Selling Out - part 2

Yeah yeah, i sold out and signed up to bloody Facebook; it finally got to the point where i was getting so many add requests it was easier just to give in rather than keep explaining! Still, this one is going far better because i've used me real name for a change and people have been adding me (and i've added a few myself) quite frequently; compared to how MySpace went on sign-up i'm quite impressed... more importantly, they've got options to syndicate blogs on Facebook so both of mine are filtering through - i wasn't even vaguely impressed with MySpace's lack of support for RSS or Atom feeds...

All this social networking stuff has set me thinking though, i might have to start my own but it'd be for grumpy bunnies like myself, so more an anti-social networking site; people will sign up and resolutely refuse to interact with the other members, upload pictures or blog. i want to register MyFacelessTwitLink.co.uk for it and i bet the advertising will be worth a few pennies...!

More of the same

i've just seen a variation on that virus propagation i mentioned previously (see the post "naughty, naughty) except this time it was relying on Doubleclick for the kick through; to reiterate, if you see anything that mentions a video and points to a URL that ends with video.exe don't touch that link. Doesn't matter if it came from someone you know and, to be frank, it's always best to ask the person about any attachments if you weren't expecting them - i doubt i have to say that considering the majority of my audience, but this time i'll do it anyway.

Take two blogs into the shower?

In order to confuse myself even more than usual and because a few people said it'd be a good idea (and i'm easily led) i've decided to start keeping a development blog alongside this one; it'll just waffle on about whatever i've been coding at any particular time (assuming of course that i've had any time to code, this writing lark seems to be taking up loads of time right now!) and this blog'll continue to be about more general things and probably updated no more frequently because it really relies on me having something i'd consider important enough to write about. If anyone is feeling nosey interested, the new dev blog is over there and will eventually be syndicated into my site, i've planned to rewrite my Atom feed handling a load but, as with the coding, it's a matter of finding the time...

Speaking of writing, i haven't already mentioned it but i'm now writing for Retro Gamer on a monthly basis, reviewing new games for 8- and 16-bit machines - i'm just getting ready to start my third two-page set of reviews and issue 51, the first issue where my writing appears, is apparently due out around Thursday next week and the subscriber copies are already turning up, so i've received me first complement for the stuff what i wrote; that's a serious relief because i was starting to get a little nervous! Hopefully i'll have a few other excuses soon to write, blog and code if all works out... very cryptic i know, but when i know what's going on (and that is fairly rare, me knowing what the hell i'm doing at any one point in time!) and it's all reasonably set in stone, i'll talk about it...

Issues with religion

i was reading an article on the Beeb news site (it appeared as part of a random RSS syndication) the other day, an account of a recent lecture by the Archbishop of Westminster where he said that he wanted to encourage "people of faith to regard those without faith with deep esteem". i'm an atheist and, as a general rule at least, try to behave in a similar manner towards those with religion and i'd like to think i'm fairly tolerant with it, as long as everyone is happy with their own lot and don't want to convert or kill others using religion as an excuse we can all get on splendidly; coming to our front door to "sell" me a religion isn't entirely wise because i'll happily give as good as i get and i do know the arguments (my own lack of faith is based on over twenty years of on/off consideration) but in more general conversation i'll simply avoid the subject to keep the peace.

So all is well and a bigwig within the Catholic church wants to promote tolerance, yes? Well no unfortunately, because after that promising start Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor went on to say that "the hidden God is active in [the lives of those without faith] as well as in the lives of those who believe" and that's the bit which annoyed me. To my mind, treating atheists with "deep esteem" means accepting that they do not share your beliefs and what the Cardinal said in full, essentially, is "they may not believe in God, but he's there in the background of their lives". When i discuss religion with others who have a faith, i don't say things like "you're wrong, there is no God", i may not believe myself but i don't deny others the right to disagree but by saying that God is in atheists' lives, the Cardinal is basically telling us that we're all wrong and that simply cannot be described as esteem of any kind, let alone deep.