Hey everyone,

This was going to be an audio post, but I don’t feel like talking /recording at the moment.

Anyhow I have lots to cover.

First Things First (Because they can be first, second or last and it wouldn’t matter) and keeping them brief so people can’t use excuse it is too much read. *sighes*

Over the holidays so far (since after the Trolltech BBQ), I have attended a 75th birthday that was so much fun. It is really fun to be able to catch up with family friends and their family. Funny or interesting sub-events at this event included:

• The cute children and the newborn baby (terribly cute).
• Siblings and Mother arriving late after half listening / misinterpreting directions
• My reluctance to eat until the Kabana & Liquorice arrived (on the platter of nibbles we weren’t supposed to bring but did anyways)
• The early accidental unveiling of the birthday cake.
• The hide and seek / cover myself with hat and hood game, played with 2 to 3 little youngsters trying to dehood / dehat me.
• The impromptu request (as I am studying mathematics & IT) to fix someone’s palm pilot.
• The piece of cake that fell on the ground, that I bet my little brother would walk / step in, and he did.

After this (a few days) we had two of the people (close family friends, Lisa and Alice) come for a weekend sleepover. Interesting things that occured include but are not limited to

• The poker game based on the success of my little brother’s (should I call him bother, for now he has the benefit of the doubt) flamboyant attire (suit and cane, etc, etc) in the previous game, which I was winning until Lisa asked to win some, sure enough she won the game :). (see previous post for why I find poker boring..)
• The watching of Robin Hood Season One on my laptop (Thanks Dallas so much for that….) , after the first few episodes, there were two more Jonas Armstrong fans in the house.
• The attendance of the Abbey Medieval Fair (sub-events are shown below)
  • The drive in Lisa’s car (her driving has improved, and I still don’t drive)
  • The broken CD player that would only play the first 5 or 6 songs of a CD.
  • The more comic than skilled Jester that was been very modern in handing out a business card with his Myspace
  • Getting to see two pigs and a lamb on spits
  • Asking an expert in regards to weapons used by the clergy (as originally discussed in #wesnoth @ Freenode)
  • Watching almost everyone but me get more excited over the presence of Shelley Craft than the fact they were at the medieval festival
  • Walking Lisa through a medieval market and have her not purchase any non food items
  • Looking at Germanic early cannons
  • Getting irritated at trivial and major inconsistencies made by those with the best intentions in reenacting medieval life
  • Avoiding bumping to people (Including someone from Lisa’s uni, Celeste, Chrystle ( 🙁 ) and at least 7 other people)
  • Seeing how chainmail is made, after misinterpreting the location of the event (That was my fault, but we were only 10 minutes late and it wasn’t crowded)
  • Missing the oppurtunity to get better seats for the jousting, because I choose to wait for Lisa and Alice to get Snow Cones (Did they exist in medieval times ?)
  • Not dressing up and pretending to be Ivanhoe (I so wanted to…)
• Watching the wonderful French Movie “The Singer” (so sad, so romantic, so French)
• Having a wonderful brunch with more family friends (Paul, Birgit and Jessica from the Gold Coast)
  • Their story about the letter about their journey through Africa was amazing and awe inspiring
  • Oh and the food for the brunch was very very good. (not to die for)
• Having Dallas come over (Lisa and Alice left soon after.) (Dallas has a chicken and we have scraps for it to eat, it is a good arrangement, Dallas you should mention your chicken on your blog and upload a photo or something)
• Watching Jessica and Dallas play air hockey (first there was rules and order, then cheating and chaos)

After all the fun was over I got online and checked my QUT Virtual and allo and behold, my results were posted and I didn’t fail anything :). So the second Round or Third Round of Space Invaders is cleared, although without the shield bonus and gun bonus (see previous post for the in joke).

I really should be doing more with my holidays, I have lots planned and lots of planning to do and will get around to it before Uni is back. I have been playing Wesnoth, slowly translating bits and pieces of Wesnoth into Indonesian in Kate, I tried Kbabel didn’t like its obfuscating and specific interface, I have installed poEdit and am yet to try it.

I have also been chatting on IRC and MSN, one of my recent conversations was with Mircea / Danny / Rastilin (not sure exactly what his name is, he is a friend of Nick Stallman), started out a question about Debian, and became a beliefs / philosophies argument (at kept me up till 3am).

My analysis of his approach is shown below (The full log will be shown on request only, until I am ready to a major philosophy post, this post will only have the analysis and some highlights)

(02:17:27 AM) Appleman1234: it is interesting
(02:17:50 AM) Appleman1234: whenever you deem yourself as not being victorious, you change the subject or the angle
(02:18:23 AM) Appleman1234: or when your logic doesn’t result in the conclusion you expect from me you instead resort to taunting and cheap insults
(02:20:34 AM) Appleman1234: however the method of conversation you are using isn’t exactly that of critical thinking, or that of scientific reasoning , or even that of scientific or philosophical skepticism
(02:21:23 AM) Appleman1234: it is merely I believe your belief is wrong because of Reason A and because it doesn’t match mine,
(02:21:48 AM) Appleman1234: when asked to clarify you either do so reluctantly or vaguely
(02:22:28 AM) Appleman1234: and when posed with questions, you either claim incomprehensibility or retort with an unjustified insult
(02:23:29 AM) Appleman1234: I also forgot the stereotyped
(02:24:10 AM) Appleman1234: So logically you haven’t invalidated or changed any of my beliefs
(02:29:27 AM) Appleman1234: however your style does remind me of doublethink

It makes me wonder as such (referring back to the protester and the candle, (if you know what I am talking about , you are a diligent reader of my blog and I admire you)) why people try to discredit others beliefs, to replace them with their own all in the name of criticism and critical thinking ?

Beliefs are rather important and special to a person, if you remove their belief system, what do they have to live for ? What are they to believe ?, before you attempt anything as to brash as basically brainwashing someone with their consent, at least be able to answer the question “Why should I believe what you believe”, with a better answer than “Because I said so”.

Highlights from the chatlog are shown below:

01:47:59 AM) rastilin: You want me to debunk your beliefs with illogic?
(01:48:08 AM) rastilin: Purple flying elephants!
(01:48:08 AM) rastilin: There
(01:48:12 AM) rastilin: Debunked with illogic.
(01:48:14 AM) Appleman1234: sigh
(01:48:25 AM) Appleman1234: that is surrealism not illogic
(01:49:32 AM) rastilin: Is there something wrong with my logic?
(01:51:49 AM) Appleman1234: no just your interpretation / definition of debunk, illogic and your understanding Gödel’s incompleteness theorems

(01:26:09 AM) rastilin: The hardest lesson I learned was that I was not a special snowflake or holder of unthought wisdom.
(01:26:50 AM) Appleman1234: why limit yourself through lessons, why not expand yourself instead ?
(01:27:05 AM) rastilin: Because the expansion is an illusion.
(01:27:07 AM) Appleman1234: if you have nothing to gain from a lesson , why learn it ?
(01:27:17 AM) Appleman1234: Reality is an illusion
(01:27:22 AM) Appleman1234: it is all perception
(01:27:22 AM) rastilin: Because there is something to gain, I just can’t see it from where I’m standing.
(01:27:32 AM) rastilin: That’s silly.
(01:27:52 AM) Appleman1234: faith in incorrect perception is your reasoning and yet you label me silly
(01:28:25 AM) Appleman1234: I would rather believe that I can be right, then that I am always going to be wrong from a different viewpoint

There could be more but this post is long enough already. On the bright side I visualised more of my philosophies and certain constructs and I discovered ##philosophy on Freenode, on the dark side I got 6 hours sleep this morning and I got kicked from my Wesnoth Game.

Final Note: I got phpMyID working and now I can log into LJ and post on Chrystle’s and Stephen Thorne’s LJs :). (I only took me 6 hours due to a typo…)

This blogs question is Do you belief in acceptance of others and if so or if not , then why ?

Best wishes

Benjamin Southall aka Appleman1234 🙂

4 Responses to Vistors, Round Cleared, Logicisms , Discussions and Regression.

Chrystle says: July 11, 2007 at 11:38 am

Answer to question. I believe in the aceptance of others but sometimes it is hard to do. Also, many times people say they do when they do not. I believe in acceptance simply because lak of acceptance can lead to hate and hate hurts everone involved.

A question to your question: Who’s problem is it if a person cannot accept another’s beliefs?

Dorian Gray says: July 12, 2007 at 7:16 am

No. I hate everyone individually and specifically.

Benjamin Southall says: July 13, 2007 at 9:17 pm

There is no fault or blame if a person can’t accept another’s beliefs. I hope they can accept to disagree on accepting the other person’s beliefs.

sjwt says: July 19, 2007 at 10:43 am

Hope you enjoyed the chain mail makeing lession, next year we hope to have kits for sale and proper layed out fixed steps for everyone to follow.. As ive found out, you are not a good teacher unless you your self learn something.

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