Mark Veltzer's personal website — blog, media tracker, calendar, and chess viewerhttps://veltzer.github.io/ en Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:36:16 -0000 Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:36:16 -0000 1440 MkDocs RSS plugin - v1.18.1 None https://veltzer.github.io/ archaeology history religion <h1>The Archaeology of the Conquest: When the Walls Didn't Fall</h1> <p>The Book of Joshua describes one of the most dramatic narratives in the Hebrew Bible: the Isra...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-archaeology-of-the-conquest-when-the-walls-didnt-fall/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-archaeology-of-the-conquest-when-the-walls-didnt-fall/ bible history religion <h1>The Construction of the Canon: How Humans Decided What God Said</h1> <p>The Bible is routinely described as the "Word of God" — a divine, inspired, and complete r...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-construction-of-the-canon-how-humans-decided-what-god-said/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-construction-of-the-canon-how-humans-decided-what-god-said/ bible history religion <h1>The Evolution of Yahweh: From Desert War God to Creator of the Universe</h1> <p>The God of the Bible — the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator of the univ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-evolution-of-yahweh-from-desert-war-god-to-creator-of-the-universe/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-evolution-of-yahweh-from-desert-war-god-to-creator-of-the-universe/ culture history religion <h1>The Pagan Origins of Christmas and Easter</h1> <p>Two of the most important holidays in the Christian calendar — Christmas and Easter — are celebrated with a rich...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-pagan-origins-of-christmas-and-easter/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-pagan-origins-of-christmas-and-easter/ atheism philosophy religion <h1>The Problem of Evil: Why Suffering Breaks the God of the Philosophers</h1> <p>The problem of evil is the oldest and most powerful argument against the existence o...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-problem-of-evil-why-suffering-breaks-the-god-of-the-philosophers/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-problem-of-evil-why-suffering-breaks-the-god-of-the-philosophers/ bible history religion <h1>The Missing Gospel: Q and the Synoptic Problem</h1> <p>The four Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — are presented in Christian tradition as independent eyew...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-missing-gospel-q-and-the-synoptic-problem/ Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/06/the-missing-gospel-q-and-the-synoptic-problem/ religion <h1>From Many to One: The Polytheistic Roots of Ancient Israel</h1> <p>The common modern understanding of ancient Israelite religion is that it was always monotheisti...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/from-many-to-one-the-polytheistic-roots-of-ancient-israel/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/from-many-to-one-the-polytheistic-roots-of-ancient-israel/ bayes probability statistics <h1>Why Known Liars Making a Claim Actually Reduces Its Probability: A Bayesian Explanation</h1> <h2>The Intuition</h2> <p>Most people think that if someone makes a claim,...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/why-known-liars-making-a-claim-actually-reduces-its-probability-a-bayesian-explanation/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/why-known-liars-making-a-claim-actually-reduces-its-probability-a-bayesian-explanation/ religion <h1>The Evolution of the Immortal Soul</h1> <p>The belief that every human possesses an immortal, immaterial soul that survives death and goes to heaven (or hell) is ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-evolution-of-the-immortal-soul/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-evolution-of-the-immortal-soul/ religion <h1>The Exodus: Foundation Myth or Historical Fact?</h1> <p>The story of the Exodus—the mass departure of Israelites from Egypt, their forty-year wandering in the Sin...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-exodus-foundation-myth-or-historical-fact/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-exodus-foundation-myth-or-historical-fact/ religion <h1>The "God of the Gaps" and Scientific Progress</h1> <p>Throughout human history, "God" has been the name we give to the things we do not understand. When we lacked...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-god-of-the-gaps-and-scientific-progress/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-god-of-the-gaps-and-scientific-progress/ religion <h1>The Mesopotamian Roots of the Flood Myth</h1> <p>The story of Noah and the Great Flood is one of the most recognizable narratives in the world. For many, it is a ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-mesopotamian-roots-of-the-flood-myth/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-mesopotamian-roots-of-the-flood-myth/ religion <h1>The Morality of the "Ban"</h1> <p>The Book of Joshua is often read as a heroic tale of a nation claiming its promised land. But beneath the Sunday school versions...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-morality-of-the-ban/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-morality-of-the-ban/ religion <h1>The Silence of Contemporaries on Jesus</h1> <p>If the accounts of the New Testament are historically accurate, Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of immense regional ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-silence-of-contemporaries-on-jesus/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-silence-of-contemporaries-on-jesus/ religion <h1>The Invention of Satan</h1> <p>In modern Christianity, Satan is the ultimate personification of evil—a rebel angel who fell from heaven and now rules a kingdom of...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-invention-of-satan/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/the-invention-of-satan/ epistemology probability statistics <h1>Not Knowing the Probability Is Not the Same as 50/50</h1> <h2>The Common Mistake</h2> <p>"I don't know whether X is true, so it's probably 50/50."</p> <p>You've heard this. ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/not-knowing-the-probability-is-not-the-same-as-5050/ Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/04/04/not-knowing-the-probability-is-not-the-same-as-5050/ linux performance windows <h1>Linux io_uring vs Windows I/O: A Technical Comparison</h1> <h2>The State of Async I/O</h2> <p>High-performance servers, databases, and storage engines all face the sam...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/29/linux-io_uring-vs-windows-io-a-technical-comparison/ Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/29/linux-io_uring-vs-windows-io-a-technical-comparison/ linux opinion windows <h1>The Long-Term Damage Windows Has Done to the Tech Industry</h1> <h2>Production Runs on Linux. Development Should Have Too.</h2> <p>Here's a fact that should make every...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/28/the-long-term-damage-windows-has-done-to-the-tech-industry/ Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/28/the-long-term-damage-windows-has-done-to-the-tech-industry/ documentation github-pages mkdocs <h1>MkDocs with GitHub Pages: File Layout That Works</h1> <p>If you use MkDocs to build a site hosted on GitHub Pages, and you also have static files (HTML, JS, CSS) ...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/21/mkdocs-with-github-pages-file-layout-that-works/ Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2026/03/21/mkdocs-with-github-pages-file-layout-that-works/ linux sysadmin ubuntu <h1>How to upgrade Ubuntu without their upgrade tool</h1> <h2>The upgrade problem</h2> <p>The heart of the problem is that sometimes when you try to upgrade ubuntu the upg...</p> https://veltzer.github.io/2025/09/04/how-to-upgrade-ubuntu-without-their-upgrade-tool/ Thu, 04 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Mark Veltzer's personal sitehttps://veltzer.github.io/2025/09/04/how-to-upgrade-ubuntu-without-their-upgrade-tool/