Christmas Letter 2009
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 20:08.Dear Family and Friends,
We hope that this letter finds you and yours healthy and happy at the end of another busy year.
Pornography is really, really bad for you, your family, and your community
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Fri, 12/04/2009 - 09:43.We have been told by church leaders, sociologists, biologists, and family researchers for years how detrimental pornography is to an individual, his family, and community. Despite these warnings, pornography is a 1.8 billion dollar industry in the US.
The Sutherland Institute has released a study that synthesizes all available research on pornography. It finds that:
THE FAMILY AND PORNOGRAPHY
Global warming is a fraud
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Mon, 11/23/2009 - 14:33.If there are any remaining questions (and there shouldn't be), this explosive cache of emails and documents reveals that global warming proponents manipulated and suppressed evidence to advance their agenda.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-...
VisiPics - free software to find and remove duplicate pictures
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 11:24.Like everyone who with a couple years of using a digital camera, I’ve got a lot of pictures on my hard drive. And with a lot of pictures, came a lot of duplicates. Between a couple backups that got merged together and taking four pictures of each scene, I mean a LOT of duplicates.
A simple way to know you're missing some leadership skills
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 12:48."You believe in some great practices that the team needs to follow, but you can't convince or get the team to follow them - even the simplest ones."
"If that happens to you - it's time to visit the idea that you may be lacking some core people skills, and leadership skills."
System Notes - My favorite mercurial extensions
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Thu, 08/20/2009 - 16:52.There is a lot that the base Mercurial can do, but a robust extension mechanism allows all kinds of nice enhancements. We use BigFiles, and Forest, but there is lots more you can do. All of the publicly available extensions are listed at http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/UsingExtensions. Here are some of my favorite mercurial extensions and how I use them.
A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Tue, 07/28/2009 - 07:47."A new analysis of the Landscape Survey data reveals that as a group Mormons are among the most devout and conservative religious people in the country. The Mormon community is also internally diverse, with differences according to levels of religious commitment and educational attainment, regions of the country where Mormons live, and between lifelong Mormons and those who have converted to the faith.
System Notes - Fun with branching and merging
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 08:03.Note: My company recently started using Mercurial. I wrote this article to provide some education on the value of branches.
There have been some emails flying around discussing making branches so we can “isolate changes.” I thought some discussion of what a branch is and what it is good for was warranted.
Liberty Is Not a Mistress, But a Grandmother
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 08:43.Jeff Lindsay writes a great poem on liberty, its fragile nature, and the continuing care it needs.
Freedom Festival 5K
Submitted by Ben Mathews on Sun, 07/05/2009 - 17:32.http://results.active.com/pages/oneResult.jsp?pID=61843011&rsID=46063
I ran the Freedom Festival 5K yesterday in 23:26, a 3:50 improvement over last year. This gets me into the "sort of in shape" level of fitness. But, it has been so long since I've been at this level, that it feels really great. Now, if my calves would stop cramping.


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