I finished reading Shadow Puppets a few hours ago, which I thoroughly enjoy. Now I found myself still up at a ridiculous hour reading Orson Scott Card’s website. I keep clicking through his student research section for his answers to all sorts of questions he’s received over the years. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, but one response he wrote a few years ago really stood out to me.
… even though you think you don’t have a religion and are skeptical about all religion, that only means that you haven’t yet discovered the religion you already believe in. There is no such thing as a human being who does not have beliefs so deep-rooted that when they are challenged, it makes him or her extremely upset. And those who think they have no religion are the ones most apt to think that their beliefs are TRUTH rather than simply one way to believe.
Yeah, very well said. Card and I may have very different religious beliefs but I agree with him there 100%.
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I received a little advertisement from Think Geek in my e-mail box this evening. No, it wasn’t spam. The primary item mentioned was the DX1 Input System. What the heck is that? Glad you asked! Basically, it’s a tray with 25 buttons that can be placed and arranged however you want. It’s being pitched for gaming, graphics work and I’m sure all sorts of other things.
The DX1 Input System was built with you in mind. Simply put, all you do is stick the keys where you want and then tell the DX1 what you want each key to do. It can be one command, it can be a string of commands – you now have the freedom to configure your ideal keyboard.
It looks pretty sleek, though this is one device you’ve got to see to understand. Sadly, it’s a Windows-only product so there’ll be no try-outs here!
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We all know that what we saw at E3 was not exactly what we’ll see at home after we all run out to buy the XBOX 360 and/or PS3. AnandTech has an interesting article covering developer’s real world expectations for each next-gen console.
Speaking under conditions of anonymity with real world game developers who have had first hand experience writing code for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hardware (and dev kits where applicable), we asked them for nothing more than their brutal honesty. What did they think of these new consoles? Are they really outfitted with the PC-eclipsing performance we’ve been lead to believe they have? The answer is actually quite frequently found in history; as with anything, you get what you pay for.
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I was just watching a story on CNN, about a Iowa man that lost his 74-year-old wife in a fire that began in their Ford F-150 pickup truck. The truck was parked (and had been for 4 days) in an attached garage and spread to the house. That truck model has a cruise-control deactivation switch that Ford installed in millions of its vehicles from 1992 until 2003. Ford has recalled one million vehicles that have that same part. Fifteen million are still on the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has received 559 complaints of spontaneous fires caused by the $20.57 switches. Someone at Ford did the math for how much of a risk was involved and decided it was a better financial choice to leave those other vehicles on the road than to deal with the expense of recalling all of them. So we’re back to my statement in the headline– Ford knew the risk, took the risk and now someone is dead. Someone should spend time behind bars for the death of Darletta Mohlis. A fine is one thing when property is damaged, but death? In a case like this? It’s criminally negligent homicide. But I’m no attorney, judge or any other person educated in the judicial system, so what do I know? I’m just a regular Joe that wont ever buy a Ford vehicle again.
CNN has another story about a Kissimmee, Florida family who recently lost their home to a fire started in their 2001 Ford Expedition. This article includes a list of Ford vehicles that have the switch or similar switches.
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This Singapore Navy recruitment video beats the crap out of any US military recruitment campaigns I’ve ever seen.
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Popularity: 5% [?]
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