Judge Kavanaugh is currently in the process of being confirmed for the United States Supreme Court. He stands accused of some horrific behavior, which it is neither the job of the US Senate to try nor convict. It is, however, their role to advise and consent over the nomination of this candidate, and to that end, they should always demand all of the facts.
As a conservative, I value the status quo. I value established procedure and working systems of governance. In this case, that means valuing the time-honored process by which we deal with new information during a confirmation process: we re-open the FBI background investigation and take the results of the expanded background check into account during the remaining confirmation process. This is not a Democratic or Republican process, it is the process of the United States Senate.
Yet we are told that such an investigation is not necessary, that it is a stalling tactic, that it is not what the FBI does (!) and that it can not and will not be employed now. Here's the fact of the matter: there is a mid-term election looming. The Democrats want to delay the vote on Kavanaugh until after the election. Republicans want to ram the vote through before the election. Neither one should have their way. The process isn't new or contrived. The process has its own pace, and if it takes longer than Republicans would like or ends sooner than Democrats would like, that's not relevant. What's relevant is that, when we look back at this in several years, we see a thoughtful, respectful and thorough process that confirmed or failed to confirm a Judge to the Supreme Court with all due consideration.
I don't feel that that's what we're getting, and that concerns me as a conservative. I think it should concern you as an American.
Friday, September 28, 2018
Friday, June 22, 2018
Conservative vs. Republican: The new political landscape
The Republican party, from around 2000 to the present day, has been the central focus of the ire of the left. But it's also been a problem for another political grouping: conservatives. Generally, in the US, we label everything right of center, "conservative," and everything left of center, "liberal," but this is not what those terms actually mean. The mashing up of political terminology has lead to some very strange political bedfellows, and it's only creeping into further disarray. I'm not sure if I can address the issue, even as a seed of discussion, but I'm going to try.
Conservatism is, historically, a position divided between two fundamental positions: that the structures of society are our lifeline, and that no matter what we may think of them, any change to their status should be viewed with skepticism and resistance; and that land-ownership is the currency of social influence and should remain so. The latter position has waned over the centuries since conservatism first appeared, and for the most part, conservatism is now mostly the former: the idea that change is dangerous and should be accompanied by a restraint that is thoughtful, skeptical, but not absolute.
Inherent in the conservative position is a rather unpleasant fact that many conservatives do not care for: we're often wrong. As with the sciences, the assertion is not that we're right. The assertion is that change should be accomplished methodically and with a tendency to take one step back as needed, not because where we started was right, but because where we started was functional, even where it was not always just or equitable.
The modern US Republican party, on the other hand, is not generally acting as a conservative organization. It's a progressive party that favors the interests of certain socioeconomic groups (mostly business) and of fundamentalist Christian churches. This can be seen clearly in the legislation that the Republican party advances, almost all of which is not conservative in the least.
Let's take health care as an example. There's nothing particularly liberal/conservative inherently about health care anymore. In FDR's time, it was clearly a liberal/conservative issue, and FDR's creation of Medicare and Medicaid was a starkly liberal policy move, which conservatives opposed strongly. You can look back at the debates around those moves and see the profound split between the two. Some people were arguing ideologically that the government should not be in the business of what they viewed as charity, or at the very least insurance, and that's both a conservative and not a conservative position. In so far as it had not been the job of the Federal Government up until that time, it's clear that this is a conservative position: don't change the nature of the government.
But the ideology that says that it shouldn't be the job of the government isn't conservative. It's actually unrelated to the conservative position entirely. You might agree as a conservative, but that's not because you're a conservative.
Today, however, health care is not the same issue. Medicare and Medicaid are established parts of our Federal Government's role, and they have rotted. They are fundamentally not working, as evidenced by the fact that nations with far, far more comprehensive offerings spend less per capita on their health care policies. This doesn't mean that the US should have universal heath care. It's simply that what we have doesn't work financially, and yet we have become a nation that provides, to some extent, for those who cannot provide for themselves, due to injury, age, illness, poverty, what have you.
So, what is the conservative position on health care? It's simple. What we are doing now should be maintained in so far as it works and shifted toward known operable solutions where it is failing. Notice that none of that is pro- or anti-health care. None of that is about "Obamacare" either positive or negative. None of that is about ending or shifting any benefits or privatizing anything. None of those positions have anything to do with conservatism. They are Republican or Democratic policy points, and that's it. The conservatives are the adults in the room saying, "look, whatever you do, don't break the country," and we have to say that to Republicans just as often as to Democrats, but because the Republicans are believed by the general public to be the conservative party, they often get a pass on these issues, and get to brand their version of progressivism as conservatism.
Saying doesn't make it so, though. Conservatives are ultimately locked to the middle of the spectrum because we must favor the established structures. We're the ones saying, "a smooth transition of power around elections is more important than who wins." We're the ones saying, "the continuity of the role of the Federal Government is more important than rolling back policies that offend your ideology." We're the ones saying that working with those of any political party is more valuable than enshrining your political wins.
When you see any major policy change being claimed by "conservatives," ask yourself, "is this change being made with skeptical hesitation and a preference to existing structures or is it an attempt to push an ideological shift in the way the government works?" If it's the latter it's not conservative.
So what is the right and what is the Republican party if not conservative? Generally, the Republican party tends to favor a modified version of conservatism that's sometimes called "traditionalism." That is, the idea that there was an "original" established order that changed at some point and that order is what we must return to. It's not about preventing unwarranted change to the existing status quo, but about unsettling it in favor of a (perhaps imaginary) past status quo. Traditionalism is the true foil of progressiveness, because it will arbitrarily align itself against the goals of progressiveness, whereas conservatism will re-align itself with formerly progressive ideas over time, as they prove functional and entrench themselves within the status quo.
I hope this has allowed you to re-think what conservatism is, and will inform your views on what conservative policy really is going forward. And as a personal plea, I ask that you consider that not everyone who thinks that reaching out in all directions to he hand of rational and hard-working members of our society is ever a problem. I want you to ask your "opposite" number to help, aid and assist in the rebuilding of whatever social structures fail. I want you to be a community, not a collection of insular islands of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Love your neighbor, not just in theory, but in absolute terms. Respect their views and see the world through their eyes. If you're a tree-hugging liberal and they are a gun-toting traditionalist, ask them over for lunch and talk about the good you can do together. Embrace our society over your ideology. When the right does something terrible, attack it, but don't attack the people on the right. When the left does something terrible, attack it, but don't attack the people on the left.
We are not the government. Render under Ceasar what is Caesar's but do not forget what doesn't belong to him. We don't belong to our government. The opposite is true. It is one of our most valuable creations, and we must protect it, defend it, and nurture it as we would our own child, but never elevate it to the status of an ideology.
Conservatism is, historically, a position divided between two fundamental positions: that the structures of society are our lifeline, and that no matter what we may think of them, any change to their status should be viewed with skepticism and resistance; and that land-ownership is the currency of social influence and should remain so. The latter position has waned over the centuries since conservatism first appeared, and for the most part, conservatism is now mostly the former: the idea that change is dangerous and should be accompanied by a restraint that is thoughtful, skeptical, but not absolute.
Inherent in the conservative position is a rather unpleasant fact that many conservatives do not care for: we're often wrong. As with the sciences, the assertion is not that we're right. The assertion is that change should be accomplished methodically and with a tendency to take one step back as needed, not because where we started was right, but because where we started was functional, even where it was not always just or equitable.
The modern US Republican party, on the other hand, is not generally acting as a conservative organization. It's a progressive party that favors the interests of certain socioeconomic groups (mostly business) and of fundamentalist Christian churches. This can be seen clearly in the legislation that the Republican party advances, almost all of which is not conservative in the least.
Let's take health care as an example. There's nothing particularly liberal/conservative inherently about health care anymore. In FDR's time, it was clearly a liberal/conservative issue, and FDR's creation of Medicare and Medicaid was a starkly liberal policy move, which conservatives opposed strongly. You can look back at the debates around those moves and see the profound split between the two. Some people were arguing ideologically that the government should not be in the business of what they viewed as charity, or at the very least insurance, and that's both a conservative and not a conservative position. In so far as it had not been the job of the Federal Government up until that time, it's clear that this is a conservative position: don't change the nature of the government.
But the ideology that says that it shouldn't be the job of the government isn't conservative. It's actually unrelated to the conservative position entirely. You might agree as a conservative, but that's not because you're a conservative.
Today, however, health care is not the same issue. Medicare and Medicaid are established parts of our Federal Government's role, and they have rotted. They are fundamentally not working, as evidenced by the fact that nations with far, far more comprehensive offerings spend less per capita on their health care policies. This doesn't mean that the US should have universal heath care. It's simply that what we have doesn't work financially, and yet we have become a nation that provides, to some extent, for those who cannot provide for themselves, due to injury, age, illness, poverty, what have you.
So, what is the conservative position on health care? It's simple. What we are doing now should be maintained in so far as it works and shifted toward known operable solutions where it is failing. Notice that none of that is pro- or anti-health care. None of that is about "Obamacare" either positive or negative. None of that is about ending or shifting any benefits or privatizing anything. None of those positions have anything to do with conservatism. They are Republican or Democratic policy points, and that's it. The conservatives are the adults in the room saying, "look, whatever you do, don't break the country," and we have to say that to Republicans just as often as to Democrats, but because the Republicans are believed by the general public to be the conservative party, they often get a pass on these issues, and get to brand their version of progressivism as conservatism.
Saying doesn't make it so, though. Conservatives are ultimately locked to the middle of the spectrum because we must favor the established structures. We're the ones saying, "a smooth transition of power around elections is more important than who wins." We're the ones saying, "the continuity of the role of the Federal Government is more important than rolling back policies that offend your ideology." We're the ones saying that working with those of any political party is more valuable than enshrining your political wins.
When you see any major policy change being claimed by "conservatives," ask yourself, "is this change being made with skeptical hesitation and a preference to existing structures or is it an attempt to push an ideological shift in the way the government works?" If it's the latter it's not conservative.
So what is the right and what is the Republican party if not conservative? Generally, the Republican party tends to favor a modified version of conservatism that's sometimes called "traditionalism." That is, the idea that there was an "original" established order that changed at some point and that order is what we must return to. It's not about preventing unwarranted change to the existing status quo, but about unsettling it in favor of a (perhaps imaginary) past status quo. Traditionalism is the true foil of progressiveness, because it will arbitrarily align itself against the goals of progressiveness, whereas conservatism will re-align itself with formerly progressive ideas over time, as they prove functional and entrench themselves within the status quo.
I hope this has allowed you to re-think what conservatism is, and will inform your views on what conservative policy really is going forward. And as a personal plea, I ask that you consider that not everyone who thinks that reaching out in all directions to he hand of rational and hard-working members of our society is ever a problem. I want you to ask your "opposite" number to help, aid and assist in the rebuilding of whatever social structures fail. I want you to be a community, not a collection of insular islands of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Love your neighbor, not just in theory, but in absolute terms. Respect their views and see the world through their eyes. If you're a tree-hugging liberal and they are a gun-toting traditionalist, ask them over for lunch and talk about the good you can do together. Embrace our society over your ideology. When the right does something terrible, attack it, but don't attack the people on the right. When the left does something terrible, attack it, but don't attack the people on the left.
We are not the government. Render under Ceasar what is Caesar's but do not forget what doesn't belong to him. We don't belong to our government. The opposite is true. It is one of our most valuable creations, and we must protect it, defend it, and nurture it as we would our own child, but never elevate it to the status of an ideology.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Drawing from your investments isn't free: How to income
Here's a tidbit to consider before we get into the details: You have $100,000 in some sort of investment, let's call it stocks (equities in the investing lingo). Let's say that you never touch the principal (however much you had at the start of last year, each year). If you do everything wrong, what's the worst outcome you could have in 10 years?
Not touching the principal is one of those rules everyone hears about, it seems reasonable. Leave your money invested and let it make money for you! Great idea, but is it more complicated than that? Well, as it turns out, yes.
Not touching the principal is one of those rules everyone hears about, it seems reasonable. Leave your money invested and let it make money for you! Great idea, but is it more complicated than that? Well, as it turns out, yes.
Monday, April 4, 2016
Style guide style guide
After looking over Google's style guide for shell scripting, I feel like I need to write up what should be obvious: the style guide for style guides. It's a common failing of coder culture that we think it's best to try to write style guide documentation as if it were code, being as explicit as possible and catching exceptional conditions where possible.
Unfortunately, the audience is not a computer, it's a programmer, and programmers do many things that computers don't:
Unfortunately, the audience is not a computer, it's a programmer, and programmers do many things that computers don't:
- Ignore large sections of prose
- Discard the parts they disagree with
- Become defensive
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Choosing a Unicode PIN
PINs (not "PIN number," please) are often chosen poorly. Among the most common PINs are "0000" and "1234"... in fact over 10% of PINs are 1234, seriously?! Your pin doesn't have to be weapons-grade-cryptography ready (it can't be, anyway) but it should be less guessable than Mel Brooks' luggage combination.
To that end, I present you with a most helpful resource: the Unicode PIN mappings. These are characters from the international Unicode set (the way computers store characters from nearly every language on Earth) that have a four-number representation that you can use in a PIN code. Since many Unicdoe characters either aren't actually characters (things like an umlaut that only have meaning when combined with another character, or "non-printing" characters like a non-breaking space which are used in formatting) I've pared the list down to just the ones that have some basic visual representation. Also, the codes for Unicode characters are most often (and here) represented by what's called "hexadecimal" notation, so I've removed all of the ones that contain letters in that representation.
What you're left with is pure gold for selecting and remembering a non-obvious PIN. If you ever forget your PIN, then a quick Google search for the name of the symbol plus "unicode" will turn it up in no time. A few examples from the big list:
! (EXCLAMATION MARK) 0021
⁇ (DOUBLE QUESTION MARK) 2047
™ (TRADE MARK SIGN) 2122
↑ (UPWARDS ARROW) 2191
☁ (CLOUD) 2601
☂ (UMBRELLA) 2602
✡ (STAR OF DAVID) 2721
け (HIRAGANA LETTER KE) 3051
To that end, I present you with a most helpful resource: the Unicode PIN mappings. These are characters from the international Unicode set (the way computers store characters from nearly every language on Earth) that have a four-number representation that you can use in a PIN code. Since many Unicdoe characters either aren't actually characters (things like an umlaut that only have meaning when combined with another character, or "non-printing" characters like a non-breaking space which are used in formatting) I've pared the list down to just the ones that have some basic visual representation. Also, the codes for Unicode characters are most often (and here) represented by what's called "hexadecimal" notation, so I've removed all of the ones that contain letters in that representation.
What you're left with is pure gold for selecting and remembering a non-obvious PIN. If you ever forget your PIN, then a quick Google search for the name of the symbol plus "unicode" will turn it up in no time. A few examples from the big list:
! (EXCLAMATION MARK) 0021
⁇ (DOUBLE QUESTION MARK) 2047
™ (TRADE MARK SIGN) 2122
↑ (UPWARDS ARROW) 2191
☁ (CLOUD) 2601
☂ (UMBRELLA) 2602
✡ (STAR OF DAVID) 2721
け (HIRAGANA LETTER KE) 3051
Friday, November 27, 2015
Predicting the future
It's been a common pastime since the first iron was smelted and the first wheel was crafted: human beings like to predict the future of technology.
But how can we predict what will come next? There are actually some pretty simple tools that we can use, and they're not terribly inaccurate. First, stop wishing. Most predictions of the future are based on wishful thinking. Everyone will have a jet pack, we'll all live on clouds and peace will reign... or not.
But how can we predict what will come next? There are actually some pretty simple tools that we can use, and they're not terribly inaccurate. First, stop wishing. Most predictions of the future are based on wishful thinking. Everyone will have a jet pack, we'll all live on clouds and peace will reign... or not.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Some thoughts on TotalBiscuit's cancer
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| John Bain AKA TotalBiscuit |
That's what makes today's announcement so hard. John Bain, who is known to the PC video gaming world as reviewer and commentator, TotalBiscuit, developed cancer a while back and it took the wind out of his sails for a while, but he went into remission. Today, we learned that it's back and the form of cancer he has now has a 2-3 year life expectancy and is inoperable.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Eggs ala Ed Bushell
My grandfather, Ed Bushell, used to make eggs for me in the morning. He had an impressive repertoire of recipes, but the one I remember dearly and have attempted to replicate and improve on is probably the simplest as well. It's simply poached eggs on toast, but I find that surprisingly few people know how to make a good poached egg. So here's what I do. You can put one egg on toast or two (I find that two eggs on one piece of toast is the perfect breakfast).
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Understanding sleep sort: for everyone!
This is an experiment, and I invite everyone to participate, no matter whether you are a programmer or think computers are only useful for reading email. This article is about sorting. In computer science, sorting is not really all that different from every day life. You get some collection of things and you want to put them in order. There must be a way of comparing any two things and understanding what order they belong in. So, if you want to sort grapefruits by size, you can compare any two grapefruits and determine that one is bigger, smaller or the same size as another. Everything else falls out of this, and every time a computer sorts your mail or the messages on Facebook or anything else, it's comparing two items at a time.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Dear Father, a response regarding Freemasonry and the Catholic Church
In a recent article on The St. Louis Review, Msgr. Matthew Mitas wrote a "Dear Father" column that responded to a question about Freemasonry for Catholics. While I certainly grant that it is his and his Church's right to view Freemasonry however they like, and to set the rules for their membership, I do feel that some of the article is just absurdly wrong about Freemasonry, and needs to be challenged on that basis.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Easy and fast mac & cheese from scratch!
Just the mention of a roux can send some amateur cooks into a fit, and I have to admit that mine often aren't perfect, so I tend to shy away from them. But a roux is at the heart of mac & cheese. For those who aren't aware, a roux is a blend of fat and starch that forms a pasty or saucy mixture that doesn't separate. This can be very useful for making gravies and sauces. Mac & cheese is just pasta in a cheese sauce, so it's usually a roux of butter or other oil, cheese and either corn starch or flour.
Below, I'll go into the recipe for a basic mac & cheese using this technique and then a few ways you can "dress it up" with other ingredients. But I have to stress that mac & cheese is a basic canvas. Get creative and try whatever you want! If you're trying to keep carbs in line, don't have this more than once a week, and consider one of the high-fiber, high-protein pastas that have a lower glycemic index.
Basic version:
Below, I'll go into the recipe for a basic mac & cheese using this technique and then a few ways you can "dress it up" with other ingredients. But I have to stress that mac & cheese is a basic canvas. Get creative and try whatever you want! If you're trying to keep carbs in line, don't have this more than once a week, and consider one of the high-fiber, high-protein pastas that have a lower glycemic index.
Basic version:
- 2 tbsp canola or peanut oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 3 cups water
- 2 cups pasta (more if it's a large shell or the like)
- 1 cup cheddar or other flavorful cheese, shredded
- 1/2 cup cream cheese cut into small cubes
- salt & pepper to taste
Friday, January 17, 2014
Cryptocurrencies: The future of Bitcoin and its peers
 |
| The Bitcoin logo |
So, is this just a silly and short-lived flurry of activity? Will Bitcoin and all it's silly ilk die off?
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Solving the Wikipedia problem
Today I was reading an AMA discussion on reddit from a Wikipedia admin. Much of the conversation centered around either delitionism (editors and admins on Wikipedia who want to delete lots of pages that they don't consider important) or the creeping vandalism of special interests. I've long thought that both problems could be solved by creating a new service to replace Wikipedia, so let me put my thoughts down in writing.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Copyright again: 15 years may be the sweet spot
It's worth watching this video in general, but I've linked to a specific point (if the video doesn't start at 16:24, then skip forward to there) where they present some really surprising data: in general, book publishers stop publishing books after between 10 and 20 years. What this means is that if you want to find a book published 20-40 years ago, you're probably not going to find it unless it's one of the few books that either was made into a movie or is required for some college coursework. Want to find William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic? Sure, that had some big budget actors in the film adaptation, but Connie Willis's Fire Watch? Yeah so, how about a Kindle version? And that's the lucky ones that are available as ebooks! Many are simply lost.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Spoiler-filled Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode
 |
| Promo Image for the episode from SFX |
Everyone else gone? Okay, let me get the complaints out of the way: I think the fan service was laid on a bit too thick. I love Doctor Who, but man, this made even me cringe at times! There was no real reason for the Doctor to marry the queen. Having Baker appear was kind of strained (though, see below) and I thought the epilogue was kind of painful.
That's really it. I have no other complaints.
The rest of the episode was excellent.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Retiring two blogs, starting another!
I've made some pretty large changes in my life of late. If you've read my other posts, you know that I'm now a Freemason. Big change! I end up attending 3-4 meetings per month (1 is my Lodge's required monthly meeting, and the others are things I choose to participate in) and then I pitch in where I can and attend cool events like our recent historic walking tour of Cambridge. So this means that I have much less time and mental bandwidth for things like video games and some of my spare-time software hacking. Because of that, I'm bringing my two blogs dedicated to those topics to a close. Those blogs are:
ajsgaming.blogspot.com and ajssoftwaredev.blogspot.com
They will continue to exist, but I probably won't post to them any more, and if I do, it will be very, very infrequent.
I'm also spinning up a new blog about Freemasonry that I will be trying to update regularly along with this one. That new blog is at:
tetrahedralmason.blogspot.com
The Tetrahedral Freemason is all about my experiences as I explore what it means to be a better man, from working to improve my community to learning about the past to being there for my brothers to the esoteric and philosophical aspects of it all.
If you have questions, you can post replies to my posts there or here, and I'll try to answer you as best I can.
ajsgaming.blogspot.com and ajssoftwaredev.blogspot.com
They will continue to exist, but I probably won't post to them any more, and if I do, it will be very, very infrequent.
 |
| A Sierpinski tetrahedron from momath.org |
tetrahedralmason.blogspot.com
The Tetrahedral Freemason is all about my experiences as I explore what it means to be a better man, from working to improve my community to learning about the past to being there for my brothers to the esoteric and philosophical aspects of it all.
If you have questions, you can post replies to my posts there or here, and I'll try to answer you as best I can.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Cambridge Masonic Temple Open House yesterday
 |
| Open House at the Cambridge Masonic Temple |
As I posted on Google Plus and Facebook, yesterday, we had a state-wide Open House in the Masonic Lodges in Massachusetts along with several other states which followed our example of previous years.
To recap the event, we had a good turnout. Lots of folks wanted the full tour and I started to get a sense of what was useful and not useful to cover for someone looking at us from the outside. In case anyone's curious, here's how it went:
Usually we'd start in the basement function hall to grab a snack or drink if they wanted any. We'd hang out there and chat to see if we could bundle up a group and then proceed to the second floor "business room" which is just an informal room with a big table for hanging out and talking before meetings or otherwise having less formal events like our book club. We'd talk about the history: when the Grand Lodge of England was formed (1717), when the Massachusetts Grand Lodge was formed (1733), when the oldest Lodge associated with the Cambridge Masonic Temple was formed (1805) and when the Cambridge Masonic Temple was built (1910).
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Obama is not remotely the worst President in US history
By Aaron Sherman
Today, I came across another one of those silly, "Obama is the worst President ever!" claims that you see floating around poorly spelled Facebook posts or Fox News. Usually I brush it off, but tonight I thought it needed a real response. Let me be clear, I'm a moderate who's not always a big fan of Obama. I don't like Obamacare (single payer models are cheaper and more effective) and I'm aghast at the expansion of domestic spying under his and W's administrations. That said, I think calling him the worst President ever is as absurd as any claim I've ever heard in the political realm, and I lived through Reagan claiming that he had no idea that Iran-Contra was going on in his administration and Nixon claiming that he wasn't a crook.
Today, I came across another one of those silly, "Obama is the worst President ever!" claims that you see floating around poorly spelled Facebook posts or Fox News. Usually I brush it off, but tonight I thought it needed a real response. Let me be clear, I'm a moderate who's not always a big fan of Obama. I don't like Obamacare (single payer models are cheaper and more effective) and I'm aghast at the expansion of domestic spying under his and W's administrations. That said, I think calling him the worst President ever is as absurd as any claim I've ever heard in the political realm, and I lived through Reagan claiming that he had no idea that Iran-Contra was going on in his administration and Nixon claiming that he wasn't a crook.
So here was my response, reviewing the past few decades of Presidents.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
How to watch Star Trek
By Aaron Sherman
A while back, I did an essay about Babylon 5 that was primarily a guide for those who had never seen the show. I feel that watching it start-to-end is a bit of a mistake at this point, and there are places where you really should take a break and review what you've seen.
Star Trek isn't the same sort of thing. Star Trek is more of a mythology than a story, and as such you can pretty much jump in anywhere and enjoy it. That being said, I have definite opinions on how you might go about this. I recently put part of this together for a Google Plus response to someone who had never watched the series, so here it is (a bit expanded) for everyone:
A while back, I did an essay about Babylon 5 that was primarily a guide for those who had never seen the show. I feel that watching it start-to-end is a bit of a mistake at this point, and there are places where you really should take a break and review what you've seen.
Star Trek isn't the same sort of thing. Star Trek is more of a mythology than a story, and as such you can pretty much jump in anywhere and enjoy it. That being said, I have definite opinions on how you might go about this. I recently put part of this together for a Google Plus response to someone who had never watched the series, so here it is (a bit expanded) for everyone:
Monday, September 23, 2013
Low Carb Apple Pie Ala Mode!
So, I've been reading quite a lot about religion and philosophy recently, which has affected my blog posts. Just by way of switching gears and cleansing the palate, I'd like to talk about food. Tonight I wanted some desert, but I'm trying (once again!) to get back to my low-carb diet which I abandon every time there's a round of going out to dinner.
Tonight, I wanted some desert, and found that we had an apple pie flavored protein bar in the kitchen that was left over from a Quest Bar variety pack that Jeff and I have been working through. First off, let me say that Quest Bars are absolutely freaking fantastic! Jeff and I have been having quite a few of them, and at 5-7 carbs per bar, depending on flavor, these things are pretty damned tasty!
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