Monday, March 26, 2012

Drawn To Comics

Just wanted to write a quick blurb about my favorite comic book store, Drawn To Comics.

It is husband/wife owned and they make an extreme effort to remember every face that walks in their door.  You are greeted with a smile and a friendly word and sometimes a high five, if not a handshake.  Despite being busy they find time to be on the floor helping each and every customer make their selections.

They also offer a box service (which I use).  You give them a list of comics you want to collect and they drop new issues into the box which you can collect up to monthly.  I make use of this since I live at least 40 minutes away from the shop.

The shop is in downtown Glendale on Glendale Avenue.  If  you love comics, or are curious, this is really the place to go.  You will not regret it!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

On being Christian and a Freemason

I know I have written extensively about this in the past, just apparently not on my weblog.

I am a Christian and a Freemason.  I am a Past Master of Rockingham Lodge #76 in NH.  I haven't really practiced in over 6 years, since moving here to Arizona because I am lazy and there is no Lodge close by.  :)

There is a ton of stuff written about Freemasonry out in the internet and you can read them all and form your own opinions (but please be sure to read articles from more than one source, not just the anti-Masonic sites) but I thought I would share my own thoughts.  Freemasonry is not a religion, it is a religious fraternity.  That means that in order to become a Freemason, you need to belong to a faith that adheres to the principle of ONE GOD.  Off the top of my head the 3 primary religions would be Christian, Jewish and Muslim.

The PURPOSE of Freemasonry is to provide an environment where somewhat like-minded men can spend time together and perform charitable acts.  It is meant to make "good men better."  Freemasonry does not teach religion, neither does it allow the discussion and debate of religion (or politics for that matter) in Lodge.  To that end, before you join you are met by several Brethren who interview you and sometimes family and friends to make sure you are a man of good character not given to drink, bad habits, foul language, committed felonies, profess belief in God, etc.  If your petition is accepted then you begin the process of becoming a Freemason being introduced to the Lodge and having the members vote on your entry.

Before I go any further I should mention that Freemasonry is deeply embedded in our country and cultures in ways you might not expect or have realized.  Many of the country's forefathers were involved in Freemasonry and this influenced them during the creation of our country.  They were also Christians, or at the least, Deists.  Once while visiting my mother I noticed she had an Ellis Island booklet that contained the oath taken by immigrants.  I was surprised as I read it because the oath is so similar in wording to part of the Freemasonry oath that you could swap them out with only a few words changed.  (The Freemasonry oath is definitely older, tho' slightly varied from state to state and country to country).  Other cultural sayings that come directly from Freemasonry are things like "on the level" and "black balled", the first referring to how all Freemasons treat one another and the second referring to the processing of voting in new petitioners.  The voting process consists of selecting a white or black marble and dropping it into a box.  If a "black ball" is found in the box, the person is not allowed to join the Fraternity.  He is "black balled".  There are other cultural references but that is all I will go into now.

I cannot go too far into the process of becoming a Freemason but I will say that it involves ritual.  Basically the rituals are "plays" that involve characters and their actions.  These rituals were designed to remind us of the basic, Old Testament points of morality and ethics and much of the ritual is directly derived from the Old Testament.  Also involve in the ritual are symbols.  It is these symbols that cause the most consternation for some Christians.  The symbols are not meant to represent idols, or anything of the sort, but instead (like the rest of the ritual) are meant to make it easier to remember the basic, biblical principles by providing visual cues.  Many of them have to do with Masonry tools and geometry since the original Freemasons were actual stone masons (and the idea of the Lodge and Fraternity came from the building in which the stone masons lived when constructing cathedrals and other structures in the Middle Ages).  Some of the symbols came from personifications of "Justice" or "Time".

The other problem some churches have with Freemasonry is "the secrecy".  There really are no secrets in Freemasonry.  There are secret handshakes to help recognize Brethren if they don't have their member IDs, and there are secret words... but honestly, all of them are available on the internet.  No, the REAL secrets (and the ones that are most jealously guarded) come from our meetings.  Freemasonry is about raising money for charitable purposes.  During our meetings we decide WHO GETS THE MONEY... can you understand why that would be secret?  Lodges get requests for donations constantly, and there is never enough money to go around for all the requests.  That means they have to discuss who should receive money... these discussions are what are secret.  It is not proper to air matters of this nature to the general public.

Finally, there IS one danger of Freemasonry.  The Lodge I joined and the ritual I took was clear that the initiate should be a man of faith who attends his church regularly and who is actively involved in it, no matter what that church is.  But I have found that while some Lodges and some members adhere to this idea, not all do.  I have met Brethren who have actually stated to me that "Freemasonry is my religion."  This is very, very wrong and inappropriate, and they do not understand Freemasonry and what it is for.  But I have seen this with some frequency.  It is my only concern with Freemasonry.  It isn't meant to be or replace your faith/religion, but to augment it by providing a group of men and a setting to engage in charity and brotherhood.

I guess that is it for now.  There is a lot more that could be said but I will leave it here.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Having a working Windows Key is Apple Pie

For some reason, even with the appropriate dip switches set, my HHKB Pro 2 is not sending the correct signals to represent the "Windows Key", so I have been without it for ages.  That was no big deal with Windows 7 as I really didn't miss the functionality.  But I had read that the Windows Key (from now on I'll just call it the META key) was useful for W8 shortcuts so I downloaded SharpKey and redefined what was supposed to be the meta key and told it to send the proper meta key bytes.

I can say it really does make a difference.  It can snap you in and out of various metro modes in an instant and really does make having the menu button more-or-less obsolete.  And playing with it, I've discovered features I had no seen before, like side-bar app switcher.

Anyway, my appreciation for the metro screen[s] has jumped up a notch with the functionality of the meta key.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Networking issue fixed...

I didn't solve it, someone else did.  But I found it!  :D  I am now able to connect to our company network thanks to a simple registry tweak.  That, coupled with the Stardock start menu app, gives me nearly the same basic environment I had with Windows 7 WITH all the benefits of Windows 8.

Now I need to get my network printers working.  I have one hooked up via USB, which is fine, but I'd like to not be dependent on the physical connection.

And some more on Windows 8

Yeah, having trouble coming up with good titles.  :)

Today I installed a new app from Stardock / Brad Wardell that sort of replaces the start orb.  Basically what it does is crams the metro start pane into a small pane that opens where the start menu always did.  It works pretty well, a couple of bugs but this was just written and just published so I expect a number of updates in a short span of time.  It DOES also offer the ability to view the full screen version that is standard with Windows 8 with the click of a settings flag.  Very nice!

Some things I haven't mentioned about Windows 8 that deserve mentioning.  Or really one thing:  SPEED.  Windows 8 is fast.  Seriously.  I know people are probably thinking "yeah right, compared to what?".  EVERYTHING about Windows 8 is faster.  Start up times, shut down times, application start times, web browsing, explorer file listing, etc.  When I say everything I mean everything.  They've done some serious optimizing.

There was a comparison done somewhere, ARS or maybe Tom's Hardware and Windows 8 had the shortest start up time over all the competitors (linux, Mac OS) by a significant amount.  That in itself should give you an idea of how they've changed up this version of their venerable OS.

Even my crammed, shared USB external disk seems to load faster.

There will be more to come.  I'll try to think up more clever titles.

Monday, March 5, 2012

More on Windows 8

I've been using Windows 8 CP (Beta) for a week now and am getting used to it.  In reality not much has changed except for some visual and under-the-hood improvements.  But it still plays like / feels like Windows 7.

As I mentioned, there are some definite bugs, so unless you are bold and daring and have other ways of getting around issues, don't install and use this just yet.  It needs a few more months of brewing.

While I love metro on my phone and no doubt would love it on my tablet, I am coming to the conclusion that they should find a way to keep the start orb and only enable metro full-screen mode on specific devices.  I think that some of the metro apps show promise and if they could make them more windowed, less full-screen they would be great.  I also DO have to admit I like seeing reminders, social updates and my weather on the metro start panel... but...  I spend 99% of my time at the desktop and appreciate the small, pop-up start button/panel of Windows 7.

Even so, it isn't HORRIBLE like some people might have you think.  It is quick (the transition from desktop to metro to desktop happens as quickly as you can click your mouse).  You can arrange your most used apps in such a way that they will be close to the switching corner.  You can also still pin items to the super bar at the desktop level.

I will be monitoring updates and all the feedback on the Windows blogs with interest, to see how this progresses.  Meanwhile, since I can run 7 in a VM I can continue to use 8.

Finally I want to mention that 8 is stable at a system level.  You don't see crashes.  At least I haven't.  There are just some driver issues but they will sort themselves out over time.