I was Thinking, or Not

Here then is this article, http://tcat.tc/112or2n, which discusses the making of your own religion, or thereby another copy of such religions as has been made before.  It does not discuss the making of a religion, but the re branding of current concept of religion under a new brand.  It is still the bronze age idea of "God" based religion. You can not make your own religion, because religion has too much structure, for it to work, it must conform to the conventions of current religions.  If you read the article, read some of the comments, they are as important to the discussion.  There are plenty of comments from people who profess to be atheist, which by definition is the belief in nothing, yet they believe they are atheist, therefore negating the entire argument. The author of the article states that human beings are hardwired to be religious.  This is not exactly true, we are hardwired to believe in somethings, no matter what they are.  Religio...

Been trying to get my head wrapped around this for some time now.  From the day I learned of his diagnosis, I knew the eventual outcome.  Still I thought it should not be.  I have been so distant, so remote, I did not know these people anymore.  Still I felt as though I knew my brother, I would see him here and there.  I still do not know what to say to anyone. At some point I had broken away from the family, and I have never reconnected on any level really.  The past I thought was behind me, ghost of a distant self, now haunt me from the prison of my mind.  Shadows stalk me from the shadows of those that before me tread these paths.  I am not alone here, but I am without something, something I never thought mattered until yesterday. Tom is gone, he gave me hope, reminded me of humanity, and I wanted that, though it was out of reach for me. A new person comes along, and I am still cautious, there is no reason, no rhyme, I should not have seen t...

After nearly two weeks of frustration, I have realized one thing, building a blog on WordPress is not as easy as the YouTubers make it out to be.  It is pretty simple to set up, with one click install and all.  Setting up security, it is a little more difficult, but with a few plugins that is not too bad.  Then a few more plugins and you can have a fairly interesting site in a fairly short amount of time.  Just add content and you are all set. Add an ecommerce plugin like woocommerce and you have a decent site for your blog I guess. The truth is to do this, you need more than just a domain name, a web server, a CMS application, and an ecommerce solution.  Maybe I am wrong, most likely I am wrong. Let me give you a little background.  I started out with technology pretty much when it started.  I built my first computer from a kit.  I had to learn programming because there really wasn't any applications.  Some friends and me built applicatio...

I've been buying from Amazon for quite a few years now, and have really increased my number of products I buy from them over the past couple of years.  I think it is time I went back on the site and actually provided some reviews of the products I have used. Oh wait, maybe what I should do is write the reviews on a blog, and then use a snapshot of the full review, with my blog site link in it, to post on Amazon.  And I could put an Amazon affiliate link in my blog post to the product, so when I publish the blog post and update my Twitter feed, it would have the affiliate link built in. Now I need to build a Twitter post frame, so that too enhances my brand.  Wait first I have to build the brand identity. I guess posting a review on Amazon just got a whole lot more complicated.  Well first I need to see if I can actually build a template for the blog.  There is a lot to do, I really need to get busy. Peace, JD

I read, and watch a lot of stuff on the web about this positivity movement.  It is great, sure, but sometimes you need to have a reality check.  Sometimes you just have to recognize stupid for what it is. Now about here I could interject a bunch of wit about being a realist, or how life is not this or it is this, but I do not believe that is helpful. No, I will say if you want to delude yourself, and that works for you, go ahead.  The same can be said for negativity, if you want to hate all day every day be my guest, just do not do it in my house.  You see I am a classical realist, and I will see the truth, and I have no qualms of telling it like it is, with no sugar added. However I will say I do enjoy the company of a wide-eyed optimist over a white supremacist most any day. This brings me to a subject that I have not yet broken, but it has finally gotten to me, and I will be talking about it soon.  There is only one race of human, no matter what these pic...

One thing I want to make sure everyone is aware of, is that I am not a financial planner, or investment adviser, or any other professional designated person, and I do not provide any type of financial or legal advisement. That said, I am still suggesting that Tesla is a buy and hold for now, at least while they are still holding the orders for their commercial semi truck platform.  As long as they continue to develop in the areas of commercial transport, and commercial energy , they will continue to be a buy and hold prospect. One thing I am going to say about Tesla and I am surprised about this (though not completely) is that they did not build on the platform.  Therefore I do not think that Tesla should invest in building a pick-up truck.  Here is why.  If they wanted to build a truck platform, that would be good, but it would have to be a heavy duty platform.  That should be their first goal, build the platform.  Once they have the platform, they ...

I have watched a lot of blogs on financial planning, especially on writing a blog, and this one is one of the best I have seen.  Though it really is a 15 minute commercial for his free email handbook, and a way to include monetization into his video, I still find it valuable. Though I have not read it, I am going to suggest that you buy and read his book " Soldier of Finance ". If it is at least half as good as his videos, it will be full of useful information, irrelevant humor, and worth whatever it cost. I will likely buy the book and maybe even review it, but get it now, and start to help yourself today. Peace, JD

This is the best stream on the web, always entertaining.  Do not forget to like the video, and tell them you found them from the blog, if you want to. Peace JD

Well I signed up for my Amazon Merch account, and everything seemed to be going great.  I had to get an online savings account, because apparently Amazon will take PayPal as a form of payment (well only my debit card), but they will not pay out to a PayPal account.  So after about a week of faffing around with the bank, I finally got the account set up. Now my account is all set up with Amazon, not with PayPal yet, as the deposits haven't hit the bank account so I can make the deposits to PayPal, or some such nonsense.  This is all such BS, so much faffing around when I know there is no such thing as security, and the rest is all red tape crap for the government.  Anyway, the accounts are set up and I thought I was on my way.  Thought I would have a T-shirt to present to my readers, just a basic T-shirt with blog title on it, something to get the ball rolling. Nope, not yet, now Amazon is holding my T-shirt hostage for some unknown reason.  More delays...

Awesome, I just kind of, sort of made a few minor changes to my blog.  Mostly I changed a few of the sidebar things (took out the redundancy), and changed the colors of the backgrounds and text so it suits me a little more.  It is not perfect yet, I still do not like the colors quite, and now my links are all broken.  I do not know how changing the colors broke all the links, but it did, swell. So for the next few days I am going through every single blog post and changing the links so that they all work properly again.  I may toy with the colors some more to get it closer to my desired design, but for the most part I am done there. I do not foresee the link fixing as being all that enjoyable, or for that matter useful, but there is this thing about me, that I want the links to work, even if they will never be used by anyone. One bonus to this is that now I can go through all my post and insert Amazon affiliate links where appropriate, so maybe that will at le...

At some point you were all expecting this post, so here it is. I have been, and remain an advocate for the decriminalization and outright abatement of all laws pertaining to the use of drugs.  That is to say, I have some personal limits, I feel no need to disclose such here, as my use is my own issue, past and present.  However, that said, my stance has not changed on the use of all substances, considered to be illegal.  This really stems to a deeper level of my stance on the legislation of morality, but that is a ball I am not going to unravel at the moment, too much. In this "great" country of ours, currently there is this wave of debate as to the legality of cannabis use.  I have read extensive articles, treatises, and scholarly documents on both sides of this debate, and for me there is usually too much passion in either side.  This leads me to take either with a very large dose of skepticism. First let me state right from the beginning that I advocat...

7 Principles of Highly Effective Conspirators Plan everything Commit plan to memory Destroy all evidence of plan or planning Speak to no one of plan, not even closest allies Forget plan completely Initiate plan accordingly Claim failure was due to “them” that conspired against you

Apathy is a circumstance that often seems the choice that makes some sense.  Why should I give a shit about anything at all?  It is not like it will make any difference. I once thought that I could make a difference.  I once believed that your actions mattered.  That you could effect change through deeds and even to some degree words and pictures.  I now know that it was a false hope that I harbored, and that because I did not have connections to the right groups, to the money chain, that I was just fooling myself. Sort of how I once thought this blog was an answer to something.  That what I wrote here mattered at least to someone.  I now know that is not the case.  I now realize that nothing matters, except where money is made.  There are no causes, only more subversive means to an end.  If it does not sell something, if there is no money to be made, it is a waste of time. That is why the gun issue is so hot.  It makes lots ...

This video intrigues me, as all things concerning Lewis Carroll and his Alice stories.  I have said many times before that there is more truth in "Alice's Adventures Through Wonderland" than in most other books written, including the bible.  I have wondered about this, and even with my extensive study of other works, fiction and non-fiction, it has yet to be displaced.  What fortunate accident occurred to project this through his work is yet undiscovered, and even with this film (and others like it) only part of the truth is known. It is my belief that Lewis Carroll had some connection to the divine, or spirit world, but I do not know how that is.  Perhaps it is only through the eyes of a child.  Perhaps he himself was as a child, as the eastern beliefs profess, as to be a child, as to be without judgement, and full of wonder. I do not know, but perhaps one day I will.  Though I sometimes believe I am far too cynical now to have the eyes of a child ev...

I am not too certain I will be online much longer.  As I look at the future of online, I see the writing on the wall.  I already pay for too much, and as software as a service starts to really be a thing, it will be the end of software for me.  I mean sure there will still be some open source software out there, but for how long, and will it be able to compete.  One thing it will not do is it will not have access to the world wide web, though I believe that it will have access to the network.  We will be back to using IP addressing like in the days of BBS and 300 baud modems. We will have to build our own networks, from discarded surplus network switches, and wireless channels that haven't been used in ages, like the old renegade radio operators used to do.  We will also have to use burst, as I am sure they (the FCC or whatever corporate and government watch dog service they have at that time) will be looking for such impromptu networks.  Run a few...

I gave it a shot, but the new online version of SketchUp just sucks.  Sure maybe it is my network, but I can not change that.  So I am back to using the 2017 version of SketchUp which still works just fine.  Of course now I can not get updates to my extensions, or the program, but at least it works.  The unfortunate thing is that unless I go to the Professional version of SketchUp, I will not be able to use it after some time, as it will be degraded. Now I have to look for an alternative to SketchUp, that does not cost over a $1,000.00, which is hard to find.  I liked SketchUp, I liked that it was free to use for personal use, but I guess that was not okay with Google, for they have effectively said either you use this crap version on line that is almost impossible to use (I do more waiting for it to update the model than actual work), or you pay us our $1,000.00 for the Professional version.  A little like extorsion, almost, but not quite.  Certain...

I was thinking of working on the SketchUp project today, but instead I think I will work on the OBS stream to Twitch thing. So yea, that is what I am doing, maybe. Peace JD

I just finished watching this video made by Gopher.  Though I have not actually watched him and Chay play this game (well that is not entirely true, I watched a few minutes of their first Twitch stream), and though I do not think I would probably play this game, in this video he talks about issues he is concerned with.  He talks about content, or the lack there of, cross platform issues, and micro transactions.  I feel this is an issue with many games, especially the newer MMO type games. I have many of the same concerns.  The one I would like to first address is Micro Transactions.  Like Gopher I can see the rationale for them to some degree, though I believe that if you pay for the game, that should pay for the development of the game if it is of sufficient quality to warrant its existence in the first place.  As for cosmetic things, I can see that too, lots of people want special clothes for their character, or in this case, maybe different paint job...

I was actually able to make a video stream, on Hangout OnAir, and it worked, sort of.  The audio quality is pretty bad, and the video quality is not that great, but I was able to do it.  It is not available on my channel, because it is not ready for primetime yet. Next I will try to make a video using OBS, and will see how that goes, but not today.  I need to check my Twitch settings, and see what I can do to improve the audio quality.  I do not expect that I will be doing many videos in the near future, but as I work through the process I am learning to do them, and perhaps in a while I will begin broadcasting them both on Twitch (live) and on Youtube (condensed versions). As I get this down I will be able to set up Arleta's channel and using the Nikon or her phone (most likely the phone) will be able to make videos for her as well.  These will likely be the more popular videos as she is not only doing things that are interesting, but she is also much more...

Making pipes in SketchUp is not all that fun, but necessary if I want to be able to show all the mechanicals.  I thought the creation of a bracket was difficult, how wrong I was.  I know there is probably some pre-made things in the 3D Warehouse, but I have never really had much luck with fitting those models into my model, so I just make everything myself.  Sometimes I want to just buy some of the extensions that do that sort of thing, they look so useful, but I have to have the Professional version of SketchUp first, and that is at least $700.00 out of my range at the moment.  So I make it work, and it does, but it is definitely a process, and an exercise in frustration sometimes. Yesterday I fought with the program for about an hour with no results, today, I was able to get it to do basically what I wanted in a few minutes.  That happens a lot. In a related issue, I am fighting with trying to livestream on Youtube using Hangouts on Air.  I was able ...