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Reality saved my soul

The title of this video is actually “Science Saved My Soul” – but of course, having the same temperament as the speaker id sooner say “life/reality.” Science is a tool [just like Religion may very well be] to understanding the world – but at the end of the day we are trying to make sense of what is real.

If there is one thing I would change about this video, it would only be that the author should’ve tried to be more “diplomatic” in the parts where he directly addressed the points of religion/atheism (i.e. lessen the bias against the former)

But don’t get me wrong, it’s well articulated as is – and any open-minded thinker, religious or otherwise, would not have any issues with his claims. But of course the goal is always to reach as many people as you can to make them see something they never bothered trying to see – so it wouldn’t hurt to be more “diplomatic.” I was thinking he should’ve presented it the way Carl Sagan did with the Pale Blue Dot

But all in all, I think it’s a beautiful piece. And well worth the time to watch regardless of your “affiliation.” Read More

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Formspring

One of the concerns I’ve had is that while there’s a lot of stuff to talk about, most are already “addressable” in “micro-blogging” format (i.e. status updates, etc.) Only a few issues really get to “inspire” me to go in-depth recently.

I’ve been thinking if there was a sort of “brainless” way to put fairly interesting content that could entertain the readers. And noticed a few friends regularly posting answers to questions from a service called “Formspring.” I thought maybe I could use the service to serve as some catalyst whenever there’s nothing particularly interesting to talk about.

The concern now was how to present it that it wouldn’t end up being “blog-spamming.” Given the rate of “serious” posts I get to do recently, the last thing I want is for the blog to end up becoming a form-spring link site.

So here’s what I decided, every week, I’ll do one “formspring post” – and it’ll contain at least 5-10 questions 1 Doesn’t matter if they’re mundane or deep I personally think will get a kick out of answering. I’ll even take some questions from friend’s accounts which I want to answer myself. Ultimately, It’ll be like one of those survey/memes I used to do in the past once in a while, but hopefully the content would be more interesting, as Formspring questions tend to be more targeted. Read More

Notes

Notes
⇡1 Doesn’t matter if they’re mundane or deep
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Relevance

I’ve been posting way too much stuff on FaceBook (FB) about the RH Bill, and it’s not funny anymore. So I’ll try to just say everything in this post and hopefully not have to talk about it again (or if I do – I’ll sound less like a broken record)

While I [obviously] feel strongly about it, it’s not really that specific issue (RH Bill) which bothers me so much – it’s really the implications the issue entails. When I first heard about the Church’s intention to “meddle” (for lack of a better term) in the bill, a lot of concerns I’ve leveled against “religion(s)” in any of my past posts came screaming back. And so I felt compelled to reiterate myself.

Before I get into this, full disclosure: I’m not an atheist, in fact, I sing for a [fairly influential] religious group and if you’re curious as to how someone with my “temperament” has even managed to put himself in such a “situation” – well, you’re going to have to figure that shit out on your own 😉

While I do believe in God and the value of Religion, I admit to resonating more with the secularist view of the world on almost all real-world issues. Not because I’m a liberal thinker, nor to piss off religion, nor do I want to “challenge” my intellect by defending the minority 1 Because I’m sure we still are the minority – but simply because pound for pound, the secularist view on real-world issues has always been the more reasonable/sensible one.

So this post is actually about my take on Secularism vs the Church – not the RH bill. I will be quoting, linking to, and commenting on articles that we’re written in lieu of the RH Bill issue. But the main meat of this would be why I think the Church has dropped the ball. Read More

Notes

Notes
⇡1 Because I’m sure we still are the minority
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MiFi initial experience

In yesterday’s post, I only touched on physical impressions I had on my E583C. Because of my excitement (understandably so), I wasn’t able to hold off the post till I actually got to put the thing through its paces. Instead, I just ended it with a cop-out statement:

The only thing to really evaluate with gadgets like these is how powerful/reliable their antennae and WiFi beacons are. So I’ll be using this unit quite a bit and compare it to how my broadband account would perform when stuck directly into the iPad.

But assuming the thing actually does what its advertised to do, even if it doesn’t do it spectacularly, I really can’t find any reason why it wouldn’t be a worthwhile investment for anyone who wants connectivity on the go.

The logic of the statement is obviously sound, but in this post, I’ll confirm what we’ve all been wondering: Will it blend?

Just kidding, I meant “how does it perform?” Read More