Cell phones while driving

Believe it or not, I'm not that bothered by folks using cell phones while they are driving.I do it fairly often myself. Especialy when that 20 minute drive home from work becomes a 45 minute drive due to traffic.

However, what I do have a problem with is folks that don't use earsets/headsets when they are using the phone. Having to hold your phone to your ear for extended periods of time completely occupies one of your hands. And while its possible to drive one handed, there are a few studies that have shown that your ability to control the vehicle dramatically decreases in sudden stop or sudden turn situation (for some reason, 60% seems to spring to mind but I'm pulling that number out of nowhere). It also tires out your arm which can cause you to pay less attention to driving and more to the actual physical phone versus just your conversation on the phone.

So if you are going to talk on the phone in your car, get a handset. They are cheap. They go for as low as $10. The ones that plug into wireless land line phones usually work on cell phones as well so you can get a really comfortable non-earbud headset as well.

In the long run, none of us should use cell phones while driving but in the absence of that we can at least use a hands-free adapter of some sort.

Nietzsche Quotes

The Christian church is an encyclopaedia of prehistoric cults and conceptions of the most diverse origin, and that is why it is so capable of proselytizing: it always could, and it can still go wherever it pleases and it always found, and always finds something similar to itself to which it can adapt itself and gradually impose upon it a Christian meaning. It is not what is Christian in it, but the universal heathen character of its usages, which has favored the spread of this world-religion; its ideas, rooted in both the Jewish and the Hellenic worlds, have from the first known how to raise themselves above national and racial niceties and exclusiveness as though these were merely prejudices. One may admire this power of causing the most various elements to coalesce, but one must not forget the contemptible quality that adheres to this power: the astonishing crudeness and self-satisfiedness of the church's intellect during the time it was in process of formation, which permitted it to accept any food and to digest opposites like pebbles.

from Nietzsche's Daybreak,s. 70, R.J. Hollingdale transl.

---

If the Christian dogmas of a revengeful God, universal sinfulness, election by divine grace and the danger of eternal damnation were true, it would be a sign of weak-mindedness and lack of character not to become a priest, apostle or hermit and, in fear and trembling, to work solely on one's own salvation; it would be senseless to lose sight of ones eternal advantage for the sake of temporal comfort. If we may assume that these things are at any rate believed true, then the everyday Christian cuts a miserable figure; he is a man who really cannot count to three, and who precisely on account of his spiritual imbecility does not deserve to be punished so harshly as Christianity promises to punish him.

from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, s.116, R.J. Hollingdale transl.

---

Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature- is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.

from Nietzsche's Daybreak,s. 89, R.J. Hollingdale transl.


more to be found here

Final Fantasy: The Concert!

Music from Final Fantasy with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Conducted by Arnie Roth.

The FINAL FANTASY® symphony concert tour is coming to ATLANTA for two rare dates: Friday, June 24 and Saturday, June 25 2005 at 8:00 PM at Atlanta Symphony Hall. The concert, to be performed by the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus, has just been announced from the long-awaited concerts in North America featuring music from the world-renowned FINAL FANTASY video game series.

The 2-hour program will be conducted by Arnie Roth

http://www.atlantasymphony.org/aso_concert_details.aspx?Event=251

I've got Loge seating tickets for myself and the lovely and talented zorathenne for the Friday show. There are plenty of great seats left for both dates. And contact zorathenne if you would like get access to her personal ftp server where she has all the Final Fantasy music. You can download some of it to see if you like this kind of stuff.