Yesterday I had a Raspberry Pi crash after a system update and fail to boot. I figured out what went wrong and learned some things along the way. Breaking things is how one tends to learn.
Just discovered Steve ‘n’ Seagulls. Who says Twitter isn’t useful?
I’ve been seeing this little one and it’s mother eating together at a spot along my evening walk, but it’s venturing further away from mom each day. Last night I came upon it alone at a spot where we could look at each other and I took this picture.
Education Is More Important Now Than Ever
Part of the backlash against Biden’s plan to forgive federal student loans is really a backlash against education. College education has become stereotyped into identities that some dislike. The fact that American society has pushed the necessity of a college degree for one to get a good job and have a good life is also problematic and wrong.
Scary thing is, true education in which one practices critical thinking and decision making is more critical now than ever. The United States is not and was not ever intended to be a pure democracy. Our government is a representative democracy, which by definition means there are gatekeepers, some voted in to positions (Congress, the President), some appointed by those we voted for (Supreme Court, Attorney General, Secretary of State), and some defacto (political parties, the Press).
Technology is eroding away the whole idea of gatekeepers upon whom our country was built, which slides us towards pure democracy. At first this might seem like a good thing, but what it really means is that more responsibility is with citizens. From within democracy tyranny can easily emerge, all it takes is to convince enough people that the tyrant’s cause is virtuous.
The guardrails against tyranny is education and free speech, and liberty to practice both. Critical thinking and systemic decision making. If we are left to not trust politicians, journalists, or anybody else for that matter, then we need to be able to trust ourselves. Education does not necessarily mean a college degree, but it does mean an openness to idea that one might be wrong, the desire to understand why, and the willingness to change one’s mind.
I’ve been using the Google Pixelbuds Pro for a few weeks now with my Pixel 4a phone and my iPad Mini 6, and I have to say that I am surprised by how well the Pixelbuds work with the iPad. The multipoint audio works between the Pixel 4a and iPad work as expected and the playback controls work with the iPad too.
On Friday I came across an article by Jess Martin that summarizes a conference about tools for thought that occurred on August 16, 2022. I have not yet finished watching the videos embedded, but I did update Writings On Organizing Information with what I gleamed so far.
“If we take the future as our starting point for thinking about God, creation, and humanity—then everything we know must … be realigned to an evolving universe, including our theologies, philosophies, economic and political systems, cultural matrices—in short, our planetary life.”
— Sr. Ilia Delio, as quoted in Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned by Brian D. McLaren
Dave Winer has released his app that creates an RSS feed of one’s Twitter feed. I mostly use micro.blog to contribute to my Twitter feed, so if you follow me on micro.blog or follow my blog’s RSS feed you get almost all the same thing. However, I do some time use Twitter directly and so if you want, you can subscribe to my Tweets via http://tweetfeed.org/frankm/rss.xml. Read more about this in my daynotes for today.
CW has pretty much been the only broadcast network with shows I watched consistently, but I think that is likely to change.
I don’t know what to make of this, Amazon appears to be selling very old HP iPaq Pocket PCs. Must be a mistake or a hoax or something. I wouldn’t be surprised to see these on eBay but being sold on Amazon as new is wrong.
In my reading this past weekend I came across a few essays written by Linus Lee that relate to the topic of organizing information that I reference in Writings On Organizing Information, which I am calling a living document.
“Two thousand years after Jesus launched a subversive spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace, two thousand years after women were among his inner circle and the first messengers of resurrection, two thousand years after Jesus defended Mary of Bethany’s place in the all-male circle of disciples, the Christian religion still remains subservient to patriarchy and the authoritarian control it engenders.”
— Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned by Brian D. McLaren
A second morning of comfortable temperature, low humidity, and cloudy sky. What a nice break before returning to the normal August heat tomorrow.
Cloudy skies, a slight breeze and cool temperature calls for being outside.
Am I the only one who thinks the idea that a President can wave his arms and unclassify any document is crazy? What we should learn from President Trump is that there are more anti democracy aspects to the U.S. Presidency than we should like and have only not been exploited because of the patriotism of past presidents. Now we know that norms alone cannot protect us if all it takes is one person who thinks the President of the United States should rule like the President of Russia.
Drowning In The Sea Of Religion
“Our religion can “hell-ify” us by inspiring in us an impenetrable sense of rightness or even superiority. That sense of rightness can inoculate us against humility, infusing in us an excessive confidence or addiction to certainty that keeps us from seeing our mistakes until after the harm has been done—to others (including our children) and to ourselves. Our religion is right, we believe, which makes us right. As a result, the more devoted we are, the more stubborn and unteachable we become. And everyone can see it but us, because we’re blinded by our sincerity and zeal.”
— Do I Stay Christian?: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned by Brian D. McLaren
A big problem in American society, perhaps the problem, is too much religion. The reason why is because most people do not know what religion is, that it is more than agreeing to a set of beliefs or attending a church. Re-ligio means to re-bind, but “re” anything infers we do it already. What we bind ourselves to is how we see ourselves, it becomes our very identity, our idolatry. Everything we bind ourselves to is a layer of our false self, put in place from the outside.
As an exercise, complete this question. I am….
Starting to read: Do I Stay Christian? by Brian D. McLaren 📚
I am reminded that I expected the Mobvoi TicWatch to get WearOS 3 by now, but that has not happened. Google WearOS continues to disappoint.
At the end of a good day
Surf is up
