Wapsi Square Forum

Posted: **Thu Apr 18, 2019 9:19 am**

Sounds like they'll have to get up there and put up a surplus Ringling Brothers' tent. It'll be the right size, roughly the right shape, and keep the water from flowing into the building.

Yes, it's not going to be simple, but doable. They'll have to put it together off site, and mostly drop it into place with a cargo helicopter.

Posted: **Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:14 pm**

If it weren't for the mess, need for reconstruction, and (possible) issues of blasphemy, they could probably resolve the problem temporarily by asking Cirque du Soleil to set up their Grand Chapiteau and do a gymnastics show in the cathedral.

Posted: **Thu Apr 18, 2019 2:34 pm**

And here I just finished reading a book called 'Pillars of the Earth' just a few weeks ago.

The coincidental irony is profound...

Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillars_of_the_Earth

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:54 am**

I had never run across this one, before today...

Posted: **Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:07 am**

I always felt that Judas got a bum rap. I mean, the entire _point_ of Jesus's existence was to be martyred. Otherwise, he would have been as forgotten as the other dozens of prophets.

So, who do you turn to, to make sure that things happen the way they need to? Your most trustworthy, and least brainwashed, disciple.

"Judas, if you truly love me, God, and your fellow man, you MUST do what they ask when they offer you money."

If you look at it the right way, Judas was the _most important figure_ in the New Testament, other than Jesus himself.

Posted: **Wed Apr 24, 2019 12:11 pm**

Bookworm wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:07 am I always felt that Judas got a bum rap. I mean, the entire _point_ of Jesus's existence was to be martyred. Otherwise, he would have been as forgotten as the other dozens of prophets.

So, who do you turn to, to make sure that things happen the way they need to? Your most trustworthy, and least brainwashed, disciple.

"Judas, if you truly love me, God, and your fellow man, you MUST do what they ask when they offer you money."

If you look at it the right way, Judas was the _most important figure_ in the New Testament, other than Jesus himself.

There are some churches that regard him as a saint for exactly this reason.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2019 6:22 am**

Yeah, Judas has provided some rather difficult problems in the history of theology, in regards to everything from predestination to the nature of Jesus' sacrifice. Which mainstream religious authorities generally resolved by simply ignoring the problems when possible, silencing dissenters, and refusing to publish contrary sources.

Posted: **Fri Apr 26, 2019 7:03 am**

The truth is, any one of the Twelve could have pulled the trigger (figuratively speaking) in those final days. That was why they were all sitting around wondering who Jesus was talking about when He said "one of you will betray me."

The others didn't see Judas being "the chosen one" as much as "the one who had the cajones to actually DO it."

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2019 12:20 am**

Catawampus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 26, 2019 6:22 am Yeah, Judas has provided some rather difficult problems in the history of theology, in regards to everything from predestination to the nature of Jesus' sacrifice. Which mainstream religious authorities generally resolved by simply ignoring the problems when possible, silencing dissenters, and refusing to publish contrary sources.

This is why Islam exists as a large scale religion. The Monophysite christians were abused by the Orthodox churge to the point that they pretty much migrated to Islam en-masse. That was almost all of the population of Egypt at the time.

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:11 am**

Bookworm wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 12:20 am This is why Islam exists as a large scale religion. The Monophysite christians were abused by the Orthodox churge to the point that they pretty much migrated to Islam en-masse. That was almost all of the population of Egypt at the time.

That's a large part of the reason why a small group of poorly-equipped nomads from a backwater (backsand?) corner of nowhere were able to take over such a huge territory within such a remarkably short time. One of the first things that Mohammed did was to write a Muslim constitution that declared freedom of religion to Christians and Jews (and was later extended to others, such as Zoroastrians and Hindus). . .and then, even more importantly, the Muslims actually made a good effort to live up to that promise.

So oftentimes when the Muslim army showed up at the border of some Christian land, all of the local varieties of Christians who were being persecuted by the dominant Christian sect were fully supportive of being annexed into Muslim lands. The Muslims didn't care if you were Nestorian or Roman Catholic or Arian, they just wanted you to pay your taxes and not cause trouble. Do that, and they'd generally let you worship in whatever weird Christian way you wanted to. Many of the local Christians revolted against their own government, opened the city gates, and welcomed the Muslims with cheers. Some would then convert to Islam, but a great many would remain Christian.

Not that every Muslim was always totally supportive of other religions having the right to exist, or that Christians and others didn't sometimes have problems with their Muslim rulers. But generally either the disputes were political rather than religious in nature, or it was the personal actions of some individual Muslims and not any sort of official persecution by the government.

The Muslims were also often not so tolerant towards pagans.

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:52 am**

One of the main things that got Xians "perescuted" in Rome was a he way that, under the Pauline Heresy, they rejected Rome's (general) policy of religious freedom and tried - often violently - to suppress other cults.

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:36 pm**

Catawampus wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:11 am
Bookworm wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 12:20 am This is why Islam exists as a large scale religion. The Monophysite christians were abused by the Orthodox churge to the point that they pretty much migrated to Islam en-masse. That was almost all of the population of Egypt at the time.
That's a large part of the reason why a small group of poorly-equipped nomads from a backwater (backsand?) corner of nowhere were able to take over such a huge territory within such a remarkably short time. One of the first things that Mohammed did was to write a Muslim constitution that declared freedom of religion to Christians and Jews (and was later extended to others, such as Zoroastrians and Hindus). . .and then, even more importantly, the Muslims actually made a good effort to live up to that promise.

So oftentimes when the Muslim army showed up at the border of some Christian land, all of the local varieties of Christians who were being persecuted by the dominant Christian sect were fully supportive of being annexed into Muslim lands. The Muslims didn't care if you were Nestorian or Roman Catholic or Arian, they just wanted you to pay your taxes and not cause trouble. Do that, and they'd generally let you worship in whatever weird Christian way you wanted to. Many of the local Christians revolted against their own government, opened the city gates, and welcomed the Muslims with cheers. Some would then convert to Islam, but a great many would remain Christian.

Not that every Muslim was always totally supportive of other religions having the right to exist, or that Christians and others didn't sometimes have problems with their Muslim rulers. But generally either the disputes were political rather than religious in nature, or it was the personal actions of some individual Muslims and not any sort of official persecution by the government.

The Muslims were also often not so tolerant towards pagans.

Well, yes and no. Early Islam is very different from Late Islam - basically, once Mohammed managed to move to Mecca and was surrounded by his own followers, he no longer had any need to avoid antagonizing those other religions and governments around him.

Non-Muslim are considered very much second class citizens, and the Qur'an (or however you want to write it) levies taxes at least double if you're not a follower of Islam. There's also a lot of other nasty stuff in there. Most of the reasonable Muslim realize that the 'Book' isn't necessarily a literal document, but it is the only major religion that enshrines slavery as part of the 'way things should be'.

Unfortunately, it'll take a new Prophet to really change Islam, and I don't see that happening, considering how badly the various sects treat each other, let alone non-muslim. If a prophet should rise up in Sunni territory, the Shiites will probably kill him/her off as fast as possible, and vice versa.

Posted: **Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:51 pm**

Bookworm wrote: ↑Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:36 pmUnfortunately, it'll take a new Prophet to really change Islam, and I don't see that happening, considering how badly the various sects treat each other, let alone non-muslim. If a prophet should rise up in Sunni territory, the Shiites will probably kill him/her off as fast as possible, and vice versa.

I disagree. Based on what I see going on now, if a new Sunni prophet arises in Sunni territory, the Sunni will kill him before the Shi'ites even learn of his existence. And the Shi'ites would be even quicker on their side. A Sunni prophet in Shi'ite territory, or vice versa, quicker yet.

Posted: **Mon May 06, 2019 10:28 pm**

Gaaaahhh! Stupid Firefox browser! Then went and broke the add-ons I was using!

Sorry. They didn't "break" them, they merely changed the rules, so that non-compliant add-ons were automaticaly disabled, without any hope of enabling them again. If you want to put a fine point to it...

Even Adblock Plus didn't make the cut...

I don't use Firefox much, and I have very few add-ons installed, but the ones I had, I wanted... Who knows how long it will take before the developpers realize their add-ons don't work anymore, and they have to remake them...

Posted: **Tue May 07, 2019 12:10 am**

lake_wrangler wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 10:28 pm Gaaaahhh! Stupid Firefox browser! Then went and broke the add-ons I was using!

Sorry. They didn't "break" them, they merely changed the rules, so that non-compliant add-ons were automaticaly disabled, without any hope of enabling them again. If you want to put a fine point to it...

Even Adblock Plus didn't make the cut...

I don't use Firefox much, and I have very few add-ons installed, but the ones I had, I wanted... Who knows how long it will take before the developpers realize their add-ons don't work anymore, and they have to remake them...

Well... it hit me too, and the problem isn't what you think, I think.

They didn't deliberately disable all of the plugins. If I understand correctly, an intermediate code signing certificate expired, which caused all of the properly-signed modern plugins to stop working.

They're in the process of rolling out a hotfix for the problem. It's possible to get it early by enabling "studies" temporarily. Once you get the study which updates the intermediate certificate you can reinstall the plugins.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529 ... -error-fix should get you started on the trail to a repair.

Add-on developers have been working for quite some time to rewrite their extensions to work with the new Firefox APIs... if you search for them by name in the Add-on Manager you should find them.

(A few years ago, I had to honcho an effort to replace a corporate signing certificate... not just an intermediate, but the company's root certificate! This turned it to be a huge job, since this cert was "baked into" the code in a bunch of products that hadn't been updated in years but were still in heavy use... if we hadn't updated it, most of the company's customers would have lost all service when The Day arrived. Could easily have put the firm out of business.

It took close to a year to gin up a new, modern cert with a longer key and expiration date, create a whole new series of intermediate sub-certificates, figure out how to update the software kits for dozens of products, and QA and roll out the software updates. I heard (some months after I left the company) that the effort was successful, with only a couple of minor snags at the end... quite a relief!)

Posted: **Tue May 07, 2019 9:24 am**

Dave wrote: ↑Tue May 07, 2019 12:10 am
lake_wrangler wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 10:28 pm Gaaaahhh! Stupid Firefox browser! Then went and broke the add-ons I was using!

Sorry. They didn't "break" them, they merely changed the rules, so that non-compliant add-ons were automaticaly disabled, without any hope of enabling them again. If you want to put a fine point to it...
[...]
Well... it hit me too, and the problem isn't what you think, I think.

They didn't deliberately disable all of the plugins. If I understand correctly, an intermediate code signing certificate expired, which caused all of the properly-signed modern plugins to stop working.

They're in the process of rolling out a hotfix for the problem. It's possible to get it early by enabling "studies" temporarily. Once you get the study which updates the intermediate certificate you can reinstall the plugins.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/4/18529 ... -error-fix should get you started on the trail to a repair.[...]

Followed your link, then followed a link in the comments, and now my extensions work again. Were they already working, and I didn't notice, or did that clicking around do it? I don't know. I don't care. I'm just glad that they work again. Thanks for the tip.

P.S. I knew they didn't break it, I read enough of their explanation to understand the gist of it... hence my "moderating" second paragraph... But it sure felt better yelling at their breaking it than it would have to yell at the real reason... (Isn't it usually how it works, with people?

)

Posted: **Tue May 07, 2019 2:51 pm**

Using NoScript and uBlock Origin. No problems here.

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:51 pm**

I was reading a cycling blog, followed a link, and was baffled by what I saw:

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 4:54 pm**

"Here's what I think of yo' raggedy ass dental practice, byotch!"

Posted: **Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:52 pm**

High speed to a dead end intersection, ran the red light, and kept going straight. Someone was either asleep or intosticated. Under the affluence of inkahol, or similar.

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