Diaphanitas

Probationes Adeunt

2012-10-14T09:11:45Z

"Probationes Adeunt"
"Tests Are Coming"

Augh, midterms are coming already! My first one (the one for Latin) is next Thursday!

But it's Latin, so it shouldn't be too bad!

Index Excellens!

2012-10-11T08:51:42Z

"Index Excellens!"
"An Excellent List!"

Look look look who's on it:

http://www.unb.ca/fredericton/arts/about/list/index.html

Nice!

Felicem Octobrem!

2012-10-01T08:38:31Z

"Felicem Octobrem!"
"Happy October!"

It's October already!

Wowsers!

Ubi Est Ioannes?

2012-09-29T06:31:36Z

"Ubi Est Ioannes?"
"Where is Ian?"

Here!

Yeah, I haven't been posting here lately. I have been doing school and Tumblr things lately.

I going full-time over at UNB this time: Greek, Latin, Byzantine Empire, and Rise of the Romans. Let's hope that I can keep up the good work!

Cave!

2012-09-02T05:38:19Z

"Cave!"
"Beware!"

Yes:

http://interretialia.tumblr.com/post/27118753857/dies-veneris-xiii-ego-verax-non-malae-fortunae#notes

Excellens Pellicula!

2012-07-15T09:50:05Z

"Excellens Pellicula!"
"Excellent Video!"

YAY!

NIMU!

Felicem Natalem, Maria!

2012-06-27T02:46:13Z

"Felicem Natalem, Maria!"
"Happy Birthday, Marie!"

Yes!

Puellae Bellulae e K-On!

2012-06-15T13:20:55Z

"Puellae Bellulae e K-On!"
"The Cute Girls from K-On!"

Not a bad online store:

K-ON ! the Movie Store

Felicem Natalem, Tatiana!

2012-06-11T02:55:31Z

"Felicem Natalem, Tatiana!"
"Happy Birthday, Tatiana!"

Excellent!

Felicem Natalem Mihi!

2012-06-08T00:44:03Z

"Felicem Natalem Mihi!"
"Happy Birthday to Me!"

I am 33 today!

Setsuna Officiosa!

2012-06-06T21:22:56Z

"Setsuna Officiosa!"
"Servicey Setsuna!"

Nice:

Sailor Pluto's Vacation by *ShugarSkull on deviantART

Excellens!

2012-06-04T20:22:59Z

"Excellens!"
"Excellent!"

I approve of this:

Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

Percontatio cum Melissa!

2012-06-04T19:50:20Z

"Percontatio cum Melissa!"
"Interview with Melissa!"

Melissa was interviewed a little while ago:

Archive budget cuts

Good for her!

Concedamus Mortem Religionistis

2012-05-31T17:12:00Z

"Concedamus Mortem Religionistis"
"Let Us Not Concede Death to the Religionists"

Greta Christina has a great new article:

Do We Concede the Ground of Death Too Easily?

“Sure, atheism may have better arguments and evidence. But religion is always to going to win on the death question. A secular philosophy of death will never comfort people the way religion does.”

I’ve heard this idea more times than I can count. And here’s the weird thing: It’s not just from religious believers. I hear it from atheists, too. It shocks me how easily non-believers concede the ground of death. Many of us assume that of course it would be lovely to believe in an eternal afterlife… if only that were plausible. And largely because of this assumption, we often shy away from the topic of death. We happily talk about science, sex, reality, other advantages the secular life has to offer… but we stay away from death, and concede the ground before we even fight it.

Very nice! However, there is one part that worries me:

Secular philosophies of death can withstand scrutiny. The idea that we didn’t exist for billions of years before we were born, and that wasn’t painful or bad, and death will be the same? The idea that our genes and/or ideas will live on after we die? The idea that each of us was astronomically lucky to have been born at all? The idea that death is a deadline, something that helps us focus our lives and treasure the experiences we have? The idea that loss, including death, is necessary for life and change to be possible? The idea that things don’t have to be permanent to be meaningful? The idea that your life, your slice of the timeline, will always have existed even though you die? The idea that death is a natural, physical process that connects us intimately with nature and the universe? These secular philosophies of death, and others, can withstand scrutiny — because they’re based in reality. (Most of them, anyway. There are secular notions of death that I think are self-deluded… but they’re the exception, not the rule.)

This gets close to one my pet peeves about what many atheists say about death. Zinnia Jones wrote about this very thing not too long ago:

The false dichotomy of the afterlife

It's fairly straightforward to point out that belief in an afterlife can have the effect of devaluing this life, causing various misconceptions about its purpose, and influencing people to act for the sake of an imagined eternity that will never take place. This much is obvious. But not so much thought has been given to the impact that beliefs in an afterlife have had on the views of atheists. All too often, the repudiation of an afterlife is accompanied by various proclamations about how important it is that we live a limited life and experience genuine death. We see it in the shallow aphorisms claiming that "death gives meaning to life", as though finding a meaning for our lives is only possible if everyone eventually dies. Such a stunning lack of imagination about how to find personal meaning barely deserves the time of day, but it's interesting to consider where this notion might come from.

And:

When religious people are frightened by the reality of actual death, some atheists reassure them that there's nothing to be afraid of, and it'll just be like taking a very long rest - as if they'll even be able to experience a state of restfulness ever again.

But just because an idea is wrong or bad doesn't mean the reverse of that idea must be right or good. If it were that simple, the most ignorant among us could become a source of unparalleled genius, simply by inverting everything they believe. This is clearly no guarantee of rightness or truth, and common atheistic views on death actually end up sharing certain similarities with their religious counterparts. Both religious followers and many atheists ultimately agree that death, whatever its nature, is a good thing that's very important to our lives, and nothing should be done about it.

In other words, theists and many atheists alike say that not only is death something that happens, that it should happen because it is thought to be something good.

Zinnia also says:

Sure, science is great for curing diseases and extending lifespans - at a slow enough pace that no one's too uncomfortable about it - but dethroning death itself and eliminating the universal inevitability of our demise is apparently a step too far.

In other words, many atheists believe that even the elimination of death would be wrong.

And here is a great ending:

Our present mortality may influence how we live our lives, but that doesn't mean it must be our only source of purpose. People might say death is what gives meaning to life, but no one is especially eager to optimize for this alleged source of value by seeking to bring about more and earlier death for everyone. After all, if this life is really so important, then why should we have less of it when we could have so much more? Why not seek out the most joy, the most love, and the most discovery we can possibly achieve? Why not enjoy life as much as we can, for as long as we can? And why should this ever have to end? It doesn't - if you're ready to do something about it.

Yes, indeed.

Perizoma!

2012-05-31T17:01:20Z

"Perizoma!"
"Thong!"

Yeah:

TIME ATTACK 149 by *IDarkShadowI on deviantART

Furiosae? O Miseras Infantulas!

2012-05-26T09:07:46Z

"Furiosae? O Miseras Infantulas!"
"Furious? Poor Babies!"

Yeah:

One Million Moms Furious ‘Beloved Superheroes Will Be Homosexual’

Bellula!

2012-05-26T02:58:46Z

"Bellula!"
"Cute!"

Hotaru and Chibiusa:

Best Friends by *kuroyamaarashi on deviantART

Novum

2012-05-24T20:47:21Z

"Novum"
"New Thing"

I made a Latin Memes Tumblr:

Mema Interretialia

YAY!

Excellens Analysis!

2012-05-18T02:13:08Z

"Excellens Analysis!"
"Excellent Analysis!"

Yes:

Analysis of a typical Facebook debate

Nova Derivativa Verba Latina, Pars Quadringentesima

2012-05-16T04:06:50Z

"Nova Derivativa Verba Latina, Pars Quadringentesima"
"New Latin Derivatives, Part Four Hundred"

Yeah:

quatillare -o "to shake a little"
[quatere "to shake" + -illare diminutive verb suffix]
[quate- + -illa-] stems
[quat- + -illa-] e disappears before i
[quatilla-] new stem
[quatillare] present infinitive

Non Dicis!

2012-05-16T03:38:48Z

"Non Dicis!"
"You Don't Say!"

Yeah:

A sophisticated theologian claims that religion can’t be falsified

And a good comment:

Gilkey makes a major error in his statement. Religion doesn’t “ask” any sort of question, it supplies a ready made answer: God did it.

Right.

De Bonitate

2012-05-15T13:50:34Z

"De Bonitate"
"On Goodness"

Two thousand years ago, Seneca the Younger wrote, "Bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem" ("Goodness is not being better than the worst"). In other words, if you want to show that something is good and acceptable, you should not be reduced to denigrating other things by dragging them below the thing in question, especially when the examples of the other things are the worst representatives you can find. Nowadays, when people do such a thing, we call it a Moral Equivalence Fallacy.

Arguments for the legalization of marijuana that go along the lines of "It's not as bad as [mundane substance x]" or "[mundane substance x] is worse than it" are perfect examples of arguments that appeal to the Moral Equivalence Fallacy. And for the "mundane substance x," I have heard things like peanuts and coffee. If you are in the position where you need to denigrate peanuts and coffee to make pot look good and acceptable, then you have problems. After all, are we not taught in grade school that it is not a good thing to think that you build yourself up when you put down others?

This is exactly the fallacy that came to mind while I got done reading this nugget of stupidity this morning:

Study: No lung danger from casual pot smoking

Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Well, let's read more of it:

Add one more data point to the decades-old debate over marijuana legalization: A new study concludes that casual pot smoking - up to one joint per day - does not affect the functioning of your lungs.

Weasel words, much?

The key phrase is "up to one joint per day."

In other words, 0-1. As in no joints to one joint.

In other words, you did not even have to smoke pot to be part of this study, since you could be one of the people who smoked 0 joints a day. I therefore could have participated in this study and they would have gotten the same results.

The study, published in the Jan. 11 edition of Journal of the American Medical Association, also offered up a nugget that likely will surprise many: Evidence points to slight increases in lung airflow rates and increases in lung volume from occasional marijuana use.

So, basically, "harm" here is being arbitrarily defined as "decreased air-flow rates or lung volumes"?

"And the data showed that even up to moderately high-use levels -- one joint a day for seven years -- there is no evidence of decreased air-flow rates or lung volumes,"

But would such a decrease be actual harm?

Unlike cigarette smokers, marijuana users tend to breathe in deeply when they inhale a joint, which some researchers think might strengthen lung tissue. But the common lung function tests used in the study require the same kind of deep breathing that marijuana smokers are used to, so their good test results might partly reflect lots of practice

In other words, exercise?

17 percent of participants said they'd smoked cigarettes but not marijuana.

See what I mean when I said, "you did not even have to smoke pot to be part of this study, since you could be one of the people who smoked 0 joints a day"?

On average, cigarette users smoked about 9 cigarettes daily, while average marijuana use was only a joint or two a few times a month -- typical for U.S. marijuana users, Kertesz said.

Yes, and eating one slice of pizza every few weeks is much better for you than eating nine boxes of donuts daily.

And here we have a statement that inspires people to use the Moral Equivalence Fallacy: "See? Pot is not as bad as cigarettes!" And yet, how exactly is little bit of pot sometimes particularly comparable to a bunch of cigarettes every day?

So, yeah, the tl;dr version of this article can be summed up thus: "Harm from pot" is "decreased air-flow rates or lung volumes," and no such evidence can be found, therefore, as the title says, no lung danger from casual pot smoking. And! Not smoking pot every day is not the same as smoking cigarettes every day. Well, I could have told them that.

Sex Argumenta!

2012-05-15T02:52:24Z

"Sex Argumenta!"
"Six Arguments!"

Not bad:

Sean Carroll's List of 6 Arguments Used by Science Denialists

Nova Derivativa Verba Latina, Pars Tricentesima Undeducentesima

2012-05-10T12:48:44Z

"Nova Derivativa Verba Latina, Pars Tricentesima Undequadringentesima"
"New Latin Derivatives, Part Three Hundred Ninety-Nine"

Another:

quator -oris m. "the state of shaking"
[quatere "to shake" + -or nounal suffix denoting state or condition]
[quate- + -or-] stems
[quat- + -or-] e disappears before o
[quator-] new stem
[quator-] nominative singular

Magna Imago!

2012-05-10T12:43:49Z

"Magna Imago!"
"Great Image:"

Yeah: