One step closer to the goal

Jan has a new computer. As well as the necessary USB 2 sockets (about ten of them, as far as I can see) it has an Intel Core i3 processor, 3Gb of memory and half a terabyte of hard drive, which I think should be more than enough for at least a few years or so*. Windows 7 and Office 2010 seem to run, and should be easier to see than Office 2007 on XP was.

We're not sure yet what we will do with the previous thinkybox once I'm sure everything's been reclaimed (though dusting it leaps to mind as a short-term possibility). As far as I know it's in reasonable working order, but is quite old as computers go.

*It's been said in my hearing that the speed of technological advancement in this field is increasing exponentially. I take leave to doubt this--I don't think there will ever come a time when a new computer is being released every ten seconds, or even every day. Zeno rears his Grecian head. I think there will be a point when computers do all we want them to do as fast as it's convenient to us for them to do it, and if we've got any sense we will then turn our inventive zeal to other directions, like a workable real-time FTL drive.

Silence is silence.

There is a discussion going on on FB about this article, and the phrase "silence is compliance" has come up in comments more than once.

So I posted this.

"Silence is silence. I refuse to give extremists of any kind control over my life. I will speak when I have something to say that I consider worth saying, and anyone who presumes to guess my opinion based on what I do not say will probably be wrong more often than s/he is right. And as for "the delegitimisation of religion in public opinion," I am completely, utterly and totally opposed to that, and I will say so as often and as lengthily as I please, or not. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to be forced (or guilted) into speaking.

But then, I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim nor an atheist nor a pagan, so as far as I know there aren't any extremists of me. Join me in my wishy-washiness."

And, as usual when I say anything that comes within a mile of being definite, I'm now having doubts. Is this a fair position? Should I be obliged to raise a bleat of protest every time some religious or irreligious lunatic does something horrendous, or be automatically enrolled in said lunatic's fan club by default? Am I classed as a terrorist sympathiser because I have never excoriated the Splavonian Anarchist Front for their unconscionable actions in the War Of Throckmorton's Left Leg? Does Emmett Ploob, the Anti-Abortion Avenger of Chunkit, Missouri, sleep more easily at night because he has never faced the righteous wrath of my keyboard?

I don't think so. I don't think what I say, or do not say, has that much effect on the world at large. Were I a bishop, or a Minister of the Crown, or a leading proprietor of a globe-spanning media empire, I probably would feel some responsibility to speak out when ghastliness is perpetrated (more than many of the current lot do, anyway). As it is, I am a semi-private citizen and my words are my own, to give or to withhold as I choose. Aren't they?