Bonner Homes of Reston: Lirio Ct.

Of the homes I see in Reston that I like, most seem to have been made by an architect named Ken Bonner.

This weekend, another one came on the market on Lirio Ct. by South Lakes High School and Lake Thoreau.

Bear in mind that most were designed in the 1970s and the ones that have been remodeled to open up the interior space and to finish out the basements tend to have a better feel.  The 1970s design also seems to involve a severe drawback: no walk-in closets... a dealbreaker for some. 

The Bonner houses tend to be surrounded by mature trees and also feature large windows, many sliding doors facing the rear.  But the best feeling feature, in my opinion is the inclusion of high-up "transom" windows to bring in daylight while maintaining privacy.

I'd love to meet Ken Bonner and shake his hand some day.  I'd better get on that.  1970 was almost 50 years ago.

From Al-Quran Book 2: Al-Baquarah - Muslim Defined

I have started a micro-practice of morning reading from the quran.  I am reading from a copy of English Translation of the Meaning of Al-Qur'an: The Guidance for Mankind: Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik, which was gifted to me from a dear friend.

Just a section or two at a time.  Unrushed.

I am presently in Book 2, which is named Al-Baquarah which makes a lot of references to old testament stories of Moses.  

Being someone who isn't well read in the old testament, I'm not familiar enough with other versions of these stories to understand the full context of what is going on... i.e. what purpose the text is meant to serve. 

There is enough polemic present that I can speculate with some confidence that the words can be used to connect to the tradition of the god of Abraham (that the god of Muhammad, Allah, is the same god is the same god as the god of Abraham) but also to draw fundamental distinctions and achieve a radical departure from Judaism.

 

Word Origins: Muslim

There is a section in Al-Baqarah 2:[75 -77] where the word "believers" is disambiguated (or indicated as translated) by the word (Muslims) in parentheses.  This may indicate an arabic literal from the untranslated original text.

After seeing this, I felt curious and started rooting around the interwebs for original senses of the word "Muslim".  To the Bat-Google!

C17: from Arabic, literally: one who surrenders

muslim. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved July 10, 2017 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/muslim

Muslim (n.) 

1610s, from Arabic muslim "one who submits" (to the faith), from root of aslama "he resigned." Related to Islam. From 1777 as an adjective.

muslim. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary.

 

DIY Door Lock Actuator Change - 2005 Honda CR-V

This morning I changed the Drivers Rear door lock actuator, which stopped working during the winter.

I Bought This Part

72155-S5A-003 - Actuator Assy., Door Lock

I Used These Tools

I Watched These Videos

I had to combine info from two youtube vids to get all the info I need. One is how to remove the rear door panel. The other covers how to replace the front door lock actuator. I had to improvise a few things because the layout isn't exactly the same but the connectors are substantially similar and there are a lot fewer cables.

I Learned These Things

During the course of this work, I had to stop my work and run to the hardware store to buy the #3 phillips screwdriver listed above.  It cost $7.  I had to do this because one of the huge screws holding the lock assembly to the door started stripping when I was using a #2 to loosen it.  

My big takeaway from this effort is that using the right size screwdriver can avoid a lot of trouble.

And an additional bit of wisdom I can offer is to work in the shade.  Because the sun just adds pressure when you're trying to turn a stuck screw.  I did myself the favor of using shady parking in a nearby park to finish the work after I got back from the hardware store.

 

Farewell to Ellie, The Afghan Hound

Dearest Camel,

I hope you've had an amazing life and I'm glad I got to enjoy some of it with you.

Sorry I didn't get to say goodbye in person. Facetime just isn't the same.

You'll always be my favoritest pooch ever. So long. See you in my dreams.

-F

PS - now you get to ask me instead: "why the long face?"

News Flash: The Republicans Do Not Believe in A Free Market

Scarcity can be a product of reality or a product of market conditions. One of the things that eliminates scarcity better than anything else is the profit motive. This drives more players into a market.

Now a person who thinks of systems as fundamentally static sees the high prices as a fixed given but once scarcity is gone, the prices start to shift. A more crowded market can see benefits from innovation (more value for the same price or less cost) and competition (similar values for less cost). 

The chief thing that prevents scarcity from being addressed is government licensing and regulation. I will argue, without supporting it thoroughly here, that no market monopoly has ever been maintained without a shift in regulation/licensing to prevent new competition on the part of governments.

What existed before the ACA was not a free market and what the Republicans propose isn't one either. For historical perspective see the podcast I have linked in A History of Strangled Health Care in the United States.

Argue that the Republicans are wrong all you want but they are not now and have never (during my lifetime) been for a free market in medicine (or just about anything else). They are consistently about cutting taxes, increasing government spending, and pandering to the Christians.

A History of Strangled Health Care in the United States

Take this in for a moment and see how you feel about it:

A free market in medical care has not existed in America for about a century.

Isn't the problem more recent than that? One struggles to imagine it. But one doesn't have to. A recent EconTalk guest, Christy Ford Chapin, lays it out in a discussion rich with historical perspective. In discussion with the host, Russ Roberts, she lays out a historical narrative of an American Medical Association that uses its licensing power to destroy the market in medicine except for individual practictioners doing fee for service care without insurance.

The story evolves as the AMA, fearing government socialization in the aftermath of the Great Depression and WWII, seek to expand coverage to prevent the socialization of their trade. They enter into a faustian bargain with insurance companies and you land where we are today.

For those who have been frustrated with the state of medicine and the fragmentation among specialists of the medical trade, you will find an interesting and informative discussion.

Enjoy.

Historian Christy Ford Chapin of University of Maryland Baltimore County and Johns Hopkins and author of Ensuring America's Health talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book--a history of how America's health care system came to be dominated by insurance companies or government agencies paying doctors per procedure. Chapin explains how this system emerged from efforts by the American Medical Association to stop various reform efforts over the decades. Chapin argues that different models might have emerged that would lead to a more effective health care system.

Christy Ford Chapin on the Evolution of the American Health Care System | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

Peak Bullshit: Turns Out The Dalai Lama is a Hateful Figure

Apparently, even privileged fucks from China can exploit inclusivity and diversity to shut people down. You know... hateful people like the Dalai fucking Lama.

Now I don't agree with the Lama or his ethos, but come on... he mostly talks about dealing with your own garbage and tending to yourself.

If you needed any more evidence that Social Justice is morally bankrupt exploitation of feeling over fact (and feeling over the exercise of individual judgment), there you have it. Calls for diversity and inclusivity, with rare exception, imply an abandonment of reason, which is the only bullshit detector you have.

Our relationship with our own faculties of reason come down to practice. It's use it or lose it. Either we call things as we see them or we're the next mark for whomever figures out how to push our buttons.

But, if our commitment to the truth is strong enough and we form convictions based on our long-term practice of clear thinking, we can be like the immovable stone in the river... the manipulations will flow around us like so much water.

We don't need to fix the world or anyone else's flawed notions. But we do need to look upon the world call bullshit when we see a steaming pile of it.  We are at peak bullshit right now (or hopefully heading toward it).  You've never needed your reason more.

There Are Four Lights!

Joe Rogan Experience #877 - Jordan Peterson

I've only checked out the episodes of Rogan that friends have said I have to listen to except for this one, which I have listened to with no recommendation.

Rogan has proven himself to be a really smart and knowledgable host who can hang with nearly anyone, at their level. This one has an amalgam of philsophy, psychology, and mythology and it's pretty dense at times but it's a great discussion about the cancerous effects of Postmodernist philosophy and its war against clear thinking and elevation of feeling over fact.

Peterson has decided to take a vocal stand against recent legislation in Toronto in regards to gender pronouns and I first became aware of him from Sam Harris's podcast but this conversation flows a lot better than the ones between Harris and Peterson.

This is a 3-hour chat. It is profound and worth your time.

Venezuela, Trump, and Sanders

In response to a long-time work friend on the Bookface:

Venezuela is an interesting Ghost of Christmas Future for societies which do not make banishment of force against any individual (tautologically, the smallest minority you can create) its highest priority.

When, instead of protecting rights, government acts as the violator in the name of "equitable distribution of revenues", the government violations of individual rights will not likely stop at force against the rich and wealthy.

You are correct about the current president. He is a danger to us all. However, this may also have proven true of a President Bernie Sanders as well. That is the important idea to consider.

Neither the Democrats or the Republicans are principled about using force to protect rights rather than to violate them. Nor do they have clear principles about what is or is not a right. The will of the majority does not create natural laws.

Going back to your original thought... I will try to appreciate this day. It is easy for me to get there mentally because my parents left behind everything they owned to escape the Viet Cong and come here. And today I celebrate the life of my paternal grandfather. Much love.

Don't Let Anyone Smuggle In The Bathwater With The Baby

You've done the hard work of making sure you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater: discarding sensible things associated with negative ones. Good!

Gotta also make sure you don't accept nonsense because it's hanging out with something sensible.

For example: kindness is a good state in which to be. But I've heard recently that political correctness is just another word for kindness/consideration from a person who was being rather unkind about it.

Well, with all due respect to reality, if it were merely kindness or consideration with no differentiating features, there wouldn't be a need for a separate term for it. You heard it here first, folks: Every new term entails some new differentiae from the genus. And if you don't think so, stop arguing for Gay Marriage and just accept "Civil Unions".

Different word? Different Concept.

Political correctness is an exploitation of an implicit moral gradient... one direction is uphill and the other benefits from gravity because we have, perhaps unknowingly, accepted some premise. It is usually meant to compel or prohibit certain behavior but the overarching goal is to make you doubt your own mind.

Self-doubt? Fuck that noise. We ain't got time for that.

I'm not saying we should go out of our way to be offensive. We're not Trampeteers or Alt-Right Supremacists. But we need to understand Political Correctness as what it is: Guerilla Warfare against the way your mind sees reality.

Well... Your mind is all that you have. And the extent to which you trust your mind is the extent to which you have self-esteem.

Don't smuggle in the bathwater with the baby. And don't let anyone else do that for you either.

How the World Becomes a Better Place According to the Bookface

Memes

  • Step 1: person posts rage-driven engagement-inducing meme.
  • Step 2: even more see that shit and feel either rage or self-righteousness
  • Step 3: profit

Blog posts written by your own hand

  • Step 1: Write something on your blog that can actually engage people in discussion without triggering them
  • Step 2: Two people see it

Prince on Arsenio in 2014

Apparently Prince was the very first guest on Arsenio Hall when he came back to Late Night in 2014.

An amazing interview. People are rapt... listening so closely you could hear a pin drop in the gaps while Prince is speaking.

He talks about technology being a double edged sword and that artists don't always get paid.  That is a malady of our age and people who love art and artists need to find it within themselves to make sure that they do not deprive artists of pay by their short sighted choices.

Justice, of the Social Sort

Social justice only happens when we treat people as individuals in accordance with their conduct.

However, most of what writers try to float as "social justice" is some variant of robbing people like Paul to pay people like Petra. The Pauls are given less than their conduct deserves out of some warped notion of tribal guilt.

That is not justice of any kind.

To Rent or To Own... To Be Employed or To Own

How many people have said to me that they think renting is throwing money away but owning goes toward somethiing. Many.

How many of these people consider whether working for someone else vs. starting and owning your own business is the same question. Very few.