Michael P. O'Connor

My Life

How long till the ACLU defends this jerk

Categories: News

Comments: 10 Comments

Published on: January 17, 2006

A news station in Florida is running a story about how a many who threatened to punch a Taxi Driver and used some racist slurs has been sentenced to attend a “black” church of 6 Sunday. First what is a “black” church? A church is a church as long as it preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, yes there are some differences between the denominations teach (and I think the LCMS church is closer to the correct theology, but Christ said any one that believes in him and is baptized so all Christians will make it to heaven). But I am sure that in the next few days the ACLU (the Anti-Christian Lawyers Union) will be filing suet over this because it is a violation of their perceived “freedom from religion”. (remember it is “Freedom of Religion”)
I kind of think it is a good sentence, because the man will be faced with what sin is (what he did was sinful) but he will also see that there is true forgiveness, I would hope that he goes to the church for more then 6 weeks, aka converts to Christianity. If he was to convert and start to live a Christian life he will know to hate a person is wrong, and he (one would hope) make efforts not to hate people in the future.

Martin Luther King Jr. day

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Random Thoughts

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 16, 2006

Every year many people (students) get mad that CMU does not have Martin Luther King Jr. Day off. But I think in an odd way this is very good. No I am not against the observance of Martin Luther King on this day. Here is why I think in an odd way it is good that CMU does not have this day is good. The reason for a holiday be it a Religious Holiday, or secular Holiday, is to remember or meditation on the root of it. Be it Christmas to meditate on the coming of Christ, or easter the death and resurrection of Christ. If we only see Martin Luther King Jr day only as another day off, does that not cheapen the point of the day. By CMU not having a day off, and the people protesting the fact that it is not a day off at CMU, is a good thing. It bring to the for front what the Martin Luther King Jr. did for america and society at large.

Jessica’s Law in Pennsylvania

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News, Politics

Comments: 7 Comments

Published on: January 16, 2006

With all the coverage on Vermont and the 60 days that the pervert got after raping a little girl for 4 years. I looked to see if Pennsylvania has Jessica’s Law. I looked over Bill O’Reilly’s Web site to see what PA looked like. I lists PA as “headed in the right direction. So I looked into what that means. Well I found that we have in the PA senate that would establish a Jessica’s Law in PA. I have used Bill O’Reilly’s web form to send off a email to Governor Ed Rendell to state I would like to see the legislation become law in Pennsylvania.
I would encourage every one to write to our Governor to ask that we get a copy of Jessica’s Law here in Pennsylvania.

Maybe we should not confirm Alito if he tried to kill the pope

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: The odd, the funny, the weird

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 16, 2006

Regret the Error has a scan in of a collage paper that made a mistake, and said that Alito tried to assassinate the pope in May 13, 1981. Sorry bad joke here, I do think Alito should be confirm for the record.

Question for my visitors

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Blog Stuff, Web Site

Comments: 5 Comments

Published on: January 16, 2006

I have a question for my regular visitors, should I set all my posts to have comments enabled for x number of weeks, then disable them. I fear is that one of my regular visitors might want to post a response to a post I made a while back and they would be prevented from doing it. So I wish to ask my visitors should I put a limit on how long comments can be posted on. I am thinking about it since spammers go for older posts and ignore newer posts. Please help me make a choice here, since the comments (well the ones I let though) are from my readers.
The choice for how long are 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, or 8 weeks, if you think I should put a limit on the time you can post a comment on the posts.

A geek out of control, trying to force one method of mailing list replies

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Geekdom

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 16, 2006

I was a member of a mailing list called wpascanner on yahoo groups. The guy that is the moderator of it decided that he wanted all replies to be “bottom posting” I informed him that it is a bad idea to force issues like that, he responded basically “Subject not open to debate” talk about a geek with to much power. I told him to subscribe me from the list, not that I have anything against bottom posting, I have things against people forcing their world view on people. He talked about in the original “official Internet standards” unfortunately there is no official Internet standard for how to post a reply to a e-mail, I know there are holy wars over it. I know some one on WPLUG’s mailing list suggested it, and it got shot down, in fact it was suggested that after we get a posting method for replays we could go on to getting world peace going. I guess you can force any mailing list into a posting methods if you run it with an iron fist, but the problem with that is you will not have many people posting, there is already talk on the TRAMA list, that they do not force a person to post on way or the other, I wonder which list will last longer now, the wpascanner list is starting a death spiral now, you can not run a list with an iron fist and expect people to be happy with it. He also is demanding no HTML email posts. He is demanding people to fix their outlook setting just for that list. Some one pointed out that for other lists, that could cause problems, if they have different “standards”.
See here for a debate on it over at WPLUG as some one tryed to get a standard for wplug, but failed.

Sunday Adult bible study at my church

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Church

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Published on: January 16, 2006

This Sunday my church stated a new class for the adult Bible study on the Book of Concord. It looks like it is going to be a good course, I went to the first one today. It looks like it is going to be a good course. I look forward to the course to see what it covers. We covered a bit about the different translations of the book of concord, right now most every one has the Readers Edition of The Book of Concord. I have the Kolb/Wengert Translation of it. This could be a good class.

Posted a link to my del.iois.us bookmarks

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Misc (no other place to put this stuff)

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 14, 2006

For any one that might want to look at my bookmark list you can check out http://del.icio.us/mpop to see the kind of sites I bookmark. I runs from things Techy to Political, to Religous.

All comments are now on moderation

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Blog Stuff, Web Site

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 13, 2006

Do to spam I am putting all comments on moderation. I hate spam, spammers are the lowest form of life, and my site is not a place for them to advertise what ever snake oil they are tring to sell. What this means is that when you make a comment it will not go live untill I appove it. I still welcome real comments (read max I love your comments, Rob you to, KGB I know you don’t comment much I doubt you read much, but also you are among people I don’t want to chace away) I just want to prevent the spam from getting any benifite from spamming my site, they will never get my money, and I refuse to let their site to be seen shown on my site for google to see my site having info about them.

Added WPLUG Announcement list to my news aggregator.

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: WPLUG

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 13, 2006

Today I added the WPLUG Announcement list to my news aggregator site. This list is used to make announcements about upcoming meetings.

My Blogging Personality.

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Blog Stuff, Hay it is funny, Web Site

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 13, 2006

Your Blogging Type is Artistic and Passionate

You see your blog as the ultimate personal expression – and work hard to make it great.
One moment you may be working on a new dramatic design for your blog…
And the next, you’re passionately writing about your pet causes.
Your blog is very important – and you’re careful about who you share it with.

What’s Your Blogging Personality?

Is the so called “New Media” really this important?

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News, Politics

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: January 12, 2006

The Free Republic is running an article with the main thrust is “Talk radio, cable news, and the blogosphere freed U.S. political discourse. The Left wants to rein it in again.” First I have to ask is the so called “New Media” really that powerful? Also I doubt that Blogs, Rush, or O’Reilly really a Media of sources they are Commander on the News for the most part. Also most people will not read or listen or watch something that they for the most part don’t agree with. I will admit I read some Blogs on the left so I know what they are thinking.
Also with blogs (I don’t know about Rush and O’Reilly) the FEC has said that blogs are not covered by the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act, so we bloggers don’t have to worry about the feds coming after us if we post a political statement on our blogs. Also I would guess with Rush and O’Reilly that the FEC would have the brains to realize that since they say basically the same thing all the time to tell them to get off the air during an election year would be just stupid, and the public uprising would be just hoard. Also the back lash against the Democrats would be just bad.
I believe that this article is just the unfounded fear of one guy that posted to The Free Republic. I am sure there are those on the extreme left, and I would also bet they don’t represent the “mainstream of the left”, that would want to ban conservative talk-shows and blogs but I am sure that any 1/2 intelligent person Conservative or Liberal would not in their right mind really try to limit talk-shows and/or blogs. Here is why I say this, right now talk-shows and blogs are believed (I am not sure on this either) to be conservative, but what if the public conception of it was to change and people believe that the liberals were taking over talk-shows and blogs then if they were restricted during election years, then it would have to be applied to them.
Also if they were to regulate blogs and talk-shows, this would be a gross violation of the first amendment, and I am sure there would be all kinds of groups suing over it. I would bet you would even see the AFA (the American Family Association a very Conservative Christian group) and the ALCU on the same side of an issue, of course I would be afraid of that since it is probably a sign of the apocalypse 😉

Fun C++ code

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Geekdom, Programming, Technology

Comments: 1 Comment

Published on: January 11, 2006

As a programmer I will sometimes do some code because I feel it works out the best with minimal effort, also trying to adhere to the KISS principal (Keep it Simple Stupid).

One of the things I have been abusing as of late is the STL Map object. I have the following need: I have to take in user input from a socket (I use a socket object I wrote here, that works just like cin and cout) and I need to run one of many functions. All the functions have the same function signature. so lets assume that a function looks like this
[code]
void function(void *);
[/code]
First I know void pointers, but I am only doing an example so don’t freak out. Now back to it. Now lets say you have 20 to 40 functions like this. And you will pick one based on the input that comes in from the user via a socket connection. the incoming info is plain text, it could be read in from a command line for all I care. A fast way to pick the right function (IMO) is to use a STL Map object. So I would declare the object in the following way
[code]
std::map FunctionPicker;
[/code]
filling the map object is easy
[code]
FunctionPicker[“function1”] = &function;
FunctionPicker[“function2”] = &printingFunction;
[/code]
Running a function after getting is easy, also remember if the index into map does not exist it return 0 or in the case of a function pointer we can check for NULL. So you want a variable declared in the following way.
[code]
void (*funPtr)(void *); // Yes I know funPtr is not all that creative
// of a name but it gives an idea what it does
[/code]
So to get the function pointer from the map and run the function you would want to do the following.
[code]
funPtr = FunctionPicker[userinput]; // lets assume that userinput is declard as
// std::string
if(funPtr == NULL)
{
// put some error handling code here
}
(*funPtr)(); // since funPtr is now a pointer to the
// function we want to run, we need to
// deference it and then call it
[/code]
Now is that not easy and we let the coders that wrote the STL do the hard work for us, and we don’t have an ugly if, else if, else tree in the code. Plus adding a new function is as easy as writing the code for the new function, and adding the entry to the Map object.
I would love to see what others have done to deal with this situation. Or what is your favorite programming tool you use or abuse.

They say no ID in Science, but it is OK for a Philosophy class (some have said mythology class), but they are not happy with a Philosophy class with ID in it.

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News, Politics

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: January 11, 2006

The Mercury News is running an article on a class some California going to do on Philosophy class on alternative thought to evolution. There were many in the anti-ID groups that said that if you want to have it discuses in a public school (we are talking ID, and I would say I hope all forms, not just Christian Creationism, there are also Theistic Evolution, and there might be others, I am not sure). Well when they do it the school is sued for introduction ID in a public school. and for only 15 students to be enrolled in the class makes me think it is an elective, which it should be. I would say that if it was not an elective then I would have to take issue with the students being forced to take it, but if it is an elective then what is the problem?
Even the liberal John Dvorak said
A famous liberal on TV (I forget his name) commented that the death of the Liberals and the Democrats is because they cannot pick the right battles to fight. This appears to be an example. The study of philsophy will always entail religion in some form or another as a philosophical construct.
Oh well.
Well I guess it could be worse like when Dawkins said that faith-based education “child abuse” Well if that is the case I am glad that my mom “abused” me as a child by sending me to Christian Schools.

My Abuse of del.icio.us

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Technology

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: January 11, 2006

Ok I finally did get a del.icio.us account (it took me long enouph to get one, how many years am I behind on this one?) I have a friend Patrick Wagstrom that really likes it, in a way (I don’t know if he even knows) conviced me to get one. But I am abusing it. I moved all my links from 4 of my computers to it (I still have one computer to go) and taged them.
Here where the abuse comes in. I got a program called foxylicious that syncs firefox’s bookmarks to del.icio.us. Backup my bookmark files, and replaced the bookmarks on all my computers with the del.icio.us bookmarks (which has all of the bookmarks from all the computers minus the older bookmarks from sites that don’t exist anymore, also for Mac Safari users check out for delicious2safari that works in almost the same way) then I added the buttons (in Mozilla that are the Mozilla plugins) so that I can Tag a web page with a click of a button. I also have a tag “Toolbar” that when Mozilla/Firefox syncs becomes their “Personal Toolbar” So now no matter what computer I am on I will have the same bookmarks, and if I make a new one it will propogate out to all my systems.
You can see my del.icio.us bookmarks under my username of mpop. I will soon replace my “Links page” with eather a link to that page, or use the Java Script that will get them all, and put that up.
I would guess this is not the original thought that the creaters of del.icio.us had, but it is the way I am going to use it.

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