<--- posted by Oliver at 1:15 PM --->
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the "Five Precepts" of buddhism: I will not take the life of a sentient being; I will not take what has not been given to me; I will refrain from sexual misconduct; I will refrain from false speech; I will refrain from becoming intoxicated.
the "Ten Commandments" of Christians... You shall have no other gods before me You shall not make for yourself an idol You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy Honour your father and mother You shall not kill You shall not commit adultery You shall not steal You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour
So if we loose god, the false gods and our parents, lay of the kiddies as well as the married people, stop lying to ourselves as well as our neighbours... and lay off the liquor and drugs... we arrive at a "top five" of sorts, from the Jewish/Bible/Christian, commandments which are more in line with what we observe in the Buddhist vows.
The only difference between taking a vow and obeying commandments is you "break" a commandment, thereby inheriting the label that the commandment lays out, ie: if you steal you become, then, a criminal. If you kill, a murderer, if you covet, a Jew... etc etc. However, you can apprently break them however many times you like, so long as you confess and repent afterwards. A vow on the other hand is only observed. You cannot break a vow, you can however not observe it [sic]. Buddhism says you can choose not to observe your vows 3 times, if you are in a bind.
As an un-repentant Christian I am a heathen, blasphemer, bastard, murderer, deviant, theif, liar and general rapscallion.
As a wannabe buddhist, I am... still just a normal human... who... failed to observe his vows a few times, if I had taken them.
The basic premise is, that I don't fuckin' know what I'm on about anymore, but that is the whole point. Why must we persist, after the point where we realise we don't know what the fuck we are talking about? Why can't we just say, you know what, I know some things about life and this is how I feel. And if someone ever asks for help? Instead of saying; ...Well, my son, you ask not because you know but because you SEEK THE ANSWERS... The only way to HEAVEN is to READ my BOOK. But hark, it is a LIFE LONG QUEST, the path of which is LONG AND ARDUOUS. You must HEED MY WORDS and DO EXACTLY AS I SAY... etc etc... why don't we just, give them actual advice? based on what we know about life at the time? It might not be right, but it should hopefully be up to date, and we won't have to repeat mistakes.
Christianity has become an impasse between my mum and I. I'm scared to talk to her, she's so emotionally invested in this singular theology that she has become just as unstable. One wrong word and she's in tears and I don't want to rain on her parade.
That is all.
<--- posted by Oliver at 2:06 AM --->
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Monday, July 06, 2009 <---
Putin has one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new...
If I hear that sound byte one more god damn time :)
<--- posted by Oliver at 9:34 PM --->
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<--- posted by Oliver at 12:28 PM --->
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009 <---
googled: "150 years whats his name"
and google delivers... Bernard Madoff gets maximum 150 years in prison
But seriously, what did Bernie do that any of us wouldn't have done if given the chance. The point I make is, Bernie was just playing the game. The game is "get rich" and it's the game we all play, admittedly very badly.
Good on you Bernie. You had a good run.
Shame on everyone else for throwing stones in glass houses.
<--- posted by Oliver at 9:16 PM --->
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Usually I have a lot to say, an image to post or a video... But Devo is gone now, I wasn't ready, Rys is back in London and I didn't even get to say goodbye. I'm just working on the book. I had forgotten what it felt like, working on the last book. People ask you what you have been up to and for a few months out of the year you only have the same answer "not much, working on the book". Then again, who really means it :) I know I only ask sometimes to be asked back. Only on big projects, you'd think I'd have a great response, you think you would have so much to say, blog, post or facebook about but it's quite the opposite. You know you're working on something great when those things are all frustratingly inadequate.
What have I been up to? Nothing much, working on the book... What have you been up to? Nobody talks to me anymore, I hope that means you're all working on something big.
<--- posted by Oliver at 12:12 AM --->
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Sunday, June 28, 2009 <---
A short follow-up to my last post on extendibility... here's a proof of concept manipulating the speed and direction of an MP3 with Flash 10. New functionality, no need to download a new browser... uses Flash 10 which has been available on Mac, Linux and windows since October last year. And is available to anyone who is semi-competent with scripting languages.
Why you would need to change the speed and direction of an MP3 file playing in your browser is another question... but it does illustrate how easy it is to manipulate data already.
<--- posted by Oliver at 5:31 PM --->
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Saturday, June 27, 2009 <---
Why HTML 5 will not "replace" plugins (again).
People keep touting HTML 5 as the potential "flash killer" and while it might include many of the features that flash has been used to enable these arguments overlook the basic functions of each technology. That last sentence alone might be revealing right away: "...what flash has been used to enable...". I keep saying the same thing over and over, flash is an extendible run-time, not a markup language. If you can dream it, you can do it in flash. Even bytecode and direct memory access are realities for flash today.
HTML 5 is still a draft, and this is one of the main characteristics of HTML specifications. HTML takes the form of a high-school debate over what it should be and what technologies to include. The debate is had by the consortium whose job it is to decide and the major players like microsoft. But this process, no matter how diplomatic, will never keep up with emerging technologies by the very nature of dictatorships.
HTML has been the platform for the web, the spring board, but in itself is not the web. All it takes is one hot new concept, codec, format, algorithm or piece of hardware and a HTML spec is suddenly inadequate, we again find ourselves squabbling over what particular version of said "hot new thing" we should implement in the next version of HTML. This happens regularly and is why we are still squabbling. Even after we do decide, we have each browser vendor writing their own implementation of the implementation and then beyond that, to still be at the mercy of the consumers willingness to upgrade their browser. (the whole damn browser!).
In the meantime, flash already supports whatever the hot new thing was, because some clever bean out there has written a flash library or a class to enable it. No upgrade required. No squabbling... no debate... people are wowed, hearts are won, annoying banners are temporarily forgiven.
The people that get hung up on "HTML vs flash" don't understand the argument they are trying to make. They will also draw lines to being "open" and "free"... well I'm sorry but HTML isn't open, not in the extendible way flash is. If HTML 5 was pitched as an extendable runtime plug-in for browsers that currently support HTML 4, well you might just have something there, but that's what flash already is today, and perhaps more importantly, yesterday.
In a pinko commie world, flash is capitalism. It moves with the market, not after it or in anticipation of... with this "feature" alone lies it's success.
<--- posted by Oliver at 12:29 PM --->
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<--- posted by Oliver at 9:34 AM --->
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Friday, June 19, 2009 <---
Devo 2000 - 2009
Rest in peace mate.
<--- posted by Oliver at 5:01 PM --->
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Thursday, June 18, 2009 <---
精進料理 【しょうじんりょうり】 (n,adj-no) vegetarian cuisine originally derived from the dietry restrictions of Buddhist monks. 精進 【しょうじん】 (n,vs) (1) concentration; diligence; devotion; (2) (See 六波羅蜜) asceticism; zeal in one's quest for enlightenment; (3) adherence to a vegetarian diet.
I went to the soccer today, Japan Vs Australia. Australia won, 2:1 but I felt bad for Japanese who had come all this way to sulk off into the cold Melbourne night. Australians are poor winners at the best of times :P
The Japanese fans cheered on, "GANBARE!", and when they scored the first goal they went crazy!!
The Australian fans yobbo'ed on, "CARNYAFARKENFARKS!", and when we scored our first goal, we went... we barked like dogs, banged the seats up and down in a thunder, mexican waved, hollered through bull horns, stood on shoulders, lit flares, smoke bombs and got arrested.
...and our Japanese visitors took photos of us doing it :)
Quite a harmonica he's got going on there...
<--- posted by Oliver at 1:01 AM --->
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