Texas conservatives have won a curriculum change. Read about it here.

I grew up in a country with strong socialist governance. It still is but the country suffered long enough that the government had to open the gates for capitalism. Only then the country started flourishing. The same you can say about China as well. They started progressing only after they allowed capitalism to take advantage of their cheap labor.

Back to our story. The following is my opinion based on my own observation of events occurred in my life time. I don’t practice any religion.

Back home we had a secular state. The state did not push the religious to the corner. They never felt threatened. Schools were free to teach religious text as a non science subject. I grew up reading religious text of all the religions in the region. That was not considered science but were not prohibited from teaching. That was the key. Kids separated science from religion early on. Both had their own place the society. I don’t remember anyone ever questioning the evolution when I was in K-12 in the 80′s. My parents didn’t either. Dinosaurs were as real as Adam and Eve.  I know it is hard for people in the US and most of the west to understand. That is because the conflict is too deep here.

Lot of schools were run by religious organizations. They did not force their beliefs on other people. They did have the option of learning more about it though.

That is just the part of the story. The more important aspect of the story is where there is similarity with what is going on in the US. We had a quota system. People of certain origin were given quotas in schools and jobs. This meant that qualified people from backgrounds that were considered influential could not get in to prestigious schools and jobs a lot of times. They had no choice but to look for private education which also had to implement the quota. Lot of them left the country and came to US and some western countries. I am not one of them. After over half a century of government sponsored inequality, these groups backlashed and took the office. They did not do a lot of damage but the message was clear.

The good way to promote secularism is to accommodate. Me and my parents religion was accommodated by the majority religion in the country. Scientific community accommodated the beliefs of the religions. Religions did not question the science. They were operating in different dimensions. Many large government offices had prayer places for all religions. Even the top scientific institutions promote religious harmony. Bottom line: religion was not ridiculed.

Most people have a need to believe in something. If it is not the established religions, they will look for other things to believe. It could be witch craft, vampires or aliens. We just keep moving from one to another when challenged. Only a handful people find no need to believe in any kind of supernatural or other worldly powers.  When those people get the power and try push it on others, there will be friction. People may admire the accomplishment of these individuals but they would not sacrifice their beliefs for them. You may be able to educate them but that is only transient. Remember, almost a century of communism in the former Soviet Union did not eradicate such beliefs.

Let us all try to accommodate each others beliefs. There is no need to follow them but do not ridicule them or prevent them from following their beliefs. We all know that beliefs that harms others physically, economically or other ways need not be tolerated the state. The definition of those other ways should be very narrow and specific and agreeable to all the sides.

Here is another case against iPhone and Apple controlling the ecosystem. This is message pops up as of today on Grooveshark web site for iPhone.

Grooveshark Is Not Supported On The iPhone

Right now there is not a Grooveshark application for iPhones through Apple’s iPhone App Store. Unfortunately at this time, Apple is unwilling to work with Grooveshark to approve our application. This means that iPhones are unable to download Grooveshark for iPhone unless they are jailbroken. We are sincerely sorry to be unable to offer Grooveshark to all iPhones, as we’ve done everything in our power to have it included in Apple’s App Store.

If your iPhone is jailbroken, you are able to download the Grooveshark app. Read our blog post to find out more.

That is lame. I don’t know the reasons why the app is not approved. This is what holds me back from buying more Apple products. I definitely have plans to buy an iPad but whenever I see something like this, I really wish there was a good alternative.

If you remember, a particularly interesting person said a while ago that religion is like pot. Now someone with the same political views says it is video games, the new religion masses believe is the new pot.

He also says video games promote the need for cigarettes, alcohol and drug, which is capitalism, the road to hell. OK, capitalism is all about smoking pot and getting drunk. There is also hell?

Here is the article.

PS: I don’t play games with gang or drug related story as its main theme.

Aegis Mobility, a Canadian software company, says it has developed software that will detect whether a cell phone is moving at car speeds. When that happens, the software will alert the cellular network, telling it to hold calls and text messages until the drive is over.

What?

How about the other passengers in the car? Will they be able to make a call? Can the service detect if the driver is making the call or a passenger?

There is an interesting and intelligent conversation going on at this blog. I wish they had come out earlier in a more mainstream way (MSDN caters mostly to software developers). There are lot of people who listen to the haters and nodd their head because they don’t know any better. If they had half of the information that is imparted on this blog, they would have stopped the haters in their track.

There are lots of annoyances about Windows Vista. But there are more annoyances on other OS’es out there. I wouldn’t even want to discusss about the completely closed architectures.

After the open source community, the software company that I trust most is Microsoft. I never had a reason, at least any major concern about Microsoft snooping at my personal information. Even with their almost monopolistic hold on the market for operating system. I say almost because we do have real alternatives for an OS.

Some talk about the DRM stuff on Vista. I think it is because the content industry is arm twisting every software company out there to include crippleware. Vista in its quest to provide media capability probably had to sacrifice some dignity because of this arm twisting.

Will they be able to do better in Windows 7? May be some. DRM? I don’t think so. The content industry is getting stronger with more and more power wielding at the centers of power. RealDVD is just the latest example.

What that means? In many other places it means that it will be sold under unrated rating or something like that. But in Australia and some EU countries it means you cannot sell the game. Lot of the game communities in other parts of the world are “outraged” by the draconian system. Well, that’s their country and their system. And it is a democracy. If they don’t like it, they will change it. Video games are just getting to the mainstream. Once it gets the same level of attention as TV or Movies, rating system will change. Look at the movies and TV stuff. They have far more violent and creepy content than most video games. Aren’t they being shown and sold in Australia. I think so.