Precisely simple

Definitions can be tricky things. Words have wildly divergent meanings depending on who is using them and why. So nailing down concrete definitions is a good thing to do any time you get the chance.

I’m sure I’m appropriating this from somewhere, but oh well.

Atheist: a person who finds it improbable that an agent cause brought about our reality.

Theist: a person who finds it probable that an agent cause brought about our reality.

Agnostic: anybody else.

This is the bottom line. All other definitions are just rhetorical posturing.

Unmitigated, inexcusable, abject jackassery

This snapshot shows the red supergiant Betelgeuse, a star many times larger than the orbit of Earth, on a collision course with a massive interstellar wall of dust. Betelgeuse, which can be seen with the naked eye as one of the stars in Orion’s belt, is due to explode in a cataclysmic supernova at any time.

I live in the center of a fairly large city. It took me a while to get used to the constant stream of blaring sirens running up and down the street a dozen feet from my window, but now it doesn’t even make me stir.

I love living in the city. It only takes me a few minutes to get to work, and there’s exciting and interesting stuff to do pretty much everywhere. Having a newborn does sort of put a damper on certain leisure activities, of course—I haven’t had a cigar in months—but that’s to be expected. I lived in tiny-to-small sized towns my entire life, even when I was at college, so this is a welcome difference.

But apparently living in a city has its hazards and shortcomings as well.

Our apartment is near the corner of a busy intersection, like pretty much all apartments in a downtown area are wont to be. Yesterday, I was just leaving our apartment complex when I saw a guy on a bike stopped at the intersection with an SUV behind him.