Friday, May 31, 2002

Pakistan and India. Israel and Palastine. The US and Al Quida. Notice a theme here? The first is Muslims and (largely) Hindus. The second is Muslims and (largely) Jews. The third is Muslims and (largely) Christians. What about the Buddhists? Oh yea, the Taliban tore down some ancient status of Budda in Afganistan a few years ago. Gee, has Islam failed to pick a (physical) fight with any major world religion?

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Okay, this isn't as cool as another Starbucks story I heard but cool it is none the less. I'm at Starbucks and I pull out the iBook to do some writing. As I'm searching for an outlet I notice that they have a phone jack right next to the table. Activate the Airport and no signal (someone else got pay-as-you-go wireless service) so I plug in the phone jack and dial in via my ISP. So I can surf, sip and not do the writing I came here for. :)
This is an example of a self-referential statement. You know. In case anyone asks.
No support yet from AvantGo for OS X. No kidding. I've migrated a whole bunch of stuff from the old 6500 to the new iBook but AvantGo was a NoGo. Their web site points you to Apple and Palm on this issue but the problem lies with AvantGo. They claim:
The problem is that our installer is not able to build a conduit in the Palm Hot Sync manager with the new Palm 4.0 software for Mac. We have contacted both Palm and Apple regarding this issue. We hope to support this platform in the future but do not know for sure if/when we will.
I would love to hear what Apple and Palm have to say about this. I'll bet that Palm would say that AvantGo needs to upgrade their conduit complier software and that it should work fine. I bet Apple would tell them that it should be easier to write a conduit with OS X because of the UNIX underpinnings.

Oh yea, when is Palm or Apple or Microsoft going to write an e-mail conduit?

Monday, May 27, 2002

Just updated the iBook from Mac OS 10.0.4 to 10.1.4. What a difference a decimal point can make! The system is much more stable and predictable. I just sat down and watched The Truman Show on DVD on it and the DVD performance is way better. Can't wait for 10.2!

Thursday, May 23, 2002

The Roman Catholic Church is supposed to have the authoritative word from heaven. What the Pope binds on earth is bound in heaven. If the Roman Catholic Church excommunicates you, you are outside Christ's Church. What they say goes. This claim to power has lead some evangelicals, even reformed evangelicals to become Roman Catholic. One thing that always bothered me about this claim is that they seldom exercise it. Well, they finally get really close to exercising their authority. The Vatican news agency recently used some pretty firm words when discussing stars wearing expensive crosses as jewelry. Relying upon that God-given authority to bind and loosen, the Vatican news service went so far as to call this practice "incomprehensible". Yes, yes, I know. A bold, strong move by the Vatican. Let us all stand in awe of the infallible authority of the One True Church!


Why, this far-reaching authority even lead the Pope back in 1989 to threaten to excommunicate Madonna if she performed "Like A Prayer" in Rome! Burrr! A display of divine authority like that sends a shiver down your spine doesn't it? She can go ahead and perform a blasphemous song anywhere else, but she'd better not bring her filth to Rome. Back when that song came out I was still Roman Catholic and I got to see the video a number of times. During it, she is in a church praying to a statue of a saint (which is bad enough). The statue starts to cry and then comes to life. The images suggest that she makes love to him right there in the pew, or at least there is a lot of hugging and smooching going on anyway. It ends with her and a black Jesus standing in front of a burning cross. You can see why the Vatican wouldn't want that sort of thing in Rome.
It is fine for the rest of the world, but never in Rome.

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Yipee! The RIAA's attempt to kill net radio broadcasting has been dealt a major setback. The RIAA needs to get a grip and try to embrace the new media, not kill it.
I'll be darned. There was pod racing in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones!

Saturday, May 18, 2002

Message in a bottle part 2 - The job I interviewed for was not Sunday School Teacher or Coordinator, but Pastor of Adult Ministries for an 800 member church. I would be in charge of 4 adult Sunday School classes and 25 Growth Groups. I wouldn't run them but I would shepherd the leaders of these groups, about 50 people or so. I would also develope the curriculum for the Sunday school classes and teach the teachers.

I left the interview shaken. I was thinking "This is beyond me. I can't do this." Stopped at Starbucks to drownd my sorrows in a grande cap. By the time I got home, I was planning the first meeting with the teachers, I'd figured out the goal of the programs I would lead and started figuring out what the curriculum would be. I also figured out what special projects we would adopt. I'd gone from Eeyor gloomy to Tigger optimistic. I didn't sleep the other night because I was conducting the training meeting in my head.

I interviewed with the Executive Pastor who has already spoken to 5 other guys and has a list of folks from Trinity (the seminary) to talk to. We going to go to church there tomorrow to decide if this is the kind of place we could work in. If so, I'm going to send a letter to the Exec Pastor and tell him I am very interested.

On the 'home' front... We've been approved for a $150K mortgage and some fantastic saints have agreed to loan us $45K for 5 years (that doesn't mean $200K it means about $160 to $170K) and we still can't find a home! The market here is so high.

Oh yea, and we go home Monday.

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Message in a bottle - Anyone who reads this, please pray for me. I have an interview at a church tomorrow at 5 PM. If I can get hired full time at a church my tuition would be half and I would have a job all in one shot. Not only that but I meet with the mortgage broker tomorrow and should get a list of properties from the realtor today. Yowza

Saturday, May 11, 2002

I'm in Illinois looking for a house and a job, more house than job right now. Few prospects so far in my price range. However, I did see Spider-man with my wife and we both liked it. How's that?

Thursday, May 09, 2002

Well what do you know. Part 4 of Tristan Emanual's two part series on Christian baptism has been published over at RazorMouth.com. What is really funny is that Tristan has apparently forgotten that he is a paedobaptist:
Rather, I am arguing that they [circumcision and baptism] are an outward, visible testimony and guarantee of an inward, spiritual truth.
But that is the Baptist argument for believers-only baptism! We baptize when we see evidence of that "inward, spiritual truth" not based upon lineage. Yea, I'll be writing another paper to respond to this. Tristan and RazorMouth seem to have ignored my last one.
This is kind of creepy so I thought I'd blog it. I was riding my bike to work the other day. I cut across an open field on the way, it isn't deep desert or anything, its only about 20 yards from some houses. Ahead of me on the trail is a crow hoping around and making a lot of noise. No big deal, those flying rats are everywhere. When I get closer, this small coyote stands up and looks at me. I could have reached over and patted it on the head. Something didn't look right about it. Not mean, but scared and...wrong. If it had been dangerous, the crow wouldn't have been making so much noise. As I peddled past I figured that the coyote was dying and the crow was asking it to hurry up. Crows usually get road kill rabbit but this fresh coyote would be a treat, I'm sure. Here was life and death playing it self out in front of me. Just like "Lion King" its the great circle of life.

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

Microsoft again. Sha! They crack me up. The Register is reporting on their new licensing system for schools. When counting up how many licenses you're going to pay for, you have to count all PCs and Macs. "But Tim, Windows doesn't run on an Apple computer!" I hear you say. True, true but Microsoft Office does and what Microsoft is making schools pay for is software packages. Here, I'll let John Lettice explain it to you:
In School Agreement 3.0, you take your number of eligible PCs (inc Macs, of course), then you select at least one product which you license for all eligible PCs. One of these packages is presumably the most popular, as it's the Desktop Package, which "Includes Office, Core CAL & Windows Upgrades," and offers discounts beyond what you'd get if you bought the components individually. So that's how you wind up buying Windows upgrades for Macs in the States.
See? Schools get to pay the same price for Office on their Macs as they do for Windows Upgrades and other software on the PCs. All I can say is that it is a good thing that Apple is the leader in supply computers to education. And at this rate, I don't think that position will be challanged any time soon.
Then when I get home from work I find that the extra 256MB of memory and my cell phones have arrived. The hardest part of putting in the memory was finding my small phillips jewler's screwdriver. The iBook is complete. 384MB of memory and an Airport card. On top of all of that, the Elders meeting finished at 10 PM. We usually go till midnight.

Monday, May 06, 2002

The new iBook is here! Yipee. I had to install OS X on it but that's okay, it cam with it. The entire thing is totally cool. Very small, very light, no dead pixels. I'm one happy Mac geek. :)

Friday, May 03, 2002

iBook update: I ordered the iBook and an Airport card at the same time. The Airport card shipped from CA but the iBook had to come from UT. Not a problem since I only had to pay tax on the Airport card. The card arrived this AM but not the iBook. In other words, I have nothing to plug the card in to. I doubt that the iBook will be here today so that means Monday. No word on the extra 256MB of memory yet. So close yet so far. :( Feel my pain!

Thursday, May 02, 2002

Bill Clinton as the next Oprah Winfrey? I am So glad I don't have cable! Burrrr.
Dale Meador has an excellent article at RazorMouth.com on worship. Check it out. A quote:
How often have I approached the Lord with a weary, lazy or distracted heart.

I see this on Sunday mornings. One special day among seven, Sunday is the day that I am blessed to worship the Lord shoulder to shoulder with the brothers and sisters who comprise the body of Christ of which I am blessed to be part. Typically, we gather to worship the Lord in song, sacrament, and teaching. At the outset, we often are privileged to enjoy the gifts of saints uniquely gifted in music that is uniquely crafted to recall God’s attributes and glorify him accordingly.

And there I am, sprawled on the pavement. Yawning, distracted, oblivious. “I wonder when he got that new guitar?” “Shouldn’t we be standing up for this?” “Did I turn off the iron?”
How easily distracted we are from He who should 'distract' us.
Ratbots Summary: Scientists have placed electrodes inside rats' brains to control them like robots.
Comment: Electrodes are placed in the portion of the brain that processes inputs from the whiskers and another in the reward center of the brain. A laptop sends a remote signal to stimulate the left whisker. The rat turns left and the reward center of the brain is stimulated. Simple. What is really cool is that since the rat is still in control, it can climb complicated structures without having to have the computer direct every step. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that this happens every day to billions of living beings around the world. Isn't this exactly what TV does to us? Turn to the right channel and the pleasure center of the brain is stimulated by sex, action, drama, horror...whatever image excites you.

Wednesday, May 01, 2002

I'm so jazzed. I just fired off my order for a 500Mhz iBook with an Airport card. My family is buying it for me as a 40th birthday gift/retirement gift/starting seminary gift. :)