When I went back to camp on Monday, I noticed that 3 people in HQ company were on Medical Leave for depression. Outstanding unit, really. Maybe I should have done the same last year.

Because S1 branch cannot get a vehicle to go down to CMPB, I will not be able to collect my IC on Saturday. Since I'm going to shoot Tasmanian devils on Sunday, this means that I'll only get my IC back when I return. My moment of epiphany will be spoilt! Argh.

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"See what will happen if you don't stop biting your fingernails?"

--- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935), to his niece on seeing the Venus de Milo

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Joel Schumacher took over the "Batman" films from Tim Burton and turned them into homoerotic camp. "Suddenly, 'Batman' became 'Starlight Express'".

Haha.

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2 people bitching at me unreasonably and my evening is spoilt. Or at least 20 mins of it.

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I believe in the Socratic method of finding truth.

But then, Socrates was sentenced to death by hemlock, so.

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It's really distasteful and sloppy when a website "www.foo.bar" cannot be accessed when you use the url "foo.bar". Bah.

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Wowbagger has an interesting piece on conforming to society:

"​​​​My personal tendency is to disregard what others think of me after
I die. I am reluctantly compelled to care about what others think of me when I'm alive only because it greatly expedites things to have others think positively of you or fear you, depending on the circumstances. Having to consider other people's opinions is a terrible burden. It terrified me that I'd have to behave somewhat normally in school so as not to receive negative testimonials. It was terrifying walking along the corridors watching myself every moment, regulating every eccentric urge in case I was being or would be observed. Death would be the ultimate release from public opinion. The final ticket to not caring what other people think. Years ago I was bamboozled by Feynman's irreverent memoirs detailing his supposed disregard for what others think, before real life slapped me out of the delusion that anyone short of a genius could truly do things that way.

One would regrettably be unable to enjoy this release from social pressures. One could do so during one's last days, when one is likely to be patronised and tolerated by one's caretakers. But one would probably be less sentient and less mobile by then, which would eliminate a large portion of the fun.

Yet there are no logical grounds for wanting to be remembered positively if you do not believe in the existence of an afterlife, even supposing that you like the idea (not just the consequences, as I do) of people thinking well of yourself. Only the pre-death anticipation matters. That is, you wouldn't feel any worse if people do not remember you in a good light, as long as you were convinced, when still alive, that they would remember you in a good light. I have commented on this before.

Yes, this means that I do not think going back on deathbed promises is immoral, since nobody is harmed by that."

I wouldn't say that I am/was quite that misanthropic.

I don't see the connection between believing in an afterlife and wanting to be remembered positively, for in no mythological system's afterlife that I can think of does continued joyful existence depend on people thinking favourably of you. One might make an exception for the Chinese afterlife, since you need people to burn paper houses, cars, mobile phones and chocolates for you. However, you could always set up a foundation to keep the paper goods flowing (and the environment polluted) and anyhow, suitably pious descendants would feel obliged to pollute the environment on your behalf even if they didn't like you.

The point about being convinced that people would think well of you is valid, but it raises the question of truth and self-delusion. After all, "the fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one".

Regarding the morality of going back on deathbed promises - in a utilitarian sense it certainly would not be moral. Nonetheless, it would be wrong.

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Another of those all-too-rare Garfield strip that is actually funny.

PatchCRT - fix RunTime Errors on some apps - "A freeware utility, which patches some older MS-DOS EXE files, to permit them to run on fast Pentium CPUs. This speed problem applies only on CPUs which match or exceed the speed of a Pentium 200 (approx), and applies only to some older versions of a specific software module named CRT.ASM, which was part of the Turbo-Pascal offerings from Borland... The symptom is a Divide-by-Zero error message when the app is run on a fast CPU, or a Divide Overflow error message, or a Runtime Error 200 message, or similar. Unfortunately, the error message usually won't simply say that the CPU is too fast!"
For the few who still use MS-DOS applications. Beats running Moslow each time!

Snuffleupagus Murdered - Big Bird "Snuffs" out best friend: "Snuffleupagus, a popular Wooly Mammoth-like creature that inhabited Sesame Street, has been found dead. His killer, an 8 foot 2 inch giant bird, known by Sesame Street locals as 'Big Bird'. Big Bird apparently wanted to prove once and for all to local nonbelievers that Snuffleupagus did in fact exist."

Robert Tilton, The Farting Preacher - The look on his face would really quite odd if he weren't farting.

That Kind of Girl - ff slash is so rare, especially ff slash written by girls. Though the phrase "rubber hotness" still jars me.