Profanity: it's one of those concepts I find irritating. There are at least two main ideas of what profanity is. There's the funcitonal definition "vulgar or irreverent speech or action" that _I_ use and then there's the version most people use...that there are specific "profane" words that are insulting no matter what their intent (I use the word intent a lot when debating this topic, it fits in with the definition I use).

For example many people (often not the brightest people, I'll admit) do not make ANY distinction between words most consider "profanity" and regular parts of speech. They may, with every intention of conveying respect to the person they're talking to...spout a huge string of "profane" words. In their mind, not one offensive word has been used. The people listening, however...may be totally intolerant of those magical words. When pressed nobody can actually produce a workable explanation of it. Often times it ends up with examples like...

"You wouldn't use those words to your parents."
...but then again, parents have usually given it the same magical meaning and as a child you are punished for using such words. My wife was taught to not even give her opinion! There's NOTHING wrong with simply stating your side (and not allowing a child to calmly express the reason a thing is unfair (EVER...possibly not even once) to them verges on mental abuse IMHO

"You wouldn't use those words at a job interview."
And I wouldn't do a lot of other things at an inteview either, possibly even things that would NORMALLY be done during an interview...if I had reason to believe they would take offense and/or give the job to someone else based solely on that. I'm sure somewhere out there, there's a guy that REALLY hates suits and ties so much that he won't even hire any "stiff" that shows up for the interview in a suit and tie. I know most people believe in the "magical" definition of profanity so I won't use the words, just like I wouldn't wear a suit and tie to the interview if I know from a reliable source that the guy I'm interviewing with looks down on that sort of thing.

Anyway, the point I can never get across to people is that the words are ONLY bad because the majority of people have agreed that the words are just magically bad...and that's all. They accept this and ENFORCE IT on everyone else. THEY get offended and YOU are to blame. If you try to explain that the words aren't inherently bad, people often look at you as if YOU are the one requiring unreasonable things from people. The reality is that _I_ simply wish people would listen to what someone obviously means and NOT write off everything as offensive because a word they don't like was used.

Freezing rain: Well, that was enough ranting for today...thought I'd mention, there's a fair amount of ice on the trees. I was going to go out and take pictures...then I said "FUCK IT!"...then I decided to do it anyway becase some of you (I'm looking at you australians ;) might not get to see much ice...so here.

For comparison, here's a storm from last year...or was it the year before? Anyway, here ya go

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Just FYI, still working on some MCU stuff, just haven't done anything worth posting. Also thinking about writing a guide or something about that and/or datasheets but that's WAY off so it's not worth mentioning as I might give up on the idea. TTYL