Weird WordPress Problems
Over the last few days, I have been searching for the solution to a problem I had with a custom wordpress install. The category selector on the write page was severely messed up. Selecting a category was impossible. About five minutes ago, I had all but given up. But then I saw some plugin updates (NextGEN Gallery and FlashViewer) and updated them. The problem is gone now. I am at a loss because these plugins should in no way edit the write page. What’s the deal?
Well, at least the problem is gone
‘Til Death
Recently a friend of mine had two of his friends die in a matter of days. His comment to me was “How do I know I’m not next?”. It wasn’t that they died suspiciously or anything, both were killed by accidents. But it does make you think about death. We never really like to think about it, let alone talk about it. But what happens to us when we die? Is there just nothing? Or is there something after we die? Do we get reincarnated like Buddhism and Hinduism say? Or do we only have one life?
I believe that there is something after death, and depending on the person, it may or may not be good. For Christians like myself, I believe heaven is there. For everyone else, hell. I am not sure about the Jews. Those who keep the Judaic faith will probably go to heaven, but I am not sure about Jewish atheists.
Feel free to flame me. But this is what I believe. If you ask a Muslim the same question, he we say a Muslim who keeps the five pillars of Islam will go to heaven, and everyone else to hell. So it is not just me or people who are Christians who believe this way, it is most of the world’s population.
Tags: death, heaven, hell, christianity, islam
False IDs, anyone?
I was checking my feeds in Flock this afternoon when I noticed this:
Defend Your Virtual Life – Columns by PC Magazine
I had known about Intelius before, but I didn’t realize it was this bad! They must have bribed every internet business in the USA to get that much info! Maybe I’ll start using a couple different false IDs…
Expelled and Misused
This past Sunday I went to see Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed with some friends. It was an amazing movie, and clearly portrayed the discrimination against Intelligent Design proponents. Many have lost jobs and careers because lies are spread about them due to their opposition Darwinian Macro-evolution. This article is not discussing ID v Darwinism, creation v evolution, or any other variant of that debate. This article aims to make clear the discrimination against an intriguing film.
Expelled was not interesting just because of the lies and discrimination it exposed, but also because it was a well made film. Scenes from old movies and cartoons were spliced into the film to help illustrate the statements made by interviewees wielding PhDs in everything from neurobiology to physics to journalism. These clips artfullyhelped clarify what the scientist/journalist was saying when they used big, long, scientific terms.
Skillfully Ben Stein blocked those he interviewed into a corner where they had to state the truth about what really happened and what they believed to escape. He got ID proponents to admit that there was some truth in the evolutionary theory (more on that later), while making devout atheist Richard Dawkins reveal his prejudice against religion. What was his statement? That life could come about on earth through intelligent design as long as the designer was not God. The creationists admitted that evolution on a minor scale is possible, and indeed it happens. Darwinian Macro-Evolution, they claim, has odds stacked so high against it (as illustrated in Casino of Life cartoon) that is far easier to believe in and Intelligent Designer. Both Darwinists and ID upholders gave ground, but more was to come.
However, I am not going to give that more here. If you want that you need to go see the movie. This articles primary purpose is to show how Yahoo! Movies User Reviewing function has been misused. On Sunday I logged onto yahoo to give my review, and saw 200 reviews that gave it Fs. I read some. I was stunned. I was perplexed how anyone could have seen the movie and given it such an awful review. Then I saw it, they had simply read the website Expelled Exposed, which is maintained by the Smithsonian Institute and viciously lashes out at Expelled. None of the arguments given by Expelled Exposed are given any links or evidence to back them up, and so Smithsonian’s prejudice is revealed as well. I reported several of the F Reviews before writing my own. All were removed.
The next morning I looked again. The night before there had been over 3000 reviews. Now there were scarcely 1200. I can only assume the worst: That my reporting of 7 or 8 reviews sparked a fire that continued through the night, with a war raging on the web over who would get to tell about the movie. The Intelligent Design people won. At 9:00 PM EST last sunday, Expelled had an overall user rating of B+. At 8:00 AM EST last Monday, which is when I checked back, Expelled had an overall user rating of A.
I have reported many more falsified reviews since then. They are easy to pick out. They attack creationism or Intelligent Design instead of bad film-making, acting, or plot-line. If they had said the movie was made horribly, I wouldn’t report them because that is their opinion. Expelled was, nevertheless, a well made exposition about the removal of freedom of speech from Academia, not ID v Darwin, creation v evolution, or, as I said before, any other debate along those lines. Go see Expelled. It is an amazing movie. But go with an open mind, or, if you have to, ignore the fact that only ID proponents were fired for speaking about their beliefs and concentrate on the film making when writing your review. That is what I did for my review.
You can see my review on Yahoo! Movies here.
Now, for my personal opinion:
And to all of you who claim that ID is creationism and is thus not science, I would ask you to give me some explanation of how we can prove evolution. Or any evidence that we have for it.
Also, creationism is the believe that the Judeo-Christian God created the world. Intelligent Design is generic. If you believe that aliens made the first cell, put it on Earth and let it evolve, then you believe in ID.
Overall, feel free to ignore my personal opinion, I just wanted to let you know what I think.
Tags: expelled, bogus, reviews, misuse, yahoo, movies, protest
What is the purpose?
I have been pondering over the last few days what I want to do with this blog. I have reached a decision. This is not going to be a journal. I will write articles that tell, not what my opinion is, but what really is. That is not to say that I will be completely impartial and unbiased, as that is impossible. What I mean is that I will do my best to present truth. An article revealing and protesting the misuse of Yahoo! Movie Reviews will be up shortly. I hope that it will be enlightening and infuriated (because fools are quick to anger, but wise men think before they act).
Power Trouble!
“Captain, I need more power!”
Well, not quite me. I need power period. My power connector on the inside of my laptop broke. I managed to rig up a temporary solution, but now I cannot unplug the power cable from the computer (though I can unplug it from the wall) or I will have to open up the laptop and fix it again. Some superglue would probably hold the piece in place, but I have to turn an assignment in and need to work on that right now. This laptop is 5 years old. When your internal power connection breaks, you need a new computer. I guess the money from the website I am developing at the moment will go towards that instead of my quad core processor *sigh*.
At last! I am finished!
First off, before I go into this, I need to explain it. I am part of something called Teen Bible Quiz (TBQ). Basically we memorize portions of the Bible and quiz over them Jeopardy-style (except we are on teams of 3). In order to go to the National Tournament (the location is different every year, this year it is in Greenbay, Wisconsin) we have to have the whole portion memorized, which is no small feat. This year’s portion consisted of Galations, Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians, and Philemon (total of 21 chapters, 32 pages, and ~600 verses).
This morning I finished memorizing! I am the 5th one to finish at our church. (one of the others was a coach, so that would make me 4th). If that sounds bad, there are over 30 other kids who haven’t finished yet. I’m so excited because this means I will get to go to the National Tournament in Wisconsin (even if my team doesn’t make it, I still get to go because I have the whole thing finished).
Hopefully the rest of my team will make it. They should though, one person has 2 chapters left (we have three weeks left before the deadline), and the other has three (which should be down to one by the end of this week, they are supposed to quote Cols. 2 & 3 before Friday).
I can’t wait!
Commonplace
It’s amazing how some companies have so overtaken the market that we automatically associate things with them and only them. This evening I was going to have soup for dinner. When I looked for a different brand of soup (an organic kind, my Mom and Sister are like that) she said we didn’t have any, just the “normal kind.” The same thing has happened everywhere. Microsoft is associated with computers, Apple with Portable Music, and Disney with movies to name a few. Often the underdogs get no attention unless they utterly fail, or, as Apple and Linux are coming close to doing, topple the leader. Maybe sometime we will become less dominated by one company (or person)
Finally! No more updates! (well, almost)
Finally the amount of updates for Hardy has gone down. Now, in the past few days I have only had 8 updates. Thats only a little over 2 a day! Thank you Canonical for finally bringing down the update load!
Illegitamite Trader
Hehe. The worship leader at our church wants my to write him a program that will automatically trade on the Foreign Currency Exchange Market (Forex). So, I set up a demo account in order to learn more about Forex (a real one would be illegal as I am a minor). It’s really interesting. By using the history of a currency, you can predict whether it will go up or down. I have gotten so-so at that, though I still have a lot to learn. By watching for certain patterns, it becomes easy to predict the market. The only problem with that is if something happens that is non-technical (aka tax hikes, worker strikes, etc.) it throws the predictions out the window! There is no way to plan for those, which is what makes it so risky.
Also, I think I set the world record for most losses in 5 minutes on the Forex market: $15,000 (note that this was a demo account, so that was 15,000 virtual dollars)
