March 2005 Archives

Tessie (my partner, and co-moderator of the young Adult Caucus) and I need roomies for at GA in Fort Worth. Two is fine, although I've been in more crowded rooms before.

Our room in the Clarion is already booked and costs $101 a night, to be split between all parties.

If you are interested, please let me know either via email or posting here.

GA Planning Committee Minutes

The UUA's General Assembly is shifting from it's current Thursday through Monday schedule, to a Wednesday through Sunday schedule, starting in St. Loius 2006.

This caught me off-guard at first, as I've heard nothing about this before reading the January 2005 minutes, but a bit of reflection leads me to an understanding of goodness here. I've downloaded these minutes twice now but this was my first option to truly read thru them start to finish. I just wish more minutes were available. I'd go through a decade of them if I could, in preperation for both the election and serving on the GA Planning Committee.

Also, there is a prize for the first person to comment to this post with the name of the person I've quoted in the Title of this post. Naming the exact episode is not required.

Categories haven't been working for about a week. Each individual post was fine, but the category pages have been nonexistant. I had attempted to change the way they function, and after I'd made a couple changes, couldn't reverse the change.

Also, you may notice that there are now Google ads on the side of the page. These are, I hope, unobtrusive while noticable. There will be no flashing banners, swat the fly, or click the badger ads here. Google's AdSense programme tailors the ads according to the content of the pages. Thus, you should see ads from companies that revolve around the topics of my posts. As of this writing, I've seen VOIP services, and blogging software.

The ThinkGeek link and forthcoming BookSense.com link are also companies I am an affiliate for, and will be subdivided into their own sidebox.

According to Google Hacks, I should be adding 100+ words of new content a day, in order to raise my pages ranks in Google. Thus, one good post a day, and in time, you, dear reader, will be able to google for "Donald Wilson" and get this site on the front page.

~Donald

UUA News & Events: Sermon by Davidson Loehr: Living Under Fascism

This sermon has been linked to from the front page off the UUA site for a while now. I was skeptical seeing the title, but no longer can argue with any point Mr. Loehr makes, and suggest anyone who beleives themselves an American read it.

"I am a free prince and have as much authority to make war on the whole
world as he who has a hundred sail of ships and an army of a hundred
thousand men in the field. And this my conscience tells me; that there
is no arguing with such sniveling puppies who allow superiors to kick them about the deck at pleasure, and pin their faith upon the pimp of a parson, a squab who neither practices nor believes what he puts upon the
chuckle-headed fools he preaches to." --Black Sam Bellamy, pirate
captain of the Whydah

I had not heard of this pirate before someone on the OpenBSD mailing lists sent this quote in. An interesting set of thoughts in that I think.

Philocrites: Meet your fellow Philocritics in person!

http://www.philocrites.com/mt/l3tmekn0w.cgi/1312

I, Donald Wilson, am entering the UU Blogsphere. So to answer the questions:

1. How many liberal religious bloggers (plus commenters and fans) are in the greater Boston area who would enjoy getting together sometime this spring for real-live conviviality? A party, in other words.

2. How many Unitarian Universalist bloggers in the greater Boston area would enjoy a more UU-blog-focused get-together?

According to Google Maps I'm 755 miles from Boston, so I don't think I could get together with others there.

3. How many UU bloggers are planning to attend the General Assembly in Fort Worth in June? (I'll bring this up again in a month or so to see if there's interest in a GA conversation about UU blogging.)

What can we as bloggers who will be at GA do to ensure our data connectivity? I've been searching with limited success for WiFi enabled areas. I think the UUA should give us access in the Plenary hall.

Slashdot | Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films

I find this unsurprising, but maddening.

The conversation on the slashdot page is a great read, but may have changed since I read it, as things get moderated up and down

There's alot of things I need to learn about web site development. I have the information I need, I just need to learn it, and gain a better artistic eye.

The following is the ad that will run in the GA Program book.

Nearly midnight, which means it's a new day. I'm not sure how much will be in this category, as I'm also putting together an aggregation of UU news and ideas in another blog. But for the moment, this is here.

Reclaiming Hacks by Hadley Stern -- The O'Reilly Hacks series has stirred a controversy that usually extends no further than the front cover of a book. The hacking spirit, not the promotion of illegal activities, is being reclaimed through each one of these books. The curious nature of the hacker ethic, whether prompted by a sheer spark of genius or the urge of an annoyance, celebrates rolling up the sleeves and taking action. Hadley Stern, author of iPod and iTunes Hacks, takes a stab at clarification and discusses the issues he faced while writing his book.

I am a hacker. (Jargon File, catb.org) I'm a hacker in the classic sense; I'm a hacker in the jargon file sense. I've been called a hacker by others, it's a name I take with pride.

Geek, Hacker, Troll... call me what you like.

Ginger Duck: The Splendid Table Recipe Box

Adapted from Cooking for Mr. Latte: A Food Lover's Courtship, with Recipes. Copyright 2003 by Amanda Hesser, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2003).

I heard about this recipe on The Splendid Table, which is a NPR show broadcast on Sundays all about food and cooking. Some of it can be a bit up-nosed for me, but I love good food, and I've gotten some awesome ideas from it.

We had Brooke, Sean, and Lisa over, I made the duck, salad, french onion soup, and home made whipped cream to go in the Fillo shells with berries. All in all, a remarkable dinner.

I'm planning another dinner in late April/early May.

Kerry Garrison - Building your own PBX

I found this on /. (That's Slashdot for the less geek around these parts). I'm looking at getting Voice Over IP service at the apartment, and with a Bluetooth headset I can use my VOIP system from work, the cafe, even school (once I can get thru the $*%&^# firewall).

I still am debating what VOIP carrier to use.

~Donald

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