![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
CCNA, Network Engineering, Mutazilites, Journal Articles, Taxes!
First off, some deep-geek news. I'm enrolled to do get CCNA certification. How does this happen? I mean, I'm qualified to be a sociologist, a philosopher and a political scientist and I end being a network engineer.
The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" ADSL modem, a rather impressive mini router, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.
Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a imperfect text has been met with some resistance. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the Mutazilites. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the Journal of Liberal Religion in the making.
Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, Dr. Cameron Jones. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at Ruxcon, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.
Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc properly this time. Grrr....
On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a religion. But they fought back and won. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses his thoughts on the state of America.
Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the Australian example is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.
From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
Sometimes, a War Saves People. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the Roman Catholic Church. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.
More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making errors, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be
The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" ADSL modem, a rather impressive mini router, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.
Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a imperfect text has been met with some resistance. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the Mutazilites. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the Journal of Liberal Religion in the making.
Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, Dr. Cameron Jones. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at Ruxcon, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.
Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc properly this time. Grrr....
On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a religion. But they fought back and won. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses his thoughts on the state of America.
Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the Australian example is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.
From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
Sometimes, a War Saves People. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the Roman Catholic Church. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.
More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making errors, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<a [...] ">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
First off, some deep-geek news. I'm enrolled to do get <a href=" http://www.cisco.com/en/US/learning/le3/le2/le0/le9/learning_certification_type_home.html">CCNA certification</a>. How does this happen? I mean, I'm qualified to be a sociologist, a philosopher and a political scientist and I end being a network engineer.
The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" <a href="http://www.ozcableguy.com/dlink1.html#dsl300g">ADSL modem</a>, a rather impressive mini <a href="http://www.micronica.com.au/catalog/sharer/wip400/">router</a>, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.
Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163366.html">imperfect text</a> has been met with some <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/165638.html">resistance</a>. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163651.html">Mutazilites</a>. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the <a href=" http://www.meadville.edu/archives.html">Journal of Liberal Religion</a> in the making.
Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the <a href="http://www.kcn.ru/tat_en/science/ans/journals/ansj.html">International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems</a> on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, <a href="http://www.swin.edu.au/chem/bio/fractals/refslist.htm">Dr. Cameron Jones</a>. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at <a href=" http://www.ruxcon.org.au/index.shtml">Ruxcon</a>, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.
Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc <i>properly</i> this time. Grrr....
On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/legolastn/80783.html">religion</a>. But they fought back and <a href="http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/local/local/story/1944373p-2252261c.html">won</a>. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey/">his thoughts</a> on the state of America.
Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/24/1085359552381.html">Australian example</a> is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.
From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005071">Sometimes, a War Saves People</a>. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the <a href=" http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/">Roman Catholic Church</a>. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.
More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831616.html">errors</a>, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831613.html"">subject to any Iraqi 'democracy' that they set up</a>
The death-knell of the telephone? <a href=" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/18/cisco_ibm/">IBM and Cisco team up for VoIP</a>
the_siobhan has a meme. 10 stories in 3 sentances or less. I'll try it, but not in this post (too full already!). Go do this in your own LJ.
Brain-breaker of the week award goes to Leoz. "Which came first ? the chicken of the egg? I tackled the question experimentally, using a chicken, an egg, and the United States Postal Service (USPS)."
http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i4/chicken_egg.html
On a final note, the universe is big. Real big. How big? <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/25/1085461764914.html">Universe 741 billion, trillion kilometres wide (we think)</a>.
The most troubling task of the week was fixing up the Borderlands network. With the world's most "no frills" <a href="http://www.ozcableguy.com/dlink1.html#dsl300g">ADSL modem</a>, a rather impressive mini <a href="http://www.micronica.com.au/catalog/sharer/wip400/">router</a>, a Netgear switch and a Dec repeater and about fifteen or so clients (heterogenous of course, WinXP, WinNT, Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux, Mandrake), they decided to broadband provider to a dial-up account and then to a different broadband provider. Then the entire network fell over. I couldn't even ping 192.168.0.1 - even when connected! A couple of days of extreme frustration led to two important discoveries. One was a seriously FUBAR ethernet card (file under 'b' for 'bin') which was chewing up resources at a rate of knots and the other was some disturbingly sporadic behaviour by the router. Net result? Basic ICS with a a gateway with dual ethernet cards and send the router back to the manufacturer. It all works. Good.
Nobody likes a heretic, and it seems that some Muslims disklike suggestions that all it not well with the Quaran. I've been in a debate on the convert me community, where my suggestion that the Quaran is a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163366.html">imperfect text</a> has been met with some <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/165638.html">resistance</a>. Most disturbing of all is the lack of knowledge concerning the <a href=" http://www.livejournal.com/community/convert_me/163651.html">Mutazilites</a>. Still, the practical upshot is that I know have an article for the <a href=" http://www.meadville.edu/archives.html">Journal of Liberal Religion</a> in the making.
Speaking of journal articles, I've also sent off a brief to the <a href="http://www.kcn.ru/tat_en/science/ans/journals/ansj.html">International Journal for Problems of Nonlinear Analysis in Engineering Systems</a> on dissipitative structures in social systems, which I'll co-author with my colleague in mathematics, <a href="http://www.swin.edu.au/chem/bio/fractals/refslist.htm">Dr. Cameron Jones</a>. Finally, I've also pitched to present a paper at <a href=" http://www.ruxcon.org.au/index.shtml">Ruxcon</a>, the IT Security Conference at UTS although my subject matter (Australia - East Timor military intelligence) may be considered a little off-topic.
Other good news includes doing my tax for the first time since (ahem) 1997 and discovering, as I suspected, that the Australian Tax Office owes me a few thousand dollars. That should pay for a few weeks (at least) in Ha Noi with caseopaya if and when Australian Volunteers International get their collective act together and organize the visas etc <i>properly</i> this time. Grrr....
On other religious matters, apparently in Texas the Unitarians arent't a <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/legolastn/80783.html">religion</a>. But they fought back and <a href="http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/local/local/story/1944373p-2252261c.html">won</a>. Whilst on the unitarian topic, an old championof the creedless church, Kurt Vonnegut expresses <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/cold_turkey/">his thoughts</a> on the state of America.
Whilst I'm not usually a strong subscriber of the orthodox undergraduate Marxist doctrine of "Faire payers les riches" as a solution to economic problems, gross quantities of wealth sicken me, and the <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/24/1085359552381.html">Australian example</a> is quite revolting. "The total wealth of Australia's richest 200 people is $71.5 billion, up 13% from the $63.2 billion in 2003." If we divide that some by 20 million and you get (71 500/20) = $ 3 575 for every man, woman and child in the country.
From Erudito, Jose Ramos-Horta proves that he will be remembered as war-monger.
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005071">Sometimes, a War Saves People</a>. Whilst the principle he espouses - a just war - is sound, the implementation is compeletely false in this instance - as pointed out by the people who developed the doctrine, the <a href=" http://www.americancatholic.org/News/JustWar/Iraq/">Roman Catholic Church</a>. Also in the realm of faulty logic, Horta tries to suggest that because the French, Tanzanians and Vietnamese acted without UN approval this somehow justifies the invasion of Iraq. Apparently two people act wrong that makes their same action by a third person right.
More news from Iraq. Wonder of wonders, the New York Times admits to making <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831616.html">errors</a>, and no surprise, the United States again indicates that they will not be <a href="http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/26/1085461831613.html"">subject to any Iraqi 'democracy' that they set up</a>
The death-knell of the telephone? <a href=" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/18/cisco_ibm/">IBM and Cisco team up for VoIP</a>
the_siobhan has a meme. 10 stories in 3 sentances or less. I'll try it, but not in this post (too full already!). Go do this in your own LJ.
Brain-breaker of the week award goes to Leoz. "Which came first ? the chicken of the egg? I tackled the question experimentally, using a chicken, an egg, and the United States Postal Service (USPS)."
http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i4/chicken_egg.html
On a final note, the universe is big. Real big. How big? <a href=" http://theage.com.au/text/articles/2004/05/25/1085461764914.html">Universe 741 billion, trillion kilometres wide (we think)</a>.
no subject
...and nicely contextualised within the demolition of an absurd presumption anyway - that an Arabic (Oh, riiiight - which 'Arabic'?) speaking angel went 'shazam' (a town in Yemen, I believe - famous for its fig-bottling works, and carpets woven out of old Fitzroy jerseys), appeared to some guy (peace be upon him), refrained from exsanguinating him like a dairy cow (or is that aliens? I get confused), and said "have a religion, buddy!".
Only slightly less absurd than angels supplying magic glasses to read golden books, but Mormonism always was going to win the "Idiot Theology Medal with Oak Leaves and Swords", every time.
Not that any of this matters - there's no undermining of the Prophet's exclusive franchise with mere logic, reason and fact!
You in biiiiiiiiiiig trouble, kufr-boy. ;-)
The War for Good Sense continues.....
no subject
You know, I was actually quite disappointed with the response by the Muslims, because many that I have met are fairly erudite people and are quite capable of understanding the difference between analogy and fact.
Of course, the problem isn't assisted by "official" and state-sanctioned Islamic doctrine which suppresses secular and rational thinking. Given that nearly all the Muslims I have met are Malays (or Australians!), who pride themselves in their secularism maybe I've been receiving a biased picture.
no subject
Oh, and I think your exposure to secularised Muslims would definately skew yer sample!
And for your delectation, go here:
http://www.islam.tc/ask-imam/index.php
In between posing various daft theological conundrums to the Mufti, there are a lot of questions about whacking off.
Hilarious.
no subject
Thanks for the link. There's lots of opportunites there for some well-meaning fun.
Actually some of the people with a broomstick up their arse could do with a thread on sex and religion. The homosexuality and god bit has been done to death, but it would be -ahh- juicy to get into the details...
I can't believe it. I'm thinking of trolling convert_me.
Second response!
Just a thought... They were all American Muslims! Which I suppose puts them not necessarily in the category of being 'recent converts' but at the very least 'a despised minority', which probably explains why they can get so defensive.
In stark contrast the most common expression of faith I heard in Indonesia was "I'm Muslim... but I'd really like a beer".
no subject
It's a bit the same with all religions... Most people know where to draw the line between their beliefs and infringing on others. But there are always extremists who've gone over the top.
Add to that radicalism in the middle east caused by various wars to garden variety religious extremism and it's a potent brew.
Over my years I'm probably about the only Jewish guy (technically only; my Mum is, but I didn't grow up in the culture or religion and am happily atheistic) who's shared flats with both a skinhead and a devoted Sri Lankan muslim. Not at the same time, of course; now that would be a sitcom! Oddly enough, they're the two best housemates I've shared a place with :-).
Okay, I've rambled aimlessly here enough. My work is done.
no subject
no subject
I found it thanks to adding
no subject
Miao! Thank you for that!
I particularly liked the following comments:
- - -
This article generated quite a few e-mails from readers who were perplexed or flat out could not believe the universe was just 13.7 billion years old yet 158 billion light-years wide. That suggests the speed of light has been exceeded, they argue. So SPACE.com asked Neil Cornish to explain further. Here is his response:
"The problem is that funny things happen in general relativity which appear to violate special relativity (nothing traveling faster than the speed of light and all that).
"Let's go back to Hubble's observation that distant galaxies appear to be moving away from us, and the more distant the galaxy, the faster it appears to move away. The constant of proportionality in that relationship is known as Hubble's constant.
"One seemingly paradoxical consequence of Hubble's observation is that galaxies sufficiently far away will be receding from us at a velocity faster than the speed of light. This distance is called the Hubble radius, and is commonly referred to as the horizon in analogy with a black hole horizon.
- - -
Stuff that goes faster than the speed of light fascinates me, for some very obvious reasons...
no subject
Have you ever thought of writing shorter, more frequent posts with less in them? Given that most of us are quite pressed for time, your copious sprinkling of links is pretty much a guarantee that most of it won't be read.
no subject
A new theory? The physics of things moving faster than the speed of light sends my head into a spin.
'Light' isn't just an indication of luminosity, it's also a weight. Photons have zero rest mass. As something approaches the speed of light it gains mass - and requires greater energy for further acceleration, reaching infinity for anything that has more than zero rest mass. Add to that the effects of time dilation - when one approaches the speed of light time slows down - and if my wry comment in a year 10 physics class was accurate - goes backwards at speeds greater than the speed of light..
Ow! Ow! Ow! My poor brain!
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=56
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=422
WRT posts, you're probably right. Maybe 2 a week would be a more appropriate rate.
no subject
But I have less trouble with the notion of time going backwards than I do with the notion that the universe fills a finite space of a few billion trillion light years. In that case, I want to know what is outside the universe? But if space-time bends back on itself and is infinite, I can intuitively grasp the idea even if my finite brain cannot really comprehend it.
no subject
The conceptual difficulty is fairly common. Space and time, matter and energy, all arose simultaneously. What happened before the big bang? Nothing, there was no time. What is outside the universe? Nothing there is no space.
'Nothingness' is the 'thing' that we cannot know.
no subject
no subject
I had a recently converted (due to marriage) Muslim student a few years back. Since we were studying Southeast Asia (Indonesia, etc), she assured me that they weren't real Muslims. The only true Islam apparently comes from Iran, which is where her husband comes from. We had long discussions about it (especially the notion that something so broad can have nationality), but she never budged a millimetre. I hope she has managed to escape by now!
no subject
The split between the Shi'a (Iran/Iraq) and Sunni (Caliphs) Muslims is entirely political, based on differing succession claims from the prophet. The malay Santri (local paganism mixed with Islam) and more widespread Sufi (mystical) traditions seem to exist only in the latter.
On the matters of violent matrimonial discipline, the following gives a summary:
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/075376.htm
And an alternative, which denies that Islam allows wife beating is here:
http://www.penkatali.org/wife.html
As usual to fundamentalists it comes down to interpretation and relative values between the Quaran versus the Hadith. Whereas secular people are concerned not with scriptures but practise
the second link
A very telling sentence in this document is the following:
After the husband has made it clear to his wife what he expects of their relationship (and presumably the wife has made her thoughts on it clear to him, also), it's time to kiss and make up.
The advice is given to the husband. What advice is given to the wife? The real presumption is that he is the one in charge. We can presume anything we like about what her thoughts are and whether she has made them clear or not.
Your point about scripture and practice are true, but for the world's religions, the contentious question is to what extent we should take our moral guidance from an old book and to what extent we should take it from the society around us. Of course, in our society, the book is already a deep-seated part of our culture (you don't have to read it to know a lot of what's in it), but part of the joy of being an atheist is that it becomes only one among many sources of ethical guidance - and not even the most important.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I am a huge vonnegut fan too.
no subject
Hopefully a bit longer than a few weeks ;P And it seems to be a very big IF in regards to AVI getting things together... mind you,with this extension of time they might still actually find you something - that reminds me - must email them.....
Look forward to slowly making my way through all the links LOL
no subject
I think that AVI will get their act together, but I rather suspect it will be a somewhat confused process at best. Remember what it was like with me? Months of uncertainty followed by ten days notification.
*shakes head*
Something seriously wrong with that organization..
no subject
Great - many months of uncertainty - just what I want!!!