Just got back from the PUSH thing.. it really went well. It wasn't huge, but considering the short notice, and considering that it was half people we haven't met before, I think it's a really good first step. It went well, we have a topic for the next meeting, we've settled on a (different) meeting day of the week, and we all got to know each other a bit. All we need to do is more flyering, find a way to connect to the local (probably large) secular jewish factions (I think I might know how), and do some high-profile things like debates with christian groups, and things will go well. It's such a good feeling that we've stepped beyond the size of the summer group into something new. As a slight downside, I might need to give up part of Zets -- meetings will now be on Wednesdays at 9. Oh well.

Before that, there was a party at my boss's place. It was pretty fun -- saw some people at work in a more casual environment, good catered food, and some conversation. Of course, I'm a bit of a wallflower at parties, but it didn't work out too badly -- I was standing around for probably less than half the time I was there.

Oh, this story on disaster recovery is really amazing. It's great when businesses arn't shortsighted enough to follow good practices, and *ahem* listen to the advice of people who know better.

Ahh, yes, the title. Frank, Yui, and I might be reunited. Dr Forrester left the family some time back, but my sister's thinking about sending the little Iggies back my way. I might give up the computer room, or large parts of it, as I don't need it so much anymore with my laptop. Iggies!

In Philosophy of Science today, it was discussed how, during much earlier times, universities were run by the church (which I knew), but were a seperate wing with often very different theology (which I did not know) that conflicted with the conservative 'cathedral' side of the church. Apparently over the years, as the university clergy continued to assimilate knowledge that trickled in through trade with arab nations (knowledge that was all greek in origin, but long-lost to the west), the cathedral clergy became increasingly hostile to the sciences, as it put limits on the power of their god. Said sciences, at the time, did have a lot of mystic stuff mixed in, including stuff on astrology and similar. I'd be tempted to say that it was forming a christian version of Sufism, although I don't know enough details to know if that's actually a decent analogy. So, the cathedral clergy came up with a plan, and invented what later became the modern skeptic tradition in order to defuse the scientific revolution at the time, drying them up and returning people to the value of faith. It apparently worked, but not quite the way they thought -- the mysticism and a lot of old sciences were pulled apart by the action, but the result was a purer science, one that led, eventually, to deism and other threats to the power of the church. It's an interesting interpretation of history, and I'm glad my professor gave it to us. Such a beautiful mistake.

I left my laptop at work today -- it's busy compiling some stuff for me so my ethernet card will continue to work with a kernel update redhat gave us. My wireless networking card is finally in, and with luck, it'll work. It struck me on my way home today how amazing it is that we're all such consumers that we really would more likely go to events or do things if we think that normally they'd cost more, or cost money, than if they were always free. That magical word 'exclusive' invokes the little greedy bastard inside all of us, but the magical thing is, that bastard will screw us over in the end. We won't be as happy as we could be...