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| Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 | | 8:56 am |
| | Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 | | 7:46 am |
Trying in part to clarify my own thoughts
Smallship1 pointed me at t his post by pbristow (which was right below it in my friendslist anyway :-). Call it post A. He also pointed me at this post by jahura, which I will call post B. Post A pointed me at t his post by PaulCornell, (post C) which was interesting--particularly the comments, which I will return to in a moment. They made me think. Post A is a beautiful and moving commitment, by a Christian, to treat homophobia as the personal sin, to be struggled against within oneself, that I also believe it is. The author also speaks of it as contrary to Christianity. I have no particular problem with Christians seeing it that way--I am well aware that parts of the bible are, if read straight rather than as some sort of weird metaphor, profoundly homophobic but also well aware that the bible contradicts itself both specifically and in general and if Christians decide to choose the good parts rather than the bad parts, more power to them! My uninformed reading of it is that Jesus is reported 70-100 years after the fact as having said there were two laws: love God and love your neighbor--and if you want to interpret that as "chuck the book and love," as post C puts it, that seems like a reasonable reading to me. I can certainly see 1) that some Christians feel this way and 2) why some Christians feel this way. And I applaud it, in case there's any doubt. What I don't see, is that this supports an argument some people have put forth that Christians that feel this way are the Only True Christians, and people who feel differently are not real Christians so the harm they do because of their beliefs shouldn't be laid at the door of Christianity. Indeed, post B shows a priest defining Christianity thus: "those who defined themselves as Christian under the following: that they accept Jesus as the one true Son of God, as their savior, and acknowledge his sacrifice as the first step in forgiveness of their sins" There is nothing in there about attitudes toward homosexuality. I grant you that the priest is not requiring that people be homophobic to be Christian, but I hope you will agree he is equally not ruling it out. It is nice to know that Christianity leaves people room to be unbigoted if that is the direction they decide to go, but that's a little different from the True Christian argument. And there's a very moving passage in post C, "Some of those use weasel words, like 'hate the sin, love the sinner'. Some of those, with aching consciences, and I have nothing but sympathy for them, feel they have to believe that, without wanting to." So right there the author of post C puts forth the idea that some people would like to be reasonable about homosexuals but feel that their Christian faith requires that they oppress them. If even the author of post C, himself a Christian, sees Christianity in this light, I really think my view--that religion doesn't *necessarily* push good people to do harm, but sometimes does--is reasonable. So, trying to clarify my thoughts here (and I realize that to someone who thinks their religion is a universal truth this is probably going to look offensive and I apologize, and if you don't want to continue that is perfectly okay, but if you want to understand one atheist's point of view, and why I'm a little scared of religion, read on)... ( Read more... ) | | Sunday, January 31st, 2010 | | 5:40 pm |
2 800 lb Gorillas were wrestling in the bathtub... or why it's not a good time to buy books
By now people who follow this kind of thing are aware that Macmillian (which includes Tor, which publishes some of my favorite authors)'s books have been pulled from Amazon's listings. This was originally over a disagreement about e-book pricing, but both e and paper books are gone. You can still get them from "other sellers"--secondhand bookstores and so on that sell through Amazon. But you don't get Amazon's free shipping and such. I hardly know what to think. On the one hand, Amazon wants to sell e-book new releases at 9.99 and McMillian wants Amazon to charge 15.99. (Note that this is just for new releases; Macmiillan says it wants to drop the price later, to as low as 5.99. Also note that Macmillan is not actually all that good about bringing out its books in e-book form at all, so I don't know why they even care, but they do.) Okay, I know which price I, the reader, like better--and as for the later price drop, Amazon already does that. On the other hand, McMillian wants to squeeze more money out of each e-book sale, some of which will theoretically go to authors (though why it couldn't pay royalties to authors based on the wholesale price, which Amazon is still paying, I don't know). I know a handful of authors, like them, and would be thrilled to see them make more money. I know many more authors only through their work, like them too, and would be thrilled to see them make more money, and possibly be able to write more books because they don't have to work part time to keep bread and beans on the table. I frequently sympathize with the underdog, but both companies seem...more gorilla-ish than underdog-ish to me. The underdogs are the readers and the writers. I do not fool myself that gorilla A, in moving to keep e-books at 9.99, is really all that concerned about me personally or consumers in general. Gorilla A wants e-books at 9.99 because that's what gorilla A thinks is best for gorilla A at this time. Nor do I believe that gorilla B is all that concerned about authors; gorilla B wants flexible pricing because that's what gorilla B thinks is best for gorilla B at this time. I do think there's going to be a lot of water on the floor and that the gorillas won't be mopping it up. And darn it, I got a couple of Amazon gift certificates for Christmas. I was planning to spend them on Kindle books. Now I'm not sure if I want to, because I don't want to reward Amazon for how it's behaving. OTOH not spending the gift certificates is rewarding Amazon because they already have the money and don't have to shell out any product for it. I suppose I could use them to buy paper books, but ...darn it, I really like books that weigh nothing and take no space. I wish I could convert them to Baen gift certificates. Grump. | | Saturday, January 30th, 2010 | | 11:52 am |
Justice's first step
Terrorist and "Pro-Life" activist Scott Roeder, who brutally murdered Dr. George Tiller (with the help of Operation Rescue who kindly posted Tiller's location and movements for easy reference), has been found guilty of murder in the first degree. It is interesting to note that fellow "Pro-Life" terrorist Michael Bray was in the audience at the time. One hopes he also learned something. This isn't the end of the story. Plenty of people will be willing to donate to this terrorist's "cause," so he will have money to appeal his case. But it is a start. I'm glad. | | Thursday, January 28th, 2010 | | 7:48 am |
| | Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | | 9:48 pm |
Exciting day
I may have mentioned that I'm building another canoe. A Wee Lassie II. Canoes of this type are normally built out of cedar, mostly. Cedar is light, flexible, easy to work, and comes in interesting colors. As a bonus, it smells good. But cedar is expen$ive. And I'm, well, not well budgeted for such things right now. However, white pine is nearly as light, nearly as flexible, and about 40% of the cost of cedar. Martin has been talking about the possibility of making canoes out of white pine, as the cost of cedar keeps climbing and the quality keeps decreasing. So today I went and bought white pine for my canoe. I had to call several stores on Monday, but I found a place that had "D and better white pine 1 x 6s, 14 feet long." I went over to look at it this morning. Golly--white pine has the most amazing colorway. It's mostly cream, with streaks of--I kid you not--pink. The most beautiful subtle pink, like a sunrise just before it gets gaudy. I picked through the D-and-better stack (you're not supposed to do this, but a place with a lot of wood will often make an exception for canoe-builders) until I found a few boards that cried out "pick me, pick me; I was born to be a canoe board!" Then I walked down and had a quick look at the western red cedar thinking I would find a board to make a dark stripe near the top and a dark eye near the bottom. They were supposed to be D-and-better too but they were significantly worse quality. Much bigger knots and hardly a board with fewer than three. And instead of being 25$ a board, they were 45$ a board for smaller boards. So I gave up on the idea and paid for my white pine and took it away to the high school woodshop, where Martin was very kind about helping me cut it. Then he kindly let me use the shop as long as I wanted (it was after school, so nobody else as there) as I sorted the boards into "mostly cream" "cream with a pink stripe" "kind of pinkish" and "strongly pink" piles, and taped up each pile and put them away. The point of the sorting is that it looks nice to have matched boards on each side. I will be going back tomorrow to plane the strips and put the cove and bead edges on them, so on the way home I stopped by another lumberyard I know (that hadn't had the white pine but has a bigger selection of the fancier woods) and picked up a board of butternut that might work to make a dark stripe in the hull. I only hope the kind of cool brown of the butternut will work with the pink of the white pine, which I expect will fade to orange over time. We shall see. I'm also planning to make the outer gunwales of a strip of walnut on the inside laminated to a strip of ash on the outside which I hope will give a racing stripe effect (plus hopefully make the gunwales stronger by letting me stagger the scarf joints), so I picked up a board of ash and a board of walnut. If I chose right I will also be able to make the thwart, the handles and the seat frame out of ash and or walnut. I'm still thinking about how to make the decks. I'm almost tempted to make forms for the decks and make them out of cedar (or in this case white pine and butternut) strips. If that method produces a strong enough hull, why not a deck? And, by the by, I have been thinking that if I got walnut veneer and glued it over the ash and then shaped the thwart, the veneer would stay only on the high parts of the ash and make these swoopy puddle-y dark shapes over the white ash. I could then use my new carving tools to carve letters or a design into the thwart and it should show white(ash) through the dark(walnut) veneer. Maybe wolf prints. Or some kind of twining vine. Probably most of these fancy ideas will fall by the wayside. Building a boat takes long enough. Hmm. A compass rose would be nice. | | Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 | | 3:55 pm |
I made a donation today to help Haiti
I found an article about the Richard Dawkins Foundation's collecting paypal donations to send to Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross, and made a donation. No big deal, except in the process of finding it I came across another article. It's what I've come to think of as typical--saying basically that if an atheist gives to an atheist charity the fact that there is some faint hope of fighting the pervasive prejudice against atheists by donating means that donation doesn't count, and besides, your conscience comes from God and how can atheists be so dumb that in spite of experiencing their conscience they deny God. The usual. He's got me all wrong. I gave through an atheist organization because I turned down the heat and gave up soda pop to scrape together money to be able to help people out. I emphatically don't want it squandered on gilding and limousines, or--God help us--on solar powered talking bibles. Your mileage may vary. If you feel that what a Haitian child with two broken legs who hasn't eaten in week really needs is a solar-powered talking bible, by all means fund it. But I hope that I--and most people!--have better sense. | | 9:32 am |
I posted two things on DW last night. Normally they crosspost to LJ automatically, but this failed. The message is "Failed to connect to http:www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrp c" Does anybody know what I should do to get crossposting working again? in the meantime, here are links to the DW posts: Trust WomenSecond Time FasterAlso the text in the input box for this LJ post is blinking once a second, which is getting old. | | Friday, January 22nd, 2010 | | 10:19 pm |
Second time faster--maybe it's the practice?
You may recall that I drafted the plans for the stations for the Wee Lassie II earlier this week. Wednesday I spent a bunch of time with the plans, a tape measure, and a notebook, trying to figure out the best layout of the stations on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. Then I went and bought said plywood, plus an extra scrap for the piece I couldn't otherwise fit. Yesterday and this morning I used carbon paper and a tracing wheel to trace the patterns onto the plywood. This afternoon and this evening I tried cutting some pieces out. I have a jigsaw, but it's not very accurate and doesn't make a completely vertical cut. I have a bandsaw, but it's kind of small and wimpy. I tried chopping a piece out roughly with the jigsaw and then more accurately with the bandsaw, but wasn't completely happy with the results. The bandsaw doesn't cut very fast, and I wasn't getting a smooth cut, perhaps because I don't know how to use it. But. The ShopSmith comes with a sanding wheel. I pulled out the (at least ten years old, never touched) sandpaper discs for it, glued one disc on (it doesn't stick everywhere, but so far it's staying on) and set up for sanding. It works fine. I can cut out stations with the jigsaw, leaving about a sixteenth of an inch extra all around, and then sand down to the line with the sanding wheel. The table is plenty big enough to support the pieces of plywood. The only difficulty is that I can only do convex curves, not concave ones. However that's still the lion's share of the sanding. The last time I did this it took me about a week to cut out and file and sand all the stations. This time I did the first six-- this afternoon. Seven to go. At this rate I could have the form set up and faired by the end of this week. I think I need to go get hull wood tomorrow, because the lumberyard that has it (specialty stuff) is closed Sunday and Monday, and I don't want to be held up waiting. I also need to get on the phone and call Martin the magic shop teacher about cutting strips, because I could very well be ready to roll by Monday. (originally posted Friday night but LJ was having problems; reposted Sat morning) (reposted again Sat evening, making sure "crosspost to LJ box is checked) (and again with "don't show on reading pages" selected for date) | | 10:01 pm |
Trust Women
Today is Blogging For Choice Day. And this years theme was chosen in honor of Dr. George Tiller, brutally murdered by a "Pro-Life" terrorist for daring to help women who were going to die if they didn't get abortions. He used to wear a button that said "Trust Women," and this year Blogging For Choice Day touches on the question of what "Trust Women" means to us. I'll tell you what it means to me. Women are adult human beings, with adult understanding of actions and consequences, with adult understanding of right and wrong. Trust women--we know what's right for ourselves. People who are really pro life are pro women's life too. And anyone who isn't pro women's life--anyone who can't stick up for doctors who save women's lives--as Dr Tiller saved women's lives--is anti-woman, and we don't need, or want, anything from them. Rest in peace, George Tiller, doctor, humanitarian, husband, father. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. (originally posted Friday night, but LJ was having problems. Reposted Saturday morning.) (reposted Saturday evening with crosspost and don't show date boxes checked) | | Thursday, January 21st, 2010 | | 6:00 pm |
| | 5:49 pm |
More depressing news
The Bush Supreme Court just allowed corporations to play an unlimited role in funding campaigns and campaign ads. Yep, you heard me right. A century of precedent overturned by activist Republican (can't really call them "conservative" can we?) judges. Who apparently don't value precedent as much as they claimed (to the surprise of absolutely nobody with the shadow of a brain.) And Newt Gingrich on NPR can say the most amazing things, apparently with a straight face. He said it was a victory for middle class people and middle class candidates. All the Republicans make sure to mention unions every time they say corporations. But of course, there are a lot fewer unions than there are corporations, and unions have a lot less money to spend. Let's put it this way: in the sea of politics, there will be hundreds of the Great Blue Whales of corporations, a handful of the harbor seals of unions, and the plankton. That's you and me, and we're here only to be eaten. Big victory there. Keep an eye on who is celebrating. | | Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 | | 4:49 pm |
Some good things
The drafting table worked great. I finished the job in about five hours, when I was thinking it would take at least two days. I had to fair by guess and by golly, because some of the measurements were obviously *way* out, but I made my best guess and used my largest french curve, and it looks reasonable at least. I suspect that Wee Lassie IIs built from this book are all a little different, depending on which points people decided to leave out. I also have been invited to come back and use the drafting table again. The people I talked to thought it would be a good idea for students to see someone actually, you know, *using* it. It would certainly be helpful for some kinds of plans and drawings. I was upset this morning and decided to go for a walk. A few minutes into my walk it started raining on me, which I hadn't prepared for, and which didn't improve my mood very much. However I don't generally let rain stop me, so I explored Black Oak Road, which runs parallel to Sizer, the road I usually use to go over the hill. It lead to an industrial park I had vaguely known about but had never been to. There is even a bike or pedestrian path that runs through it, which I thought was cool. It dumped me out on Old A J Highway so I took a different way home. I was about five minutes out from home when I heard a hail from the right. A woman in an orange sweatshirt came tearing out of her house to offer me an umbrella. "You'll catch pneumonia walking in the rain without a coat like that." she said. I thanked her, but explained that I was five minutes from home and dry clothes. But it did make me a bit happier on the walk home to think that there are people like that. I bought the plywood for the forms for the canoe. I got a good price on it, and my local lumberyard cut it into 18 inch strips for me for a couple of dollars extra. I needed one extra piece 17 x 18 inches in addition to the 4 x 8 sheet (I made several calculations trying to figure out what the most efficient layout would be, but I couldn't get it all on one 4 x 8 sheet). Fortunately the lumberyard had a remnant that filled the bill nicely so I didn't have to buy a second sheet. | | 8:12 am |
The people who brought you "death panels" and explained how Steven Hawking would be dead if he'd been born in a country with universal heath care are now in a position to control the opportunity for an up or down vote on health care. So much for health care. Current Music: Taps | | Monday, January 18th, 2010 | | 5:07 pm |
Hah! Carson Newman has a lovely drafting table in the art building. Now I just need to get permission to use it for a day or two, and find some big paper. And I can cross "exercise" off my list. | | 2:03 pm |
Achievement as procrastination / falling back and punting
So I was going to begin on the boat today. Since I have a choice of buying my plans from Source A for 75$ (good reputation, well known source), Source B for 25$ (original owner now in assisted living, not sure how long plans will take to ship or whether anyone is even minding that webstore anymore) or draw up my own plans from the measured illustrations in Featherweight Boatbuilding, I waffled for a while and decided to draw up my own plans. I'm pretty sure a couple of the measurements are wrong (hull depth should vary smoothly from center to stems, and in this case it wavers back and forth by about a half inch) but I think I have worked out how to smooth that out. From stuff on the accompanying website, I am not the only person to make this observation, which reassures me a bit that I am less likely to be contemplating something stupid. However drawing out the plans is kind of intimidating. I don't have a drafting table or even a drafting board, and I figure I can compensate by taping my straightedge to the dining room table and running a T-square off that, but I don't even have a T-square or any big paper. And, as often happens when I'm planning to start an intimidating task, I got a lot of other things done this morning. I did a load of laundry and a big load of dishes, and took the recycling out and threw out the trash, brought in the mail and sorted it, practiced mandolin and even got started on grouting the shower. Unfortunately before I can grout the shower, I need to scrub the cracks out as well as possible so the grout will stick, and remove all the old silicone caulk which the person before me used in place of real grout. Plus I need to remove the old caulk anyway, because I need to re-caulk. And folding my 6 foot 1 self into the bottom of the shower to scrub and pry out old caulk is a bit hard on my rickety old frame. I figured out in fairly short order that I was not going to be able to keep at it for the multiple hours necessary to finish this task in a day. So I decided to fall back and punt. I don't actually know much about football (American football) but I have always taken this to mean "substitute a smaller, but achievable, portion of a task for the more ambitious original plan which has been discovered to be impractical." In this case, I decided I would work on the shower for an hour, and then an hour tomorrow and so on until it is done. I have done the first hour, removing the old caulk and scrubbing the bottom of two sides of the shower, but I expect I have at least two more hours to go. I intend to finish by grouting, letting the grout cure, and then caulking the bottom edge, where the walls meet the shower floor. Now I think I will walk down to Carson Newman to see if they have any kind of drafting facilities or even a T-square I can borrow instead of paying for one. :-) That way I can mark "exercise" off my list for the day too. And maybe even start on the planned project. | | Saturday, January 16th, 2010 | | 5:03 pm |
Workshop is good.
I really like having a workshop. For example, we broke a board on the futon frame a few days ago. Today I dragged the futon off it, and with the broken board sitting there, looking reproachfully at me, finally got around to fixing it. Bought a new 1 x 6 from Lowes (bet I could have got a better price at my local lumberyard but it's not open Saturdays), measured it against the frame, took it into the shop, used my (new Christmas present) Starrett combination square to mark the cut, opened the front vise on my workbench, moved the sliding jack to the other end of the bench and put a peg in the top hole, balanced the board on the peg and the vise, and tightened up the vise to hold it in place. Then I could cut the board with my ryobi saw, use a plane (I ended up using the low angle block plane because it takes a slightly bigger bite than the jack plane in its current configuration, and it's lighter) to round off the edges so the mattress wouldn't catch on them, and trundle the board into the bedroom. Where I removed the screws holding the old broken board in place and used them to attach the new board. With a couple of pauses for thoughtful cups of tea and assurances that the bed couldn't get any more broken than it was, so if I did something wrong it wasn't that big a deal. And now we have a working bed again. Ta da! Workshop is good. | | Thursday, December 31st, 2009 | | 11:58 pm |
Happy New Year
I am dead tired and won't be going over the past year or decade tonight. I do just have time to wish you this, my friends--may 2010 be a fortunate year for you. May it bring you joy, real challenges and at least a measure of success. May you try something you've never done before; may it work out well for you, and may you learn and grow stronger from it. May you improve someone's life; may someone improve yours. May you change the world, at least in a small way, and for the better. | | Monday, December 28th, 2009 | | 11:18 pm |
I stand corrected.
Thanks to the responses to my last post I have become aware that, after publicly chiding Garrison Keillor for not doing his research, I failed to do my research. I thought that simply being a Unitarian and attending (sometimes) a Unitarian church meant I knew whether Unitarians have a creed or not, and what it was. My bad. Unitarians in fact do not have a creed in the sense of one verse that everyone in every Unitarian church recites and professes to believe every part of as a condition of membership. The verses we recite in unison are chosen by each congregation separately and the one used in my particular church in Knoxville isn't necessarily used in any other church. I acknowledge the inconsistency and apologize. I will try to do better in the future. The rest of my post, however, stands. I trust it is reasonably obvious that I do not seriously expect that Garrison give up all parts of Christmas that Christians have, over the centuries, picked up from other religions and celebrations and repurposed for their faith. I simply ask that he quit sitting atop his hoard of repurposed customs and insisting that nobody else re-repurpose them. After all, I'm sure when he thinks about it he doesn't want to be a hypocrite. | | 9:16 pm |
I thought conservatives would know some history.
I've been staying at my Dad's house over the holidays. This exposes me to reading material I wouldn't ordinarily see, like the Wall Street Journal. Reading the Wall Street Journal is a valuable reminder of why I generally don't. For example there is this piece by David Horowitz.The part that caught my eye was this: "My life experience had led me to conclude that not only was changing the world an impossible dream,..." Changing the world is an impossible dream. This is apparently so well accepted by his conservative audience he doesn't even need to mention why he thinks so, he just tosses it off on the way to something else. Changing the world is an impossible dream. Thomas Jefferson, Fredrick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King will be devastated to hear that. John Snow, Louis Pasteur, Edwin Chadwick and Margaret Sanger will grieve over their wasted lives. Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin and Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase; John Dalton and Antoine Lavoisier; Wilhelm Rontgen and Marie Curie, have not advanced human understanding one iota. Henry Ford, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Bill Gates have not changed one single thing about the world we live in. Except, there was a time, not that long ago, actually, when slavery was an accepted fact, women were effectively owned by their male relatives, more than half of all people died before they turned ten, and nobody had the faintest idea why the sun came back in the morning. Changing the world is not just possible; changing the world is inevitable. |
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