A life in words

  • “No Man Is A Failure Who Has Friends”

    So wrote George Bailey’s guardian angel, and as I was flooded by your kind thoughts and congratulations today I felt rather like George Bailey being saved by those who loved him. Though I may not be who I wish I was, I know I’m not a failure because I have the thoughtfulest, kindest family and…

  • Boring But Useful Post: Printing to BYU Printers from Linux

    BYU uses the Pharos print system around campus. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be direct Linux support for Pharos. But linuxers are in luck, because it is still possible to print to the campus printers. On Ubuntu 9.10 I did the following: Opened http://localhost:631/ in Firefox (not Chrome—this didn’t work for some reason) Clicked “Adding…

  • Fall Semester

    I blame my lack of blogging in recent months on being busy with my first semester of graduate school. In the interim before I start the next semester, I want to let you—oh loyal reader—know what was going on in my life during that time. 1. Per my stake president’s counsel given more than a…

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion…. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations…. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form….John Stuart Mill, On LIberty