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NQbass7
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Name: Eric
Gender: Male
Interests: Playing music, listening to music, jamming, etc. etc.; Ultimate Frisbee, Running, and Biking. I also enjoy learning anything I can: "Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself — will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth of a gear in my thought machine. [...] Never have I said to myself, 'This fact I can do without.'"
Expertise: Electrical Engineering/Computer Science
Occupation: Design Engineer/Programmer
Industry: Engineering
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/21/2003
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| WeekendSigur Rós. Red Rocks.
I have high expectations.
EDIT:
Video, but not from me. We were back in General Admission. It was absolutely amazing though.
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| ScaryThis was going to be two posts, but I figured they're related enough that I'd put them into one.
First, I don't know about you, but I find this scary as hell. This is a comment left on a political blog I read, "Dispatches from the Culture Wars." It comes from a person who claims he was going to vote Obama until McCain chose Palin as VP. (Yes, you read that right - he wasn't going to vote McCain, but then after seeing Palin on the ticket, he decided to. Not the other way around.) Heddle says:
I am not an issues voter (up to a point.) I have a libertarian streak,
I like personal freedom a la what the Democrats claim to support, and
small government like the Republicans routinely promise. But neither
party delivers. Republicans grow the government. Democrats are for FISA
after they are against it. So I don't vote issues. The unprecedented
pro-Palin response among evangelicals like myself is visceral. I don't
know how to explain it. We just love her.
If you aren't scared shitless that this is how the leader of our country is getting chosen, then you're not paying attention here. "We just love her" - that's all it takes (no need to try to figure out why you love her or if she's qualified) and a completely inept leader could be in the Oval Office. It reminded me somewhat of a three part series on politics on Overcoming Bias that I've linked to before.
On a similar topic (but from the other side), IsaacClarke has a post where he talks about the faith-based policies of the religious right, and one part stuck out at me:If the religious right would have us live by moral standards derived
from their theology, that theology must be held up to scrutiny.
Unfortunately, not too many people have the guts and the brains to take
up this task. Those who do, I fear, are perceived as being so far out
of the mainstream as to not be taken seriously. And, sadly, needless
antagonism and overgeneralizations by some atheists distract from the
case that must be made. I'll admit to these faults, though I have tried
to improve over the years. That last bit really resonated with me, and reminded me about the president of the newly formed skeptic society at the college in my town (whose meeting I attended, and may continue to attend). I could see him being a distraction from the case - he's more interested in being antagonistic to religion, it seems, than just searching for truth. But hopefully the other members of the group will be different - at least one is, and she seems like she's definitely interested in continuing to stay involved in the group. So we'll see what happens.
Not much going on with me - work is the same ol', but good. I'm enjoying the work, even if it's taking a bit of time to get used to being this busy (it's hard to work eight hours straight.. I didn't have to do that much in my last two rotations). Went to Michigan this weekend, and saw a lot of flooding up that way. Some friends in town this weekend... keeping the miles down for now. But, I got a trip to New Orleans in the works, and possibly one out to the east coast. We'll see.
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| GeniusMy first impression of iTunes
Genius before trying it out: "Arrogantly Named."
My impression after it
made a playlist based on "Volcano" by Damien rice: "Accurately
Named."
The playlist:
Volcano, Damien Rice
Chicago, Sufjan
Stevens
Two, Ryan Adams
Landed, Ben Folds
Walk Away, Ben
Harper
Brick, Ben Folds Five
Dreamgirl, Dave Matthews Band
Your Body Is A Wonderland,
John Mayer
Fair, Remy Zero
Your Heart is an Empty Room, Death
Cab for Cutie
Everybody's Changing, Keane
Strange Condition, Pete Yorn
Go-Go
Gadget Gospel, Gnarls Barkley (kind of an outlier... not sure where they got this one from.)
Amie, Damien
Rice
Still Fighting It, Ben Folds
Hear You Me, Jimmy Eat World
Burn One
Down, Ben Harper
Roll to Me, Del Amitri
Bubble Toes, Jack
Johnson
Dashboard, Modest Mouse
I Will Possess Your Heart, Death
Cab for Cutie
Naked As We Came, Iron & Wine
Lonelily, Damien Rice
Don't
Explain, Herbie Hancock with Damien Rice
Do You Realize, The Flaming
Lips
For those who don't know - iTunes 8 apparently includes a feature called "Genius" which has two features. 1) It recommends music from the iTunes store similar to the song you currently have selected, and 2) much more useful, it builds a 25-, 50-, 75-, or 100-song playlist of songs from your library which are similar to the song you currently have selected. I was skeptical - it sounded like Pandora, but I wasn't sure how good it would be. But if this first playlist is any indication, it's much better than I expected.
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|  | Currently Listening
Plans
By Death Cab for Cutie
Different Names for the Same Thing
see related |
Different Names for the Same ThingEDIT: Greta Christina hits a similar point in a different way:When we criticize the overall concept of religion in general, we're
accused of over-generalizing, of not understanding the rich variety of
religious belief and thought.
But when we criticize one particular form or aspect of religion, we
somehow, once again, get accused of over- generalizing -- of not seeing
that the one form or aspect we're talking about today doesn't apply to
every form or aspect of religion that exists or has ever existed.
So what on Earth are we supposed to do? She hits some other good points in there, and has some links to other posts she's written which are also very good.
So a friend said something to me the other day which resonated somewhat.
I think it is almost as unfair to group all the Christians together as it is to group all the atheists together, because there is such a vast difference in them as well. And i think that when you - I don't like the word attack, but I can't think of a better word - you do almost the same that you despise so much when people generalize the term atheist. No I don't! Of course I don't. That's ridiculous. It's completely diff...
Alright. So I can see that somewhat. At the very least, I can see how what I write on my xanga comes off that way. I do, when I write, use "Christians" to refer to a stereotype, in some sense. I sometimes write about particular Christians and particular behavior that I don't like, but occasionally I'll generalize those behaviors to "Christians" or "theists" as a whole.
But at the same time... there are a lot of differences.
First, I was a Christian. A lot of the time when I talk about "Christians," I'm referring to something that I specifically did when I was a Christian. The problem I have with how atheists are referred to is that it's often a straw man - like the apologist who "knew an atheist" who, even if he thought Christianity was the most logical option, wouldn't become a Christian because he would have to stop having sex with his girlfriend. That (a) is most likely not true (if you know someone who said that, please let me know because I'd really like to meet that person and pick their brain), and (b) has nothing to do with atheism. Most of my generalizations aren't straw men, they're things I've actually observed.
I guess the "has nothing to do with atheism" is a separate point, enough to warrant its own paragraph. I think that someone who avoids Christianity despite evidence so they can continue having sex is the kind of person who, even if Christian, would be having sex with his girlfriend. I know Christians who do stuff like that - even devoted ones, who pray and read their Bible and whose Christianity is more than just a password to get into the social club. And ignoring evidence is a trait that I'm against in anyone regardless of religion. But with many of the behaviors I talk about, I see something different... I see people acting differently than they would, primarily because their Bible/Pastor/Church tells them to. And you can tell that's what's causing it, because they have trouble doing it. It's a challenge for them, and requires "faith." And often they're doing it for irrational reasons, or no reason at all except "They said so." That's really one of the primary things I'm getting at when I talk about "Christian" behaviors.
And I should interject here that I know that not all Christians are the same. I know many don't do the things I rail against. And I'm friends with those types of Christians, like I've said before. But if I talk about something, it's almost always because I've seen it happen, even if I know plenty of Christians who don't do it.
On top of all that... there's an inherent difference between the groupings themselves. Like I've said before, "atheist" refers to people who don't believe in something, not people who do - it's really hard to say that a particular behavior is due to a lack of belief in something. (When was the last time you attributed someone's actions to their lack of belief in Leprechauns?) If you want to group secular humanists together, go for it - at least there there's commonality of beliefs there, despite vast differences in the particulars. There's a lot more of a parallel between grouping secular humanists together and Christians together in groups than there is in grouping atheists and Christians.
Christians have common beliefs. Although this is changing, Christianity is a word that is supposed to entail particular beliefs in particular things - hence the Nicene creed. Now... there may be Christians nowadays who don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God - but if that's the case, I may not be talking about them when I say "Christians." That, to me, is not Christianity, and I believe they're only holding onto the name for the social benefits. But that's a topic for another post.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I can see how there are some similarities there.. and I work on not generalizing when it's not appropriate... but there's a big difference between saying "Christians act this way," and a Christian telling me personally that I believe in nothing simply because their pastor told them that, or saying that I just hate God because that's what they read in some book. Most of the generalizations about atheists... I haven't ever met an atheist who fits them. Maybe that's because of how I select who I hang out with. But it plays back into the fact that "atheist" describes a group of people who are not in a similarity cluster, while "Christian" and "secular humanist" both do - if there are atheists like that, then they're not part of the same group as me, and that's why I have a problem with the generalization. I don't think it's a No True Scotsman to make that distinction, because there's a very defined distinction there.
So hopefully that explains a little more what I mean when I talk about "Christians" (or "theists" - a term I try to use much more often) - and why I think there's an inherent difference between grouping them together and grouping atheists together.
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| My Little HaterI've found a replacement for ze. (Watch the Ill Doctrine video before reading this. It'll make more sense. Or don't. You might know what I'm talking about anyways - you might have experienced it yourself.)
My little hater is what stopped me from finishing the post I started three days ago to follow up on the one everybody recommended. I started typing, I got distracted, and next thing you know, I was heading to bed. "I'll finish it tomorrow."
Woke up the next morning, saw it sitting there, thought "I should finish that tonight." Came back that evening and let it sit there, open in the xanga editor window, not doing a thing with it. I looked at it once or twice, read the paragraph I finished and the sentence I didn't, and didn't feel like getting back into it. "I'm not in the groove right now." Came back the next night and did the same thing - "I'm not in that train of thought." This time I even went so far as to save it as a private entry so I could close the window but still have it around for when I was "ready" to work on it.
Used to be my xanga homepage popped up with the first entry there. Not so with the universal inbox - which means that private entry doesn't stick out like it used to. Used to be, if I saved a private entry (and kept it near the top), I'd finish it because otherwise it'd irritate me that my front page looked different than the one everybody else saw when they came to the site. It used to be like that... but now I know there's a private entry somewhere back there from March or so (which, considering how few posts I've done lately, probably isn't that far back actually), waiting to be finished. And it sat there for a long time, first on the list but still not seen. Then I finally tossed up a post to placate the masses (I humor myself), and it moved back a little. Another post a month later, a little farther. Now it's completely off the radar, and might not ever get finished - because "I'm not in that train of thought" isn't just an excuse this time, it's -
- see how easy I slipped right back into the little hater?
It helps a little to watch someone like Ill Doctrine or ze, because it makes me think like them. And when I think like them - even imagining the video cuts I'd make if I had the looks, skill, camera, software, new computer, etc.... to do videoblogging (one on each one of those commas in the list items) - I think I think more fluidly. (I think I think... at least that's what I think.) And it just comes out. Sometimes a little faster than my fingers can keep up with. And sometimes I get distracted, like putting up a little dam in the tiny stream of water running down the curb in front of your house as a kid, causing the water to pool up and forget about the drain it was heading towards. I stop and imagine myself doing the video cuts, and doing videoblogging, and wondering why I'm not, and circle around in the pool for a bit before I finally slip around the edges and get back on track and finish the sentence that's been going on forever (at least in my head).
And I can feel the ground leveling out and the flow slowing down, and I'm going back and re-reading paragraphs I read before, so I know after this it'll be a struggle to get much farther through the post unless I find another downhill somewhere in this paragraph that'll carry me towards a different drain. I can feel myself pooling up, ready to jump into the drain and just hit submit. And I'll wait to proof-read till I already got it out there, because if I do it now I might decide that the paragraphs don't transition well, or I need to add something about a different idea that I hadn't thought of - and it won't ever get out the
perfectionism
door. (And props to anyone who knows what book that style is referring to.) If I put it out there first, then it motivates me to edit quickly and lightly because someone might be reading and notice if it changes when they go to comment.
And now each sentence takes me as long as the paragraphs above. And they're short, and disjointed - like trying to splash the water out of a puddle back up the hill so it'll run back down again, but it just sits in little drops, moving a little but hardly at all, and starting to evaporate and float away like the ideas in my head...
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