David's Mumblings
Shin Splints are Back In any case, the doctor hmmed and ahhed a bit, poked my shin a bit, and after talking with me for a while confirmed my suspicion of shin splints. Unfortunately, I can't do a lot to help the process except for rest for a week or so. Swimming is a good alternate exercise, but I can't swim in any nearby pool because of my allergy to chlorine. Oh well. Bummer. ^ TOP Intelligent Falling You have no chance to survive, make your time. Ha-ha-ha. Ahem. ^ TOP Back from Alison's WeddingOn the way up, I stopped in Eugene to see Adam Miller, who just finished his second year as a PhD student at the University of Oregon. It was very fun to finally get to meet him 'in the flesh'; we've known each other online (through Darkstone and then BabbleMud) for 3 or 4 years but never actually met. Adam works in biology, more specifically, behavior and genetics. Very interesting stuff. Read More → ^ TOP 'Parent A' and 'Parent B' I learned about this from [this post] in a [Philosophy blog] that I follow from time to time. It's an interesting article and I suggest reading it. I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, but in any case, one thing at least is clear: the issue just got a whole lot more complicated... I find it interesting that, according to his analysis, the U.N. right to parenthood where the 'effective parents' (as opposed to biological parents), when effective parents are listed on the birth certificate, would violate the U.N. right to knowing who one's biological parents are. My worry is as follows: I suspect that many of those in favor of same-sex marriage might get queasy about birth certificates no longer listing mother & father in favor of the more neutral 'parent A', 'parent B'. So, if there is too much pressure to accept this new 'neutral parent' idea, the whole movement for same-sex marriage will suffer. After all, if A leads to B, and A is ok but B is not, people will tend to avoid A as well (assuming they're logically consistent... perhaps a big assumption!). It will be interesting to see how and if this unfolds, and what is eventually done to resolve this problem between biological and 'effective' parents on the birth certificate. It is worth noting that the same issues apply to heterosexual couples who adopt a child. If same-sex couples have to put biological parents on the birth certificate, then so must adopting parents. Interestingly enough, according to the article, in the UK, adopted or sperm/egg-donor children have a right at age 18 to learn the identity of their biological parents, and in fact, anonymous gamete donation is illegal. ^ TOP Exploring eBayIt was interesting to watch the bids. For five days, nobody bid although by then nine people had registered as 'watching' the item (i.e. tracking it in their "my summary" page). During the last 24 hours, the bids finally started showing up. At first it was just $0.01 and two hours before the end, it was $0.55; and in two hours it went up to $6! The item is here and the bidding history is here, if you're interested. After playing with eBay for a while and watching auctions both from the buyer and seller's perspectives, I can understand that some people make a full time business just "eBaying". I don't know how much you'd actually make, but if you have e.g. factory outlets nearby, I'm sure you could make a fair amount of money. Of course if you did that, you'd have to start being legit with sales & income tax and all that, but still. It also seems like a great outlet for one's own company's goods. It's a completely open market which means that buyers and sellers win (according to the supply and demand theory, at least). The only problem is that you need physical goods, not services, and unfortunately I'm in the services domain. (Does programming count as a service? The CD is a physical good but one does not really care about the CD but rather the software on it...) In any case, the idea is novel, and the intermediary level of Paypal for payment makes it a lot easier to bandy about payments on the net. I don't trust Joe Bloggs (hey, lookit that, Bloggs on a blog...) with my credit card, but I do trust Paypal... In any case, it's interesting and it's something I'll be checking up on. ^ TOP New website |
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