Your Score: Borefest – ISTJ

Johannesburg, South Africa has its first confirmed snowfall in more than 25 years¹. While the city normally gets cold, with an average minimum of 4.7 degrees Celsius in June, this is the first snow they have had since 1981. The capital, Pretoria, had its first snow since 1968, an even longer period.

Meanwhile, Australian citrus farmers are worried that their fruit might have suffered frost damage after experiencing their coldest June day ever.² These data points fit well with earlier news stories that it is getting colder in the Antarctic.³

Understand, I am all for accurate translations. I also agree with Mr. George Weigel in saying that Catholics are not, by and large, morons, and can handle big words and complex ideas.¹ I am told that the current English translation of the Mass is exceptionally poor, and that the new one being worked on is much closer to the original Latin. That is well and good, and I can very much support that.

Still, it strikes me as odd that rendering “Et cum spiritu tuo” as “and also with your spirit” in place of “and also with you” is used as an example here of how the new translation is better. While more no doubt more accurate, what does it mean‽ I have no idea, and and so I strongly suspect that this particular example more strongly supports the idea that the new translation is confusing.

That does not mean that we should not use the new translation. The Faith should not be dumbed down. It does mean that our bishops and pastors need to step up to the plate and teach us. I do not understand that response, and if it is part of the Mass, I should understand what I am saying. Provide me an accessible reference please.

“If, as the editors of Nature claim, our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution, then the opinion that our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution is itself just the product of evolution.” – Michael Egnor¹

In other words, if their theory is true, we cannot know it or prove it, because there is no true intelligence to be doing the thinking. It is all just the random interactions of random atoms. In order for rational thought to proceed, we must assume that, whatever is true, materialist philosophy is false.

The sun not only varies in brightness, it also has a major impact on how much cosmic radiation reaches the earth. Between the two, it is the primary cause of change in our climate.¹ This article focuses on a series of mud cores from Canada, but also has a number of references to scholarly journals.

The Pittsburgh Tribute-Review reports that there is reason to doubt the temperature recordings from NOAA.¹ According to the article, a former meteorologist is spot-checking the quality of the NOAA weather stations across the country. So far only a few of the 1,221 stations have been checked, so much work remains to be done. Still, at least some disturbing news has been found. At least a few of these stations are no longer in isolated rural areas. Though they are intended to “be 100 feet from buildings, not placed on hot concrete, etc,”² some are in close proximity to air conditioning exhaust vents, cell phone towers, and parking lots. This would seriously compromise the data, because of the highly localized nature of the temperature in such areas. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that the air around an exhaust vent might be experiencing a warming trend after all.

“The Ten Commandments do not enshrine our highest values. They enshrine our lowest values. For it is the bare minimum of decency and common sense to say, “At the very least, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, have some respect for your parents, honor your Creator, etc.”” – Mark Shea

As the release of pidgin & finch (and libPurple) 2.0.2 draws near, I cannot be but proud to work with such an amazing group of people. Though it appears that 65 tickets will slip, will be pushed from this release to the next, my co-developers have closed an amazing 89 tickets for this release, not counting the 25 tickets closed towards our next milestone, 2.1.0.

The growth of bugs in our new bug tracker has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have done our best to keep up with it, but all of us, myself particularly included, have a limited number of hours each week we can donate to the project. In light of that, the 150 ticket informal goal I set for this release was rather unrealistic. It is inevitable, with such a high count, that some tickets would slip. With over 100 open tickets already for the 2.1.0 release, this slippage will necessarily mean that the next release will also face severe challenges closing all the issues.

That is why I must ask for patience from our users regularly. We value your input, we want to solve your issues. There is simply so very much that needs to happen, and so little time in which to do it. We will continue to do the best we can, with the resources we have, and help (in the form of patches) is always appreciated.

Spiegel recently took a look at the way globalization and capitalism are slowly but surely making the welfare state fall apart.¹ The article appears to be somewhat dated, but that matters little for its conclusions, though I cannot explain why it has just now in the last week or so come to my attention. Not that I am so very well informed, but because I am not and so it is unusual to find my attention being drawn to an article more than 6 months old.

Returning to topic, much of the article is rather self-evident. Companies gravitate towards the places in the world where they can get the most labor out of their money, and away from those with higher costs, in taxes or in labor. Thus countries in which a company would have to pay pensions, unemployment, sick leave, and similar things, are seeing harsh competition from places like Mexico or Asia that offer a much cheaper work force.

As I said, not much to see there. There was however, one item of note, one place in which the author approached wisdom. “[I]t is the family, and not the company, which offers social protection.”²

The family, the Church teaches, is the basic unit of society. The family, not the individual. It, and not the company or the government, has the primary responsibility for ensuring the welfare of its members, particularly the most defenseless of them: the very young, the very old, and the very ill. Public education and social services have their place, but in a secondary capacity, to back up the family, to pick up the slack when any given family fails in its duty, either through negligence or through inability. But that role is secondary, and it is fitting that conforming to a more real view of society, even only a slightly more real view, should produce benefits.

For I do not claim that Asia and Mexico, places where workers have few rights and less justice, are better than we. They get this one point more right perhaps, but they get others so very wrong. It is natural that they should benefit to the extent that they are right, but they are still lesser places to live, because of the other flaws in their societies.

A year or so ago, HP came out with an RFID chip the size of a grain of rice.¹ That provided a significant step towards ubiquitous localizers. Today, we have the next big step: wireless power.² Now both of these just need to be miniaturized to nano-technology scales.