"Pretty Fall Day" written by Paul on estrip.org

Category: nature

10/30/05 11:55 - 45ºF - ID#32316

Pretty Fall Day

It was such a beautiful fall today. I will be sad to see it end.

Permalink: Pretty_Fall_Day.html
Words: 17
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

10/30/05 11:54 - 45ºF - ID#32315

Latinas

Yesterday I needed shrimp to make pad thai before the party and I didn't want to drive all the way to Wegman's. I decided to check out Latina's the new grocery store that is where quality used to be by North and Elmwood. It has pretty much everythign you need at a grocery store although it is no Wegmans. It reminds me of the grocery stores throughout the rest of the country. The prices seemed reasonable too.

It was yummy and about 1000 calories which fits nicely into my gain weight plan.

(e:flacidness) dances eternally on the internet.

Permalink: Latinas.html
Words: 104
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: media

10/30/05 08:12 - ID#32314

Media Biased and Twelve Tribes Continued

(e:jason) and (e:joshua), I for one am not suggesting that the lefty press is any less biased. I don't think there is any such thing as unbiased media from any source, how can we pretend that is even possible. I always assume everything is biased and try and research stuff myself when I am interested enough. It is just so unlikely that writer can divorce their ideas from their writing enough to be unbiased, even if they really think that is what they are doing.

As for the Twelve Tribes, my feelings about them had nothing to do with Michael Niman. I don't even read his column. In fact, some drunken random girl read us the article out loud at Allen Street hardware one night. The name sounded famialiar so afterwards, I decided to go home and look them up when I realized they were the same people I had gotten into an argument with at that picnic I organized.

Then (e:mike) and I searched for their personal homepage and read the whole thing. We searched for information from former members and for news articles about them. I put all these links on my journal [inlink]paul,3949[/inlink] with my own commentary so that people could not only read my not very interesting opinion but could more importantly read the source materials and decide for themselves. I think that is what makes this format superior to print articles.

I didn't like The Twelve Tribes when I first met them on a purely gut level reaction and haven't bought their bread since 1995, about 10 years before Mike Niman wrote this article .

Here are some links to other journals involved in this discussion. [inlink]joshua,74[/inlink] [inlink]joshua,73[/inlink] [inlink]jason,276[/inlink] [inlink]ajay,390[/inlink] [inlink]joshua,73[/inlink]

Permalink: Media_Biased_and_Twelve_Tribes_Continued.html
Words: 286
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: programming

10/29/05 06:57 - 50ºF - ID#32313

Sherbert Beta Hits

Introducing Paul Visco's Sherbert - An easy to use AJAX API

Sherbert - sher·bert (-bûrt') 1. A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin. 2. A beverage made of sweetened diluted fruit juice. 3. Australian An alcoholic beverage, especially beer. 4. Cross browser compatible xmlHTTP objects created by Paul Visco to make devloping Web 2.0 AJAX applications easier.

I decided that I was sick of depending on an external AJAX xmlHTTP object API. When I first started using AJAX on the site last year I used my own xmlHTTP scripts but soometime thereafter I picked up an XMLhttp API called CPAINT. Last night, I decided there were lots of things I liked about CPAINT but that I didn't need many of the lines of code it was using and that it would be good top just make my own API. It was also the last little snippet of code that wasn't my own out of the thousands of lines that make up (e:strip) and related projects.

You can find out a lot more information about Paul Visco's Sherbert Objects at the Sherbert website

, which will be expanding shortly to include links to many new AJAX applications including the site sound chat.

Permalink: Sherbert_Beta_Hits.html
Words: 222
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: religion

10/29/05 03:37 - 38ºF - ID#32312

The Twelve Tribes

[inlink]joshua,73[/inlink] My gut reaction to them was that I didn't like them having nothing to do with Mike Niman or the coop. It goes back to 1995 when I hosted this big vegan picnic/meeting at artpark and they showed up to get their religion on. (e:hodown) and I didn't hit it off well with them as you can imagine, (e:hodown) asked them to leave, and they left.

Here is their official site

and some official quotes

What is your stance on homosexuality?

We do not approve of homosexual behavior. We do not regard it as a genetic variation, a valid alternative lifestyle, or a mere psychological quirk. We embrace what God says on this subject without regard for political correctness. Homosexual behavior is immoral and can be mortally dangerous.

Quoted from: The Twelve Tribes : Social Issues FAQ

Not a big surprise for any religious fanatical group but it does make me hate them with the same passion I have for fundamentalist christians.

We desire to speak proper English, free from slang and vulgarity, in the midst of every audio and visual stimulus to the contrary flooding our senses.

Quoted from: The Twelve Tribes : We Make No Apology%u2026

Gee - what do you think this means when translated.

Do you spank your children?

Yes, we do. We love our children and consider them precious and wonderful. Because we love them we do spank them. ... When they are disobedient or intentionally hurtful to others we spank them with a small reed-like rod, which only inflicts pain and not damage....The Columbine tragedy in particular points to the potentially terrible consequences of children left to themselves, who are not held accountable for their actions.

Quoted from: The Twelve Tribes : Family FAQs

Here is a site that people who have escaped made

Here is an expose by a man who is really angry about them

The history of

You can also visit their storeon South Creek in Hamburg (MAP TO: 327 BUFFALO ST) There commune is somewhere around 18 mile creek.

ajay writes at 01:10:58 10/31/05 - Comment #2097: Maybe (e:Jason) is too young to remember Jonestown...

paul writes at 08:36:20 10/29/05 - Comment #2082: At my picnic, they searched us out and were preaching at us in our space. I hated that, I guess it just left a bad impression.

trollheim writes at 06:47:09 10/29/05 - Comment #2075: I found the art voice's attack on them to be childish. They are just as hatefull as a hundred other groups in this country (Fundamentalists Christians/muslems, KKK, Conservatives, the official Def Leopard fanclub) but the difference here is that the 12 tribes have relativly no clout to speak of. Would the art voice be ballsy enough to attack the Pope? Na...

oh, and their movie reviews are dry!

jason writes at 04:07:32 10/29/05 - Comment #2071: "Gee - what do you think this means when translated."

I think it means exactly what they say - they are for the use of regular language without slang or vulgarity. Do only blacks use slang? No, of course not. Do only blacks use vulgarity? Again, no. Is slang or vulgarity ONLY in english? I use slang and vulgarity all the time. So do most of us. It doesn't take too much to turn on the TV or radio and hear all kinds of people from various demographics demolish language.

I don't care if they disapprove of homosexuality, and I don't care if they spank their kids. They live the way they want to live, they are not politically active and they are not forcing people to do what they do. They are far less dangerous than the Falwells and Robertsons of the world.

My attitude is this - I don't care what people think or how they live their own lives as long as they are not breaking laws and as long as they are not acting politically to force their lifestyle or ideology on others. This goes for fundie christians, militant islam, extemist lefties, so on and so forth.

Permalink: The_Twelve_Tribes.html
Words: 386
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: web

10/28/05 06:01 - 44ºF - ID#32311

Holy Fast Download

I was busy working on a new AJAX system when I tried to download the new iTunes. It is 33MB and downloaded in a couple seconds. At one point I get 4000k/second! Those speeds seem so crazy. Imagine if the whole internet was like that.

Permalink: Holy_Fast_Download.html
Words: 46
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: games

10/28/05 12:21 - 39ºF - ID#32310

Super Mario

Someone has rewritten super mario brothers as a DHTML javascript application. It is so crazy. It is actually quite playable. Spacebar is jump, the arrow keys move. Check it out

Permalink: Super_Mario.html
Words: 41
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: programming

10/27/05 02:22 - 41ºF - ID#32309

Delaware Park - Google Map Programming

Here you can see Delaware Park from 1920 and 2005. Look how different the waterways are. Can you believe how much bigger the scajacuada was. No wonder it is so disgusting.

So (e:jessbob) sent me a

to some aerial maps of Buffalo from the earlier part of the 1900s. I wanted to superimpose them with some google maps, but the google maps window was not large enough, not to mention that as one of my students pointed out today, the google map API does not offer geocoding services. That means that you cannot use an address in javascript and get the latitude, longtitude from it.

Well, that didn't stop me. I wrote my own full screen google map demo

that looks addresses up on another site to get the latitude and longitude and then plots and focuses on the location on my full screen google map. Without making any of this overhead obvious to the end user.

Here you can see the full screen nature of it.

To visit an address simply type the address in the grey box in the upper right corner. No need to use any commas or other punctuation, simply type spaces between each part of the address e.g. "444 linwood avenue buffalo ny"

Permalink: Delaware_Park_Google_Map_Programming.html
Words: 227
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: body

10/27/05 02:00 - 41ºF - ID#32308

Some of the things mr. fatass ate

I ate a lot today, but not as much as I had hoped because I was busy working at Canisius. I want to gain more weight now. Maybe I should just start on steroids, lol.

Outside of these pictures, I also ate a banana, a can of pear juice, and clif bar.

This is one of those 3/4 lb bacon cheesburgers from Jimmy Macs on elmwood. It is called the Chicago Burger.

Permalink: Some_of_the_things_mr_fatass_ate.html
Words: 79
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: war

10/26/05 12:41 - 41ºF - ID#32307

When will it end

Washington marked the 2,000th American fatality of the Iraq war with a moment of silence in the Senate, the reading of the names of the fallen from the House floor, new protests and a solemn vow from President Bush not to "rest or tire until the war on terror is won."

Quoted from: 2,000th Death Marked by Silence and a Vow

I am so curious how this war on terror will eventually end. Can anyone see the war on anything as broad as terrorism ever being won? I mean it is such a broad target with no real boundary. I am also very curious how we will look back at this war on terror and on this era in general.

Is there anyone who looks back at Vietnam in a positive light?

Will we end just like Vietnam with us losing and pulling out one day? Will we make it until 20,000 troops dead. I mean can anyone see Iraq turning into West Germany or Japan. Can anyone see the end of terrorism? It seems to me that the more we try and impose our will on non-americans, the angrier the terrorists.

I have also noticed that more and more groups and things are being classified as terrorists which makes having a war against them even less sucessful. Maybe we need to hone our definition of terrorist to something a little more approachable.

So how do you guys see it ending. I think eventually we will just have to give up. EIther that or maybe we will get spread so think that China will decide for us.

P.S. What happend to Osama bin Laden? Is he a terrorist anymore? I bet he lives in China.

Permalink: When_will_it_end.html
Words: 298
Location: Buffalo, NY