Author: VD

RT writes: I am now in graduate school. They give so many readings. I am always busy. I keep dreaming that one day they will abolish classes and compulsory attendance. I always think, if only I did not have to go to class, I would have so much time to study and learn. Instead, I spend 60 hours a week doing school work or things at school. I hardly learn anything in class. My field is Political Science. I teach a class. My students’ average on the first test was 58%. So, I had to give them extra credit because I’m a new teacher and it’s assumed to be my fault.

I’m actually pretty optimistic about technology eventually obviating the need for most college as well. Let’s face it, it’s mostly an expensive way to learn how to funnel a beer and pick up venereal diseases. There is something to be said for a transition period before going off on your own, though, as the English aristocracy used to do, although it would be a lot less expensive and probably more of a learning experience to hand an 18 year-old forty thousand dollars and tell him to take a year to do whatever he wanted, with the caveat that when that year was up, he was on his own. A self-starter would go for that deal in a minute. The sheep, on the other hand, will still prefer five or six years of floating around a state university and a nice load of accumulated debt.

Is it true that taking out the terrorist leadership will make things worse for Israel? Or will Hamas dissolve into a bitter internecine battle for control of the terrorist group and its millions of dollars? If it were Arafat that had been removed, I would bet on the latter. I don’t know enough about Hamas to venture an opinion, but I would guess that Arafat will soon receive that martyrdom that he claims to be so ardently seeking.

I imagine the US military strategists are watching this closely. One way or the other, there will be some intriguing lessons to be learned from this.

Bon writes: Well Vox, It would be rude for me not to pop by! I’m impressed your readers here seem quite behind the project overall, and I hope we can encorage some of them to join us on GBLD. TZ said: “I hope they do it so that it is bootable (insert disk, hit reset, wait a few seconds, play), and that it comes in multiple flavors (PPC for mac users, Sharp Zaurus?), and they come up with a standard API (so I could clone it for MacOS/Quartz).” We are aiming a bootable CD that runs on PC, PS2 and X-Box. Mac implementation would be great, but I think the team could use some help on that, are you avaliable to help TZ?

We are developing a Knoppix-style disc, and including some existing games. However, I am very proud that Vox is supporting the other aim of the project, which is to develop a new ‘killer’ game. Maybe, if we can come up with a must-have game, we will draw people to Linux. If we can run that same code on PC/PS2/MAC/X-Box then we can show game studios a way to reduce dev costs, and bring new users to Linux. My other reason for the project is to bring new programmers. Whilst I grew up using the Sinclair Spec48, the Commodore64 and so on, it was easy to break into a game and see how it worked. I learned to program that way, but today with licensed development platforms, young people don’t get that chance. Everything GBLD does will be published in source as well, so young people get a chance to learn as well.

The must-have game will draw people and get them talking. Maybe though, we will be able to help people learn about programming and make them really excited about whats possible on today’s hardware. Then we have started to build a new generation of programmers for tomorrow. FOSS is the only architecture that will allow us to do that, and I hope it works. At the moment most schools run MS software. It scares me that from day 1, young people are trained in MS software. Can maybe one of you good folks can tell me something? Schools have to pay for MS software. Schools then teach on MS products. Our tax pays to train people on proprietory products. If MS want to teach people their products, shouldn’t they either give schools the software for free, or schools should teach open source programs, and people can pay for MS training as a graduation?

That’s an aside however. GBLD wil hopefully bring new programmers and new Linux users, through a new game. I’m proud Vox shared my view and has offered his time and experience voluntarily.

Just ask Stanford. I have a feeling that if you compared the average SAT scores of the Cardinal versus Alabama, the former would almost double the latter. Doesn’t always help on the basketball court, obviously.

Scott comments: The “seemingly” was superfluous and unnecesary. I absolutely do believe what I wrote.

Very well. The statement then reads: “To deny G-d’s absolute knowledge and control of history is to deny his omnipotence.” Only it isn’t. Look up the definition of omnipotence. And it is denying his ability to leave history to work itself out that is to actually deny his omnipotence. Power is capability, not action. Does George Bush not have the power to unleash nuiclear war because he has not done so? As I have stated many times, omnipotence + omniscience does not equal omniderigence. This does not mean omniderigence is necessarily precluded, only that it is not inherently implied either.

To know all and to have the unlimited power with which to act is not synonymous with actively using such power over all participants in all situations. I don’t doubt that God has a Plan for humanity, I do doubt that it a) requires the direct involvement of every single human in all of history in order to come to pass and b) is utterly inflexible. I further doubt that we are nothing more than puppets being used to stage a show for the benefit of the angels, divine and fallen, as I heard in a sermon at a large church today. I don’t believe Jesus Christ came primarily for the edification of supernatural beings, I believe he came as a lifeline for those who very much wish to be rescued from a ship sinking of its own accord. I readily admit that I could be wrong, but “could” and “are” are two very different things.

Furthermore, I am perfectly capable of denying God’s omnipotence if I meant to do so. Obviously, I don’t and haven’t. Childlike faith, good. Childlike inability to understand well-defined concepts, not so good.

Maybe this “girl” (I don’t know her age, because I’ve only read your comment on her statement) expressed her sentiment on a very deep issue in a simplistic manner. So what? Most people don’t give much thought to the issue and express their belief in a simple way.

Which, of course, was my original point. Most people believe stupid and simple things in all aspects of their life because they’ve never devoted much thought to anything. I believed the crust was the best part of the bread for the better part of three decades, not because I’m incredibly stupid, but because my mother told me that when I was very young and I had literally never thought about it. When Space Bunny laughed and asked me why the crust was the best part, I thought about it for the first time – which took all of ten milleseconds – and realized how absurd the notion was.

The best part was when she then asked my brother about it, who looked surprised, and then angry. He left the room a moment later, shouting “Mom!”

Seven-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Warren Sapp agreed to terms on a seven-year, $36.6 million contract with the Oakland Raiders on Saturday, ending his nine-year relationship with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Yes, that’s the answer when you’ve got an aging team in decline. Sign overrated loudmouths who are already in decline themselves. I have to say, as one who is still bitter about the last of the Vikings’ four Super Bowl losses, I’m watching these developments with barely suppressed glee. It will be interesting to see Sapp explain how it’s all not his fault come mid-November.

I’m growing increasingly amused by the argument that no one believes in what the Sovereigntists call hyper-Calvinism and what I call omniderigence or an uber control freak concept of God. I attended a friend’s church this morning, and the sermon was devoted to explaining the question why bad things happen. In the specific example with which it began today, why God would “call home” a young minister in a plane crash on the way to the land to which he’d been called to minister, for which he’d spent a good part of his short life training.

What was particularly interesting is that the pastor used terminology very similar to that which I use in describing my own doubts regarding the notion that God orchestrates evil for our benefit, although the pastor used the tanalogy of a play’s producer instead of a puppet master. The base concept, of course, was precisely as I’ve described it in the past. When he read from Job and then pointed out the similarity of the description of Satan roaming about the earth to the verse where he is pictured roaming about the earth as a devouring lion, I felt like calling out: dude, there’s the answer to your question. The young preacher didn’t get called home, he was devoured by the lion! Hence the concept of a spiritual war – there are casualties even if our weapons aren’t physical, some of the enemy’s are.

Now, we’ve hashed and rehashed this out here before, and no doubt we will again, but I am not trying to beat a dead horse here in stating that I do not subscribe to omniderigent theory; everyone knows that. The point is that, contrary to the assertion, omniderigent beliefs are commonplace among modern Christians, quite possibly more common than proper Calvinist theology.

Newspapers must improve their credibility with readers to catch rogue reporters like Jayson Blair if they fabricate stories, a former New York Times editor said Saturday. Readers assume what they read in the paper is often inaccurate, so they do not bother to alert newspapers when they know something is false, said Gerald Boyd, the former Times managing editor who resigned last year in the wake of the scandal caused by Blair’s falsified and plagiarized stories. It used to be that “if the Times got anything wrong, even a middle initial … I heard from people,” Boyd told editors at the Virginia Press Association winter meeting. “The fact that people don’t respond (to inaccurate stories) speaks to the state of journalism.”

Of course they don’t. I can usually find several major errors of fact in any story relating to economic matters in the New York Times, or most major newspapers for that matter. And then, there’s the “could lead to…” lead-in on stories about anything the paper doesn’t like, and it never seems to bother the paper that its predictions of this sort are never correct. It’s certainly an interesting approach to business, assuming that your readers are not only stupid, but ignorant with no long-term memory to boot.

Pfc. Jessica Lynch long ago laid to rest the claim that she fought until her ammunition ran out in an Iraqi ambush one year ago. But the U.S. Army will posthumously award a Silver Star medal for distinguished gallantry to an Oregon soldier who did fight during the ambush. And his family believes he was the source of the reports of a soldier who fought to the last. Sgt. Donald Walters of Salem was killed in the ambush of the 507th Army Maintenance Company that left 11 American soldiers dead and six captive, including Lynch. Walters, 33, may have been the first casualty in the March 23, 2003 firefight.

It was hardly Jessica Lynch’s fault that the feminists in the Pentagon attempted to use her to further their agenda to destroy the American military by feminizing it. I just felt sorry for her, but was disgusted to see the spin doctors try to rob Sgt. Walters of the honor that was due him. I doubted the Lynch story from the beginning, having once written a short story about the deification of an all-female US military unit that is hailed as the American Amazons until they are routed, leaving their wounded behind to be dragged through the streets. Fighting to the last is simply not, understandably enough, a female trait. You need a lot of testosterone to do anything that bravely and stubbornly heroic, which is no doubt one reason why 19 year-old soldiers are preferred to 40 year-olds.

Anyhow, I’m glad the Army finally saw fit to give Sgt. Walters his due. May he rest in peace and honor.

A new Linux distro. I can hear the tank drivers moaning – not another one! But the truth of the matter is that none of the existing distros are focused on what, to many, is one of the most important aspects to computers, namely, games. After some discussion on Linux World and Slashdot, I’ve decided to get involved with GBLD.net, which is not a gay-bisexual-lesbian-deviant forum, but rather shorthand for the Games-Based Linux Distribution. As one of the project goals is to produce an original, Linux-based game, I’ve decided to return to the world of game design by heading up the Game Team. I know some of you here are gamers, so below is a message I posted on the forums. Please feel free to get involved if you’re so inclined, and keep in mind that unlike most such projects, we aren’t starting from scratch as I have access to a fair bit of game code and game art that will serve as a nice starting point.

————–

I’d like to lay out what I feel are the primary needs of the Game Team. I’m interested in hearing from those interested in joining the team; my email is vday@worldnetdaily.com, please put GAME TEAM in the subject header.

The three most important GT needs – aside from the Lead Programmer who will report to Ian, not me – are a producer, a designer and an art director. While I can and have performed the first two roles in the past, I will be focusing solely on design responsibilities.

Interested individuals wanting to join the GT but not wishing to fill one of the three aforementioned roles should send me information pertaining to the following:

Group: Programming, Art, Sound & Story



Experience: none is absolutely necessary, except for the lead responsibilities. I’m hoping to assign an assistant, perhaps two, to each Group leader in order to provide experience to newcomers. But if you’ve got some related to the activity of your Group, let me know what it is.

Hours per month: how many are you willing and able to contribute? This is something we’re doing for fun, but everyone joining the team will be held accountable for completing the tasks assigned. Since many people are interested in contributing to this project, I will not hesitate to replace anyone who consistently fails to perform their responsibilities. If you’re just interested in shooting the breeze and talking about your ideas, feel free to post away in the forum.