve disciples won’t fit in a Pacer
Gun rack don’t fit no Subaru
So if you’re a truck buyer
Be like your Messiah
Only Ford pickups will do

Man, this is a gem. And she’s pretty hawt.

Is it unclear to me why they are drinking milk though…

Family

Reading to the kid

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I started reading some Larry Niven short stories to Steph last night. The first story was “Bordered in Black” and we got about a third of the way into it. As I was reading it to her I remembered the ending. It will be fun to watch her reaction.

The story is about the first hyperspace ship and there is a bit in it about what you see out the window of the ship in hyperspace.

The answer is “nothing” and it totally freaks out the astronauts.

She couldn’t understand why that would be so weird, so we had a nice discussion about what it would be like to look out her bedroom window and see “nothing”. It took a few tries to explain what “nothing” would be like and when she got it, she got a little weirded out. :-O

It was pretty funny, you really have to pay attention when you are reading Niven and she made me backtrack a few times.

Larry Niven is one of my favorite authors and I love hard science fiction. Larry Niven’s Known Space universe is one I’d like to live in.

Computers

A Vista Simulator

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

This made me laugh today:

“You should go to Vista.”

“So you like Vista?”

“Not really, no. I run a Vista simulator.”

“Virtual Server?” the Boss asks.

“Nah, I just turned on all the flashy crap in XP, changed the background image, took some memory out of my box and clocked down the CPU. Then broke Media player. Works like a charm.”

From BOFH episode 6 in The Register.

Computers

RSA Conference Codebreakers Bash

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I’m at the RSA Security Conference this week and tonight was the Codebreakers Bash – a huge party.

This conference spares no expense. It’s the biggest security conference going. And this party was amazing.

The conference itself fills up the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which is a pretty big convention center.

But the Bash was held in a totally different convention center, and it filled that up too.

They had two stages setup, one with a bad 80’s cover band (man, they murdered a lot of songs) and one with Renaissance type entertainment. Jugglers, singers, etc.

They had tons of food, and open bars.

And they had lots of stuff to do. You could:

  • Make a mask
  • Get a balloon hat
  • Watch a puppet show
  • Get a tarot reading
  • Work on a paint-by-number version of a large painting
  • Get your picture taken with the Venus on the Half Shell

It was an amazing party.

And I left my camera at the hotel. What was I thinking?

I feel really dumb.

But if I get the chance, I’ll be attending this conference again. And bringing my camera to the party!

Life

Dinner with the Village Idiots

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

I had dinner last night (Tuesday) with the Village Idiots. It was a pretty good turnout I must say.

I finally got to meet Roosbeh!

We had dinner at the Kensington Circus Pub again (same place as last time) and as always, Tai was a gracious host and drove me home again afterwards. Thanks Tai!

I took a few photos, and here they are:


This is Tai and Roosbeh.


This is Jay (Doug’s friend), David Brick and his friend Ned.


Darryl Richmond and Doug Hill.


Not pictured is John Pierce. Not sure how I missed him. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

Thanks Idiots!

Misc

What’s the Big Deal with the truck?

Posted on by Timothy Foreman

Sev on the Confabulate email list asked what was the Big Deal with the photos of the truck that I posted yesterday.

In our last exciting episode Sev exclaimed:
> I don’t get it – Whats the big deal?
> I see this as some excellent kick-ass driving.
> What am I missing here?

The big deal which may have not come across in the picture or the descriptions is this:

The truck was totally blocking the road when I got there (which means he’d been there for a little while) and I watched for another ten minutes while he backed and filled trying to get lined up with the door.

The people trying to drive on the street were not happy. Hell, the people on the sidewalk on both sides of the street were having trouble.

I was very glad that I wasn’t trying to back that thing in. (Not that I could or would even attempt it.)

The driver was not having a good time.

Additionally, the conference is running shuttles between the hotels and the conference. I rode one yesterday and this morning. (It’s a nice walk from my hotel to the conference, but my feet are killing me.)

Anyway, what do you think of when you hear “hotel shuttle”? Not a full-sized tour bus I bet.

Holy cow. I would not want to drive one of these behemoths through San Francisco either. I sat right behind the driver on both trips and man-o-man. Tight corners, lots of traffic, lots of city buses (and most of them are the long flex-in-the-middle kind) and lots of pedestrians.

San Francisco is a busy place and driving in downtown is very hectic. And if you don’t know what the downtown area looks like, it’s very messy.

Take a look at this: Link to Google Map of the Area

My hotel is near Union Square. The conference is in Moscone Center. Take a look at the streets around here. They dead end. They are one ways. Market St. cuts though at a diagonal. Streets run down the middle of blocks and stop after a block and a half. It’s very messy. And I like it. 🙂