Going lazy green May 26, 2008

While we do believe in conserving resources and look up to people who truly do go “green” in large ways…  The fact is that going “green” is most of the time expensive.  Expensive in either time and/or money and/or effort.  We’ve recently made some changes in our lifestyle that have made our lives greener… and more convenient.

Ditch the paper towels

We actually did this on accident.  We normally notice when we’re about to run out of paper towels and make sure to pick up another giant cube of them before that happens.  The last time we had them though, I think the kids got to them or something, they went down fast.  So there we were with stuff to clean and no paper towels…  We had two babies with reflux, so we have collected an unhealthy number of cheap burp cloths.  Problem solved.  We haven’t bought paper towels in about 2 months now.  We were lucky though and already had invested in an alternate for other reasons.  But cheap burp cloths are easy to find in the baby section of Target or Walmart.

Remove light bulbs

This we also did on accident.  For some reason our entire kitchen is wired with about 25 lightbulbs in various spots.  Turns out we only need about 6.  Seriously, I see no difference in the amount of light in our kitchen with only 6 vs the 25.  We used all the lights for a while, but then they started to burn out.  I’m not sure when they did, because it was hard to notice.  So out of laziness and forgetfulness (too lazy to make a special trip to buy bulbs, too forgetful to remember to buy bulbs while out) we have reduced the amount of light bulbs in our kitchen by over 50%.  I’ve actually read tips about unscrewing every other bulb on the bathrom vanity if you have a line of them.

Reusable shopping bags

This one actually took some minimal effort.  But in the long run it still saves us time and effort.   Most grocery stores sell them at the checkouts now for 99 cents or less.  We found them only and I think got 15 of them for something around 80 cents a piece.

And they rock.

Take the amount of groceries you can fit in paper/plastic bags… and you’ll need half the number of reusable bags for it.  They’re just so much sturdier and spacious.  Just today I bought a 6 pack of pop, a watermelon, a honeydew, grapes, hummus, pita, peanut butter and a pineapple.  TWO BAGS.  Everything was bagged and easy to carry.  Why haven’t these been available all along?  They are FAR superior to paper/plastic!

Paperless billing

I hate sending mail.  I hate buying stamps, keeping stamps, finding stamps, realizing they’re too old and not worth enough, adding extra stamps, making a trip to a mailbox, etc.  So when all of a sudden all the places that want my money either offered online bill pay or over the phone bill pay… I was very happy.  There’s not a single bill that I pay through mail anymore.  All the bills are handled either online or over the phone.  So incredibly easy.  Some companies even offer “paperless” billing options where you get an email bill instead of a snail mail bill.  So then it’s wins all around!

So… while we are far from hippie green.  We have found some ways to be more green.  Ways that are easy for us to follow, with our laziness and short attention spans.  We also try to use public transportation/walk to places when possible.  The kids love public transportaion for some reason.  And here in Colorado it’s easy to heat/cool your home just by opening/closing your windows (at least for us… I’ve heard other people in CO have other experiences).

Going green in some areas has made our lives easier, cheaper, and more pleasant.   Never would have thought that possible.

Us immoral atheists. May 16, 2008

My wife participates on several parenting bulletin boards and sometimes shares the more interesting threads with me.  The other day she let me know that, since we’re atheists, we have no morals.  You evidently need to be Christian to have morals.

So I started to google about some bible passages I remembered from when I was a moral Christian.  And I discovered some differences between my morals and the morals the bible teaches me:

• Slavery.  By slavery I mean: purchase of another human beings life against their will.
  • Bible is pro slavery.  In some cases all descendants of one person who committed a pretty minor offense were forced in to slavery.  Not only is the Bible pro slavery, but it has many rules for slavery.  Such as beating your slaves.  As long as you hold off on your slave beating just enough so that the slave doesn’t die for 2 days, God’s OK with it.
  • I’m anti slavery.  And I’m anti beating anyone at all.  Even if it takes 3 days for them to die.
• Sex
  • The Bible has some weird rules about sex.  Not much of it is actually explicitly laid out.  One story I find interesting is Genesis 38.  In this chapter we learn that Judah marries some girl and has 3 sons.  He arranges a marriage with the first son and a woman, but for some reason God didn’t like him and killed him.  So Judah makes his next son take that woman for his wife and demands kids.  His son has respect for his brother though and “spills his seed on the ground” instead of inside his dead brothers wife.  Well… God will have none of that, so God kills him!  Later on we find that this same woman, who was married to two of Judah’s now dead sons, dresses up like a prostitute and Judah pays her for the goods.  Well… what do you know, Judah gets the ex-wife (a prostitute he paid for) of his two dead sons pregnant.  And…. God kills him?  No.  God’s OK with this.  So what do we learn from this?
    • Unprotected sex with hookers is OK.  God will not kill you.
    • Taking precautions to prevent pregnancy is not OK.  Having sex WITH YOUR WIFE and trying to prevent a pregnancy will piss God off so much he might just kill you.  But… when was the last time you saw God smote someone?  When was the last time you saw God do anything?
  • I say educate and be safe. Sex has many possible consequences and as long as you’re ready to deal with the possible consequences you’re probably ready for sex. Keeping in mind that no birth control/condom is 100% effective. Also unprotected sex with a hooker who is the widow of two of your sons is NOT OK.
• Equality
  • All people are clearly not equal in the bible.  No equal rights for everyone.
  • I believe all people are equal and should therefore have equal rights.  Color of skin, religious beliefs, sexual preference, whatever.  We’re all equal.
• Animal Sacrifices
  • Bible is pro them.  God often request animal sacrifices in the old testament.  He seems to lust for spilled blood and the smell of burnt flesh.  He even goes as far as convincing one of his loyal followers to sacrifice their OWN SON.  Sure, he stops him right before he actually does it, but that doesn’t make it any less of an asshole thing to do.
  • I like eating hamburgers/chicken/steak etc.  I’m not a vegetarian or anything.  But sacrificing an animal in some sort of ancient blood ritual and burning their flesh… yeah.  Not for me.

Now I know that the new testament changes many things.  But remember it’s the same God throughout all of time.  The same God that Christians worship and call loving is this same God that kills individuals for minor infractions, the same God that wipes out entire populations of people, the same God that kills innocent babies in Egypt because of something the Pharaoh did.  So if we’re talking about Morals instilled upon us from the Christian God, you have to look at the whole bible.

And I know that these are not the morals that Christians today stand by.  Well… some of them are.  It’s hard to find a Christian that believes we’re all equal.  I have some wonderful friends that are Christian and I don’t think any less of them.  It’s just that for me it goes against my nature to follow these rules in the bible.  For me I felt more like I was sinning when I tried to follow what the new testament told me.

I’m just nicer than what the bible will allow me to be.

Now, I said,  “than what the bible will allow ME to be”.  Not that I’m nicer than all Christians.  I fought hard throughout college with what I felt the bible told me was right and wrong.  Others have different views on what is literal and what is not.  Or how one passage translates.  Or what is still valid for our modern culture.  You can come to many conclusions about what it means to be a Christian.  For me, the conclusions I have came to, I will never be Christian again.

Guess that brings up the question, “where do morals come from?”  I think it’s just a sense of what’s right and wrong instilled in us to keep order.  Some evolutionary scientists probably have some theories on it.  But if we all had no morals, no feelings, no empathy… we wouldn’t make it very far as a society.

And morals clearly change throughout time.  Which to me is a clear sign that morals are NOT from a divine superior unchanging perfect being.  Slavery used to be moral.  Racism used to be moral.  I know most people consider homosexuality to be immoral.  But some day I bet the majority of the world will accept gay marriage as equal to straight marriage.  Some day homosexuality will be moral.

I like to think that I don’t just follow the masses.  Who knows though, maybe there’s something in my life that I find “morally acceptable” will be so obviously not acceptable to future generations.

______ programming language sucks! May 1, 2008

Fill in the blank.  I promise you it sucks.

PHP sucks.

Perl sucks.

Java sucks.

Ruby sucks.

Ruby on Rails especially sucks.

.NET sucks.

C++ sucks.

Python sucks.

While I do get quite a kick out of picking on my boss’s favorite, perl, I do recognize that each language sucks and each language doesn’t suck.  Personally, you’ll probably never see me start a project in perl, c++ or anything Microsoft only.  Mostly because there’s too big of a learning curve in it for me.  I definitely favor PHP for most projects, but that’s soley because of familiarity.  I could see myself choosing Java/Python/Ruby for some specific task over PHP.  And Ruby on Rails just works in ways my brain refuses to think, it’s like trying to teach myself a new way to breathe.

So my personal favorite is PHP.  I like that I can code up things in a flurry of creativity.  If one night I’m feeling especially inspired I can crank something out fast as a proof of concept.  Unfortunately for me, my interest vastly drops after I prove the concept and the proof of concept code is often used as the real code.  So the ability to code “bad code” in PHP is both a good and a bad thing to me.  I mean… I even wrote TweetWords while mostly drunk.  Even though the code worked and didn’t have any glaring issues… it was ugly and hard to extend and maintain.  That underwent a 75% rewrite to get most of the drunken design out of it and has been being improved weekly by my friend Ben and me.

So I know PHP well, I write a lot of spontaneous crap in it, and PHP is used in many open source web projects.  This is why I tend to lean on it so much.  And everything perl can do PHP can do, which is why I’d never start a project in perl.  And I  understand that some of the reasons why I like PHP are the reasons others hate PHP.  Oh well.

So what is the right language to use?  All of them.

You have to look at your situation and choose the proper language for the job.  Some important factors off the top of my head are:

1. Who is going to be writing it and what are they strong in?
2. How complicated is it?
3. How important is the ability to scale it?

I’ve seen extremely simple concepts implemented with massively complex designs and frameworks.  They took 100 times longer to implement than they should have taken and any modifications to them took extra time too.

I’ve also seen more complicated concepts attempted to be done with too basic designs.  They failed to scale and were a pain to modify and extend.

So pick the language that is right for the situation.  And don’t be afraid to venture outside your comfort zone, you’ll never improve or learn anything new.

And lastly, here’s a handy chart using google and monster data.