Truthiness - Facebeook - Semi Rant

As I've done before, I'm ranting here instead of on Facebook.

I recently started typing a response to someone who sent me comments on some politically oriented posts I’ve made on FB.

The comments this person made were snarky (which is ok and can be fun).  However, these comments also seemed to question my integrity.  I've got a thick skin, but just no need to go there.  I try to avoid it.  There were ways to question my posts without it being turned personal.  When I have gone to sarcastic, and sometimes personal attack type responses I can be brutal and relentless.  I don't like that side of me and I try to avoid it.

My response turned into a long response with numerous rebuttals to their comments.  

Rebuttals like this:

• This person seems to have a problem with "timeliness".

• One of my posts was a shared article from 2010 which questioned the charity activities of a particular political pundit.  When I shared the post, I specifically noted it needed more research.  And my subsequent research indicated that the parent charity organization scores rather low with a respected rating organization and that the pundit no longer engages in the questionable events.  Seems to me like there was some thing going on.  I presume the "commenter" feels that time heals all indiscretions - particularly when a charity serving veterans appears to have been abused for personal gain.

• Another of my posts was a well done survey conducted in 2006 regarding voter identity documentation.  Again this particular "commenter" felt this data was too old.  I feel the data is still relevant.  If one considers census data, which is used for 10 years, I think if you dig into the details of the survey data and survey topics you will find it is most likely still relevant.  (Personal opinion.)

½ way through my written diatribe I realized its just not worth it.  They have their world view.  I’m not going to change it.  I have my world view.  They are probably not going to change it.  Personally I’m comfortable with my world view and the effort I put into checking, expending and shaping it.  For me, it’s not a good use of my time and brain cycles to attempt to engage in political dialogue with those that have a significantly different and intransigent world view.  

Feel free to comment on my posts if you feel the need.  If I feel the need, I’ll dig deeper and I might respond.  I’ll even mark posts that I think need more investigation.  I think I do an okay job of vetting shared information, but I’ll admit I’m not perfect.  I make mistakes, or post "fringe" articles.  I have removed posts in the past because I’ve come to question their voracity.  

Of all the crap, half-truths and lies I regularly see promoted on Facebook and the media, I’m inclined to give myself a pass occasionally if one of my posts ranks a “meh” on the Fox “truthiness scale”.  Some of the “commenters” to my posts have in the past claimed the “use-of- absurdity-to-make-a-point” principle to justify statements made by a particular radio entertainer/pundit.  If you don’t like something I post, I recommend you apply this principle to my posts.  (I'm still not sure what principle(s) they use to justify believing anything Fox News says.)

I'm ok with all of the commented upon posts.  Sure the Solon article pushes the "truthiness" boundary, but no where near some of the information presented by right-wing "news" organizations.  

If you think one of my posts crosses some line, there are actions you can take that do not involve contacting me.  

If you follow me, you know that I regularly remove people from my FB feed when I feel their views are too extreme for me.  I encourage all to do the same.  Its funny that for most of these "commenters", I long ago removed them from my FB news feed.  

Not Angry

For later reading...

http://www.christianitydisproved.com/

Thoughts on drawing...

Near Sighted Monkey

Unboard

LEGO, Star Wars, VW Micro Bus...

What more could you ask for?

LEGO Lord of the Rings

Approx 150,000 bricks and 1,700 mini-figures.

> See full model here <

The Bible on Abortion

Interesting read:

http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/bible.shtml

"Earl Grey. Hot." - A little 3D Printing Reading

Amazing changes are a coming:  Could 3D Printing Change the World?

"Earl Grey.  Hot."  - I want my replicator:  Feeding the Final Frontier: 3-D Printers Could Make Astronaut Meals

An Overview:

Welcome to the Future: Congress Takes on 3-D Printing
By Ben Schreckinger | National Journal – Feb 11, 2013
Last month, Congress entered the brave new world of 3-D printing after gun enthusiast Cody Wilson uploaded a video of himself onYouTube firing a semiautomatic rifle loaded with a homemade high-capacity magazine. The plastic magazine, manufactured on a 3-D printer, was designed to send a message: Congress, and the Obama administration, can try to ban such magazines, but technology is outpacing efforts at gun control.

Within days, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., proposed banning 3-D printed gun magazines and firearms that could evade metal detectors as part of a renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act. “We have this new technology that allows criminals and terrorists to buy cheap 3-D printers, use them to literally manufacture firearm components that can fire bullets, and bring them onto airplanes,” he said. “I want to make it harder for the bad guys.”

This may be the first time 3-D printing is the subject of legislation, but it certainly won’t be the last. The technology, which has more than once been anointed the driver of a “third industrial revolution,” allows for the production of objects by depositing thin layers of materials. The process is called additive manufacturing, which stands in opposition to subtractive manufacturing, the traditional process in which objects are produced at factories by making small parts out of larger pieces of material, like sheets of metal. By allowing for the on-demand production of single, customized items, the technology promises to end the system of large factories and long supply chains in the markets for many goods—and to transform the global economy.

Currently, the executive branch is well ahead of Congress in anticipating the disruptive effects of 3-D printing. In August, the White House announced the formation of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Ohio with an initial investment of $30 million from five federal agencies. The Commerce Department is working to develop universal standards for many aspects of additive manufacturing processes by next year. And the Army has already deployed 3-D printers in the field in Afghanistan. But Congress will likely find itself in on the action soon enough.

One area in which there’s already a specific policy proposal taking shape is intellectual property, where the rapid pace of innovation expected in 3-D printing could require a more agile form of protection. Attorney William Cass suggests the U.S. could adopt a European-style “utility model” as an option for inventors. The utility model offers all of the rights and protections of a patent but can be obtained more quickly and cheaply, and it only undergoes exhaustive evaluation if challenged in court. The House and Senate Judiciary committees could see the utility model on their agendas in the future: Adoption of the model would require an act of Congress, according to Cass.

3-D printing also holds implications for the half-trillion dollars in annual defense appropriations. Banning Garrett, director of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Foresight Initiative, predicts that rather than purchasing physical equipment and replacement parts, much military spending will be redirected to the purchase of designs. Spare parts will be printed at the point of use as the need arises. “That’s going to hugely reduce the long-term costs of weapons systems,” Garrett said.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee are likely to be hearing a lot about the technology, too. It appears poised to bring about a global trade rebalancing, as the new economics of manufacturing reward high-skill workforces like that of the U.S. and make supplies of cheap labor in countries like China less relevant. The committees will also have to adapt U.S. policy to the changing physical footprint of the global trade in goods and parts. “Instead of pushing molecules around, we’re going be pushing bits around,” said Tom Campbell, a professor at Virginia Tech who studies additive manufacturing and coauthored a 2011 Atlantic Council paper with Garrett on the future of the technology.

Campbell would like to see Congress take a largely hands-off approach to 3-D printing itself. “The last thing I want to do is have the government clamp down on new rules or laws that impede innovation,” he said. But he does believe countries such as Germany are gaining a competitive edge in certain aspects of the technology, and he sees a need for more government funding for basic research on applications of additive manufacturing that remain in the theoretical stage. Already, scientists are working to develop methods for printing human organs and for printing meat, advances that would come with policy implications of their own.

If all that isn’t mind-bending enough, separate reports surfaced this week of efforts to develop the means to 3-D print meals in space and to print a moon base with moon dust. Congress, welcome to the future.