Excerpt from Wikipedia

There is a common myth that the earliest reference to thirteen being unlucky or evil is from the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (circa 1780 BCE), where the thirteenth law is omitted. In fact, the original Code of Hammurabi has no numeration. The translation by L.W. King (1910), edited by Richard Hooker, omitted one article:

If the seller have gone to (his) fate (i. e., have died), the purchaser shall recover damages in said case fivefold from the estate of the seller.

Other translations of the Code of Hammurabi, for example the translation by Robert Francis Harper, include the 13th article.^[2]

Some Christian traditions have it that at the Last Supper, Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th to sit at the table.^[3] However, the number 13 is not uniformly bad in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, the 13 attributes of God (also called the thirteen attributes of mercy) are enumerated in the Torah (Exodus 34:6–7).^[4] Some modern Christian churches also use 13 attributes of God in sermons.^[5]

Triskaidekaphobia may have also affected the Vikings—it is believed that Loki in the Norse pantheon was the 13th god.^{[citation needed]} More specifically, Loki was believed to have engineered the murder of Balder, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the funeral. This is perhaps related to the superstition that if thirteen people gather, one of them will die in the following year. Another Norse tradition involves the myth of Norna-Gest: when the uninvited norns showed up at his birthday celebration—thus increasing the number of guests from ten to thirteen—the norns cursed the infant by magically binding his lifespan to that of a mystic candle they presented to him.

Ancient Persians believed the twelve constellations in the Zodiac controlled the months of the year, and each ruled the earth for a thousand years at the end of which the sky and earth collapsed in chaos. Therefore, the thirteenth is identified with chaos and the reason Persians leave their houses to avoid bad luck on the thirteenth day of the Persian Calendar, a tradition called Sizdah Bedar.

In 1881, an influential group of New Yorkers led by U.S. Civil War veteran Captain William Fowler came together to put an end to this and other superstitions. They formed a dinner cabaret club, which they called the Thirteen Club. At the first meeting, on Friday 13 January 1881 at 8:13 p.m., 13 people sat down to dine in room 13 of the venue. The guests walked under a ladder to enter the room and were seated among piles of spilled salt. All of the guests survived. Thirteen Clubs sprang up all over North America for the next 40 years. Their activities were regularly reported in leading newspapers, and their numbers included five future U.S. presidents, from Chester A. Arthur to Theodore Roosevelt. Thirteen Clubs had various imitators, but they all gradually faded from interest as people became less superstitious.^[6]

On Friday 13 October 1307, the Knights Templar were ordered to be arrested by Philip IV of France. The theory has been suggested, in the book Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson, that the Templars went underground among masons in England and later developed into Freemasons. Because most of the founding fathers of the United States of America were Freemasons, it is possible the memory of the terror of that day is preserved in the Friday the 13th.

Next month will be my son’s second birthday and mark the two best years of my life thus far. I have been blessed with a beautiful son who I love with all my heart and becoming a Dad was the best thing to ever happen to me. My wife has made the Dad life picture perfect by supporting me in anything that I do, and floods our family with unconditional love.

My life as a Dad

My life as a Dad is the sole driving motivation of everything that I do and everything that I work for. My parents did an amazing job of providing and caring for me and I owe it to them to provide the same for their grandchildren. Being a Dad has meant that I assume roles that I never even thought about previously, like teaching manners and watching the same movies over and over again if that is what my son wants. Watching my son explore the world with everything absorbing into his mind like a new sponge is unbelievable. Watching his first breath, seeing his first steps, hearing him say that he loves me for the first time is more than enough to fill a million lifetimes of happiness.

What happened to my goals?

Before I became a Dad, there were so many “important” things to me that I was working to achieve and desired so much. Shiny cars, wealth, and success were goals of mine then and although the goals haven’t changed, the reason for them have, drastically. I want shiny cars to teach my children to value what our family has worked hard to achieve and that the pleasure of nice things isn’t given, it’s earned. Building wealth comes with dedication, respect, and honoring what you have already worked so hard for. With wealth, I can provide my family with trips around the world to show them things I have seen in other countries and have them build a respect for different cultures. The last goal is success. It’s very important to me that my children understand the true definition of success. This is one word that I can say Webster can not define. Success is only defined by each person individually. To me, reaching your goals is not the definition of success but only a stepping stone to getting there. My success will be defined by the choices I make, the lessons I learn, and the value I give back. So, as a father to my son, I started giving back.

For the love of people

Children love. It’s wired into their existence before they are born and during experiences throughout their life, they learn to continue loving or let it fall dormant within them. Sadly, it’s not their fault when the latter of those two happen. It’s very important to my wife and I to teach our children to love each other and to love all people. A strong love and respect for others is very hard to teach and best shown through example. Sometimes, my wife does a better job at that than I do. Just another reason why I love her.

A little Daddy humor

Below is a very funny video shared with me by a friend from church. She has a great sense of humor and just the kind of person to bring a smile to anyone’s face. Thanks Brooke.

Apple iphone

Don’t like your cell phone service provider but love your phone? (iPhone for Verizon?)

Ok, so an iPhone on Verizon’s network is going to need a little more love than just jailbreaking it but at least this is a step in the right direction. For those of us who want the ability to choose a service provider by their network and not worry about having a phone to fit ours need, has just received a nice gift from the FCC. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has ruled jailbreaking an iPhone or rooting any phone for that matter is completely legal. Jailbroken iPhones are often used to operate on different cell phone service providers or install and run unauthorized third party applications. Although it was previously and technically illegal to jailbreak an iPhone, it’s estimated that over a million iPhone have been jailbroken and no charges have been filed or charges pressed.

What is Jailbreaking a cell phone?

Jailbreaking is a process that allows iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to run third-party unsigned code on their devices by unlocking the operating system and allowing the user root access. Although iPhones are the most popular, cell phones in general can be rooted.

How to jailbreak an iPhone?

If you are interested in jailbreaking your iPhone, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube to help get you going. Just remember that this will absolutely void your warranty.

Additional Resources For Jail Breaking Your iPhone

Matt Brandenburg.com iPhone 4 iOS 4.0.1 Jailbreak Now Available… And Web Based!

If you are nervous to update your version of WordPress because of possible compatibility issues with your plugins, then wait. I personally did not wait and did not have any issues but I run my entire blog off 5 plugins. Kimberly Catleberry of JustAskKim.com suggests waiting for all plugins to be compatible with WordPress 3.0. This is especially for beginner bloggers. However, not all plugins are still supported so you may never receive an update for them. It’s ok to wait for plugins to become compatible but for me the pros of version 3.0 out weighs the cons of outdated unsupported plugins.

Below is the blog post from http://wordpress.org/ posted on June 17, 2010 by Matt.

Arm your vuvuzelas: WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies. (Twenty Ten theme shows all of that off.) Developers and network admins will appreciate the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress, creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation. As a user, you will love the new lighter interface, the contextual help on every screen, the 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, bulk updates so you can upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click, and blah blah blah just watch the video. :) (In HD, if you can, so you can catch the Easter eggs.)

For a more comprehensive look at everything that has improved in 3.0 check out 3.0’s Codex page or the long list of issues in Trac. (We’re trying to keep these announcement posts shorter.) Whew! That’s a lot packed into one release. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the 3.X cycle we’ll be in for the next two and a half years.

The Future

Normally this is where I’d say we’re about to start work on 3.1, but we’re actually not. We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress. The growth of the community has been breathtaking, including over 10.3 million downloads of version 2.9, but so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else. Over the next three months we’re going to split into ninja/pirate teams focused on different areas of the around-WordPress experience, including the showcase, Codex, forums, profiles, update and compatibility APIs, theme directory, plugin directory, mailing lists, core plugins, wordcamp.org… the possibilities are endless. The goal of the teams isn’t going to be to make things perfect all at once, just better than they are today. We think this investment of time will give us a much stronger infrastructure to grow WordPress.org for the many tens of millions of users that will join us during the 3.X release cycle.

It Takes a Village

I’m proud to acknowledge the contributions of the following 218 people to the 3.0 release cycle. These are the folks that make WordPress what it is, whose collaboration and hard work enable us to build something greater than the sum of our parts. In alphabetical order, of course.

Committers: azaozz (Andrew Ozz) (prof), dd32 (Dion Hulse) (prof), donncha (Donncha O Caoimh) (prof), iammattthomas (Matt Thomas) (prof), josephscott (Joseph Scott) (prof), markjaquith (Mark Jaquith) (prof), matt (Matt Mullenweg) (prof), nacin (Andrew Nacin) (prof), nbachiyski (Николай Бачийски) (prof), ryan (Ryan Boren) (prof), westi (Peter Westwood) (prof), and wpmuguru (Ron Rennick) (prof). Contributors: aaroncampbell (Aaron Campbell) (prof), akerem (prof), alexkingorg (Alex King) (prof), amattie (prof), ampt (Luke Gallagher) (prof), andrea_r (prof), andreasnrb (Andreas Nurbo) (prof), anilo4ever (Angelo Verona) (prof), apeatling (Andy Peatling) (prof), apokalyptik (Demitrious Kelly) (prof), arena (André Renaut) (prof), barry (Barry Abrahamson) (prof), batmoo (Mohammad Jangda) (prof), beaulebens (Beau Lebens) (prof), belg4mit (prof), bigdawggi (Matthew G. Richmond) (prof), blepoxp (Glenn Ansley) (prof), brentes (Brent Shepherd) (prof), briancolinger (Brian Colinger) (prof), bumbu (prof), caesarsgrunt (Caesar Schinas) (prof), camiloclc (prof), CAMWebDesign (prof), carbolineum (prof), caspie (prof), catiakitahara (Cátia Kitahara) (prof), CharlesClarkson (Charles Clarkson) (prof), chdorner (Christof Dorner) (prof), chrisbliss18 (Chris Jean) (prof), chrisscott (Chris Scott) (prof), cnorris23 (Brandon Allen) (prof), coffee2code (Scott Reilly) (prof), computerwiz908 (prof), cyberhobo (Dylan Kuhn) (prof), dancole (Dan Cole) (prof), Daniel Koskinen , deepak.seth (Deepak Seth), demetris (Δημήτρης Κίκιζας) (prof), Denis-de-Bernardy (prof), dimadin (Milan Dinić) (prof), dndrnkrd (Dan Drinkard) (prof), docwhat (prof), dougwrites (prof), dphiffer (Dan Phiffer) (prof), dragoonis (prof), dremeda (Dre Armeda) (prof), dtoj , dougal (Dougal Campbell) (prof), duck_ (Jon Cave) (prof), dxjones (David Jones) (prof), eddieringle (Eddie Ringle) (prof), edward mindreantre (Edward Hevlund), eoinomurchu (prof), empireoflight/Ben Dunkle (prof), ericmann (Eric Mann) (prof), etiger13 (Eddie Monge Jr.) (prof), filosofo (Austin Matzko) (prof), firebird75 (prof), frankieroberto (Frankie Roberto) (prof), Frumph (Philip M. Hofer) (prof), garyc40 (Gary Cao) (prof), gautam2011 (prof), Gary Ross (Gazzer) , GDragoN (Milan Petrovic) (prof), greenshady (Justin Tadlock) (prof), GIGALinux (Dennis Morhardt) (prof), hakre (prof), husky (prof), iandstewart (Ian Stewart) (prof), ipstenu (Mika Epstein) (prof), jacobsantos (Jacob Santos) (prof), jamescollins (James Collins) (prof), jane (Jane Wells) (prof), jbsil (Jesse Silverstein) (prof), jdub (Jeff Waugh) (prof), jeffikus (Jeffrey Pearce) (prof), jeffstieler (Jeff Stieler) (prof), jeremyclarke (Jeremy Clarke) (prof), jfarthing84 (Jeff Farthing) (prof), Jick (James Dimick) (prof), jmstacey (Jon Stacey) (prof), jobjorn (Jobjörn Folkesson) (prof), johanee (Johan Eenfeldt) (prof), johnbillion (John Blackbourn) (prof), johnjamesjacoby/jjj (John James Jacoby) (prof), johnjosephbachir (John Joseph Bachir) (prof), johnl1479 (John Luetke) (prof), johnonolan (John O’Nolan) (prof), JohnPBloch/wmrom (John Bloch) (prof), joostdevalk/yoast (Joost de Valk) (prof), jorbin (Aaron Jorbin) (prof), joshtime (prof), jshreve (prof), junsuijin (prof), kallewangstedt (Karl Wångstedt) (prof), keighl (Kyle Truscott) (prof), kevinB (Kevin Behrens) (prof), koopersmith (Daryl Koopersmith) (prof), kpdesign (Kim Parsell) (prof), ktdreyer (Ken Dreyer) (prof), kurtmckee (Kurt McKee) (prof), laceous (prof), lancewillett (Lance Willett) (prof), lloydbudd (Lloyd Budd) (prof), lriggle (prof), markauk (prof), markmcwilliams (Mark McWilliams) (prof), markoheijnen (Marko Heijnen) (prof), markup (Sasha Mukhin) (prof), mattsains (prof), matveb (Matias Ventura) (prof), mdawaffe (Michael Adams) (prof) , mentel_br (prof), messenlehner (Brian Messenlehner) (prof), miau_jp (prof), Michael (Michael Heilemann) (prof), MichaelH (prof), mikeschinkel (Mike Schinkel) (prof), Miloslav Beňo , minusfive (prof), miqrogroove (Robert Chapin) (prof), misterbisson (Casey Bisson) (prof), mitchoyoshitaka (mitcho (Michael 芳貴 Erlewine)) (prof), MMN-o (prof), momo360modena (Amaury Balmer) (prof), morganestes (Morgan Estes) (prof), mrmist (David McFarlane) (prof), mtdewvirus (Nick Momrik) (prof), nadavvin (prof), Nao (Naoko McCracken) (prof), nathanrice (Nathan Rice) (prof), neoxx (Bernhard Riedl) (prof), niallkennedy (Niall Kennedy) (prof), ninjaWR (Ryan Murphy) (prof), noel (Noël Jackson) (prof), nomulous (Fletcher Tomalty) (prof), ocean90 (Dominik Schilling) (prof), Otto42 (Samuel Wood) (prof), pedger (prof), PeteMall (prof), pampfelimetten (prof), pnettle (prof), PotterSys (Juan) (prof), prettyboymp (Michael Pretty) (prof), ptahdunbar (Ptah Dunbar) (prof), ramiy (prof), RanYanivHartstein (Ran Yaniv Hartstein) (prof), reaperhulk (Paul Kehrer) (prof), reko (prof), remi (Rémi Prévost) (prof), rlerdorf (Rasmus Lerdorf) (prof) , rmccue (Ryan McCue) (prof), rooodini (prof), rovo89 (prof), ruslany (prof), sc0ttkclark (Scott Kingsley Clark) (prof), scottbasgaard (Scott Basgaard) (prof), ScottMac (prof), scribu (prof), SergeyBiryukov (Сергей Бирюков) (prof), ShaneF (prof), sillybean (Stephanie Leary) (prof), Simek (Bartosz Kaszubowski) (prof), simonwheatley (Simon Wheatley) (prof), simosx (Σίμος Ξενιτέλλης) (prof), sirzooro (Daniel Frużyński) (prof), sivel (Matt Martz) (prof), skeltoac (Andy Skelton) (prof), snumb130 (Luke Howell) (prof), solarissmoke (Samir Shah) (prof), sorich87 (prof), ssandison (prof), stencil (prof), stephdau (Stephane Daury) (prof), tai (prof), TECannon (Tracy Cannon) (prof), technosailor (Aaron Brazell) (prof), tenpura (prof), thales.tede , TheDeadMedic (prof), thee17 (Charles E. Frees-Melvin) (prof), thetoine (Antoine Girard) (prof), tinkerpriest (c.bavota) (prof), TobiasBg (Tobias Bäthge) (prof), tomtomp (prof), tychay (Terry Chay) (prof), typeomedia (prof), uglyrobot (Aaron Edwards) (prof), UnderWordPressure (prof), usermrpapa (prof), Utkarsh (Utkarsh Kukreti) (prof), validben (Benoit Gilloz ) (prof), Viper007Bond (Alex Mills) (prof), vladimir_kolesnikov (Vladimir Kolesnikov) (prof), willmot (Tom Willmot) (prof), wahgnube (prof), waltervos (Walter Vos) (prof), wds-chris (Christopher Cochran) (prof), williamsba1 (Brad Williams) (prof), wnorris (Will Norris) (prof), xibe (Xavier Borderie) (prof), yoavf (Yoav Farhi) (prof), zeo (Safirul Alredha) (prof), znarfor (François Hodierne) (prof), and zoranzaric (Zoran Zaric) (prof).

Bonus

If you’ve made it this far, check out my 2010 State of the Word speech at WordCamp San Francisco, it’s jam-packed with information on the growth of WordPress, 3.0, what we’re planning for the future, and the philosophy of WordPress.

Edit (Thanks Kim)

Full contents of this post courtesy of:
http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

The infamous “King of Kings” statue, also known as Touchdown Jesus or Big Butter Jesus (named by Heywood Banks) was destroyed by a lightning strike and fire on June 14, 2010. A prominent 62 foot statue of Jesus, seemingly rising up from the water surrounding  the 4000+ member Solid Rock Church (Christian) was very symbolic for some of the daily commuters on I-75 near Cincinnati, Ohio. It was difficult to pass without looking over to gaze at it’s immense size and bold statement.

The original construction cost nearly $250,000 to complete in 2004. I can’t help but wonder what kind of impact that amount of money could have had in the fight to make our world a better place for everyone. With that aside, I can admit that I look forward to seeing it rebuilt and giving me another chance to enjoy something so unique.

Here is a video long before it was destroyed by an act of God, i.e. Lightning.

Here is a short clip of the statue covered in flames.

Since taking the stage back in 1999 when Darcy DiNucci wrote her article “Fragmented Future”, Web 2.0 has jumped on and off the map until the term began its rise in popularity in 2004 at the first Web 2.0 conference by O’Reilly Media and MediaLive. If you don’t know what Web 2.0 actually is – it is all around you. It’s this blog you are on right now. It’s the social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, the social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, the micro-blogging sites like Twitter, the social information sites like Wikipedia, and the list goes on and on.

The real question is “What’s next?”. Since websites have become more interactive and social during the growth of Web 2.0, the production and exchange of information has spiraled out of control without any fluid source of organization. Thus, I introduce to you Web 3.0 and a semantic web, the “utopia internet”.

Does the World make sense? Or do we make sense of the World?

Imagine every piece of data in relation to another piece of data which is in relation to another piece of data. This could structure the cyber world into an organized grid of information. Based on ontology, you could find information you seek in a more meaningful manner by the relationship between them.  Rather than the internet working solely on the resource of humans reading and identifying the web, machines computers are able to accurately analyze and index the web, thus delivering an unbelievable data resource. Imagine the possibilities…

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

I have been test driving the beta version of 3.0 and it’s rockin! Loads of new features and tools. The back office has been reorganized in ways that actually make MORE sense (don’t worry about becoming confused, you won’t be). The WordPress menu management has now been upgraded to proved the blogger more options. WordPress MU (multi-user) has been merged with v3.0 to offer a single back office for you to manage multiple blogs in a single login or multiple logins if you choose.

Once the stable version is released, hopefully tomorrow or sooner, I will post updates and create some new tutorials showing you how to use it’s newest features! I hope you are as excited as I am!

Mournwatch.com Online Memorials

I was inspired. For the next 7 days I worked around the clock programming a Facebook Application that would allow Facebook users to create memorials directly on Facebook, write editorials, upload photos, and share their memory instantly with all of their family and friends. I called the application, Mournwatch.com‘s Facebook Memorial Application. Users of the application can create unlimited amount of memorials and place a single memorial right on their profile or create a profile box tab and show all of them. The application is completely free and coincides with it’s full featured Online Memorials website, http://mournwatch.com/.

Visit the Facebook Application I built @ http://apps.facebook.com/mournwatch/. You can browse and read guest books of celebrities and pets too. This is an application that has flooded my inbox with praising feedback which I am thankful for so I encourage you to check it out. Thanks and bless you.

Ok, I just had my mind blown away. I am reading about quantum mechanics and the observer problem that occurs on the sub atomic scale. And I began to think about the question, “If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” However, because of the observer problem in quantum mechanics we can never be sure that the tree has even fallen. The simple solution is to check that the tree is in fact lying horizontal in a rested prone position. But, now the tree has been observed, which will remove it from waves of possibilities into a state of lying at rest. Therefore, the tree has both not made a sound, and at the same time, made a sound. Assuming, of course, it did actually fall. But again, neither can be measured until someone is there to observe it which will always result in a single conclusion.

If that is still confusing you, think about this. Do you know what state this Note was in before you checked it? No, you don’t. Why? Because you hadn’t observed it yet. What happens to this Note when you leave this page? You don’t know…at least not for sure. Therefore, this Note will be in all of it’s possible states at the same time…that is until you return to the page. It will then collapse to one of its possible states.

Please continue reading…

Ok one more example. Friday afternoon I will buy a lottery ticket and never look at the numbers. That night the lottery drawing will occur and six numbers will be randomly chosen. As long as my lottery ticket remains in my pocket and no else has checked it, I am a winner! But it the same time all of my numbers are wrong. How is that possible? Quantum mechanics’ fundamental law of superposition. That lottery ticket can be in a state that contains all of those randomly chosen winning numbers and (notice I said ‘and’) any other possible state that would not make it a winning lottery ticket.

The absolute only possibility that the state of matter can be define is when it is being observed. If that doesn’t blow your mind I am not sure anything will.

It’s simple to us to ‘know’ the state of matter because we can assume that it will be the same state as we last left it or that it will be represented by a previous pattern but that is only a hypothesis we take for granted. Look past the way you see things with your eyes and use your subconscious to understand your environment. Then imagine the possibilities that you control just by being the observer.

I wonder what will happen to this Note after I save it?

[originally posted on Facebook]