dannyman.toldme.com


About Me, Politics, Religion, Sunnyvale

In A Nutshell: Bay Area Housing Shortage

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2018/03/06/in-a-nutshell-bay-area-housing-shortage/

A question was posed as to whether folks should fight for or flee from the Silicon Valley.

https://twitter.com/hunterwalk/status/970781776007196672

I answered that those who have bought homes here ought to fight for opportunities for the next group. The greater challenge is that a lot of folks who got theirs don’t want to make allowances for the next generations.

https://twitter.com/ztownsend/status/970788140288847872

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Free Style, Letters to The Man, News and Reaction, Politics, Religion

Trump

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2015/12/08/trump/

https://twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/674044184672776192

Sometimes an image is worth far more than a mere thousand words.

Even the milquetoast is calling him out:

Donald Trump is unhinged. His "policy" proposals are not serious.

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 7, 2015

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JIRA, Religion, Technical, Technology

HOWTO: Develop Software Agilely

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2015/03/06/howto-program-agile/

There seems to be some backlash going on against the religion of “Agile Software Development” and it is best summarized by PragDave, reminding us that the “Agile Manifesto” first places “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” — there are now a lot of Agile Processes and Tools which you can buy in to . . .

He then summarizes how to work agilely:

What to do:

Find out where you are
Take a small step towards your goal
Adjust your understanding based on what you learned
Repeat

How to do it:

When faced with two or more alternatives that deliver roughly the same value, take the path that makes future change easier.

Sounds like sensible advice. I think I’ll print that out and tape it on my display to help me keep focused.

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About Me, Politics, Religion, Testimonials

Remember Gwen Araujo

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2013/04/03/remember-gwen-araujo/

Remember Gwen Araujo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Araujo

Back when I lived in Mountain View I was deeply saddened to read of the death of Gwen Araujo in 2002. She was a transgendered teen in the South Bay who was brutally murdered by classmates. Why? She had given a few blowjobs to the boys. The boys realized in horror that they had committed a “homosexual” act. They felt betrayed by Gwen, beat her to death, and buried her in the woods.

The tragedy bothered me because Gwen was apparently accepted by these friends enough to become somewhat intimate, but the homophobia that had been instilled in these kids was so strong that they went from lust to the worst sort of violence.

For me, “Gwen Araujo” is as a reminder that homophobia is a deadly poison that can turn even a lover into a brutal murderer. Gays aren’t murdering people: it is homophobia that is the dangerous sickness. The younger generations have proven increasingly tolerant, but Gwen’s friends were still held under its deadly influence . . .

I dream of a world in which people can be who they are as they are without fear of violence.

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Politics, Religion, Sundry, Testimonials

Shen Yun

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2013/01/06/shen-yun/

Some weeks back I saw a poster for “Shen Yun: Reviving 5,000 Years of Civilization” at work and thought “Excellent! The wife digs artistic performance and bonus points for digging some traditional Chinese culture.” I grabbed some tickets and mentioned to a coworker. “Shen Yun? That’s Falun Gong.” I know very little about Falun Gong, except that the Chinese government views them as a threatening cult. Of course, the mainland government is easily wigged out over any perceived threat to stability, so I figured that doesn’t tell us much. We’re seeing a performance sponsored by an oppressed religious minority. That could mean anything, really.

The performance was pretty cool. Lots of dancers in colorful costumes evoking stories from Chinese history. I’d say it is like watching a Chinese version of the Nutcracker Suite. Lots of color, lots of movement, and good music. Although they’re telling mostly ancient stories they make effective use of a modern prop of a projected backstage. This saves not only on set design, but the characters at various points jump off the back stage and fly up into the screen as digital avatars. The first time I saw this I thought it was a bit gimmicky, but by the second instance I thought “hey, that is pretty neat, and I bet really magical for the kids.”

And then there’s the Falun Dafa bits. They have some solo singers come out and sing in Chinese, which is cool. They even put the lyrics on the back screen in Chinese and English. I am sure some of the poetic nuance is lost in translation, but the songs lament that we are … most of us, anyway … Gods from the Heavens who have come down to Earth for some reason, something about breaking the cycle of reincarnation and restoring the cycle of creation and destruction. To the disinterested observer it comes across as Buddhist Scientology, and the cycle of creation and destruction sounds like the sort of thing that would raise the ear of a mainland censor.

Two of the dance performances are set in modern China. In one, a tourist gets sent to jail when he unintentionally takes a picture of an innocuous Falun Dafa protest. The guy is tossed in a cell with the Falun Dafa kids, whom he wants nothing to do with, but after the guards treat him contemptibly, everyone in the cell identifies their common predicament. I thought “alright, the Chinese government overdoes it, and many social reform movements have found strength in the jails. Right on, brothers! Fight the power!” In the final dance, the Falun Dafa are having a great time protesting in Tienanmen Square. Right on, sisters! Let us see your “tank man” performance! As soon as the Chinese police come out to bust some heads, a massive earthquake starts to destroy Beijing. Huh? That kind of sucks! But, no worry, the Gods come down and restore Beijing … everything except the Great Hall of the People … ah!

Yeah, I can see how even a reasonable government might not be super enthusiastic about that sort of performance.

The show was overall entertaining. I would still hope that people can practice their religion freely. But whatever innate sympathy I might have had for the Falun folks is diminished, especially by their last performance. When it comes to resistance movements, I am most sympathetic to the non-violent, and to those who aren’t fantasizing that apocalypse is an element to their eventual success.

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Religion, Testimonials

Hajj

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/10/25/hajj/

“According to Islamic tradition the Kaaba was re-constructed by Abraham. It is stated in the Qur’an that this was the first house that was built for humanity to worship Allah.”

Malcolm X, an American human rights activist, describes the sociological atmosphere he experienced at Hajj as follows:

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white. America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.

A 2008 study on the longer-term effect of participating in the Islamic pilgrimage found that Muslims’ communities become more open after the Hajj experience. Entitled “Estimating the Impact of the Hajj: Religion and Tolerance in Islam’s Global Gathering”, a study conducted in conjunction with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government found that the Hajj experience promotes peaceful coexistence, equality, and harmony. Specifically, the report states that the Hajj “increases belief in equality and harmony among ethnic groups and Islamic community and that “Hajjis (those who have performed the Hajj) show increased belief in peace, and in equality and harmony among adherents of different religions”

Sourced from Wikipedia: Kaaba, Hajj

I kinda like just listening to the guy praying along in Arabic. Very relaxing. Even when I was a kid, I thought it was a cool idea that when Muslims pray, wherever they are, they face the same spot. Reading observations that having what amounts to a yearly conference that brings people from across the world together in fellowship . . . that is also a good thing.

Organized religion, and especially Islam, are not without some serious problems, so it is reassuring to see some of the spiritual unity and good spirit that result from a practice that so many people today and throughout history have dedicated their lives to.

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About Me, News and Reaction, Politics, Religion

George Takei on the BSA

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/07/18/thats-so-bsa/

Beautiful words:

Many well-meaning people counter that the BSA is a private organization, and as such should be able to keep whomever they want out. This is of course the same justification used to prevent minorities from eating in restaurants during the Jim Crow years. And where an organization as revered and national in scope as the Scouts maintains and defends such a policy, it sends the wrong message to our youth, many of whom already are struggling with their own sexual identity–an identity which has nothing whatsoever to do with their “morality,” but everything to do with their self-esteem and happiness. Thus, while the BSA may have the “legal” right to continue to discriminate–a question I believe should be revisited–I and others have the same “legal” right to protest the policy, till our last breaths if necessary, as blatantly discriminatory and against everything that equality in America stands for.

The dinosaurs running the national organization at the Boy Scouts of America need to stop practicing discrimination. Acceptance of people without regard to sexual orientation is the Morally Straight approach.

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Excerpts, Good Reads, News and Reaction, Politics, Relationship Advice, Religion, Testimonials

Prop 8 Guy Decides to Stop Hating

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/06/22/prop-8-guy-decides-to-stop-hating/

A Prop 8 champion is having a change of heart:

Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its children.

At the level of first principles, gay marriage effaces that gift.

[ . . . ]

But there are more good things under heaven than these beliefs. For me, the most important is the equal dignity of homosexual love. I don’t believe that opposite-sex and same-sex relationships are the same, but I do believe, with growing numbers of Americans, that the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over. Whatever one’s definition of marriage, legally recognizing gay and lesbian couples and their children is a victory for basic fairness.

I think that there is more to marriage than children, and that those children who can not be adequately cared for by their birth parents are still entitled to be cared for by whatever competent and loving parents society can find for them. At any rate, I am glad to see a Prop 8 supporter come out of the closet and realize that the way to strengthen marriage is to focus on strengthening marriages, rather than denigrating homosexuals.

The other day they were talking about Aung San Suu Kyi on the radio, that the path she chose to follow was the path laid forth by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Martin Luther King. The idea is not to seek victory over the enemy, but to identify the universal capacity for virtue, to love the enemy and change the enemy’s heart, to be open to a more enlightened and equitable path. I feel that David Blankenhorn’s evolution here, along with the evolution of many Americans, is evidence that this sort of spiritual warfare is carrying the day in my country.

I love the smell of progress in the morning.

HT: kylev

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Religion, Technology

The End IS Near!!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/06/10/daves-galaxy-reset/

Folks clamoring for the Mayan Apocalypse this year can take some solace in a note I received this morning:

Greetings

I’ve been making some changes to the game that
pretty much require a reset, I apologize for the
inconvenience, I don’t like to disrupt the game
in such an extreme way, but it will make things
much better, I think.

The 2 biggest changes are that I’m adding Nebulae
to the galaxy, and changing the combat system to
work better statistically.

If you have a question or a concern, or wish to
tell me off, send an email to xxxxxx@gmail.com,
I’m always willing to listen to concerns.

The last turn will run the morning of June 23rd,
and the new galaxy will be built on the 24th.

Have Fun!
–Dave

Depending on how you look at this: everybody wins!

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About Me, News and Reaction, Religion

Dan Savage Calls “Bullshit” On Parts of the Bible

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/05/01/dan-savage-leviticus-bullshi/

http://youtu.be/ao0k9qDsOvs

What sort of disturbs me is the Christians walking out. The religion says you have an obligation to spread the gospel, to preach The Word. That means you ought to interact with non-believers and skeptics, not leave the room as soon as some public figure challenges some or another point regarding your religious faith.

Jesus would have stuck around, and perhaps had some salient response regarding the morality of slavery, stoning, and tolerance of non-traditional sexual practices.

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About Me, Excerpts, Free Style, Good Reads, Religion, Sundry, Technology

The More Things Change . . .

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2012/03/27/party-like-its-1885/

Above all science was becoming religion; psychology was reducing metaphysics to experiment and a sociology of human action was planned. Fighting the vast concept of evolution, religion went into its heresy trials, its struggle with “higher criticism,” its discomfort at the “revised version” of the New Testament which was published the year I entered college. Wealth was God. Everywhere men sought wealth and especially in America there was extravagant living; everywhere the poor planned to be rich and the rich planned to be richer; everywhere wider, bigger, higher, better things were set down as inevitable.

— W. E. B. Du Bois
… who entered college in 1885

Actually, Chapter 3 of “Dusk of Dawn” describes a transition from the world Du Bois was born into of the latter 19th century:

“(As) a young man, so far as I conceived, the foundations of present culture were laid, the way was charted, the progress toward certain great goals was undoubted and inevitable. There was room for argument concerning details and methods and possible detours in the onsweep of civilization; but the fundamental facts were clear, unquestioned and unquestionable.”

In contrast with the “today” of 1940:

“TODAY both youth and age look upon a world whose foundations seem to be tottering. They are not sure what the morrow will bring; perhaps the complete overthrow of European civilization, of that great enveloping mass of culture into which they were born. Everything in their environment is a meet subject for criticism. They can dispassionately evaluate the past and speculate upon the future. It is a day of fundamental change.”

I feel my heart and mind whipsawing between a world culture which is on the cusp of some fundamental, unimaginable change, and a world in which we will pretty much keep doing what we have done, just bigger, bolder, better, faster, with nanites and a higher rate of return . . . I get dizzy thinking about this world I try to live in.

And Religionists and Conservatives keep shouting their objections to a changing world ever louder, ever more viciously. They’re still attacking Evolution, so the concept and theological implications of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption are even more of a leap . . .

But the today of 2012, when the big revolutions appear to be how the European Union will manage debt among member states, and whether Arab countries can successfully democratize, whether there will be regional wars on either side of Asia, and the capacity of fundamentalists to kill civilians . . . today’s world isn’t tottering as obviously as 1940’s “today.”

But it is the Big Things you don’t hear in the news every day; When will climate change trigger famine and mass migration? Will China’s rise be sustained to the point it becomes a world power or will it implode? When are we going to be hit by that asteroid that superheats the atmosphere? Just after the devastating global pandemic that trained against antibiotics and traveled everywhere on jet planes before we noticed it? Will nanofabrication make industry and perhaps agriculture obsolete? Will the Singularity bring upon us a supra-individualist world consciousness? Will medical science and DNA repeal the eternal inevitabilities of aging and death? Is that when we will feel comfortable encapsulating our bodies on centuries-long trips to distant star systems? The new Magellans will refer to centuries as we refer to decades. My thinking is so early 21st . . .

These are the things I tend to wonder about between meetings at work.

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Good Reads, Letters to The Man, News and Reaction, Politics, Religion, Technology, Testimonials

The Greatest Speech Ever Made

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/12/12/the-greatest-speech-ever-made/

Unexpected tear-jerker.

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About Me, Biography, Excerpts, Good Reads, News and Reaction, Politics, Religion, Testimonials

Osama bin Laden is Dead

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/05/02/and-good-riddance/

Some folks are irritated with American reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden. Julie indicated that she had mixed feelings upon seeing our “own countrymen basically holding a frat party outside of the White House, hanging off of trees and singing ‘Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!'” I have heard others moan that this doesn’t change anything, why are we celebrating?

So, I expressed my own feelings in a comment on Julie’s blog:

I was happy about the news yesterday, and I still am. We killed a bad guy who has devoted his life to killing us. That is a victory, and I am proud and glad.

When the crowd outside the White House gathered and sang the Star Spangled Banner, it brought a tear to my eye. Then, America the Beautiful. People gathered at Ground Zero for a candle light vigil. In both places, the crowd chanted “USA! USA! USA!” They spoke for me.

I think it is debatable who kills the most Muslims. Our military adheres to Rules of Engagement that put them at greater risk in order to protect Muslim civilians. On the other hand, extremists recruit the young and naive to walk into crowds of Muslims wearing explosive vests.

We are not perfect and we shouldn’t pretend to be. We make mistakes, we kill innocents, and we have failed to hold ourselves to our own standards of humane treatment of prisoners and jurisprudence.

We are drawing down forces in Iraq, which has changed from a brutal dictatorship built on terror to a messy, unstable, imperfect democracy vulnerable to sectarian violence. We now have one less reason to linger in Afghanistan, which may help motivate the government there to get its act together.

Last night was progress. America done good and a bit of pride is perfectly reasonable.

-danny

I mean, its no Moon Landing. No sincere attempt to curb global warming or end world poverty, hunger, disease . . . but it is progress and I’ll celebrate it just the same.

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News and Reaction, Photo-a-Day, Politics, Religion, Sundry, Testimonials

Osama bin Laden is Dead

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/05/01/osama-bin-laden-is-dead/

Osama bin Laden is Dead

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Religion, Technical, Technology, Testimonials

Google Chrome: Not Being Evil

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/11/11/google-chrome-not-being-evil/

I honestly believe that Google really does intend to not-be-evil. And though I know they screw up and have to deal with some grey areas, I put a lot of trust in Google with my personal data. Trust I wouldn’t put in Microsoft or Facebook.

Anyway, my faith in Google was recently re-affirmed when I fired up Google Chrome on a new box and was presented with this dialog:

If you’re not being evil, you make it trivial for users to switch to a different search engine. If you’re making an effort to really do right by the user, you ask them which search engine they prefer, rather than just defaulting them to your own.

This is classy.

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