***adu_ is now known as adu
***DerGuteM1ritz is now known as DerGuteMoritz
<cordawyn>is there anyone out there enjoying the weekend in IRC? <cordawyn>hi mark_weaver! Is it always this quiet on weekends? <cordawyn>actually, I got my question sorted out by myself already :) <mark_weaver>I think the last day or two has been more quiet than usual. <mark_weaver>speaking for myself, I was distracted by the whole Boston Marathon bombing thing that's been going down in my area. <mark_weaver>I haven't been outside today yet, but yesterday was surreal. the streets were almost completely empty. I was told by a colleague that along long stretches of massachusetts avenue, there was a policeman standing in almost every doorway. the shutdown of the entire city for reasons other than extreme weather was completely unprecedented. <mark_weaver>I was one of the few people who travelled during the "shelter-in-place" request, because I was headed to MIT's radio station to air Free Speech Radio News and to assist my colleague in doing a live public affairs program on this topic. <cordawyn>terror must be really sinking in the heads of people <mark_weaver>Some of the media has pretty much been calling for blood. I felt it was useful to help get something on the airwaves that took a different perspective on that. <cordawyn>I read some were blaming Czech, confusing it with Chechnya ;) <mark_weaver>sure, we now have a tiny taste of what it's like in many places in the world (often caused or made worse by US intervention). except that in those places its several orders of magnitude worse. <mark_weaver>wow, confusing Czech with Chechnya. That's remarkably ignorant, even by US standards. <cordawyn>I heard there's quite a large diaspora of Chechnya families in the US. They must be getting the heat today. <mark_weaver>The people who are *really* terrified by this are certain minorities in the US, especially Muslims. I have a couple of good muslim friends. One who recently got a PhD from MIT and now works at Google; and his sister. Both are incredibly brilliant, fully integrated in US society, and extremely likeable people. <mark_weaver>The Google guy noticed last night some americans seeing him and immediately becoming very frightened. If they knew him, they'd realize how silly that is. But it must be hard to have people react to you that way. <mark_weaver>and yeah, as you say, it must be especially hard to be Chechen right now. As if they don't have enough problems already. <cordawyn>I agree, most Muslims are quite likeable guys. <Nafai>I saw a good comparison on Twitter the other day. Most Muslims look at Islamic terrorists the same way most Christians look at the Westboro Baptist Church. <mark_weaver>It's not as if fundamentalist Christians don't include their share of violent loonies. (which is kind of crazy for those of us who know what Jesus really stood for) <mark_weaver>well, I guess I shouldn't claim any certainty in knowing what Jesus stood for. But personally I think Tolstoy did a pretty good job putting together a good theory on that, which was picked up by Gandhi and then MLK. <mark_weaver>who was greatly influenced by Gandhi. And Gandhi was greatly influenced by Tolstoy's later work on the gospels. <cordawyn>Tolstoy is too heavyweight for a bedtime reading too. I appreciate him as a literary genius, but his philosophy is a difficult one. <cordawyn>not in a sense of "diffuclt" perhaps, but... it's too... profound? <mark_weaver>yeah, I'm not sure I agree with it completely, but I definitely find it a *very* compelling set of ideas. <cordawyn>ok, I'll give it a read. Sounds interesting. <mark_weaver>I've only gotten through about half of it myself so far. <cordawyn>mark_weaver: is there anything special about 'FALSE symbol in Scheme? <cordawyn>Scheme48 code here does some juggling with it, that I suspect is either some legacy or Scheme48 "feature" that the author doesn't like much :)