Carborendum

We had a cat which passed away a few years ago. I believe it to have been the smartest cat I've ever seen. We would open the door to her room every morning for family prayer. As we gathered, she would join us in the living room, sat up, propped up on her front legs. When we bowed our heads, she crouched down in the upright laying-down position. As we said "Amen" she would straighten up on her front legs again. So, yes, you could say we had a spiritual connection to the cat. One day we saw her crawling behind furniture and under furniture and as lethargic as if she had toted some MJ. After several hours of this, we realized something was wrong. We took her to the vet and she told us that the cat was not long for the earth. The entire family had become quite fond of her. She really did what she could to get along with everyone and do her level best to keep critters out of the house. All the kids were gathered at the vet's office to say goodbye. I think that was the only pet that I shed a tear over in my entire life. And I'm more of a dog person. This current cat? Not so much. But our current dog is just a really good dog. I might cry over her too.

Where were you when I needed you? I have read a lot of those scriptures. But I guess I never really pondered it much. I think it is because I've been doing ok so far. I just never questioned it. I never realized it was specified as it is in scripture. Hmpf. Then I guess we shouldn't be watching sporting events on Sunday (live or on TV)... and a whole bunch more.

I think the best way to look at this might be that it is a special type of covenant. Usually, God sets the conditions and we accept those conditions. Instead, He gives us a principle and a very general commandment (Keep the Sabbath Holy). But He allows us to set the conditions of observance. That in and of itself is rare. But the other half is that the Lord promises us something. What is His promise? Has anyone actually formalized this to consider what He gives us in return. And does that exchange seem reasonable? It is far too easy to basically say "I'm going to church on Sundays. That's how I keep the Sabbath. So, the Lord is going to bless me with peace all week long because I went to Church for 2 hours a week." Some will believe this. I do not. Let God judge. In the end, it is up to Him to determine if He will observe His end of the deal that man may suppose is expected.

I didn't see this yet. So...

When my dad's business wasn't doing well, we ate from food supply. One major thing I discovered was: I cannot stand dry milk. But I had always used evaporated milk as the "cream" for Pero and Postum. That seemed to be fine. Interesting cultural anomaly: My sister served her mission in Korea. She happened to talk to some Korean women who had spent time in the US. Without going into details about the conversation they mentioned two interesting opinions from these women. They thought that the Caucasian face "looked funny." Funny - strange. Not funny-hah-hah. So, no, they did not find white men attractive. White people tended to smell like milk. Since I grew up largely in the US, I don't know what the "smell of milk" really is -- except for non-fat or dehydrated milk. I don't know if it was smell or taste. But the sensation was in my nose even though it came out of my mouth. It was almost like an aftertaste. Yuck!!

When I was growing up, our family had several clear rules about observing the Sabbath. 1. No working or engaging in business/commerce (this would include attending a professional sporting event). 2. No shopping. 3. No swimming. 4. No playing sports. You might notice that we didn't really have rules about what to do. Only what we would NOT do. The only "to do" was to attend church. Well, duh. This brings up many criticisms like: What's the difference between attending a sporting event in person vs watching it on TV. What's the difference between swimming vs any other exercise? What's the difference between playing sports and playing a video game? (yes, we were allowed to play video games). The answer is simple: I don't know and I don't care. The fact is that we were at least conscientious about observing the Sabbath. We set is aside as a separate day. There had to be SOMEthing that made it substantively different for us. And our family chose these things as both our effort to remind us that there was this thing called the Sabbath, and that we had some behaviors we were doing to get away from all the junk that the world throws at us all the time. There is a very nice family in our ward who seems very active, and all that. But one day they invited my son to visit on a Sunday. We found out later that he went swimming at their house. I was not mad at anyone. They apparently had different rules for the Sabbath than we did. My son at least pretended to not know about our rules. But of all my kids, he's the only one that tends to lie. So, we said he could never go back to their house again on Sundays. We're not in charge of telling them what Sabbath observance means. That's their job to determine for their family, just as it is our job to determine for our family. But at @Vort indcated, this is not free license to do whatever you do and don't want to do on Sundays. It is for your family to prayerfully determine how to best keep the Sabbath in your own family. The Lord's caveat is: The Sabbath was made for YOUR benefit (spiritually and physically). It is not made to engage in wild abandon.

My daughter repeated something worthy of comment and tangentially related to the topic. This was from YSA bishopric, not a stake conference. The entire bishopric basically told the congregation that if you don't end up married after you "time out" (my words, not theirs) then it isn't the end of the world. My daughter then said that it seems sad that there simply aren't enough people who even want to get married. They just want to hang out and have fun. Well, there is a strong innuendo there, even in LDS circles. Many of the women in the ward want careers instead of children and family. Many of the men have decided that simple minimum wage jobs will be fine for their lifestyles. Why bother with climbing the ladder? No one wants to get married anyway. So, why do I need to make money and support anyone but myself? I need to note that this isn't a side-effect of feminism or of LGBTQ... ideology. It is a feature. And even if most participants don't realize it, the originators intended it to be the endgame.

Not quite. He wrote the song and he and his producer both thought that it had a "Van Morrison" feel to it. When they heard the music played back they said,"Hey, we just wrote a Van Morrison song." This was not meant to say that they wrote a copy. But that the overall "feel" was very similar to Van Morrison's style. I'm going to tell a Billy Joel anecdote. He was writing the song that would eventually become "Moving Out." While one of his greatest hits, it is a lesser known piece to people who don't collect his work. When he finished the composition, his producer said,"You idiot! That's *(another song which I don't remember and had never heard)*" Billy tried to point out the differences. But his producer would have none of it. In the end, he had to admit that while he thought it was different, it was similar enough that his own producer believed it was a copy. He was very disappointed because he spent a lot of time on that piece. In the end, he was happy because the new composition seemed to have a better fit for the lyrics he wrote. If a trained musician/composer/songwriter like Billy Joel believes it is different, but the common aficionado is going to think it is the same, sometimes the lesser trained judgment will win out anyway.

Here's a problem for the boycott. Last I heard the sales have only dropped by about 15%. That is nowhere near enough to become a successful boycott. Is 15% of your audience "the core"? I'm not sure what that means, then. Yet, conservatives are all touting "sales have plummeted!" 15% sounds like a lot. But they were saying that when they dropped only a few percent. And I haven't heard much more of a drop recently. They'll recover from 15%. And all the beer drinking folks will go back to the cheapest beer there is (Bud Light) when inflation keeps hiking up. They said their stocks were taking a hit when they were down 3% (while they were still up 2% for the past year). I really wish this boycott could make some societal change. But it simply won't. One shining glimmer of hope is the way that A-B has been handling ads and public statements since then. They keep making it worse on their own. They don't need a boycott to destroy them. They might do it to themselves. And in the end, there really is no real efficacy for this boycott no matter the result. All the other beers that people are choosing as an alternative are all owned by the same parent company anyway.

I've also noticed that the comparisons I've heard are not about the melody. They are about the background and beat. You can't copyright a time signature & tempo for Pete's sake! Are there some similarities? Not near enough IMO. While we have similar rises and falls, the rhythm is clearly different, the steps between peaks and valleys are different. And there are differences in dynamics and pauses. The differences become much more clear when you see the sheet music. It isn't just a change in tempo or key (like some real copies I've heard). These are substantive differences. It is a lot clearer when you see the actual sheet music. If you can isolate the melodies and point out the similarities, I'd be happy to listen.

Apparently you didn't see the smiles. That freaks me out like Pennywise. Just watch it again looking for smiles throughout the video and tell me their faces look ok.

For those who haven't heard, Marvin Gaye's estate (or whoever holds the copyright to his music today) is suing Ed Sheeran for the similarities between the songs: Let's Get it On Thinking Out Loud While the background music is very similar, the melody line is pretty distinct. And the overall feel is just plain different. The problem with pointing out the background music is that it is just a common chord progression that we hear in about a million songs. When I was a teen (when there was no internet) I listened to tapes and CDs of songs I wanted to play on the guitar. I never got really good at fingerstyle or even tabs. But I could do chord progressions pretty easily. I wrote down all the lyrics as I heard them on the recordings. I then had to figure out the chords. This part was actually pretty easy because almost all the songs from the 50s to the 80 used the same progressions over and over again. You just had to figure out the key. Then the patterns were all remarkably similar. Once in a while I'd get a surprise which would slow me down a bit. But I'd get over that hiccup and keep going with the same pattern in a dozen other songs. It is this very common chord progression that is being fought in court now. I am on the side of wanting original music. But to have suits over this is just plain crap. There are simply too many highly common tunes that are so basic that copyrighting them would be like patenting the wheel or a staff. That's ridiculous. No one can own these. It's akin to patent trolling. I wonder, though, if there is an analog in the software industry that could be applied. As I understand it, the industry has agreed (as an industry and with political intervention) to certain levels of overlap to be "necessary and proper" to the development of new products. Basics of computer operation on the programming level have only a few options. So, the industry has agreed that these fundamentals have a sort of shared patent. I haven't seen the specifics of the agreement. This is what my software engineer BIL tells me. As far as software with similar functions (such as word processing software from different developers) must maintain a certain percentage of unique programming. So, some overlap is allowed. But it must be kept to a minimum. Again, I haven't read the legal documents. This is my understanding. So, why can't the music industry agree to similar levels of overlap? Can't we all agree that there are going to be certain things that are so fundamental to music that anyone could really come up with the exact same thing on their own? Independent development? Well, we could say that about every patent. Yes, but the likelihood with very basic things is much higher than with more complex things. And when we're talking about a basic chord progression, that's just SO common that it is ridiculous to believe anyone "owns" that chord progression.

BTW, it seems that virtue-signalling is highly prevalent in both cancelling and boycotts. But boycotts can do without them. Cancelling, not so much. I'll have everyone know that I am fully complying with the Bud Light boycott. I vow never to drink any Bud Light for the rest of my life .

Way back when Apple introduced their first home computers, my teacher had me (along with a couple of other students) learn Apple Basic. After we learned some fundamentals, she had us write all the commands that would be required to tell a robot to prepare a breakfast -- written in plain language format. It was something like an introduction to pseudo code. I don't remember the food that was required. But I remember one of the commands being to turn on the stove. So, I'm guessing it was bacon and eggs. When we compared notes, I had over 500 steps. Others had 30 to 40. I could have reduced my list to about 200 if I had used subroutines. But subroutines hadn't been taught to me yet. The reason mine was so much longer than theirs was because they simply assumed that the computer "knew" certain things like "how to turn on a stove." While I only assumed that it "knew what a stove was." Now we see that computers require a WHOLE lot more information about the world around them. It doesn't even know what a stove is. This commercial shows they know virtually nothing about what a can or bottle of beer is. They have to have every detail programmed into it. Without that information that we humans simply "get" by looking at one in real life for the first time, it can't really "understand" anything. Anything that can be defined by a mathematical pattern is easily programmed. But anything that requires exact definitions (such as the size and shape of a can of beer) must be programmed in bit by bit. What this reminds me about is when morfing was first introduced by the film Willow. The person who developed it spend millions of dollars to create the software. He had to program in EVERYthing at a fundamental programming level. A few years later, a piece of morfing software sold for about $25. Whoever actually takes the time to develop software that can describe the physical world around them (forget about esoteric stuff) in terms that computers can really understand will revolutionize AI. But given that deepfakes have been around for over 20 years and are still easily detectable, it seems that the human face is quite difficult to program. The face is not just a static object. It is a magnificent piece of bioengineering that changes with every fleeting emotion or inflection. All of its geometric properties are almost always in flux. A computer can't simply predict all those changes. It has to have them programmed in. It would have to have musculoskeletal structures defined. Morfing of each muscle and the reaction of interacting muscles. Then the fluid dynamics of the skin layers and their effects on other parts of the face that are not directly linked to the muscles being flexed. I could go on. But it would take a LOT for a computer to eventually understand the human face.

And that is certainly wrong when ANYone does it. My point is that there is a difference between boycotts and cancelling. If you engage in cancelling (whether from or against the right or left) it is wrong. If you boycott, well, best of luck to you.

...repressing the urge...

...k...

There's no problem here. It is exactly what they play in elevators. But what you need to consider is that it was originally composed, there was no such thing as "elevator music." Elevators were still pretty new in that era. The fact that it was the first of its kind should say something. Also, if you hear it in a proper theatre (see what I did there?) on an orchestra grand piano by a master pianist, it simply sounds a WHOLE lot better than from the speakers in an elevator.

I still don't know what the purpose of Stake Conferences is.

"Earning a living" is commanded of us. We are to eat by the sweat of our brow. That has nothing to do with wealth. Anything we have is the Lord's. And even if we "earn a living", we must always give glory and thanks to the Lord for what we have. It is the failure to recognize that it really all belongs to the Lord that is the sin. It is He who gives us all we have (not by our "earning" it). We only have stewardship over it. And He will hold us accountable for how we handle that stewardship and how we care for His stuff. Whatever negotiations you make, you make it because it is going to glorify the Lord somehow. It's all His stuff anyway. So, think of it as bargaining with another department of a business. The other guy has been given stewardship as well. But you want to make sure your department runs as well as the Lord would want it to run. And the other guy needs to ensure that his department runs as well as the Lord would want it to run. Our mortal negotiations will determine a balance point. If we negotiate too poorly or too selfishly, that is not what the Lord would want because it results in a sub-optimal condition. But we do need to negotiate. A recent example from my life -- I had not worked for a particular client in over a year. They called me and asked if I could pick up an old project that they really couldn't do without me. There simply aren't enough people in my particular areas of specialty. I agreed as long as I could get a raise (I cited recent inflation as the cause, and the fact that I'd kept the same rate for three or four years). Since I "floated" my rate to a junior manager, it wasn't set in concrete. The supervising manager made me an offer at the same rate I was at before which was now at the top end of what they would pay engineers. I mentioned my history and inflation again. He offered a small raise. I countered. We agreed. And we were set. The rate put me on par with many of the managing engineers at the company. But I was just a staff engineer because of my specialty. When there are only one or two engineers of a specialty, no one "manages" them. I could have been a bully about it because I knew how dire his situation was. I could have asked for a much bigger raise. And eventually, he would have given it to me. But I still wanted to be fair to the company. And I was ok with a little less than I could have forced out of him, in exchange for longevity. In the end, I believe we both gave a bit and met in the middle. And we're seeing good fruits of the transaction. Everyone is benefiting. How does this give glory to the Lord? First, everyone there knows I'm LDS. Not quite so common among Texans. They also know that I'm very good at what I do, thus I'm in demand. Now they know that I can be fair, but part of it is so they can know that "those Mormons" are really good at their jobs. I could certainly get by on less. It would be tough. We wouldn't have nearly as much kim chee. But we could make it work. I chose to not do so because I wanted some of the managers to be able to say "I hired a couple Mormons for some jobs. They were really good at what they did. And they always treated us right. They earned every penny I paid them."

So, I saw a scene that is closer to what (I think) you might be describing. Jesus is given a robe or cloak of some sort, for which he is very grateful. As he puts it on, he jokingly says, "I could fit all of you in this" or something to that effect. Maybe he could because, miracles. But he was clearly joking. Again, it could be thought of as a figure of speech signifying that it was very large.

So, how does that stack up against the bullet points I posted earlier?

Compensating for something, are we?

I don't know what @mikbone was thinking. American kids are much cuter.