"Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide."
-Emperor Napoleon I
"Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide."
-Emperor Napoleon I
-Emperor Napoleon I
Spiritual Fantasy
I found out recently that a friend and former co-worker has just decided, at the age of 28, after living an active and successful life, that he is going to become a Catholic Priest.
I think that this is very sad.
I worked with this guy for over a year and was hoping that I would have the chance to work with him on some sort of business project again some day. He has all the qualities of those who can become very successful; an entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence, persistence, and he is a talented salesman. He could have become very wealthy in his professional life, and I would have assumed him to be the type of person who would have wanted to find happiness in his personal life with a family eventually.
But now he is going to give all of that up and use those talents to “save souls” in an unhealthy and unnatural lifestyle. Such a waste.
Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. -Carl Sagan
But we all must find our own way in the world. I do respect the courage it takes to make such a huge and life-changing decision.
23rd April 2007 at 9:31 pm | OpenDNS
I have been having a lot of problems with my internet connection recently. The bandwidth always seems fine once I connect to something but getting connected is a problem. So I decided to try OpenDNS…
A DNS server translates domain names (e.g. eidoan.com) to IP addresses (e.g. 66.7.201.74) which then allows the computer/ISP to retrieve whatever information you are looking for on the internet. Normally your computer uses the DNS server provided by your ISP.
According to their website, OpenDNS is just a better DNS server. Not only is it faster, both in speed and updates, but it also blocks some phishing sites and corrects certain typing errors, such as eidoan.cmo instead of eidoan.com.
The setup process was very easy. Just go to your Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) settings for your connection and change the default DNS settings to:
Preferred DNS server: 208.67.222.222
Alternate DNS server: 208.67.220.220
You can find more detailed instructions here.
I entered these settings on my computer at home, restarted it, and my internet connection has never worked better.
Web pages load quickly and Outlook Express is connecting to my mail accounts faster then ever. Also, my two biggest internet problems lately, which were that I was having trouble getting connected to my AIM account through Trillian and getting connected to Vangaurd, are completely gone now.
So, unless Insight did something to fix my connection at the exact same time I restarted my computer after changing the DNS settings, I have to attribute the improvement in my internet access to OpenDNS.
The Journey is Going Well
Hill Seven, Inc has been operating very well since official start of operations on January 16th. As of April 1, collected and billed revenue has well surpassed $10,000 and pretax profit has reached several thousand dollars. About $1,600 of my expenses were startup costs though, so those I will not have to worry about any more.