VDHs Private Papers:: So Why Read Anymore?.
I have nothing to add, other than to get to those classics I have on my Kindle that I keep putting off for “someday”.
Jan 232012
I certainly wouldn’t have said so as most of my information on Ghandi comes tangentially from comments and snippets of article mentions, quick documentary coverage, etc. Heck, I’ve never even seen the Academy Award winning movie as I figured it probably didn’t resemble reality. Consequently, I found this article very interesting and intend to hunt down a couple good biographies. Of course, I was pointed to this by Victor Hanson in the second article listed below.
Victor Davis Hanson Arcticle: Kingdom of Lies
Feb 112011
http://prezi.com/
For the paid version an iPad app is provided as well.
Jan 262011
Web browser makers developing new tools to protect privacy – SiliconValley.com.
Excerpt of interest:
Google’s new tool — called Keep My Opt-Outs — would preserve consumers’ tracking choices even when they delete their browser’s cookies. The tool comes in the form of a browser plug-in — a mini-program that consumers can download and add to their Web browser to give it more functions.
For now, the plug-in works only with Google’s Chrome browser, which is used by a small fraction of the Internet population. But Google officials said they are working on plug-ins for other browsers as well.
The plug-in works in conjunction with an opt-out website put together by the National Advertising Initiative. Although the site includes major advertisers such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, it doesn’t represent the entire online advertising industry. So consumers can’t use the site and Google’s plug-in to block all online tracking.
Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live & How We Think by Victor Davis Hanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
So much to think about after reading anything by VDH and this is no exception. The title says it well as this book covers a lot of ground in regard to the ripples of warfare to everything else, literally. Mind expanding and driving me to the library and store for more of the classics to read.
Jan 192011
VDHs Private Papers:: The New Sophists or my subtitle “why common sense, isn’t”
Simple tool that enables even complete noobs the ability to hijack your online accounts when you use an unprotected wifi connection. I generally use my Verizon MiFi connection even when in an airport or coffee shop that provides free wifi to avoid this problem.
Here’s a decent article that effectively says “use a VPN” and provides alternatives to do that.
Five ways to shear firesheep: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/five-ways-to-shear-firesheep/283?tag=nl.e540
Creation came ‘from nothing,’ not God: Stephen Hawking – USATODAY.com.
Anyone paying any attention to current theoretical physicists should, like me, be in a continual state of giggles. This one from Mr. Hawking is the latest giggle. Mr. Genius believes:
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing,” the excerpt says. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to … set the Universe going.”
So Mr. Genius places his faith in “nothing” as he can no more “prove” his assertion that the universe spontaneously created itself any more than I can “prove” God did it (none of us were there). At least this purported “man of science” has named the object of his faith… nothing. All faith to be faith must have an object. I had faith when I sat in the chair I’m typing this from, that it would hold me up. Hawking has faith that nothingness was able to spontaneously burst for everythingness that became the universe that has congealed over time through natural processes such as gravity.
Is this what Hawking really meant to say? He says that because it has “a law such as gravity” the Universe creates itself. How can that be when in a state of nothingness there is no law of gravity, there is no concept of matter or even of space or time… nothing. I know it is unfathomable for us to grasp or picture the “reality” of nothingness or non-time, non-space, but without a “causer”, that is what everything came from. Of course, this is ridiculous as all effects must have causes, so what caused there to be matter, space, time, gravity… the universe? Sounds to me like Hawking has placed his faith in some magical, but certainly not God-initiated accidental, self-causing (impossible of course, because in nothingness there are no selves) event.
Hawking loses this round to Augustine, Aquinas and all other men of true reason that realized that there has to be a “first cause” and that it is impossible for something to come from nothing. Effects have to have causes, but causes do not have to have causes. It is much easier and more rational (scientific) and more fear inducing (ah, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter) to argue that the something, indeed everything, of the universe came from something instead of nothing and that the something is God. That’s where I’ll choose to put my faith, because faith should be rational and placed in only those objects which are worthy and nothingness does not fit the bill in any rational way.
Jun 172010
Arthur Laffer June 6, 2010 in WSJ: Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse
