http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/21091688/

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:59:00 -0700

Recently having fun with getting Digikam to work with fujifilm raw files.
Eventually fixed said problem by:
Running kcontrol
Going to file associations
Adding the extension .RAF to the images/x-raw mimetype.
That's what happens when you use a case-sensitive operating system. :/

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/13351963/

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:25:50 -0700

The new (ish) feature of StumbleUpon to cluster "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down" by website is a godsend. No more of the filling out of the StumbleUpon "New Stumble" form for every second or third page.
However, quite often you find a new page in an already discovered site that you just want to write a review for.
Normally, if you want to add your own view on an already discovered webpage, all you had to do was click the "Thumbs Up", click the "Reviews" button, and then add/edit your own review.
However, if the site has been discovered, but the particular webpage you're interested in hasn't, StumbleUpon would throw you an error message that a review for your URL couldn't be found and offered the less than helpful suggestion of going back to the original webpage and giving it a rating. :(

Today I found the solution. Just make sure to click the "Tags" button before the "Review" button, add some tags, and a brand new shiny Review will be created for the page. Then edit as usual. :)

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/12856920/

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:18:35 -0700

This entry isn't about a website, but a personal viewpoint that has come out of several weeks/months/years of stumbling science, religion and skeptic websites. Yes I'm mildly drunk at the moment -
1. Isn't this when our best philosophy occurs?
2. Don't you love holidays?

I'm a person that has been scientifically trained, but also a person who has had a deep and abiding interest in the "supernatural" (Yes, the quotes are deliberate, you'll see why in a few paragraphs.). Skepticism has been a decidedly sticky philosophy for me personally.

On one hand, I have personally encountered several so-called "skeptics" acting more like cynics in my life. Skepticism to me, can be basically summed up as a philosophy of "reasonable doubt" - an acceptance that "I don't know", is just an acceptable response to a phenomena as "yes", or even "no".
However, several people who I have met who call themselves "skeptics" tend to say: "It hasn't proven to be true, so therefore it must be false", despite potential evidence to the contrary. That is cynicism, the automatic assumption that something is false, despite evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, I have also personally encountered several "true believers", who encounter a particular phenomena that seems to be outside scientific understanding, who then go on to throw out EVERYTHING that science suggests as true! This is dogmatism, the automatic assumption that something unusual is true (despite evidence to the contrary).

I have personally experienced dreams that predict events; down to word-for-word conversations, timing of series of events, and deja-vu's.
I have also personally experienced waking "predictions" - "I'm going to get 3 classes to supervise today", "This bus is going to be late", even though I make these predictions hours before they become true.
I have also worked with tarot cards that seem to perfectly explain/predict past/future situations, and situations where I have "asked" for something to occur ... occuring.
I have also experienced accelerated healing (1cm deep, 5cm long slice to the bottom of my foot - healed up in one day using nothing more than a band-aid and some aloe-vera.)
I'm not even going to talk about dowsing.

Can these events be explained by various phenomena as suggested by skeptics - "counting the hits, and forgetting the misses", "prediction based on subconsious cues.", "rich symbology allows anyone to derive meaning from random cards", "desire recognising opportunity, rather creating opportunity", the "placebo effect", "prediction based on subconsious cues"? (I've added the last one twice because it's a general skeptic explaination of prediction AND dowsing - not that it isn't a good explaination.)

I'm starting to take on a viewpoint that the skeptics may be right about the above, IN THE PARTICULAR, but are seriously missing the point IN THE GENERAL!
If our brains are that good at predicting events 3-6 months into the future, based on information present now ...
If our brains are that good at seeing the relevance to our personal life in random events ...
If our brains are that attuned to physical characteristics of the environment that it can make predictions about subterranean features we can't observe directly ...
If our minds can encourage an accelerated rate of healing in our bodies ...

... doesn't that suggest we should seriously investigate these phenomena, and not just to prove them "wrong"?

Even if they are based on purely physical rules and laws, the benefits, both physically and psychologically, that they offer to the average person, suggests that people are insane not to investigate them.

Does it really matter if a positive life-changing event was caused by supernatural or natural causes? If it changes lives positively, shouldn't a humanistic scientist encourage everyone to pursue such an event?

On the other hand, it's probably wise to avoid anyone who makes a living by offering such an event "for a little fee". :)

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/8018014/

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 04:25:39 -0800

How is it that there is now a second ancienthart on the Internet?
When I chose the name somewhen back in 2000, I did so because of personal events in my life at that time, and the belief that it would be somewhat unique.
But now I find there is somebody on eBay using the same user id? I've never registered for eBay in my life! Did somebody copy my name/online identity? And WHY BOTHER?
*seriously confused* o_O

StumbleUpon | ancienthart's blog posts

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/21091688/

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/13351963/

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/12856920/

http://ancienthart.stumbleupon.com/review/8018014/