Tonight try one thing: pray to the Lord of Light from Game of Thrones after reading a passage or two about him. If you feel a good feeling or you get a shiver down your spine or goose-pimples start to form, it means the book is true and the Lord of Light is the one …
Going solo… morality without religion… and the definition of life
This afternoon, a friend and I were discussing issues around maturity and immaturity. Just a quick ‘Google’ defines immature as “Having emotional or intellectual development appropriate to someone younger”. My friend and I proceeded to consider ‘childlike’ behaviours and compared them to universally acknowledged ‘mature’ behaviours. We then asked the question if there is a …
Running away from God
This is an excerpt from a very long conversation thread that stemmed from this article being posted on facebook. Names have been changed. The sad thing James is that you are turning into [a terrible person]. [... You] do not know what you are talking about and if you do not understand [that] now you …
Islam isn’t misogynistic
Trying to compile a list of links, tweets and status updates which highlight Islamic attitudes towards gender equality. Please submit anything you find via the comments box or by tweeting me directly: (@skippychalmers) [View the story "Islam isn't misogynistic" on Storify] Islam isn’t misogynistic Storified by James Chalmers· Thu, Mar 28 2013 03:19:24 Raping women …
Stephen Fry Confronts Milonov
[View the story "Stephen Fry Confronts Milonov" on Storify]
President Thomas S. Monson: Bigot and Racist
Some corrections to the original post have been placed in square brackets. Most notably, Thomas S. Monson was called to the Quorum of the 12 in 1963 – not the First Presidency. Thomas S. Monson, the current head of the Mormon church, sustained and supported racist doctrine while he sat on the highest board [correction: …
On challenging ‘God’
Below is my reply to a letter sent by a distant relative declaring that by openly questioning the teachings of the Mormon Church – or even those of any other ‘God fearing’ body, I was directly challenging God and would have his terrible wrath visited upon me. The author asked me not to publish the …
On ‘faith’
I’ve included my replies below to a message I was sent recently. As some of you know, Emily and I came out as atheists some time ago – more on that later. In the following message it has been suggested to me that ‘faith’ is required to truly understand and accept religious teachings. How convenient …
Memories
A few slightly creepy shots from me.
Black Jack Justice
I love the 1940′s detective style of comics, and Black Jack Justice hit the spot for me. You’ll see it in some of our latest photos. Anyway, I took a few quick shots specifically of the cover shown below.
Life as candid
Emily & I have been working hard on photographing a few scenes we’ve staged. All photos posted have been shot and edited in our flat. The copyright for them obviously belongs to us. I’ve finished editing my first few photos, some of which were taken by Emily. I’ll continue to release more of my shots/edits and we …
Caged
Filmed in Glasgow on an iPhone 4S. Hopefully I’m not breaking any privacy laws… Put together using Final Cut Pro. Sounds from freesound.org.
JavaScript conundrum
For the last two and a half months, my brain has been working hard on a JavaScript conundrum. I’ve found it to be a tough one, it’s intangible and theoretical and all the things that an easy problem isn’t, and what’s worse, it’s still unsolved. For the last two years I have worked hard on …
xa.js demo
xa.js is a simplistic lightweight javascript application framework that I’ve been developing lately. It’s on github, and I’ve also put it up on http://xajs.chalmershouse.co.uk/. There’s a fun demo of something very basic developing using the framework on http://xajs.chalmershouse.co.uk/demo/ Pull requests welcome!
Javascript is_array, isArray & typeof array check
There are a lot of solutions out there that cover checking if an object is in fact, an array. I was surprised to notice that most of them are in fact, utter rubbish and either inefficient or won’t work in edge cases. Here are two functions from the xa.js framework which I attach to a …
xa.js open source javascript framework
A new open source simplistic and lightweight javascript application framework is out in the wild! http://xajs.chalmershouse.com/ http://github.com/skippychalmers/xa.js/ Over the years I developed a specific pattern and structure / architecture for coding my javascript applications. I’ve had great success using it in it’s utter infancy on bestlollipop.co.uk, codadiquesto.com and many other sites. My approach was one …
Real women!
‘Introducing our gorgeous ultimo REAL women’ states the poster in Debenhams of 10 women clad in ‘ultimo’ lingerie perfectly moulded to their shapely frames. I wonder at the use of the word ‘real’ here. Swivelling on the spot reveals numerous posters of size 6 models in various lingerie styles that are extremely flattering on their …
Perceptions of security: morality by numbers
A quite note, I wrote this post in early 2011 when I still identified as Mormon. Emily and I now identify strongly as Atheists, and you can read more about that here: ‘On Faith‘. After having attempted to define the roles of different governmental models in our own perceptions of security and indeed our wellbeing …
Starting a collection of useful utilities
Just a quick one from me, I’ve still got to publish another section of my discussion on security perceptions but wanted to let you know about a little project I’ve just kick started. I often spend a lot of time using simple, purpose driven and useful tools on the internet, such as md5 encoders, unix …
Perceptions of security
Personality categories: There are two types of people in the world. Both types of people are, when their actions are distilled, seeking security in some form. Our first type of person seeks security via the control of others, either collectively or by their own making. Our last type seek security by placing themselves in positions …