Something a bit haunted

Wednesday, what do you do when the job's been done for you?

I wrote earlier about the new improved Conservative bible. It's not done yet, but they (The Conservapedia people or as I refer to them for short "Conservapedes") present me with a dilemma. How do I translate random bible verses taken out of context when it's (sorta) been done for me? Yes, that's a rhetorical questions, and the answer is whatever I'll do it anyway, but this time I'll take a verse out of their book, and do it. Worth a try.

I should pick a random one but for this special occasion I'm going to begin at the beginning, in Genesis. I'm going use verse 2:21:

So God created gigantic sea creatures, and made the waters teem with every moving creature after its kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God approved it because it was good.

a. (Not really a translation, it's the Conservapedia analysis) "The largest of sea creatures included more than the great whales. They also included several species of marine dinosaurs, at least two of which (the Loch Ness creature and "Predator X", identified in the Bible as "Leviathan") survived the Great Flood." :) kay...

b. And like, this giant sea dragon rose out of the water and grew and grew and it like flew off and turned pink and offered us sausages and then disappeared in a puff of smoke and dude.. what is this shit this shit is good!

c. Actually this really happened, it's a metaphor for evolution, see, life started in the sea right? That can't be a coincidence.. or maybe creation really is real.. I'm a bit confused but whatever it is God totally did it.

Um.. yeah. Whatev.

Tuesday SQNEA #8 - Pies, are they really that easy?

Some things are as easy as pie. People have told me, so I know it's true, but just what does that mean?

Pies are easy, that's the claim, or so it's greatly insinuated when someone extorts the easiness of an activity by comparing it to "pie" but, just what does that mean???

First of all, what is pie? "A" pie is a.. well pie, a food thing. "Pie" is the stuff that "a pie" is made from. And it's easy. How is it easy? It's not an activity, it's a thing, or stuff. It can't be easy, not in and of itself. It must mean something in relation to what is done to or with pie.

We eat pie. Eating is generally not seen as a difficult thing so that might be the reason, but why pie? Why not say as easy as eating? When you specify pie, it means that it's easy to eat in comparison with eating other food stuffs. Is it? No, I don't think so. Perhaps it's not particularly difficult, though some can have a hard crust, but it's not easier than eating say... a sandwich? So what?

A pie has to be made. Making food can be easy, I mean it's not rocket science, and if you don't happen to be a talented rocket scientist who is a bit of a disaster in the kitchen it's a lot easier than said science. Some things are difficult to cook, and some are easy, relatively. Is pie one of those things? I've never made pie, but it doesn't actually look like one is easy to make, I mean you have to make a crust and all.. and comparing it to stuff that's easy to cook, like say.. pasta, I don't think it's easy at all. In fact, it seems kinda difficult.

So just why is pie easy?

Because the old one just doesn't have enough smitin' in it...

The Bible. It's holy, it's famous, it's important and stuff, it's the Bible of.. well, all things everywhere (well if you happen to be one of the people who are into the particular religions that use it as their texts enough so you really believe in it, which, admittedly isn't the majority of the earth's pop but whatev), it's old. Really really old.

So time for a rewrite!

Ok.. I know it's been translated and re-translated and there are tons of different versions of it but let's just for the sake of what I'm saying now say there is one and only version which is directly word for word what Jesus and such dictated to their editors, and that version is the KJV.

Well now the Conservapedia people are now working on a new version, The Conservative Bible, appropriately enough, to avoid that insidious Liberal bias that infiltrates "literally" everything in our world. Including the bible. You didn't think Jesus was really chilled out and stuff did you? Liberal bias! As the Conservapedes state:

There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning are, in increasing amount:

• lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ
• lack of precision in modern language
• translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

Well, you know, they have a point. I know nothing at all about this stuff, but even though there are experts on this, I'd think it's still pretty much impossible to get a completely accurate translation of ancient texts. And just perhaps there is a bit of a what I'd call a modern bias, not so much into the smiting and slaughtering and slavery stuff these days. I guess that's what they call liberal. In fact, the stuff that is in the bible that's already been distorted by girly fags seems pretty horrific to me.. some of the stuff in there anyway, one of the reasons I am not a fan of Christianity, in fact. For the Conservapedes that very stuff is too peaceful and loving, or whatever, and that's a bad thing. So it's up to them to fix the bible, according to the following guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level^[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;^[4] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction^[5] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";^[6] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Because obvs the original bible was pro capitalist and afraid of girl germs. You'll be happy to know that those hardworking boys have already started.

Happy Sunday!

A bit of dorkism for something to do..

I remember when I constructed my system, for the times like this when I don't know what to write about to keep me blogging and stimulate my writing muscles and make them do more of what they're supposed to be doing, that is, coming up with interesting and original non-gimmicky content.

It didn't work, but it did provide me with something to throw up here when I have nothing to write and feel I should post something cos I haven't for so long.

Caption this.



That's in Rome. *looks all cultured and stuff*

Why Weather gods.. why?

Just here to talk about the weather.. it probably says something that I write about the weather on this blog so often.. at least often in relation to the overall content.

Fuckin ell it's fuckin freezin! It's October ok.. autumn.. mid autumn not even late and it's bloody freezing. One or 2 degrees and officially snow according to the weather sites but it's actually rain just that really icy rain that isn't much like snow except for that it's really cold.

Bloody ell!

Just dropping by..

Thought I'd mention to you all (um.. you singular?) that I'm off for another casting today because as the tradition goes I'm supposed to tell everyone so then nothing comes of it. No biggie really. Bit annoying that they have it on a Sunday which is not only a day, particularly today because it's rainy and gloomy and the trams which go to the spot I need to go don't run on weekends but that's about the most interesting thing I have to write.

See, it's not just laziness that keeps me from keeping up the blog. Well anyway, um. That's all.

Damn, I thought I was all clever n stuff..

I've been having a few computer issues over the last month. Not the one I'm currently using.. well there are issues with this, but those are not the issues I'm talking about now.. well the issues with this computer contribute to the importance of sorting out the issues with the other one, but those are not the issues I'm going to focus on in this post.

The other computer is at this time running on what is little more than a kernel. I'm not sure if that sentence is correct or if I know what it means, but it's running on Linux, (Ubuntu or whatever) and at the moment most programs just won't work. I was able to put my photos on, and a little bit of editing, and Erik managed to configure Realplayer to play music, some anyway but further than that, I have no clue.

It's humbling. All this time, whenever I thought of it anyway, which admittedly is very little, I thought I'd be one of the clever, openminded people who'd take to Linux like something that takes very well to something else, and not one of those Windows minions who complain that it's not usable and Windows is better.

Well.. let me say this. I don't know if "better" is the right term, but at least for the moment Windows is much more me friendly. I mean.. progams are actual programs, and they work. And if you need to install something you click install.. and it installs. I wouldn't mind something a tad more complicated if there was no choice.. but a page full of lines of script that I'm supposed to do something with.. and talk about kernels and terminal emulators and configuring the command line with patches while fabricating the port for uxb app.1. Oh, and starting from System/Applications which I couldn't even find on the damn thing well.. That's not what I ordered. And my wifi thingy won't work on it because it only works on Windows.

Not to mention, my only experience with a Mac recently while I was in Italy didn't turn out well either. Something about automatically creating a trash folder when I wanted to delete stuff off my memory card and making it invisible so my card was still essentially full.. and when I got back on the dumbass' Windows comp it immediately showed the folder. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Anyway, there's not much hope of this, but if there's anyone out there who understands this stuff and is able to explain it in any known human language that would be great, but I reckon it won't happen, so wev. I just have to face the fact I'm one of the crowd, the many, the common folk who like to click and play, and aren't capable of much more than that.

And it went ok.

D-day was yesterday. That's the day that the ominous thing I've been vaguely alluding to was going to happen and it did happen and the circumstances changed slightly by the time so it turned out not all that bad. Not that you even know what it was all about in the first place so that the change in circumstances would be meaningless even if I told you what they were which I wouldn't anyway but everything's cool now. Pretty much anyway.

Now I can think of other stuff. If only some other stuff would materialize I'd have something to keep my mind on. Hello.. other stuff? It's ok it'll come.