Category: Life

(No pun intended)

We’re back to the BBC website, but this time an entry in their “Magazine” section. It’s about what the Bible says about homosexuality – it shows the pertinent passages and gives a pro and anti view for each. And there’s strong arguments for both.

So, a good, and thought provoking article. However, the BBC spoil it all by then allowing the knuckle-dragging members of the general public to respond to it. My favourite being…

It is clear from the pro-gay viewpoints that they will twist and turn every Bible verse they want to say what they want it to say, or otherwise just brush over it and say that we are apparently a more enlightened society in the 21st Century. The Bible is God’s word and should be the only guide in a Christian’s life.

Which is missing the point entirely. You could equally say that the anti-gay exponents are twisting their views. The whole point is that “God’s word” can be interpreted whichever way you want it to – there is no clarity and no-one to turn to who can confirm in which way it’s meant.

How can “Gary from Coventry” know that his anti-gay view is the correct interpretation?

As someone else put it…

This whole article demonstrates one of the many fundamental problems with the Bible: its ambiguity. It is so vague and self-contradictory on so many issues…

Bearing in mind that slavery is seen as acceptable, and having sex with a woman who is having a period is wrong (and also women during this time are “unclean”), it is clear that many of these things being quoted are simply the views of the authors at that time in society, not necessarily the will of God.

According to a news article on the BBC website, Tesco are to change the wording of the “10 items or less” to make things clearer. Instead, it will now state “Up to 10 items”.

Now, is it me or is that actually even MORE confusing? Does that mean you shouldn’t use it if you have 10 items? Or does it mean up to and including 10? At least with 10 items or less this wasn’t an issue.

No, the sign is being changed because of those ever-increasing pedants who have complained about the linguistic correctness of the original.

So, something that made sense and was totally clear is now being changes for something that now isn’t quite as clear.

Well done Tesco.

Sometimes. Sometimes I read something that means I just have to have a little rant. Quite often they’re replies in forums (and possibly, because I’ve gone off-topic, it will end up being removed).

I’ve just been reading a discussion about the new Beta of IE8. Someone ended up recommending that because it was a Beta release, then nobody should try it.

Now, hold on. The idea of a Beta release is to get people “in the real world” (i.e. not just techies who work closely with the company involved) to try out their product. Or, as Wikipedia puts it…

A beta version is the first version released outside the organization or community that develops the software, for the purpose of evaluation or real-world… testing

If we all follow this advice, we’d probably end up with far worse software as a result (and we complain enough about bugs as it is).

It’s like those who use ad-blocking software on their browser (which I’ve covered before) – they get all their favourite sites, probably email and a whole fist of Google-owned facilities, for free because it’s paid for by these adverts.

But then, I’ve just seen a useful piece of UK software being given up by its author because, although free, he asked for donations. He got next to none. The UK relevance is important though because we in this country are the worse for donating for freely given away software.

We’d all like to block adverts, pay for nothing and not get involved in any software the least bit risky – but it’s leading us to a different future for the internet.

Or rather my brother-in-law, with another cannot-fail prize-winning idea…

He has posted his brilliant suggestion for a new flavour of crisps onto the Walkers competition website and needs your vote to get it brought to the attention of the judges.

It’ll only take 30 seconds so please, if you can, visit here:

http://www.walkers.co.uk/flavours/?page=gallery&id=6AKGT

and give it a good rating. I know Kippers and Breakfast Marmalade isn’t everyone’s idea of taste heaven – but with Heston Blumenthal on the panel of judges I think he’s in with a chance!