Maryland: atheists and agnostics need not apply.

Wondering around the Internet, I found this little jewel of historical relevance. It comes from the Maryland Declaration of Rights, part of the Constitution of Maryland. I can't find anything else in the Constitution of Maryland that overrides this.

Article 36. That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore, no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate, on account of his religious persuasion, or profession, or for his religious practice, unless, under the color of religion, he shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their natural, civil or religious rights; nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain, any place of worship, or any ministry; nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished therefor either in this world or in the world to come.

(emphasis added)

Looks like I'm getting out of jury duty if ever called.

Tattoo, Tae Kwon Do, iTunes...

The theme of this post is items whose first capital letter is "T".

I went to the Tattoo place just off campus with Jeremy to talk with a tattoo artist about what I wanted done. The guy said that he couldn't do it, and that anybody who said that they could was lying. There's too much detail, and skin can only hold so much detail over the years without the ink bleeding around a lot and making the tattoo look bad. So I'm going to go back to my solid black design idea, and try to render some high resolution images tonight so that I can go ahead and do this thing. I'll post pictures tomorrow if I come up with anything.

I went to Tae Kwon Do tonight and nobody was there. Tim wasn't coming because he had to take Chloe to the vet, and I'm betting that Kevin's working because he isn't here, and that's where he typically is when he's not here. I drive up, and the lights are off, so I come home and try to stretch. We've been given the challenge of being able to do splits by June. Right now I'm halfway there: my legs bend 90 degrees away from eachother (that's pi/2 for those of you who don't like angular systems based around a rough approximation to the number of days in a year.) 90 degrees in addition to what I can currently do, divided by 6 months (180 degrees around the sun) means that every day I have to progress half a degree. That seems doable.

I'm re-ripping all my music into iTunes so that I have fairly high quality copies of my music on my computer. I would really like to see ogg support in more mp3 players (both portable and software based.) I had an ogg plugin for quicktime (and therefore iTunes, which uses quicktime) but the new quicktime uses a different sound structure, and so the plugin broke. So now I have a ton of oggs that I can't listen to in my room, and tons of CDs that I need to rip. Right now I'm ripping the soundtrack to Star Wars: A New Hope, disk 2. I've got about 125 more CDs to go through. Then there the CDs at my parents house, and any CDs I can find downstairs. At least when I'm done I'll have a large collection of fairly diverse music: Latin, Metal, Ragtime, Techno, Pop, Classical, Rock, Classic Rock, Jazz, Grunge, Blues, Punk, R&B, New Age, Easy Listening (nothing really bad, only as bad as Elvis Costello, Burt Bacharach, and Tony Bennett) to name a few.

There's other stuff going on, too, but none of it starts with the letter "T" so this isn't the place to discuss it.

Tattoo

Here's a tattoo I'm considering getting on my right arm (deltoid.) I'm probably going Friday with my brother. What do you think?

I have got to start writing these things down

I had an idea like this a couple years ago. Zero-gravity football. Somebody has got to remember. Mine was somewhat more true to the "one-gravity" football currently played, and basically just involved having two identical fields facing eachother, like a floor and a ceiling, separated by 4 feet or so. Also, mine was designed for people traveling between planets, while this one seems to be designed for rich people with too much free time on their hands. Also, mine didn't get published.

linked list of color value matrices

Um, I should have put these up earlier, but then I didn't.

Pictures from Utah.

Machines that pump blood

I donated blood again, on Wednesday. While I was waiting to get screened a guy who works there approached me and asked if I could donate double red cells. The requirements are to be 150lb and some height I can't remember, but it's under the 6'2" which people tell me I am; I fit the requirements. I said I could, and we did the whole screening process. I had good iron levels and heart rate, but my blood pressure was a little higher than normal (120/80) but still relatively good. I sat down at this machine, got the needle put in, and it started taking my blood. About half a liter later it filtered my red blood cells from the plasma (which was bright yellow, a good thing I am told) and then the machine pushed saline solution back into my body, followed by the plasma. The saline is cold, and my plasma has cooled off considerably from being out of my body for so long, and all this cold liquid going into my bloodstream starts to make me cold. Then, it starts all over again, taking another half liter of blood. This time, after the saline went in, and the plasma got started, my vein clotted. This is bad, since the machine is still pushing fluid up the tube and into my arm. I start to get this large bump where the needle's going in, which I am told is the plasma collecting under my skin (what else could it be? the beginning of a new forearm?). It gets to be about 2 inches across and an inch or so high. It doesn't hurt, but it feels bad anyway; it felt like there was pressure under my skin (which there was) and I started wondering how much pressure my skin could contain before busting. The guy taking my blood turns off the pump, and the bump in my skin eventually fades away. This, however, means that I lose most of the plasma I would have gotten back. So I'm out a liters worth of red blood cells and about a half liter of plasma. They patch me up, give me donuts and drinks, and a t-shirt, and I go on my way, trying to figure out the easiest way to get warm without burning myself too badly.