Forbidden Planet

Plato’s Republic, begins with a discourse between Socrates, Glaucon, Lysias, Euthydemus, Thrasymachus, Charmantides, Clitophon, and Cephalus. I think this discourse is the best part of the book. Here is my abridged retelling of the dialog (I am not going to research who said what – otherwise, I would just post the whole discourse here. Socrates is the principal actor here, the others are just there to keep the discourse going, so they have been lumped together as Friend): Socrates: “What is justice?” Friend: “It is doing good to ones friends and harm to ones enemies.” Socrates: “Sounds sensible. But what if your friend was really your enemy and your enemy was really your friend? Then you would have harmed your friend and done good to your enemy.” Friend: “Well, we should amend that to say, ‘Do good to true friends and harm to true enemies’”. Socrates: “Ah! That is much better. But how do we distinguish between true friend and true enemy?” Friend: “That is not easy.” Socrates: “So i...

"Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to become good at it." unattributed - found on the Internet in various places

Sigh. Mental state is going down - if it continues, it will eventually affect my emotional state. I've been off work for a week so far as Sofia works in Spain. The kids are out of the house for several hours each day, so I had hopes of actually accomplishing stuff. The problem is that ... nada. If I am reincarnated, I'm afraid I might come back as an apple fritter . The house is a little bit messier than when I got here. I manage to occupy my time with things non-productive - internet is a big time killer, so is playing with various development tools (no games or TV have sapped my time). Joi had a post on how she managed to accomplish some things. The problem is that there is no manage formula for doing things. In the end, you just have to do it. Currently mulling over why I find it hard to start things (or finish them when I start). I know one problem I have is lack of sense of urgency. Maybe it is rooted in my educational experience where I had very little work (or maybe fou...

Who wouldn't be proud to see their spouse sitting on a panel at a UN conference? Sofia is in Spain for 2 weeks attending 2 conferences. Conference 1 comes to an end this week and conference 2 starts next week. Image nabbed from here .

I have no idea what they are selling. And this marks the first time I've done two posts in one day. If you disable ActiveX controls and such, then you can see it at this link . If you see nothing, then you need to go and get Shockwave installed. If all you hear is that space wind in the background then you need to either (1) wait until it finishes playing 2'26", or (2) scroll down the page until you get to the media bar on the left side and hit stop. You need to press play to start the video (at least I do). [Updated 30-January-2006 to provide external link for those who do not run ActiveX controls from my blog.]

In lieu of real content, I'll just post a pic of my kid's from June-2005. Copyright of the image is mine.

Just got my MasterCard statement. It is a little bit higher than usual because it contains some additional expenses related to Christmas. Anyhow, I have a look at the minimum payment due and see that it is $0.00, which is odd, since it should be around $43.00. Look at the last page and see that MasterCard is trying to be nice to me: Need a bit of breathing space? Go ahead and skip this month's President's Choice Financial MasterCard payment! The usual interest will apply, but your account remains in good standing. So don't bother to pay this statement, and breathe a little easier this month! How nice and thoughtful of them! I guess they are not the bloodsucking money vampires I thought they were. I wonder how many people are going to be fooled by this deceptive gesture of kindness? Sure, maybe, in my case, it is only $43, but it's peanuts to MasterCard which is charging me 18.97% per annum on outstanding balances. They stand to make at least an extra $22.55 by my not pa...