Atheism vs Theism

It does not matter whether you are a theist or atheist, what matters is sincerity, forgiveness, and compassion.

– His Holiness the Dalai Lama

KillerGoldFish

Lately I’ve been thinking (and have posted about it – if you’re that darn curious you can go try to find the posts yourself) that blogging in the manner I have is starting lose its luster.

I’m not sure anyone needs another person to rant on about their thoughts and feelings randomly throughout the day. When I think about it – the reading I do online is exactly not that.

One of my sisters got me to thinking about why I blog and what I’m looking for. It helped me see why this certain type of blogging has lost its luster (partly, anyway).

I like discussion because it helps me clarify my thinking on things. I don’t learn much by talking though, except perhaps when I catch myself in error. I prefer to hear the arguments put out there by others and I enjoy considering them and mixing them around with my own ideas.

Blogging started, for me, at a time when my closest friends were not available for spirited discussions and I didn’t have an outlet for the crazy, mixed-up ideas I was having. Blogging at least provided me with half of what I was looking for – a place to say what was on my mind and occasionally, if I was lucky, someone who disagreed with me.

I am now, however, in a position where I have my ‘hands in the dirt’ of philosophical questions – I’m working as a nurse and nearly every day I’m confronted with ethical challenges and my fiancee, despite her best attempts, tends toward the philosophical as well. Or at least she disagrees with me frequently which gives me a lot to think about.

So, as you can see, my need to randomly spew my thoughts on the ‘net is greatly lessened.

Another change that I’ve noticed is my weariness with discussing unanswerable questions – at least hypotheticals dealing with god, good and evil, the afterlife, all those kinds of things. I don’t know if its age, that I finally realized the horse is already dead or what, but I just don’t care enough anymore to get worked up about the questions.

Am I more interested in writing experientially? I suppose (witness my previous post) but even here, I’m not sure that the world needs yet another blog about these types of things.

Well, I’ve decided to open a website that I had a long time ago – KillerGoldFish.Com and develop it into a site that’s useful to me. I’ll host some photos there, I’ll post bits of things that I find important to me so that I can reread them or share them with my friends and cut back on the personal commentary.

I’ll keep this blog alive for awhile, I suppose, we’ll see what happens. But really, I’m interested in writing about the books I am reading, my experiences with Zen Buddhism and with nursing.

I’m not sure those topics are all that important, but I know my half-arsed ramblings are definitely not. =)

Chrome Redux

Ok, thanks to Ed, I read the new license for Chrome and reinstalled.  What can I say? I’m a sucker for a minimalist interface.

I wonder if I’m unique for a Windows user – I have no icons on my desktop, a soothingly blue background that I stole from the Litestep project a few years ago, I have five icons (3 too many) on my Quick Launch bar and use the keyboard to access all my programs via SlickRun.  All of this leaves me with very few buttons, minimal use of the mouse (time waster, really) and a very clean interface.

It’s a lot like Chrome, actually.

I still wonder where Google is going with the web history, purchasing DoubleClick, jumping into medical records and now this latest (and apparently fixed) gaff in the licensing of Chrome.  Huh. Even as I write this, i wonder why I wonder.  It seems pretty obvious.

One article suggsted maybe that Google wanted to test the reception of the licensing and always had Plan B in their backpocket if their restrictive policies didn’t gain wide acceptance.

Eh.  There’s not much to say, I suppose. I like Chrome so far.  It’s easy to use and clean.  It doesn’t have the addons that I like so much – but I hear that’s on the way.  Then again – now that I no longer work in software development, I wonder how much I really need those addons, anyway.

Check out PCWorld’s Chrome review – 7 reasons for, 7 reasons against.

Update:

I’ve uninstalled Chrome.  For a billion reasons Firefox is still the browser of chocie, IMO.  And that minimal interface thing I liked about Chrome (the only reason I liked it, really) I can get from using a minimal skin on Firefox.  So, why bother?  As for multiple tabs not crashing the browser, this never happens to me in Firefox, so it’s a non issue.

Kinda like Google’s new phone – I just don’t see the point of it.  What’s the hype about?  Why do I need this?

Chrome by Google? I think not.

I’ve already posted on why Amazon’s Kindle is a bad choice (and remains this way) and now along comes Google (with the well publicized and once promising, now ironic, motto “don’t be evil) with Chrome, a web browser that promises interesting things in the future (but offers nothing new just yet) and a very appealing and simple user interface.

I installed it.  Used it for an hour.  I liked the minimal look and thought – huh – maybe I’ll keep it.  Then  I noticed this:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

All of this essentially means they essentially own whatever you create with their product and they get to target ads to you based on your content.

Don’t be evil?  How about, let’s be serious.

Divorce != Furniture

Thanks Laura! This makes me laugh and laugh!!

Our Dreams

“You should be more careful what you write.  You never know when a future employer might read it.”

LBJ dies but doesn’t escape sexism

Quoted from the El Paso Times:

“She is a diminutive brunette, five-feet-four and wearing a size 10 dress, a woman who never lost her good disposition, according to close associates. “

I would really like to know, please, why we need to know her height and dress size. Why? Please, I would like to know.

I bet her husband’s death was not filled with reports of his height and neck size. I bet we have no idea what shoe size he wore unless we did some in-depth poking around.

Just what are you thinking, nameless author of the El Paso Times article?