Two Become Something Better
Most of our audience can ignore this post, but for all those of you who are trying to setup named virtual hosts with MAMP on Leopard (and we know it’s alot of you), this might be helpful.
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College Students: I don’t know how long this has been around, but it sounds amazing. It’s a pen that records audio and links it with what you were writing at the time. Now, pens that let you transfer what you wrote on paper to your computer aren’t that exciting - I’ve never seen much use for them. But being able to write notes in class, and then link that to the audio of the lecture you were hearing just strikes me as incredibly useful. The pens are around $150, and seem to require a special type of notepad.
I’d love to see something like this for people who take notes on the computer like myself, linking audio to typing.
I never thought that I would be the type to like Indiana Jones. I’ve never seen any of the original movies, and the mental image of a guy who swung from a whip while being chased by a large boulder always struck me as a bit of a stretch. When I went to see the newest movie with Kierstyn last week, however, I was pleasantly surprised.
The visuals were stunning. The very first shot left my jaw hanging open in amazement, and they just kept coming. The effects were good, but it was the plain, “simple” film shots that really stole the show. Definitely worth going to see on the big screen. The story itself also good, although the end could have been more satisfying. There was plenty of humor, intensity, bad science, and large insectery. If you liked the originals, you’ll probably like this one alot. Even if you’ve never seen anything Indy however, I think there’s a good chance that you’ll find it worth the ticket. Overall, I’d definitely recommend going to see it.
This might tick you off… a plan for a $5 to $15 million dollar clock in San Jose that would count down the time until global climate disaster. Mentioned positively on FlingLog, along with a series of complaints about there being no decisive data on when the world is going to end, how it’s going to end, or how fast it is actually ending, making it very hard to build such a clock. We’ve really got to work on getting that data.
So I suppose I should explain why I backed off from political commentary. I did it because I wanted to distance myself from the elections for a while so I could better keep my promise not to get on a campaign trail and run myself ragged this year like I have the last three. I figured the best way to do that was to take a break from going on and on about them. Still following the news, but not as closely as usual. Well I’ve sufficiently annoyed myself with trying to stay out of it and couldn’t get a topic that’s been on my mind for a while out of my head.
What I’ve noticed every election cycle is that the conservative/evangelical wing comes together to try and elect someone who will over-rule 60 years worth of bad decision making. This simply isn’t practical. It’s not possible for one man, with a four to eight year term to get rid of bureaucracies that have been in place for decades. As voters we are doing two things wrong:
1. We’re placing too much power on one man that he simply doesn’t have. Instead of changing our focus to trying to elect people who will continue our vision instead of punishing ourselves by sitting out an election.
2. We’re forgetting that even the President has to wait to get his agenda through congress and if we’re not electing congressmen in line with our vision continually nothing is going to get done.’
Perhaps if we changed our perspective away from immediate gratification and to carrying a vision through generations, we would be better off.
Lowercase Tees
Predictably, lowercasetees attracted its share of negative feedback. “Some people, mostly Conservatives, have criticised us for putting a political message on a child, but my boy Spencer’s mommy does want a new President, and my daughter Isobel wouldn’t vote for Bush, so there’s no exploitation at all there.” (CA)
Darn conservatives. You’ve got to admit its a fun idea - I’m thinking of buying a few up for my sisters just in case Rush is right. I doubt they’ll have them for sale if their tiny “Obama” tshirt is effective in winning elections.
The Punishment Theory of Blog Reading
Pattern I’ve noticed with my own blog reading - if a blog is posting on a regular basis, you’ll start checking it on a daily basis, or whenever you think about it (which could be more or less often, depending on how interesting it is). Here’s the catch though - every time you visit a blog and there is no new content there, the blogger is effectively punishing you for visiting their site. Bad reader. Bad.
You’ve taken the effort to type in the address and get excited. They’ve disappointed you. If this happens several times, the you starts to realize that you really shouldn’t be visiting that blog so much. And the bloggers hits go down. So that’s the theory. I think it might explain a lot of the hit dynamics in the blog world. I think it also explains many geopolitical crises. Not that I’m necessarily suggesting that you do anything about it, considering that would be somewhat hypocritical. Haha.
Blender 2.46 RC1
That. It’s out now for playing with and testing. The new particle system is much happier, now allowing things like multiple systems on one object, boids (kinda like birds, except different), and (somewhat) advanced particle physics!
Speaking of particle systems, here’s something I made with the older system.
3D Dynamite Fuse Burning from Alex King on Vimeo.
Well, on that note, I’d probably ought to get back to writing my paper on theology and church government. It’s about how if protestant churches just had a pope, then there’d be lot less confusion in the authority structure. Yeaaaaah.
I came across an amazing tool this weekend called Processing. It allows you to generate images or video using programming methods and data. This is nothing new, but its simplicity and ease of setup makes it the digital equivalent of a sketchbook. Granted, you still need an understand of programming to use it (the script is similar to Javascript), it doesn’t have a drawing GUI, but its far more lightweight than building a program from scratch with C++ or putting something together in Houdini (which, as a sidenote, is finally releasing a mac version).
So far, people have been using it in a wide range of projects that go from visualizing bursts of Yahoo search queries to making flocking imagery for music videos (as show in the picture). Another very interesting aspect is the ease that you can access video, even directly from a webcam. This makes it ideal for testing out analysis techniques without a lot of overhead. Overall, it’s a very cool program, and you should definitely download it and try out the list of samples included at the very least.
I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep and the thought struck me - there’s a huge difference between being infatuated with love and being in love with someone. We’ve all heard the cliché “in love with love” but really it’s much deeper. Many girls spend most of their childhood planning out their wedding - one of my close friends has her wedding all ironed out, she just needs a guy to go with it. I’m not saying that as a girl it’s wrong to think about this beforehand or that even planning a wedding as a kid means you’re obsessed with love. What I realized was that there is a disconnect in the way we are treating marriage in our generation.
We used to get married because we loved the person and were willing to sacrifice and live with that person till they died - in sickness and health, rich or poor, for eternity. Now we find ourselves putting all our effort and passion and goals on one day. We bypass the loving the person for who they are, with the heat of passion; we want so much for our childhood fairytale to come true that we forget that our vows mean something. After the ceremony we realize that we married a human who isn’t prince charming on a white steed. So as our love sick culture calls out and instills in our minds we go and find someone else who fits our prince’s shoes. It’s the mentality. We want to find Prince Charming, but we’re not being realistic. We’re infatuated with romance and don’t really care about loving the person - but when all is said and done, the wedding is the beginning of the journey not the destination.
If our mentality is not set on The Big Day alone, but rather, The Big Day as the beginning of a lifelong journey with the person that you love, and are willing to stick with through the good and the bad - with God, the people who are preparing for life and not just a wedding are the ones who are going to have a successful and loving relationship.
The problem is not in planning the wedding; the solution is not in barely acknowledging it. It’s a day to celebrate - the problem arises when our focus is not on the God-ordained journey of a man and woman, but rather fulfilling a romantic fancy. The solution is to realize the wedding is not the destination and prepare to embark on the journey that God has ordained.
Lately I’ve found myself in conversations discussing the different challenges in courting. It’s so easy to just get caught up in everything and hard to remember that God is in control completely. Recently I’ve really been struggling with trust. And I guess faith too. Of all the spiritual struggles I’ve faced, trust is the one I keep coming back at. I realize it’s silly to be struggling with it so much - I mean, it’s God, why can’t we trust Him? He’s got a flawless track record. However over the last few days I’ve been driving myself mad watching my mom go insane over budgets and groceries and trips and whatnot. So much, that I got to thinking about all the “what-if’s” of……well…….”forever”. And to be honest it started stressing me out - how on earth am I going to balance my own budget? what if I totally screw it up? darn, what if I just think I can run a house, but really I can’t? Am I going to be able to make sure there’s a buffer and get the extra things that you’d need every so often? Or will that screw everything up?
It doesn’t help, that my mind runs in logistical circles, and being a debater on top of it, I tend to think about things until I have a solution for every possible scenario or counter attack. I like having plan A, but knowing there’s a B and C and maybe D to back it up. Well, maybe not quite that excessive, A,B, and maybe C. It got to the point where I really wasn’t sure what to do. Well, I could save my own money, and just put some of the stuff in my hope-chest already…I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night because I’d realize things I’d forgotten to think about, or something to add to a list. It’s starting to scare me to be quite honest, falling into the same trap I’ve seen my mom fall into time after time. But then while we were doing devotions tonight, I realized, my real problem was, I was looking at the numbers and leaving God out of the equation. Which is really interesting, because God is really the only part of the equation that matters in the first place. I know that He will provide for whatever we need, and even bless us. So really, I should use a budget as more of a guideline rather than sacred law as is tendency here, and I shouldn’t rule out things just because they look a little……..expensive. God can and will provide, even though I sometimes have a hard time continuing to recognize that.
Anyway, all goes to say, - specifically for the people I’ve been talking to- trusting God completely and staying focused is one of the things I struggle with most - it’s hard, but when I finally just give it all up, His peace and grace are amazing.
Thought this was a humorous parody of the genre. Watch it. Laugh. Buy a volvo. And feel free to skip that last part.
Seen any other cool ads lately?
This is, Alex. And Kierstyn. They're courting. And this is their blog. It's not courting, but it is sort of a combination of Kierstyn's Politically Incorrect and Alex's Smart Homeschool. We think they'll go well together. Kinda like thoughts and letters.
