Category: rePosts

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power.
via Letters of Note: If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

I am beginning to believe that this is how we are going to view same-sex marriage(same-sex Civil Union).

There isn’t enough trust in the world, imho. People can’t tell, or don’t take the time to find out, if someone is trustworthy. The other day I asked this question of an editor at a major newspaper — why don’t you trust your readers? I ask this of Apple, why don’t you trust your users? What about the government, why doesn’t it trust its citizens? Ultimately all these institutions must listen to the people they serve. The news and tech industries, even governments — will eventually listen.
The reason people are reluctant: If you extend trust, sometimes you’re going to get burned. And if you never trust anyone, you’ll never be hurt. But you won’t have much of a life. So you have to develop a sense of who and what you can depend on.

via Thanks Matt for listening… (Scripting News).

This paragraph really hit me hard. It made me ask the question are you someone you would trust? I am not ok with my answer to that question!

Hope they are all ok!

(UPDATE 2) Mayon Volcano erupts
More ash explosions seen
By Rey M. Nasol
Inquirer Southern Luzon
First Posted 06:09:00 11/11/2009
Filed Under: Volcanic eruption
LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines— The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology recorded an ash explosion in Mayon Volcano early Wednesday, which caused ash fall in Albay towns located southwest and northwest of the volcano.
“The explosion, which occurred at around 1:58 a.m., is a clear sign of magma intrusion toward the summit crater of the volcano,” said Alex Baloloy, Phivolcs science research analyst.
The explosion, which lasted for about three minutes, was accompanied by rumbling sounds. Residents in the towns of Camalig, Guinobatan, Polangui, Oas, and Ligao City reported experiencing the ash fall.
Baloloy said, however, that the height of the ash column was not recorded because clouds covered the view of the volcano and it was still dark when the explosion happened.
via (UPDATE 2) Mayon Volcano erupts – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Nice funny list, clickthrough to read the list!

10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don’t
* By Matt Blum |* November 10, 2009 |* 8:00 am |* Categories: Everything Else
There are many, many laws having nothing to do with government that are useful to know because they tell you something about how the universe works. There are Newton’s laws of motion, the laws of thermodynamics, Boyle’s Law, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, among many. Most of these laws have been known for a long time, but it wasn’t until a mere 19 years ago that Godwin’s Law was written.
If you’ve ever been involved in a discussion on Usenet, or have been following politics in the past decade or so, you’ve probably encountered Godwin’s Law. While Godwin’s Law is, alas, as true today as it was then, it seems unfortunate that there aren’t more widely accepted axioms to help us geeks define the characteristics of our world.
via 10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don’t | GeekDad | Wired.com.

Click through to read the whole article!

Rule number 1: My code is crap.
Rule number 2: Even if it’s crap, I care about my code.
Rule number 3: My opinion about my own code is wrong.
Rule number 4: My manager doesn’t care about my code, and he pays me.
via The four golden rules to be a better software developer. | Making Good Software.

I believe the key reason for so many problems in the world today is the fact we no longer have to see directly the repercussions of our actions. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering involved in the production of the food and other “stuff” we buy. The tool that has enabled this disconnection is money.
If we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it as we do today. If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior decor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we wouldn’t waste it so freely.
As long as money exists, these symptoms will surely persist. So I decided, last November, to give it up, for one year initially, and reconnect directly with the things I use and consume.
via My year of living without money | Environment | The Guardian.

For a country, such as the Philippines, which sends thousands of nurses overseas, this is excellent news.

Another widespread myth holds that most Americans need to go to college in the future. In reality, most of the fastest-growing jobs, including those in healthcare, do not require a four-year bachelor’s degree. According to the Council of Economic Advisers: “The categories with some education required beyond high school are growing faster than those not requiring post-secondary schooling. The growth is not solely among occupations requiring bachelor’s degrees; occupations that require only an associate’s degree or a post-secondary vocational award are actually projected to grow slightly faster than occupations requiring a bachelor’s degree or more.” The appropriate public policy response is not necessarily to send more Americans to expensive four-year colleges, particularly if that means crippling burdens of personal debt in the form of student loans. We need to expand the vocational training provided by the community college system.
None of this means that we don’t need world-class scientists and engineers, or that we don’t need to rebuild our manufacturing export industries, or that we don’t need to hire people to design and build up-to-date infrastructure and energy systems. High-tech agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure and related business and professional services will remain essential to economic dynamism. But thanks to ever smarter machines, fewer and fewer people will work in the primary (field), secondary (factory) and tertiary (office) sectors. Most of the job growth will be in the “quaternary” sector of healthcare and other qualify-of-life services.
Dilbert’s days are numbered. Look for Dilbert Jr. at the nursing station.
via Salon.com | Why Dilbert is doomed.

This is interesting. In a sense a good reason why celebrities swear by being happier with having children, Being loaded (with cash) means having children does not carry with it the negative consequences. Does this mean that only rich people should have children? Of course not, but this I believe shows that unhappy poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have children. I don’t know. read the linked blog post for the pertinent papers.

Children & happiness
Having children makes you miserable. That’s the message of this paper by Luca Stanca, which draws upon data from 94 countries:
Having children is negatively related to subjective well-being. Conditioning on individual characteristics shows that the effect of parenthood on well-being is positive and significant only for widowers, older and highly educated individuals…On the basis of a purely economic approach, the optimal number of children for a rational agent is zero.
This partly corroborates evidence from the UK (pdf), which shows that children increase the well-being only of married couples and widowers, but reduce the well-being of single or separated parents.
However, the reason for this is rather mundane. Children make (many) people less happy only because they are expensive. Mr Stanca finds that children improve people’s satisfaction with non-financial aspects of their life, but worsen their financial happiness. This corroborates some other evidence (hat-tip).
via Stumbling and Mumbling: Children & happiness.