re James' latest post, which is a missed connection with at least a bare minimum of details.

Why do they usually sound like this?

I saw you at [vague location starbucks], you were [vague description standing by the wall] and you [vague action glanced at me]. If you're interested, please [ironic demand for specific details email me an exact description of what I look like] so we can connect!

News Story

On his birthday, practicing to be a grumpy old man.

Girl Talk's latest album Feed the Animals is super awesome. I'm having so much fun listening to it today. (Remix/mashup/dj stuff)



It is available online, set-your-own-fee-or-free (like Radiohead's last):

Seriously best new thing I've listened to all year.

Track 12 from the album:

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Linked file is CC licensed NC w/attribution (see album list for details).

I haven't smoked all week, except one on Monday morning. So far so good. Definitely have mood swings. Well more like a permanently shitty mood. Getting better today. Haven't killed anyone yet. Thanks for putting up with me James :)

As incentive to quit, I bought myself a ridiculously nice, but used so not too expensive, chair. Definitely worth the money considering I sit in it for like 2100 hours a year. The one I had before was so crappy and badly fitting I was starting to get pains and aches by the end of the work day. Yuck, not worth it. My body didn't come with a warranty.

I think without James' encouragement and my self-bribery I wouldn't have been able to quit. Feels pretty good!

It's (e:James) birthday today!

So, there is a now a tethering app (NetShare) in the Apple iPhone app store.

Now I'm sorely tempted to upgrade to the new iPhone. Mmmm, internet everywhere. Might be worth the $200 upgrade fee for iPhone 3G since I'm on call for server emergencies.

Here it is (link requires iTunes 7.7)

Ah, a new word (to me): ignosticism. I am not sure how I've missed that so far in my life, considering how much I've thought and researched about this sort of stuff. I am more accurately ignostic. God doesn't matter to me, and my strong atheistic streak seems to flow from ignostic roots.

Pondering the recent discussions about what it means to have faith as a Christian, I've admittedly been more concerned about what it means to have faith as Jim, so let me summarize my thoughts so far, as discovered over the course of 30 or so years.

I have faith that I am a human being, that this life is real, and that anything before or after it is too nebulous to worry to much about, in a personal sense. I didn't mind not existing before I was born, so I aim to be cheerful when faced with my deathbed.

I have faith that human beings can learn from their mistakes. And more specifically, that I have been and will be able to learn from my own mistakes. My many, many mistakes.

More importantly, I have faith that human beings can learn from the mistakes of other human beings. This is the key to human culture. I don't think a culture needs a God to look to to get stuff right, human beings are capable of introspection and examination on their own.

I believe that we are tied to the past, and future tied to the present, but that being tied to this continuum is not a form of bondage, but of progression. Culturally, before and after my life is of a lot of importance to me (as opposed to personally, as above).

The foundations of my beliefs are as minimal as I can make them: buy into existing, into consciousness, into trial and error, and into broad human culture. Anything beyond those 4 pillars is extraneous, and everything I have ever managed to make better within myself is based on those simple statements. I've tried to brutally reduce the dependencies in that chain and that's as far as I've been able to cut. For consistency's sake if I could find a simpler way to state it I'd cut more out.

This faith is based on personal experience, but it's also personal experience that I can observe mirrored in the lives of other people. It's faith based on as much sense and definition as I can give the terms involved.

I've known lots of people who've lost or never had belief in God and they seem better off for it. Some seem worse, too, true.

The people I know who believe in learning from trial and error and not repeating their own mistakes would not be the same people if they give that up or didn't have it.

That's why I believe what I do and consider it essential, and could care less about God. When people can't agree on what the word God means, much less what 'he wants', it's a giant sink for me to spend time to even consider it (and I've personally spent much time considering).

We've got millennia of rich human history of to learn from, and that's plenty to keep me busy.

By chance, should there be any lurking Rails developers on this site, please send me an email if you're looking for work (fulltime position with benefits, local to WNY only).

jim/at/jimlindley/dot/com