NEVER fire unless you can ID your target

Gun Safety Rule Related to Your Target #1 is to "[positively] identify your target and the threat it poses before firing at it." Our VP learned this lesson the hard way I guess, as have various cops and soldiers who have gotten in big trouble for firing on unarmed, innocent civilians.

Hang on to this tidbit, it will come in handy later.

Late Night Reflections

I am hanging curtain rods in my living room right now. Its dark outside. And its light inside, so when I looked at the window pane itself I caught a glimpse of my reflection. This happened to me earlier today when I was riding my bike up fourth street and I saw myself in the windows of the shops while coming home from Bella Rose where I had lunch with Chris.

I startled myself just now because I look like a young man. Not like when your mom or grandma calls you a young man. Just, I look like a man. I look like a man who is young. I am a young, married, employed, land-owning, triathlete of a man.

And I do things like mow the lawn, and... hang curtain rods.

It might sound weird to you, but it feels weird to me. I don't feel 24 at all. I feel, like, I dunno.

Younger.

Just younger. And its not that I mind being 24. I guess I'm just afraid that I ought to be more mature -more wise- than I estimate I probably am. I wonder if I am on the right track in life?

I think I am, in terms of, well, I went to the right school (still need to finish though), married the right woman, I am living where God told me to, I am going to the church God told me to... but what about the details though? Am I a praying man? Do I love my wife like I ought to? Am I serving other people - living my life for the sake of others? Does my life illustrate Hope? Is my faith strong, and its content accurate?

Do I work hard enough?

God, please grant me substantial and rapid growth in wisdom and courage and passion.

Amen.

Google has the right to do whatever they want with anything you ever create or transmit on the web

...if you do so using their new web browser - here's why.

Plus, Chrome is slower than FireFox 3 and Safari 3 (except when it comes to JavaScript), has no way to manage bookmarks yet, falls short in other areas (although admittedly has some serious strengths too), and isn't available for Mac yet!

As I read one commenter write, umm... don't be evil?



-XKCD

Homosexual Hospital Visitation Rights

Obama says in his speech that even if we disagree about matters concerning homosexual marriage, we should agree that even homosexuals should have the right to visit their loved ones in the hospital. I have heard this argument before and what follows is the fundamental reason why it offends me.

Homosexuals DO have hospital visitation rights, just like heterosexuals. What Obama wants to do is actually give homosexuals MORE privilege than heterosexuals. Let me show you what I mean.

Let's say my friend Billy goes to the hospital. And I love Billy. I REALLY love Billy. My love for Billy is vibrant, mountainous, and unique. And Billy loves me back. Exclusively. We are best friends, and our love exceeds any we could ever imagine having for any women (we're Elizabethan like that). Billy and I are roommates. Have been for 4 years. We are bound together by our love. It just happens to be heterosexual in nature.

Now, when visiting hours are over for those who are not Billy's immediate family, I get kicked out of the room, like everybody else who isn't in that category.

But if Obama had his way, and my love for Billy was no more potent, but happened to be homosexual in nature, I would have gotten to stay.

How is that fair? How is that equal?

It's discriminatory against heterosexuals, is what it is.

And I am offended when presidential candidates discriminate against me for my sexual preference.

Obama fans, you're just driving our point home!

Just watched Obama's speech, and I loved it.

My favorite part:

Obama: ...he said, and I quote, that "this nation has become [pause] a nation of whiners!"
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and... Web 4.0?

My friend informed me of the rule of thumb when labeling sites as "web 2.0":

Web 1.0: Owner creates a site
Web 2.0: Owner creates a site, but users can also create content
Web 3.0: Owner creates a site, and users can create content, but users can also create functionality

So web 2.0 would be like Blogger or YouTube. Web 3.0 would be like Facebook, with its user-created apps.

I was sharing this with a friend in Calypsos Coffee today when a third friend chimed in with some insight. I here reproduce his comments in full:

Brave New Web

Being able to create your own content on the internet is a decided feature of the so called Web 2.0. Excellent examples of this would be Myspace or Facebook. Social networking and the creation of content is the fingerprint of Web 2.0.

Also included in the inter-web upgrade is the availability of massive amounts of data via search engines. Currently Google, the dominating engine, is searching around a trillion pages, or 1,000,000,000 pages. Information, even secret information, is open to anyone willing to learn a little Boolean string logic.

Web 3.0 has two parts. Functionality and data. When users have the ability to interact with customizable modules that would be called Web 3.0 functionality. Facebook Apps are a great example because users can customize the modules effect on the page.

The data side is being able to easily access pertinent information that is exactly relevant to your needs. This is crudely available with Boolean searching in Google already. The next step is for information to be mined to exactly your needs. Right now if you type anything into Google there is a high probability of getting 40 bajillion hits. With variable algorithms that extract data based on the user you can get exactly what you look for.

Web 4.0 is an extension of the data developing where information is assimilated off of existing user created information to fill gaps in content. I suspect this will be triggered when a user searches for an answer to a question. The engine will scan available information, rank the trustworthiness (much like PageRank), and create an answer based on all the information.

Someday choosing a President will be as simple as asking Google.

Scary?

Perhaps.

(TJ Kastning, Sept. 2, 2008)

McCain Ambushes Obama w/ Sharp-Shooting Search Engine Marketing

I said earlier that good Search Engine Optimization gets you nominated for President. But will good Search Engine Marketing get you elected for president?

Sen. John McCain is in some ways outsmarting Sen. Obama when it comes to Internet marketing. One example: As of Wednesday, a Google search for "Joe Biden" or even just "Biden" resulted in a prominently displayed ad labeled "Joe Biden on Obama" that links to Sen. McCain's site. There, a video begins playing that shows Sen. Biden criticizing Sen. Obama during the Democratic primaries...

In recent days, [McCain's team] has bought search ads tied to key terms such as "U.S. economy" and "housing crisis," which take visitors to Web sites outlining Sen. McCain's plan on those issues...

Barack Obama is running a Web-savvy presidential campaign, but John McCain's campaign has managed to outpace the Democratic contender in a few key areas.

Meanwhile, the Obama camp largely has yet to advertise around these terms, missing a key opportunity, according to experts, to communicate his message to undecided voters.

"The big downfall is that Obama's not reaching the undecided voters," says...

(Wall Street Journal, Aug. 28, 2008)

Google Chrome: A BA Browser straight from the horse's mouth.

So Google releases their brand new, bleeding-edge futuristic uber-speedy, handy browser for download TOMORROW. I heard a long time ago that they hired some folks from Mozilla, but I thought that had to do with learning how websites work so that they could better index them. I guess you just never know what Google's gonna do next.

A Humble Reply to My Beautiful Wife's Post "Commence tarring and feathering: now!"

Dear Love of My Life,

Your recent blog post argues that although the government is not the best organization to care for the poor, sick, and otherwise needy, the rest of us responsible citizens are obviously doing a crappy job, and therefore it will be best for society as a whole for the government to do so.

I deeply respect your wisdom generally and your compassion for the needy. I also respect your ability and will to field conversation as a means to intimacy and the refining of your view. I have seen you change your mind before, and I have also had my mind changed on account of your input.

Therefore permit me to blog in response to your blog.

Obviously both the United States government and her citizens are currently caring for the poor in some capacity. So I assume that you mean that neither is doing a satisfactory job, and that your current push is for increased governmental aid (domestic? foreign?).

I am not quite convinced that the reason you gave in this particular post is a great one to push for increased governmental care for the needy.

Here's why:

Suppose there are 2 entities who are generally capable of caring for the poor, sick, and otherwise needy.

Now suppose that neither entity is currently doing so in a satisfactory manner.

Now suppose that entity A is the one responsible for doing so, and is capable of doing so more efficiently. And that entity B is only capable of doing so in a manner that violates the right to property and should be dis-preferred for other reasons as well.

If you had a chance to urge one of these entities to begin to do so, which should it be?

I argue that it should be entity A, if it is entity A's responsibility, entity A is capable of doing so more efficiently, and entity B can't do so without violating the right to property and causing other damage as well (such as the fact that governmental aid almost always comes with all kinds of political strings attached. Also cf. Neocolonialism and Dependency Theory, although these theories are not categorically opposed to governmental aid).

The fact that entity A isn't currently doing so is no reason to suddenly urge entity B to do so.

So under these circumstances, why waste time trying to enhance governmental care for the poor, sick, and otherwise needy when you could spend your efforts trying to enhance private care for them? You may get more bang for your buck.

Things change however, if you DO think that the government is the best organization to care for the needy, or if you disagree that it is the responsibility of individuals and private organizations to do so and that they could do so more efficiently.

But if this is the case, then the argument should center on such matters; the mere failure of individuals and private organizations to sufficiently care for the needy is no reason in and of itself to support governmental care for them.

That is, unless you have lost hope in individuals and private organizations altogether. Perhaps you feel that it is futile to attempt to urge more individual and privately organized charity, and so in your desperation to see someone take care of those who need help you are turning to the government.

If this is the case, I urge you to reconsider for two reasons.

First, the government is constituted by individuals. If you cannot trust individuals, you can trust the government even less.

Second, the landscape of charitable movements may be more hopeful than you think, both in regards to its current state, and in regards to its potential.

Take heart:

The United States is by far the largest source of private aid giving... giving in the United States, both domestic and international, is estimated at $295 billion in 2006...

Private sector financial flows have transformed the development landscape. Already, private flows like foreign direct investment, private portfolio capital, private bank credits, bond issuances, and remittances are much larger than official flows to developing countries...

Estimates for the United States suggest a fourfold increase in international giving in the 1990s, and, after a dip in 2002 following the stock market crash, US international giving has grown healthily again. In the 2000s, US foundation giving to international causes outpaced all other sectors. More remarkable is that this growth is being seen at all levels: at the top, giving from huge philanthropies like the Gates Foundation is growing but small foundations’ giving is growing even faster (a 35 percent growth in giving between 2002 and 2004). In the United States, some 65 percent of all individual giving is estimated to come from households with annual incomes of less than $100,000. Over the next decade, this trend will likely continue—a considerable share will be buttressed by Warren Buffett’s promise of adding $31 billion in to the mix. Record stock market valuations are fuelling healthy growth in private giving.

(Homi Kharas, 2007)

Personally I am not categorically opposed to governmental aid. I believe that since it is the responsibility of humans to take care of the needy, and the government is constituted by humans, it is fair game as a vehicle for caring for the needy. I am not certain about the truth to various theories concerning human rights (especially the right to property), but I do generally hold that the government is rarely (albeit sometimes) "efficient", much less the MOST efficient or appropriate vehicle for a given task. Governmental aid is notorious for failing to actually reach those who need it, and like I said, it usually comes with plenty of political strings attached.

But I do see a potential time and place (and method) for governmental and/or intergovernmental aid, and I think that the organizational nature of the government is fundamentally distinct from that of private organizations. And so their ideal roles in aid and development will no doubt also be distinct.

I am interested in what you have to say and I look forward to future dialogue, online or off.

Love,
Your husband Louis