Headnut.org

Kate and I successfully passed our CPR Pro/AED recertification on Saturday. We're good for another 2 years of compressing chests and rescue breathing! :-)

Our friends Chris and Katie -- yes, same names as us -- organized a little Oktoberfest celebration last night at Teske's, a German restaurant here in San Jose. It's always a fun celebration, enhanced by the litres of beer and good friends.

As we were eating our dinner, the table behind us started getting up in a ruckus. An elderly lady at the table was having problems breathing. Someone from the restaurant had already called 911, and the paramedics were on their way; but I offered to help make sure the lady was stabilized until they arrived. She was diabetic and had a history of strokes and transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). Her husband said he gave her 10mg of slow acting insulin earlier that afternoon, and she had been eating dinner prior to this episode. She was AOx1, oriented only to her name. She did not have any weakness in her hands or feet, and was able to smile properly; though her speech was a little soft and slow.

Without having a blood sugar reading, there was no good way to tell if it was a TIA or diabetic reaction. The fire department took a reading once they arrived, but I didn't hear the results. I wish her the best recovery either way.

After it was all over, it's amazing how sobering an incident like this can be after a litre of beer. :-)

Awhile back, I created a product for Cyber Switching called the Enterprise Management Console. Shortly after the first beta version was released, I developed a module for it called "Virtual PDU." Virtual PDU takes one or more outlets from one or more power strips, and combines them into a single logical interface. This makes control and monitoring in some situations MUCH simpler. (For more details, read Patent 12/177,881.)

I'm happy to announce that I can finally talk about it. :-) The paperwork was filed last month, and we're beginning to ship versions of the EMC that has this patent-pending technology in it.

There's another patent that I'm working on right now, can't talk about it yet, but I'll post some details after it is filed.

From CNN.com:

To quote one of my favorite childhood radio figures, "You know what makes me mad? You know what makes me so dang mad I just want to throw my Bible at Buddhists during prayer time?" Hardy published a secular calendar, collected money published by the government of the United States of America, and exercised his Constitutional right to free speech. And now this fancy, underwear-struting pansy is saying his own chosen religion is banning his right to free speech. Seems to me that freedom of religion and freedom of speech are part of the same Amendment ... both secular guarantees by our government, not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"Wake up America!" Making a choice means owning up to the consequences of that choice. If you choose a religion that has restrictions -- and yes they all do -- then don't be too surprised when a holy man slaps you for doing something against holy doctrine. What really ticks me off about Hardy's argument is his blatant confusion of a government-recognized freedom of speech with his obligations to his chosen religion.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, Hardy.

For the PHP junkies out there who use an RPM-based system, I'm pleased to announce the release of PHP 5.2.6 in RPM format! This is a great milestone for PHP since most of the distributions are stuck on PHP 5.1.6.

I've setup a yum repository on Headnut.org: yum.headnut.org.

Please send all test results to squirrel -at- headnut -dot- org. Include the name, version, and platform (i386, x64, etc.) for your distribution.

After a long time with the old theme of the website, I have finally started the migration over to a new, more modern theme. The changes include both superficial look-and-feel of the site as well as a more modular backend that takes advantage of the new Zend Framework. There is still much work to be done, but I am happy to be starting down this road!

I've been reading a lot about personality types recently, which sparked my internal flame. According to the Myers-Briggs tests, there are four sets of parameters that make up one's personalities:

There is no one "best" type. All 16 combinations (ENTJ, ENTP, ENFJ, ENFP, ESTJ, ESTP, ESFJ, ESFP, INTJ, INTP, INFJ, INFP, ISTJ, ISTP, ISFJ, ISFP) have strengths and weaknesses; the important thing to note is that all types are necessary to make the world go 'round.

When I thought about personality types in the context of religion, I wondered, "Is it possible that the creation of religion could be explained through these personality types?" For the purposes of this discussion, I yield to the definitions found on Dictionary.com.

Religion

1. set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects

Faith

1. belief that is not based on proof
2. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion
3. a system of religious belief

I would like to form a model that would encompass the following categories of people:

• People who unequivocally follow the dogmatic teachings and rituals of a religion.
• People who pick-and-choose which teachings and rituals to follow.
• People who don't follow organized religion, but believe in a faith.
• People who reject religion and faith.

The question being investigated is:

Is there a scientific explanation for why religion could exist?