John's Junk Drawer

Who's On First with a twist. A nice rendition of one of history's best comedy stand-up routines...



-djr

Or more like multiple will fragments.

It is not a will to do anything, except smoke cigarettes.

Or snort cocaine.

Or have sex with strangers.

Or any one of a hundred possible other: narrow, focused, behaviors.

These are little, shallow, fragmentary, wills.

The will we think of when we think of OUR will is much bigger, much more complex. It includes many intertwined desires, aspirations, goals, and actions.

It is, you could say, a more complete will.

. . . . . . .
The small, fragmentary wills are separate and distinct from OUR will.

When they are in control, they deny the big will and control our actions. In other words, when acting according to these fragmentary wills, we often do things that are contrary to OUR will. For example, our will says: "I don't want to smoke", the will-fragment says: "I want to smoke".

When the English translation of the Bible refers to a perfect will, could the word "perfect" be referring to a Greek or Hebrew word that, at least partially, means: "complete"?

I need to research this in the scriptures.

-djr

Why...

...do you have to be like others?

I have been trying to bring my dead, desert-like lawn back to life for the past three years AT LEAST. I've been down in there digging away for all of those springs, summers, and falls, and have never seen a single earthworm. They were conspicuous in their absence.

Until today.

Today I was edging the curb side of the sidewalk, and I saw earthworms. Not just one either. Bunches of them, all up and down where I had edged.

I don't know why but this really hit me. Here it is, just a few days before Thanksgiving in the States, and I find myself filled with gratitude for... earthworms.

-djr

This is cool:






The three-dimensional components produced are themselves used to build other machines. Chemical reactions are generally used to store and provide energy that is converted to kinetic energy for use by the machines. In essence, chemical reactions are primarily the boilers providing the "steam" used to make the molecular machines move.

-djr

If you've convinced yourself that character is easy for you because you are a good man, you have convinced yourself of a lie. Character is like the water suddenly appearing in the glass when you begin to tip the pitcher. There is no cause and effect. It exists in immeasurable, timeless, instants; whether it is the instant you decide to risk your own life to help a brother in arms, or the instant you decide to hold your tongue when some dirt-ball (who you thought was your best bud) publicly disrespects your mother. Character's tests occur outside of time, but they occur all the time.

There's a hierarchy here.

You can appear ignorant without asking a question, but

You can't ask a question without appearing ignorant.

This is because the simple act of asking a question is a demonstration to observers that you are (or believe you might be) ignorant about something.

Either way. Whether you're appearing ignorant because you're asking a question, or because you're (for example) just trying something you don't know how to do, it seems to be best to look ignorant.

That's because, when you look ignorant, you have a better chance of learning something new, than when you do not look ignorant.

-John

On the one hand - I wanted to move old entries in from a very old, static, page as plain old (did I mention it was old) HTML. In other words, the old HTML from the static junk-drawer page (back when Netscape 4.x was king of the world) needed to be cut and pasted into the entry area and simply display as if it were html placed directly in the blog-page.

On the other hand - I didn't want to give up the modern convenience of being able to use s9y's Line-feed-to-break-tag plug-in for new entries going forward.

Solution! - Add suppresslf (suppressLF) to the list of exceptions in the NL2BR tool. Now, if I want to cut and paste-in html of any kind I start with <suppresslf> </suppresslf> and then Ctrl-V the html text in between them. Will it work you ask? YES, IT DOES!

But (there's always a but) - S9y's display functionality fixes old <p> tags, AND stand-alone <p/> tags, by producing a "real" block of text. That is, the display function subsumes the text that follows the tag. The practical effect is that something like: "<p /> hello world", is turned into "<p>hello world</p>".

So you still have to do a little fixup - Replacing the original <p> or <p /> tags with "<p></p>" pairings.. Still much better than manually retyping the whole thing in. No?

Also, you now have a custom tag <suppresslf> in your output html. This is well within the standard unless you want your pages to be well-formed and valid (good luck with that obsession ). Even in the event you are even more OCD than me, you could still achieve this, simply by pointing to your own DTD that includes a definition of your new tag.

Just sharing

-John

P.S. This message is the first attempt to employ BBCodes (there's a plug-in for that). There will likely be some learning to do for that as well.

Hi.

The plan is to start using this blog for Junk-Drawer entries from now on. I'll start by moving the old entries over from old, static Junk-Drawer page, where they have been on for the last few years.

When moved here, the old entries will be given their original posting. Some of the oldest entries (entries before 15-Feb-2004) didn't have dates on the static page. Those will be given dates here that start in January of 2003 (though the earliest ones will not be moved over).

So here goes. next post in this Junk Drawer blog category, will be the oldest one from the old static JD page. It will be displayed below this entry, because of its early date.
-djr

It is a wild horse, kicking violently at its stall walls, trying to get out.

Between it and the easily-kicked-open stall door lies only a small bale
of hay called "patent protection".

And I can't get this wild horse to jump that damn bale of hay to save my life.

Four added years now of kicking, and still counting...

Can you be an investor and a trader (an "invader"?)?

Can you be a top-down and a bottom-up software developer?

Can you be a rebel and embrace traditional values?

Can you be brave and cautious?

I hope so.



= = = = = = = = = = =

Be not righteous over much;
neither make thyself over wise;
why shouldest thou destroy thyself?

Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish:
why shouldest thou die before thy time?

 

  Ecclesiastes 7:16-17

 

This is not rock & roll.

Imagine a machine that has been specifically designed to be completely useless without lots of help from other--identically designed--machines.

A god who's true nature can be fully comprehended, explained, or understood by me or any worldly, mortal person or group, is a small god who is not worthy of worship.