Two new DI site enhancements

I've recently installed two new plugins that DI readers might find useful. I certainly do. A) DI now has an enhanced search function. It looks exactly like the previous search box (see arrow immediately below), but it will now search for more than the text of posts. It will also search for comment text, comment authors, categories and tags. The plug-in that allows this expanded search is called "Search Everything." B) If you'd like to receive email notifications when future comments are approved regarding a particular post, you can do that by checking a little box beneath the field where you leave your own comment (though there is also an option to follow comments even if you don't wish to leave a comment). The WordPress plugin that allows this magic is called Subscribe to Comments Reloaded. These are two examples of why I really appreciate the WordPress blogging platform.   There is a huge community of people who develop plugins. This site runs with the help of 31 active plugins, and it has become a rather simple process to add or customize most of these plugins.

Continue ReadingTwo new DI site enhancements

Quotes on Liberty

A DI reader named Mike Baker offered me his large collection of quotes for reprinting here. Today's installment of quotes are on the topic of Liberty and Human Rights. The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting. -- Justice William J. Brennan It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners. ~ Albert Camus "Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." --Frederick Douglass He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) Tolerance is ennobling, which is why we should teach it to our children. Pluralism is insurance against tyranny, which is why we should demand it of our government. To speak up for even the most despised minorities is both morally right and politically prudent." ~ Steven Landsburg The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. --Albert Einstein If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776 Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again. -Ronald Reagan If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom, and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too. -W. Somerset Maugham "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -Patrick Henry Fear is not the natural state of civilized people. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death. ~ Eugene V. Debs States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions. ~ Noam Chomsky The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. ~Eleanor Holmes Norton Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. ~ Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791 An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ~ Thomas Paine, "Dissertations on First Principles of Government", 1795

Continue ReadingQuotes on Liberty

Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children”

How often do you cross paths with a parent who is attempting to make his or her children in the parent's image and likeness? I see it on a regular basis. The prototypical case is the parent who didn't make it to the Broadway stage who tries to turn his/her child into a Broadway performer. You often see parents who demand athletic excellence from their kids, often (it seems) in an effort to compensate for the parent's failed strivings to make it big in sports. This style of parenting reaches every high-earning or high-prestige profession.  Or maybe it's not to make up for the parents own failings as much as it is an attempt to create a trophy child so that, at cocktail parties, the parent can nonchalantly drop a few hints about his or her child's (sometimes admittedly spectacular) accomplishments. This afternoon, a friend sent me a perfect antidote for this mindset. It's a poem by Kahlil Gibran, titled "On Children." Upon reading it, I was reminded of the following quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:  “What does your conscience say? — 'You should become the person you are'.”

Continue ReadingKahlil Gibran’s “On Children”

Dealing with Microsoft PowersHell

Why, one may wonder, would I be delving into something that ubiquitous Microsoft decides unabashedly to call PowersHell? To start with, and in full disclosure, they capitalize it as PowerShell, a new and improved version of the command line interface that we old timers sometimes still call the DOS prompt. But why would I use this, when the Gooey does so much? It has to do with too many cameras and too many memory chips. You see, I just went on vacation, a two week, 3,550 mile drive to Yellowstone, the Tetons, and many places in between. I brought home over 4,000 snapshots and video clips taken with 4 cameras. Why would anyone need 4 cameras? Well, I have a SuperZoom 12Mp, and a pocket camera (the SD1100 that we've raved about), and my new Droid. That's three? Well, I also got a back-up SD1100, that I've also rigged up with my first to use as a stereo camera. So with three of the four cameras all of the same brand, and so many pictures, eventually the 8 character file names (the first four of which are fixed in 3 cameras at "IMG_") began to overlap. And when I filled up a memory chip, each camera decided to reset to IMG_0001, so I have many overlaps in the lower numbers. Very clumsy. Also it is hard to match up the images from the left and right cameras (each eye stored in its own folder) without looking at each enlarged, and the Windows Photo Viewer doesn't let me look at two files from different folders side-by-side. So I decided to rename all the images to use longer names, and decided to use the picture date and time to rename them. My former XP machine had use a nice re-namer that would do this. But now I have Win7, and the old Win95 app won't run. But I keep in mind that "Every O/S Sucks" So I Googled for a new renamer that could handle the task, and stumbled on to this post: Rename multiple files as “Modified Date/Time” using cmd or Powershell. Yee, I thought, Haw! Why install another utility when the O/S does it for me. But it can't be done with the old command line. One has to figure out how to use the new, powerful, dangerous PowerShell. I could have just used the code snippet in the Super User post linked above. But I wanted to, a) Know how it works, and b) Do it a little differently. So once I returned, I did some reading, and playing. But after a minimum of profanity, I got it working on a test folder, and then ran my new script on all my files. Now I can tell at a glance when each picture was taken, and therefore easily glean the where and why. Just for a laff, here's a bit about the code name Microsoft used while developing this new shell:

Continue ReadingDealing with Microsoft PowersHell

Quotes about engaging in a protest

About a year ago, a DI reader named Mike Baker handed me his extensive collection of quotes and invited me to publish them. Today's quotes from Mike are on the topic right and the duty to engage in a political protest: "A Patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." Edward R. Abbey "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." Samuel Adams "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in time of great moral crisis." Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (1265-1321) "Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.: Roger Nash Baldwin So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy. Roger Nash Baldwin "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else." Clarence Darrow "No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots." Barbara Ehrenreich "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violen trevolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy “Think for yourself, question authority.” Timothy Leary "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." Edward R. Murrow "There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree." We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President." The Nation (15 July 1991) "First they arrested the communists, but I was not a communist, so I did nothing. Then they came for the social democrats, but I was not a social democrat, so I did nothing. Then they arrested the trade unionists, and I did nothing because I was not one. Then they came for the Jews and the Catholics, but I was neither a Jew nor a Catholic and I did nothing. At last they came and arrested me, and there was no one left to do anything about it." Rev. Martin Niemoller, nazi prison survivor "The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato "Do not... regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?" Adlai Stevenson "If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." Henry David Thoreau "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Oscar Wilde

Continue ReadingQuotes about engaging in a protest