Lofland bLOG

“Be silent! Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I did not pass through death and fire to banter words with a witless worm.” -Gandalf

“If we could assemble all the antimatter we’ve ever made at CERN and annihilate it with matter, we would have enough energy to light a single electric light bulb for a few minutes.”

In “Seabiscuit” trainer Tom Smith says of Seabiscuit: “They got him so screwed up running in circles; he’s forgotten what he was born to do.he just needs to learn to be a horse again.”

testaga

IBM Remote Insight Board (RSA) causing Windows XP to blue screen (BSOD) when attempting to remote control a system.

Was getting a BAD_POOL_HEADER error, with stop code: 0×00000019 & 0×1A020001 almost every time I tried a remote control session.

That error code seems to be device driver related according to my research, but what device drivers are involved in a Java application in Internet Explorer?

The solution was to remove the SD card from the card reader in my laptop!

My guess is that the part of the remote control that allows you to map a local drive or file to be mounted by the remote system was causing a crash when it saw the SD card while going through my local drives to find suitable devices for the local drive list.

When the prosperous man on a dark but starlit night drives comfortably in his carriage and has the lanterns lighted, aye, then he is safe, he fears no difficulty, he carries his light with him and it is not dark close around him; but precisely because he has the lanterns lighted, and has a strong light close to him, precisely for this reason he cannot see the stars, for his lights obscure the starts, which the poor peasant driving without the lights can see gloriously in the dark but starry night. So those deceived ones live in the temporal existence: either, occupied with the necessities of life, they are too busy to avail themselves of the view, or in the prosperity and good days they have—as it were lanterns lighted and close about them—everything is so satisfactory, so pleasant, so comfortable, but the view is lacking, the prospect, the view of the stars.
—Søren Kierkegaard, as quoted by Vernard Eller in Simple Life

Second Hand Lions - from Hub - “There are some things that a man has to believe in. It doesn’t matter if they are true or not; what matters is believing.”

Gabriel Marcel speaks of “availability” as a “being who is ready for
anything, the opposite of him who is occupied or cluttered up with himself.”

About the Transformers Movie, a blogger (mormon?) said:
It’s like spending a day at the state fair: a little bit of actual entertainment, a lot of embarrassingly cheesy attempts at entertainment, and the faint whiff of bull crap everywhere. –Eric D. Snider

“To a small boy, his father is more than his father - he’s his vision of his future, his portrait of adult manhood. If that vision is discredited, then growing up itself is discredited.” — J. Budziszewski

According to a Christianity Today article:

Charles Spurgeon, when asked to reconcile human freedom with divine
predestination, said, “I never reconcile friends.” He maintained that the
two realities fit together.

“You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.” - G.K. Chesterton

Currently Listening to All That You Can’t Leave Behind by U2

I love this line:

“The only baggage you can bring is all that you can’t leave behind.”

Could be applied to so many things from walking with God to web design.

Then there is this from David Crowder:

“I’m finding everything I’ll ever need by giving up gaining everything.”

Then from Michael Card:

“It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.”

Mark 10:21 - Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

The reason one of the quotes I used in my last post rang so deeply with me was that it pointed to something I’ve been pondering deep in my heart for a while:

“but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been.”

In other words, is the deep desire and longing that pervades my life at times actually a normal part of the Christian experience, that I am supposed to accept? Is it part of the knowledge of God and Heaven that is within me? Is it actually a good thing and not a bad one? Is seeking to fulfill or stop it actually a bad thing?

Is it part of the curse on the earth (”all creation groans in anticipation”)? Is it a bad thing we hang our heads under, but endure nevertheless?

Or is it a curse that can be lifted, and we should fight it with the tools God gives us, rather than living in bondage to it?

Or is it part of our tie with Christ? Our feeling in our bones the same longing that He has felt? A blessing and badge of honor that we should be proud of?

Then there was this post by the person I consider my second best friend next to my wife:

http://www.xanga.com/Krash2Fly/592955260/longing.html?nextdate=last

What do you think?

Posted 5/25/2007 11:00 AM

3 Comments:

You don’t know me. But here is my opinion on what you wrote. I think that we all to often as Christians think that the longings that God gave us are something to be ashamed of. And then we do walk around with our heads hang down. But I think that it is a blessing from God because that helps us understand Jesus longings. God gave us feelings for a reason and that is exactly how he intended for them to be used. They should be a badge of honor because it helps us to understand Christ love and desire to save us. So yes they are something we should be proud of.
Posted 5/26/2007 9:32 AM by Tinleg

Psalm 27

4 One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in his temple.

5 For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.

6 And now my head shall be lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
8 You have said, “Seek [4] my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.” [5]
9 Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the Lord will take me in.

11 Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
12 Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they breathe out violence.

13 I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!

This scripture really made me think of you. The writer’s heart, and desire for God, his seeking after God’s will, and his deep cry to the Lord for Him to answer. In the midst of all this, the writer also has hope and worships the Lord with great joy, recounting His Salvation, and he ends by reminding himself to take courage and wait for the Lord. There aren’t necessarily any answers to your questions here, but at least we can see that these feeling you are experiencing have been felt by other men of God, and, because of Scripture we know, that God did honor and answer these cries. God has really placed you on my heart through all this, and I will be praying for you.

Your sister in Christ,

~Jessica

PS: Micah’s post rocks, and I’ll have to respond to it on his web page.
Posted 5/26/2007 12:02 PM by Tegwenava

Is not the petition of the Lord’s prayer like this? “Thy kingdom come….” Who can say that God has answered this prayer? Yet God is answering it, and we keep asking, pursuing, longing, groaning.

“Come quickly, Lord Jesus!”
Posted 5/26/2007 2:15 PM by jonathan_camenisch

From David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens:

“I search my breast, and I commit its secrets, if I know them, … to this paper. The old unhappy loss or want of something had, I am conscious, some place in my heart; but not to the embitterment of my life. When I walked alone in the fine weather, and thought of the summer days when all the air had been filled with my boyish enchantments, I did miss something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it was a softened glory of the past, which nothing could have thrown upon the present time. I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counselor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me, and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been.”

“The old unhappy feelings pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it were changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. … I was happy; but the happiness I had vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and there was always something wanting.
“… What I missed, I still regarded-I always regarded-as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy; that was incapable of realization; that I was now discovering to be so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But, that it would have been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might have been; I knew.
“Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown.”

The old unhappy loss or want of something had

I did miss something of the realization of my dreams; but I thought it was a softened glory of the past, which nothing could have thrown upon the present time.

but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been.

Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I felt was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular to me, and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no distinct sense of their opposition to each other.

David was finding that his marriage did not bring quite the happiness that he had anticipated. He felt this was a combination of simply learning about the realities of life and of decisions he had made. He was really not sure what the problem was.

These words sunk deep into my heart when I head them read last week, for the describe my feelings about my current employment almost exactly. While David needed the patience to deal with the thing he could not change, I need the courage to deal with what I can. I’m not sure which is harder. I think it would be easier to just accept my employment as unchangeable and learn to live with the sense of loss, than to strike out anew at this point. I’m not sure even what I should do. I need the wisdom to know the difference!

I feel that I am at a crisis point in my faith. I feel strange using that term, because I’ve “been there” for some years now, but it is building like a storm. I really must discover and decide certain things about God in order to move forward. Who I perceive God to be must either have a profound impact on my life, or my life should just fit into the “mold” that God has made all life to be.

Am I a bird or a man? Birds fulfill God’s purpose for their lives simply by being birds. They do nothing special, only their role. I have traveled for some time under that same mentality. I am a bird. I make a living, I build a home, I find a wife, I raise my kids, I function according to God’s design for the universe, and thus I glorify Him.

IS that right? Or should God have such a profound impact on my life that I do NOT fit into this world, but am a stranger and a pilgrim, not just figuratively, but even more in reality?

Feeling this point with particular strength yesterday, as it had grown over our recent vacation, I started watching Spider Man 2 last night. I really was completely unprepared to be hit in the face with my exact question. I’d seen the movie before, but forgot just how applicable it is to my situation. (Perhaps this shows that I was not feeling this so strongly when I last saw the movie.)

What should Spider Man do? Should he ditch the clown suit, do his homework and hold down a steady job so he can provide for the girl he loves and raise a family? Perhaps even save his Aunt’s house from being repossessed? Or should he be what God made him to be, put on the suit, fight crime, go out into the world and do good and noble deeds for the good of all mankind while his own family suffers the inevitable consequences?

Whose hero should he be?

Should I stay in a very well paying, very steady job with lots of paid vacation time, regardless of if the work does absolutely no good for mankind and bores and numbs me so badly that I feel it is literally eating away at my soul? Or should I leave all of this luxury and commit my life to serving God full time in some sort of ministry where I can work with people and do some good in this world, allowing my family to suffer the difficulties of living without? Without financial ease to buy the things we need as we need them, without medical/dental insurance to quickly diagnose and treat any ailment that may come along, without paid vacation time to build our relationships?

I’m not sure which one is right, which one is God’s direction?

Both have selfish motives for me. I stay with my good job so that my family does not suffer and I do not have to deal with the stress of finances. I leave my good job so that I can seek personal fulfillment by serving God and others.

The question is, which direction do I go, and why? I must either sell my soul to the devil or to God, but I can’t differentiate the two! I hear the two voices in my head and I do not know which is which.

Am I a bird, meant to glorify God by simply being steady, denying my heart, and working hard to provide for my nest? Or am I a super hero, meant to glorify God by serving people, denying my family the comfortable life that I know i could provide for them?

Do I have a choice to make, and if so which one? Or is this all just the lost of my boyish fantasy, finding out the reality of life, feeling the deep pain in my soul that is common to all men on earth? Should I just count my blessings, apply myself to the task I have before me, and be a good bird for God?

Posted 5/17/2007 11:17 AM

4 Comments:

Why, do you suppose am I currently unemployed and doing part time work for my dad’s company to keep bills paid, when I could be out earning my keep?

I hear ya LOUD and CLEAR bro! If you find a definitive, rather than just a subjective answer, let me know!

Till then– It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’…, it’s…, it’s…– You, me, Spidey, and Superman!
Posted 5/18/2007 5:19 PM by Krash2Fly

Wow. What a question. I wish you a way towards the answer even if you can’t find it now.
Posted 5/21/2007 8:27 PM by Godseeker23

Hey Christen,

First, I just want to say how much I respect you for being willing, to not only struggle with these thoughts that might be easier to just ignore, but also for being willing to share them with others, some of which you haven’t even met J. I truly admire your heart to seek God’s will for your life, and to admit struggle even when you are an adult with a family. I know that God is pleased when we admit our need for Him and cry out for his help. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.” James 1:5-6

May I suggest one thought? Have you considered that you might be battling a false dichotomy? Perhaps God has provided a way in which men may serve him with their whole lives, while still living in the station to which he was called, according to the gifts he has been given. This passage from 1 Corinthians 7 is very good:

“17 Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. 18 Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. 19 For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. 20 Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. 21 Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) 22 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”

Paul touches on many topics here, but one thing we can undoubtably gather from the passage is that God enabled each of us to live abundant and sacrificial lives for Him, regardless of where we find ourselves. Paul is encouraging those who find themselves in difficult situations not to feel as though they must be in full time ministry, or even economic freedom, in order to please and serve the Lord. In fact, most of our brothers and sisters, throughout history, have had vocational jobs that simply supported their local economy. Even though this may seem less glamorous than the work of a missionary, I don’t believe that it is any less worthy in God’s sight. When we as Christians spread the gospel, it is these very people that we are reaching out to. Jesus was a carpenter for almost his whole life (as far as we know). There is no doubt that each of us are called to live passionate lives for our savior, abandoning the world, our own ambitions and comfort in order to advance his Kingdom. This is clear in scripture. But maybe we have the ability to do this no matter our vocation, station, salary or situation.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27.

“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” 1 Pet 4:1-2

The cool thing about this is that scripture also tells us what the will of God is for us:

“And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. 15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” I Thes 5:14-17

The good news is that Christ died, and we have been buried with him, and that now he has given us his righteousness and worth before God. Jesus called us to “sell everything and follow him” but through other passages in the Bible, I think that for most of us this usually means selling all of our pre-conceptions, ambitions and expectations and then going where-ever he calls us to go- even if He’s calling us to something that doesn’t appear to be helpful. There are so many encouraging examples of this in the Bible. One of my favorites is David, the supposedly future King of Israel, when he was living with the Philistines- the very enemies of Israel whom he had defeated when he killed Goliath. No doubt that he felt pretty confused and wondered if his life was pointless at those times. No doubt he wondered if all the prophesies and hopes were no more than a dream of his youth. But God was leading David, in places he would never have chosen, and yet David continually sought to inquire of the Lord, and to only go where the Lord promised to go before him.

Christen, I have no idea what the will of the Lord is for your life. I have no doubt that he has prepared many good works for you. And I would guess that this will look different at different times of your life. Perhaps God has a vocational ministry in store for you. That would be so wonderful, and I respect your faith and willingness to follow Him there, if he were to call you. But I just want to encourage you, if He were to call you to remain in your current situation, that no matter where you are, that you don’t have to just be a bird. That there are opportunities all around us, in our homes, churches and communities, provided by God, to bring him glory and to do his work. In fact, if you are financially stable you probably have even more lee-way than most to serve others around you. I’m sure there are many people around you that could benefit, simply from a gift of hospitality, wisdom, knowledge and fellowship that you could offer them. I know for a fact that God has given you and Jerusha many beautiful giftings. One of the most wonderful “games” or adventures in life is discovering ways to use them. J

I hope this is encouraging to you. I know that Jared and I have to struggle with and remember these things regularly (I mean, the prospect of being a stay at home mom can feel pretty insignificant and unglamorous compared to being an evangelist to the inner city or the middle east- yet imagine how many Christians have been called to this). But what is so cool is that God never ceases to surprise us, by using us to serve, encourage and spread the good news to others- even if it happens in the most unexpected ways J (ask Jared, he could tell you some crazy stories). May the Lord bless you and continue to show you His will. I can’t wait to see all of the wonderful things He will undoubtedly do in your life. J

“7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9 Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” Titus 2:7-10

Our Lord be with you,

~Jessica
Posted 5/22/2007 7:57 AM by Tegwenava

Well, yeah, but you could just buy a new cell phone. You have to do that anyway. And I think it was Jared who first demonstrated to me how to do that =)
Posted 5/22/2007 10:54 AM by madhatterb78

HPUX single user mode.

when it is booting, wait for the “hit any key” and do so

mount -a : mounts everything, which may be important if in single user mode, which mounts only /

Use these commands to see what boot device you are using/should be using:
setboot
lvlnboot -v

Commands to see what you have for disks on Solaris:
vxdisk list
vxprint
print|format
iostat -En
luxadm display FCloop
These are all “harmless” commands that just display info.

This article was really fun:

Seems like maybe someone isn’t really thinking things through. This sounds a lot worse than drilling in Alaska.

Posted 4/30/2007 3:40 PM

1 Comment:

Yipes!
Posted 5/1/2007 12:05 PM by jonathan_camenisch

As a follow up to my previous blog about the ocean of information we live in

http://www.lofland.net/LoflandBLOG/2007/04/23/swim-dont-drink/

I wanted to mention AI. This is where artificial intelligence is going now. This is what we need it for. Currently we have many great tools for navigating the ocean of information. Google is one of those we think of first. Do many of you remember the days before Google? I used Alta Vista, which was set up by Digital to showcase how powerful their servers were. (Which makes the fact that Google has tended to use PC class equipment somewhat of an irony.) It did index the web, but that was about it. It was a real art to craft a search query that would get you what you wanted. Even then, it was hard to know if you got the “best” hits. Google revolutionized web searching. Now we don’t have home pages with lists of sites we found useful, some of us don’t even use bookmarks. We can count on Google to consistently find us good content.

Google is a hugely poor tool, though, considering how much information is out there. Consider these two questions:

Where can I find a florist in Oklahoma City?

If I buy a Garmin GPS receiver for my smartphone, and want to put maps of the Eastern half of the United States onto my smartphone’s SD card, how much space will it take?

The answers to both questions are contained in information alone. The answer to both questions are on the web. Google will answer one of them well, but not the other.

What we need from AI is not a computer to “think” for us, but for a computer to parse our human language and then use the ocean of information to bring answers. So while AI can never answer the question, “Which car will I enjoy driving the most?” (other than based on statistics), it will be able to answer, “How much fuel per month will I save driving a Miata versus driving a Subaru WRX?”

AI is not going to replace human creativity, but how much human time is wasted gathering answers from information? When AI can take over more and more of the jobs of gathering answers from information, then we can be more and more free to use our time on creative pursuits.

Posted 4/27/2007 2:01 PM

2 Comments:

I don’t have anything intelligent to add to this, but since you mention AI, there’s something that strikes me funny. Now that AI is no longer a buzzword we hear very much, it’s a successful tool we use in everyday life.
Posted 4/28/2007 12:57 PM by jonathan_camenisch

> I haven’t dug into it lately, but I’m not sure we really
> have a good definition for what AI is yet, so we don’t
> know if we’ve “achieved it” or not.

Well, let me know when you find a proper definition. But it seems to me that what Google does is present an artificial illusion of intelligence–just not as much intelligence as you are hoping for.

I don’t think we will ever be able to say someone has “achieved it.”

Oh, and SPAM filters also use some forms of artificial intelligence. Pretty crude compared to the cyborgs on T2 or whatever, but its aim is “intelligence.”
Posted 4/29/2007 8:16 AM by jonathan_camenisch

This is just a rant without much meaning.

Do you ever wonder why you even bother working?

AT&T is a big company, one of the biggest in America, and its CEO is retiring:

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/27/news/newsmakers/att_whitacre/index.htm?postversion=2007042708

Now this is what he gets for NOT working:
According to a proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Whitacre’s retirement package will include $24,000 in annual automobile benefits, $6,500 each year for “home security,” and $25,000 to cover his country-club fees, The Wall Street Journal said.

Now let me think about that. That means that he can buy my car sixteen times, per year! He can make my monthly house payment with the money he is spending on his “home security.” In less than four years he can buy my house for what he is paying for his country-club membership.

All in all, his retirement package is valued at $158.5 MILLION!

I can get a 5.5% interest rate on a savings account with over $100,000 in it, so if I put ONE million dollars in that, I can make 55,000 per year in INTEREST. I make a little more than that now, but my family could live off of that. And that is just a savings account, much better returns can be had on large sums like one million dollars through other investments.

In other words, I could live 158.5 lifetimes on what he will get for his retirement.

In other words, I am working 40 to 50 hours a week for really small potatoes. One starts to wonder why even bother? It is obvious that AT&T could set 158 (and a half) people free for life if their CEO could just be happy to live like “the rest of us.”

Just what am I working for, and just what are we paying for when we buy goods like phone service, cell phones, etc?

Honestly the whole thing just devalues money in general. If it is thrown around that freely, maybe it isn’t really worth anything after all. Maybe it isn’t even worth my time, and if money isn’t worth anyone’s time, then it isn’t worth anything at all.

Isn’t it interesting that everyone can pretty much think the same thing and yet all assume that everyone else thinks something else?

Adolescence is that way. Everyone thinks they are weird, and that everyone else thinks so, when really everyone is just thinking they are weird.

Actually, one thing that helped me as a teenager to get over my constant worry that everyone thought I was stupid was that my mom would just tell me that everyone was too busy thinking about themselves to think about me.

Anyway, apparently the city I live in has this complex. We all like our town, but we think each other all hate it. At least according to this article:

http://wichitaeagle.com/196/v-print/story/41448.html

Posted 4/26/2007 2:28 PM

1 Comment:

Yeah, except that with adolescence, adults get over the feeling, usually learn to not be very alive anymore, and look at you strangely when you talk about what you’re feeling. So people don’t usually talk about it: they get weird looks.
Posted 4/28/2007 3:48 PM by Godseeker23

. . . was a rather funny and deep line from Fiddler on the Roof that I think of often.

This is a good article on “liking” God:

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001478.cfm

Posted 4/26/2007 2:19 PM

2 Comments:

Good essay. Thanks for the link.
Posted 4/27/2007 12:12 PM by jonathan_camenisch

Yeah, I talked with a guy a few days ago who had never ever known that God liked him. All his life! And he was the kind of God-follower you want to be like. He realized it that day. It was cool.
Posted 4/28/2007 3:53 PM by Godseeker23

This add made me laugh out loud:

When I saw “browse off-line” what came to mind was something to do with my new Smartphone, not a newspaper, and the way it states “IN PRINT” just makes me smile.

I should do more off-line browsing.
Posted 4/25/2007 1:18 PM

1 Comment:

Lol, that was good. But then, if it isn’t the Sabath, wouldn’t the Lord’s day be every day? And it was ok that we did all that since we did it “heartily, as unto the Lord.”
Posted 4/25/2007 9:55 PM by madhatterb78

American muscle cars are fun for a while, but it just gets old. Here is a fun little fact sheet that goes around the office email humor list periodically:

Acceleration, Put Into Perspective

Putting this all into perspective:
You are driving the average $140,000 Lingenfelter twin-turbo powered
Corvette Z06. Over a mile up the road, a Top Fuel dragster is staged &
ready to launch down a quarter-mile strip as you pass. You have the
advantage of a flying start. You run the ‘Vette hard up through the
gears and blast across the starting line & pass the dragster at an
honest 200 MPH. The ‘tree’ goes green for both of you at that moment.
The dragster launches & starts after you. You keep your foot down
hard, but you hear an incredibly brutal whine that sears your eardrums
& within 3 seconds the dragster catches & passes you. He beats you to
the finish line, a quarter-mile away from where you just passed him.
Think about it - from a standing start, the dragster had spotted you
200 MPH & not only caught, but nearly blasted you off the road when he
passed you within a mere 1320 foot long race! That, is acceleration!

Which is basically why I sold my Mustang GT and now drive a 1.6 liter Miata. The
horsepower game is just a matter of how much money you can pour into a given hole in
a given amount of time. There is always someone who has more money than you who can,
therefore, go faster.

I mean, after reading this, who really cares how fast your [insert
any car you please here] can do the quarter mile?

What that top fuel car cannot do, is turn.

After watching the presentation on “Shift Happens” about how exploding populations on China and India make America start to pale in comparison, here is another presentation to show us just how small we are:

The Size Of Our World

Juxtapose that with the fact that matter is mostly empty space filled with particles that are so small we can hardly imagine them, much less detect them, and it is clear that God is really into absolutely insane ranges of scale.

Posted 4/25/2007 8:09 AM

1 Comment:

No, I said Sunday. The Sabath was the day before.
Posted 4/25/2007 8:53 AM by madhatterb78

I have noticed that sometimes when you ssh into one system, and then try to ssh into another system from there, it hangs for a while during the login.

ssh hostname

If you TELNET into the first server and then SSH from there, it is MUCH faster!

using ssh -v hostname showed me that it was hanging when trying to set up X11 forwarding, so a quick fix was like this:

ssh -x hostname

And it should go much faster. This is especially noticeable in for loops like this:

for i in $(cat SystemList);do ssh -x $i ‘hostname;cat /etc/passwd’ >> output;done;less output;rm output

Currently Listening to The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume 1 by Rich Mullins

First, here is a very interesting presentation, if the link isn’t dead yet:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift

And then these facts:

“It took two centuries to fill the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, DC, with more than 29 million books and periodicals, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 57 million manuscripts. Today it takes about 15 minutes for the world to churn out an equivalent amount of new digital information. It does so about 100 times every day, for a grand total of 5 exabytes annually.” http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul05/1568

“The first disk drive in 1956 stored 2,000 bits per square inch. In disk drives today, the figure is as high as 135 billion bits per square inch. That’s almost a 70 million fold increase! And in the next 5 years, we will ship m ore disk drives than we shipped in the first 50 years.” - Currie Munce, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

Our world has undergone a huge change, and we in it.

I remember hearing about a man who lived some centuries ago who had read everything available in print in several languages. That was entirely possible for someone who was literate enough , but more importantly, wealthy enough to do so.

Information was something you drank in. You drank it and it became a part of you. Universities would be a place full of books and people full of information from which you took it in. Like huge drinking fountains.

Today you can no longer drink information. It is as if drinking in the Ocean. No, instead we must navigate it. We must learn to swim in it, or drown in it. Universities, rather than drinking fountains, are now schools to teach SCUBA diving.

Dealing with information today is as different from the past as drinking a glass of water is from SCUBA diving. It is still water, but what we can and must do with it is totally different.

Posted 4/23/2007 10:34 AM

3 Comments:

Wow, I really like your description. Very poignant. And I completely agree about modern Universities. virtually all literary scholars have to come to grips with the fact that we will likely never come up with an original literary idea, and even for those who do, the vast majority of our academic lives will actually be spent sifting and swimming through mountains of other people’s theories, ideas and findings that we will then apply in our own way, to make our own arguments. It’s nuts. Comp I has for the most part been narrowed down to: teach them how to read, teach them how to find info (research) and regurgitate it back, in a format centered around citing sources (MLA/APA): thus the research paper. That is the basic building block of all language-oriented studies. It really tells you something. Good post.

Tegwen†
Posted 4/23/2007 11:24 AM by Tegwenava

Yes, how true. And who knows what to make of all this. I’m torn between the reality that the world is irreversibly changed and changing, and wondering if we should try to reverse some of the effects. For instance, all the swimming in the sea of information seems to make me an info-bulimic. I drink it in and spit it up, then drink in some more. It’s so hard to absorb anything.

And then there’s the problem of having to re-learn skills all the time as tools change. Programmers who mastered procedural programming soon had to get their heads around object-oriented programming (and few did, it seems), and now there’s functional programming, service-oriented, etc. In older arts, the discipline is stable. Accountants never have to re-learn the subtleties of credit and debit, because the concepts were set it stone long ago. Part of me longs for the day when today’s new things become old and stable, so we can figure out what it takes to master them.

Maybe these are “good” problems to have. But I don’t think our education prepares us well to handle it all. And who knows how it should?

I also think you like it. You’re the guy that likes learning new gadgets, and even overhauling your system of organizing your life. Maybe I should develop that taste. All the re-learning and revamping just seems like such an interruption. I would rather be creating something than re-learning my creative tools.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s the perfectionists who will drown in this ocean.
Posted 4/24/2007 8:01 AM by jonathan_camenisch

I have thought about this some more, and I have to post an amendment to my own comment. I’m realizing that I like this ocean of information too. I like it because we actually have tools to manage it well.

An example is my wife’s business website (rebeccassilverrose.com). We created that site last summer. It’s nothing big, not in the top 100 or 100,000 sites on the web. We’ve made hardly an effort to market the site, beyond designing it carefully and listing her business on Superpages and Google maps.

What’s amazing in this day and age is that people actually find the site! I mean people that are looking for a florist in Oklahoma City find it and get in touch with her through it.

In other words, we added our little drop to that sea of information, and some of those who have a valid interest actually find it! In 15-years-ago terms, that’s incredible.

So I like it. The efficiencies are astounding. I’m just overwhelmed by it all sometimes. I think that to keep our humanity and our sanity, we need to step away from it all sometimes, slow down, and drink in more of less, instead of so little of so much.
Posted 4/27/2007 12:23 PM by jonathan_camenisch

Currently Listening to The Joshua Tree by U2

I found this fun piece on a web site for people to rant against what they hate. This guy claims to live in the “bible belt” (which he properly uses as a derogatory term, as it was coined to be) and was ranting about what he hates about it. Mostly he was annoyed at the restrictions on when and where they can buy alcohol, but he had a fun story about the people that he runs into, or that run into him rather:

one evening a few months ago I realized I needed some milk for my cereal, so I put on some shorts and a tshirt and went to the grocery store. the tshirt happened to have a caffeine molecule on it, and the shorts, as shorts tend to do, left my calves uncovered, which displayed my two tattoos. milk in hand, I was waiting in the checkout line, minding my own business, when a pentecostal lady in line behind me (easily identifiable: they don’t cut their hair, don’t style it, don’t wear make-up (or earrings even I think?), and can’t wear pants, so they’re always wearing ankle-length denim skirts. [something about ‘not dressing as a man’]) taps me on the shoulder and says, “satan has a place ready for you.” … I’m sorry, what was that? “mutilating your body like that is a sin against god, as is the drugs you obviously take. you’re going to go to hell.”

Wow, just where do they find these people?

If you are a Christian, just remember that:
A. This may just be the stereotype you are working under.
B. If you even come close to coming across like this, you are way off base.

Posted 4/20/2007 12:27 PM

3 Comments:

Wow. Um, yeah.
Posted 4/21/2007 3:05 PM by Godseeker23

That’s one reason I shy away from witnessing to people.
Posted 4/21/2007 3:07 PM by Godseeker23
This reminds me of a story my friend Josh told me. He was working on a video project out at Disney MGM. It was a celebrity impersonator contest. Josh was standing at a door directing the traffic of female Elvises and George Bushes. One particular woman stood out. She was a Marilyn Monroe impersonator - in her sixties or seventies, I believe. According to Josh she was intentionally nasty. He had no idea how to respond when she started commenting on his tattoos. Reminding him that his body was a temple - and maybe something about the law forbidding marks on the body. Anyway. Josh really had no idea how to respond. The bitter irony of being verbally assaulted for your lack of morality - by Maryline Monroe - is just enough to make your head spin.
Posted 4/24/2007 9:53 PM by novisigothsorkangaroos

I was very gratified to receive this email recently:
_________________________________________________________
Subject: From: Mrs.Carolyn Trowells….
From: ariolak001@hawaii.rr.com
Date: Tue, April 17, 2007 5:25 pm
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Hello,
I am Mrs. Carolyn Trowells a british citizen living in Ishikawa Japan.
I lost my family (Husband and Kid) in the quake disaster that happened
in Ishikawa Japan.
My late husband before his demise,deposited the sum of £7.5 Million
Pounds (Seven Million Five Hundred Thousand Pounds) with a Finance &
Trust Company in Europe. I just received a message from the company
stating that I am the sole beneficiary to this deposited funds.And
that, the funds are in a dormat status and needs to be
active/operational so as to enable them release and transfer this
funds to me as soon as possible.
I am presently in a hospital in Ishikawa Japan receiving medical
treatment. Due to my deteriorating state of health, I am not sure I
will be able to survive because I feel so much pain in my upper chest
region.

I am contacting you to help me carry out my last wishes.I have so much
faith in you and for this reason,I am entrusting this huge
responsibility on you.

1. I want you to claim on my behalf, the deposited funds.
2. I want you to build an orphanage home in your country with part of
the funds.
3. I want you to fund churches,mosques,less priviledges and the needy
most especially orphanage homes and widows.

Finally,you are to document all expenses incured during the
transaction.And you are to reimburse yourself as soon as the funds is
transfered to you.I took this decision because it is blessed to give
than to receive. I don’t want a situation where this money will be
used to carry out nefarious activities.I urge you to get back to me on
this and also hoping to hear that you are willing and ready to help me.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Xiang Li (Bed assistant).
for
Mrs.Carolyn Trowells

N.B:Please pardon me, I got your contact email address from a google
search for reputable individuals.
_________________________________________________________

I am a reputable individual!

Posted 4/20/2007 9:04 AM

2 Comments:

Yes, Google would certainly know if anybody does. I’m glad you’re getting some recognition!
Posted 4/21/2007 2:04 PM by jonathan_camenisch

Now that you have the text on your xanga - google will be able to tag you even more effectively! Yay!
Posted 4/24/2007 9:54 PM by novisigothsorkangaroos

The supreme court finally upheld the ban on “partial birth abortion” or rather, as it is correctly known: intact dilation and extraction.

Sounds like a huge win, right?

Maybe, or is it really just more right wing spin stupidity?

Here is my understanding: This does NOT stop abortions at any point. What it does is simply legislate a procedure. Instead of intact dilation and extraction, where they kill the little guy and pull him out whole, they must use “dilation and evacuation” where they kill him, then chop him up into little pieces first and then pull him out.

So, who wins? Nobody.

Maybe I am completely misunderstanding this, but it seems like they are just banning a specific procedure because it sounds bad, and thus requiring the use of another procedure that doesn’t have an inflammatory name (not a real name, but one put on it by protesters) like “partial birth” with no net reduction in abortions.

Actually, to add to the bazaar nature of this, I don’t think the law even mentions the procedure, but rather uses the words “partial birth” which is, well, not a medical term. So it seems up to a judge, somewhere, some day (soon I am sure) to set up case law to decide what “partial birth” means.

The use of spin terms, instead of medical terms in this law makes this whole thing that much more suspicious. It sounds like they just want to be able to put “passed the partial birth abortion ban” on their resume, even though the bill ranges from meaningless to dangerous.

Here is an article that goes into some of it, although it leaves a lot of questions unanswered and seems to start out with a bias in favor of abortion, although, again, it is hard to tell if they are in favor of abortion, or just against silly legislation:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5168163

I am interested in other views or corrections, but please, include citations. We can “talk” about it all day long, but this isn’t an opinion, there are facts there somewhere, if we can just unearth them from beneath all of the spin.

P.S. You may NOT cite anything from anyone associatd with Pat Robertson, or his ministries. I am afraid he lacks credibility.
Posted 4/18/2007 3:14 PM

2 Comments:

Interesting… didn’t think about it in those terms… To reply to your statement on my page, what about this: “Without repentance there can be no forgiveness…” Repentance requires an understanding of sin, and forgiveness is requisite to salvation (since we must be perfect… grace through faith). If there is no forgiveness, there is no salvation, and without repentance there cannot be forgiveness, and so it leads us inexorably to the final conclusion that without the understanding of sin there cannot be repentance, hence no forgiveness, hence no salvific state… Jesus told a parable about two men who were both forgiven their debts: One only owed $20 or so, while the other owed hundreds of thousands. Who would LOVE the one who forgave them more? The answer: the one who knew that he had the massive debt. The love comes from the understanding that they were forgiven of massive sin… It does not usually, unfortunately, come of its own accord, leading to repentance. Even so, the concept of sin is still understood by the feldgling believer. Two more cents in your direction. L8ers.
Posted 4/19/2007 5:53 PM by NathanKing

Ok, I read the NPR article, and from what I can tell a small battle has been won- however small. It does not stop abortions but it limits the inhumaniy in the abortion. Here’s what the article said:

[the bill] prohibits doctors from knowingly performing a “partial-birth abortion,” a procedure it defines as one in which the person performing the abortion “deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother.”

In other words they can NOT deliver the baby, alive, then kill it by puncturing it’s head (D&X). This is terrible and I am glad they aren’t allowed to do it any more.

So I’m guessing that this new laws implication is that the child must be killed while it is still inside the woumb (correct me if I’m wrong). The fact that this is legal at all is horrific, and I’m sure they could do just as much harm to a child in the woumb as they do out of it, but in some sense, I still feel like the law has limited the amount of brutality allowed. Also, because of the risk of lacerating the cervix there is a chance that some women would not have abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Even if this only saves a few, it’s something.

I think the bigest sign that this law does have some positive influence is the fact that pro-abortion lobiests are upset about it. As the article says:

“Abortion-rights backers say the ban is a first step toward trying to outlaw all abortions. Even some supporters of the ban say that if it is upheld, they could then move on to try to outlaw the far more common D&E procedure, whose description is nearly as unpleasant as that of the D&X.”

This is exactly what we want. Let’s pray that by God’s mercy, it will be the case.”

“Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness.” (Ecclesiastes 3:16) But I still believe that we should rejoice in any small steps that Justice can take in a world ever more given to sin.

“I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.” (Ecclesiastes 3:17)
Posted 4/24/2007 1:20 PM by Tegwenava

Gotta love Google!

(Be sure to click on the big “Getting Started with Google TiSP” button to read about how it works!)

http://www.google.com/tisp/

LOL
Posted 4/10/2007 12:59 PM

3 Comments:

Mmwoohahahaha!
Posted 4/11/2007 6:18 AM by jonathan_camenisch

Google is great… Esther believed it when I sent her information about Gmail Paper (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/index.html).
Posted 4/11/2007 11:41 AM by midwifebethany

That’s funny.
Posted 4/11/2007 1:59 PM by Godseeker23

Thanks to Bethany for pointing out that CNN took down the article. Who knows how they decide what to leave for generations to come, and what to pull.

I found a similar article, so here goes again . . .

Just how far does the government need to go to protect our safety?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/29/fs.asteroids/index.html

Now the real question I have, is are there any blinking lights on any of those asteroids?

Posted 4/7/2007 2:45 PM

1 Comment:

Wouldn’t an asteroid help a lot with the future over-population crisis?

Of course, I guess the same could be said of AIDS, bird flu, and world war III.

How can we even converse about such things without some kind of shared moral framework? I mean, do we really have any reason to be that the survival of our species matters at all? Or why should we care about our children and their children? Isn’t that mixing religion with government?

But I digress from your topic to one that’s been bugging me…
Posted 4/7/2007 4:13 PM by jonathan_camenisch

I was discussing with a friend recently how I really have to admit that I hate sermons. My friend seemed to feel they were probably biblical, although, to be fair, we did not discuss it much. Anyway, my wife did some quick research on the subject. I think that the facts she dug up generally show that the modern form of monologue preaching is not supported by the Bible or history. I was going to try to write up a convincing article myself, based on these facts, but since I get paid to administer Unix servers and not to write, I’ll just dump the facts onto this Unix server that Xanga runs for us and let you decide for yourself to agree with me.

So, in brief:

Deffinition of the word “sermon:”
The word “sermon” comes from a Middle English word which was derived from an
Old French term, which in turn came from the Latin word sermō;
(”discourse”). (Actually, it meant “conversation”, and early sermons were
delivered in the form of question and answer, only later did it come to mean
a monologue)

From Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon ):
The sermon takes center stage in Protestantism:
“Later the Reformation led to Protestant sermons, many of which defended the
schism with the Roman Catholic Church and explained beliefs about scripture,
theology and devotion. Since the distinctive doctrines of Protestantism held
that salvation was by faith alone, and convincing people to believe the
Gospel and place trust in God for their salvation through Jesus Christ was
the decisive step in salvation, in Protestantism the sermon and hymn came to
replace the Eucharist as the central act of Christian worship. To rouse
deeper faith in the churchgoers, rather than have them partake in a ritual,
was the goal of Protestant worship conditioned by these beliefs.”

Greek deffinition:
Gk 1256 (what Paul was doing while Eutychus fell asleep [quite literally])
1) to think different things with one’s self, mingle thought with thought
a) to ponder, revolve in mind
2) to converse, discourse with one, argue, discuss

From http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/321
“Early Anabaptist congregations were distinguished from their Catholic or
Reformed contemporaries by the much greater freedom their members had to
participate actively in a learning community. There were monologue sermons,
but often a number of people made contributions. Questions were invited and
discussion took place. Gradually, as the tradition developed, a reversion to
the dominance of monologue preaching can be observed, but echoes of a more
communal approach remain, together with a conviction that God speaks through
many people, sharing their gifts and perspectives in a multi-voiced
community.”

From http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/book/export/html/306
“Although the Anabaptists did not abandon sermons, they were wary of
monologues and critical of the lack of participation in the Catholic and
Protestant churches around them. They were outspoken about this issue and
argued from Scripture that something was wrong. An early Anabaptist tract
quoted Paul in I Corinthians 14 urging that all should contribute when the
church met together and complained: ‘When some one comes to church and hears
only one person speaking, and all the listeners are silent…who can or will
regard or confess the same to be a spiritual congregation?’ The reformers
had proclaimed the priesthood of all believers but the Anabaptists, their
contemporaries, were not impressed with what they found in the reformers’
churches. The monopoly of the Catholic priest seemed to have been replaced
by the monopoly of the reformed preacher. Experts were still disempowering
the congregation and hindering it from becoming mature.
Many Anabaptist congregations consciously moved away from the monologue
tradition towards a more interactive style with multiple participation and
dialogue.”

Other articles on the subject:

An emergent view:
http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/356

Good article from an ex-Anglican:
http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/157

Notes for The Problem with Preaching(with Biblical footnotes):
http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue93/index.cfm?id=16&ref=ARTICLES_DOING%20CHURCH_254

Just how far does the government need to go to protect our safety?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/02/19/asteroid.deflector.reut/index.html

Now the real question I have, is are there any blinking lights on any of those asteroids?

Posted 4/6/2007 5:17 PM

1 Comment:

Too bad CNN deleted the article…
Posted 4/7/2007 11:28 AM by midwifebethany

Here are a couple of articles to help you be a good fundamentalist.

http://www.av1611.org/nkjv.html

If you ever spent any time listening to a man by the name of Bill Gothard, this next article might not even seem funny, but rather, just normal. I’ve heard all of these methods of proving a point “biblically” used by Bill before. This guy even brings the CDC into it!

http://www.dbhome.dk/carlo/cat.htm

All that comes to mind is “Your logic is dizzying.” Someone should have tried that line at IBLP headquarters sometime.

Posted 3/29/2007 2:33 PM

5 Comments:

Wow. That second article is some complete and bitter satire. But you are so right - every one of those methods is used - frequently - all over the place…
Posted 3/29/2007 3:51 PM by novisigothsorkangaroos

Wow, how do you find this stuff?

I’m thinking that little symbol with the phone and the Bible looks familiar. It really resembles something used by…oh, who was it. I’ll have to do some research.
Posted 3/30/2007 6:48 AM by jonathan_camenisch

Yea, I mean, I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve been tempted toward idolotry of my cat numerous times! This guy needs to write about what the Bible says about dogs. According to Duet. 23:18 ‘dog’ is the Biblical word for male prostitue. The book also states that unclean meat should be thrown to the dogs. Would a true follower of Jahova allow such a creature in his house hold? I think not!

LOL

That first guy though, is seriously spastic. I can feel him yelling at me through the screne. I mean, he’s mad that the translators used the original greek words for hell instead of an english one- that really makes sense. I refuse to be stressed out by this.

~Tegwin
Posted 3/30/2007 4:05 PM by Tegwenava

that is some heavy stuff about the nkjv! guess i will have to get up and leave if they ever decide to read from it in church. :-p

i wish i had God’s email address, so I could send Him the one about cats… I mean, do you think He knew this when He created them? :-/ I like Tegwin’s point about dogs…

I found a pretty good book recently, A Matter of Basic Principles. First time I’d tried to think seriously about iblp in a long time.
Posted 3/31/2007 4:51 PM by miracles_start_now

You’re right. I’m not saying everyone lies on Xanga. They just don’t say everything. Not that they’re supposed to. But what’s anything without context? Guess that’s where knowing the person who wrote it comes in. Sort of like with the Bible.
Posted 4/6/2007 1:53 PM by Godseeker23

From The Writer’s Almanac:

“It’s the birthday of one of the great American journalists of the 20th
century, A.J. (Abbott Joseph) Liebling, born in New York (1904). He got
his first real writing job working at the New York World, and began
writing about New York City saloons and nightclubs, racetracks and corner
stores, gourmet restaurants and boxing rings. His favorite subjects were
food, journalism, and boxing.

“In 1939, he began to cover the war in Europe for The New Yorker. Unlike
other war correspondents, Liebling didn’t write about politics or combat
strategy. He wrote about day-to-day life among the soldiers and the
civilians. He later said that he missed the war years. He wrote, ‘The
times were full of certainties: We could be certain we were right—and we
were—and that certainty made us certain that anything we did was right,
too. I have seldom been sure I was right since. … I know that it is
socially acceptable to write about war as an unmitigated horror, but
subjectively at least, it was not true, and you can feel its pull on men’s
memories at the maudlin reunions of war divisions. They mourn for their
dead, but also for war.’”

A. J. Liebling also said, “Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of
inexperience.”

Like life at a training center, full of certainty and purpose.

Life, looked at objectively, often does not give the full picture.

Posted 3/23/2007 3:43 PM

2 Comments:

Wow, he seems like an extremely interesting writer, one that will make an excellent source in centurys to come of WW2 life. I love these sort of studies.

The last quote you have there is very good and very true.
Posted 3/25/2007 6:23 PM by Tegwenava

He was right, and that was a good point about knowing so certainly that you’re right.

Are you a cynic?
Posted 3/29/2007 11:28 AM by Godseeker23

From The Writer’s Almanac:

“It’s the birthday of one of the great American journalists of the 20th
century, A.J. (Abbott Joseph) Liebling, born in New York (1904). He got
his first real writing job working at the New York World, and began
writing about New York City saloons and nightclubs, racetracks and corner
stores, gourmet restaurants and boxing rings. His favorite subjects were
food, journalism, and boxing.

“In 1939, he began to cover the war in Europe for The New Yorker. Unlike
other war correspondents, Liebling didn’t write about politics or combat
strategy. He wrote about day-to-day life among the soldiers and the
civilians. He later said that he missed the war years. He wrote, ‘The
times were full of certainties: We could be certain we were right—and we
were—and that certainty made us certain that anything we did was right,
too. I have seldom been sure I was right since. … I know that it is
socially acceptable to write about war as an unmitigated horror, but
subjectively at least, it was not true, and you can feel its pull on men’s
memories at the maudlin reunions of war divisions. They mourn for their
dead, but also for war.’”

A. J. Liebling also said, “Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of
inexperience.”

Like life at a training center, full of certainty and purpose.

Life, looked at objectively, often does not give the full picture.

when Solaris goes into singel user mode due to disk problems, just type:

fsck -y

do that over and over until it is happy, then exit

if it is still not happy, it will dump you to single again, so fsck -y again

eventually it will be happy and finish booting.

Now if it boots ok, another reboot is probably in order, for a test.

I used this script to find to find out what version of Sendmail was on each server by package:

for i in $(cat SystemList);do ssh $i ‘hostname;pkginfo -l Sendmail | grep VERSION:;pkginfo -l OtherSendmail | grep VERSION:’ >> output;done;cat output

What ouput looks like is this:

hostname1
VERSION: 8.12.10
hostname2
VERSION: 8.13.7
hostname3
VERSION: 8.13.8
hostname4
VERSION: 8.13.8
hostname5
VERSION: 8.13.8
…

This is hard to parse, I wanted it on one line.

Per this web page: http://unix-simple.blogspot.com/2006/12/awk-script-to-combine-lines-in-file.html

I modified the code slightly and ran this:

cat output | awk ‘{d=d”"$o}
/VERSION/ {
print d
d=”"
}’

and got this:

hostname1 VERSION: 8.12.10
hostname2 VERSION: 8.13.7
hostname3 VERSION: 8.13.8
hostname4 VERSION: 8.13.8
hostname5 VERSION: 8.13.8
…

VERY cool, and easy to parse, and even to stick into Excel.
____

Make it comma delimited:
for i in $(cat SystemList);do ssh $i ‘uname -n;echo ,;crontab -l|grep -i SEARCHTEXT1;echo ,;crontab -l|grep -i SEARCHTEXT2;echo done’>>output;done;less output

cat output | awk ‘{d=d”"$o}
/done/ {
print d
d=”"
}’

Here are the step by step (maybe to script soon):
Open a console connection to the box and log into it. Just leave it there for emergency.
from SSH login
cd
pwd
mkdir /root
ls -la
rm .profile.orig
mv .forward .profile .rhosts .sh_history .ssh .Xauthority /root/
mail -f mbox
mail -f mbox
rm mbox
ls -la
vi /etc/passwd
SSH in again and see if it works.
Log off and back on at console to make sure it works.
pwd
whoami

Expect is really cool, and you can use autoexpect to MAKE an expect script from a session, like a macro recorder!
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3065
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/expect/chapter/ch03.html
Here is my script to just telnet to port 25 to see the Sendmail version:

set timeout 10
spawn telnet $argv 25
match_max 100000
expect -exact “sendmail”
send — “quit\r”
expect eof

It was made with autoexpect and then edited, there is some more stuff in the file autoexpect spit out.
Here is how I loop it:
for i in $(cat MissingList);do echo $i >> output;test2.exp $i | grep -i sendmail >> output;done;cat output

I just love this quote, I laugh out loud sometimes when it comes to mind. I think it may be from the movie “We’re No Angles,” but I’m not certain.

Anyway, here it is:

“You’ve gotta admire him, even if you don’t.”

Can you think of anyone you would say this about?

Posted 3/16/2007 12:15 PM

8 Comments:

I tried but I can’t. I think I know what you mean, though. Can you?
Posted 3/16/2007 4:34 PM by Godseeker23

You’d have to meet them. The list starts with funny (as in “makes you laugh”) but I don’t know the rest of it offhand.
Posted 3/16/2007 4:35 PM by Godseeker23

Posted 3/17/2007 8:24 AM by jonathan_camenisch

I think you meant “Angels”. They were closer to angles than angels.
Posted 3/19/2007 9:25 AM by ThoughtForFood

I think you meant “Angels”. Those guys were closer to angles, I suppose…
Posted 3/19/2007 9:27 AM by ThoughtForFood

Although the Angles were real people. The Angles were a group of Germanic people who invaded Great Britain way back in the day. In fact, there name has been used as a pun with Angels for a long time. Supposedly Pope Gregory I saw a group of young Angle children for sale at a Roman slave market and was shocked by their beauty. He inquired about their origin and when he was told he responded “Not Angles, but Angels”. He therefore resolved to convert their homeland. Somehow it seems that buying their freedom might have been more helpful…
Posted 3/19/2007 6:56 PM by novisigothsorkangaroos

Yes, Jared. They invented fishing, right?
Posted 3/19/2007 7:54 PM by ThoughtForFood

Alright Christen, I’ll be more precise then. In Latin supposedly he actually said:
“Non Angli, sed angeli”

Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to go around making Latin puns?

And yes Jerusha, I like the way you think. They may well have been some of the first anglers…
Posted 3/20/2007 11:16 AM by novisigothsorkangaroos

Currently Listening to Awake by Josh Groban

When I become a world famous singer/song writer/musician I need to put strict usage rights on my work.

Josh Groban has gotten really popular with his latest CD. Several of the songs are on the easy listening stations that people at work listen to, and are even being pumped out into retail stores . . .

Now his latest music can be heard in the same venue in which we were putting up with the typical pop trash from girls who shave their heads and no name artists re-singing old songs from venerable institutions of the past like Culture Club . . .

I am sure this is great for Josh’s royalty earnings, but somehow it seems to erode some of the work, just the slightest bit maybe . . .

to wit:

Somehow, standing in a large warehouse style home improvement store in the customer service lane to return some building supplies does not feel like quite the right environment to appreciate Josh Groban’s “February Song.”

Then again, maybe it should. Maybe all of that trash music I’ve learned to put up with in such places has lowered my standards. If I could expect such quality music in retail establishments, I might drop my URGE subscription in favor of a SAM’s Club membership.

As it is, I dislike going to the grocery store almost as much as I dislike listening to Boy George.

Does Dillons really want to hurt me?

Posted 3/1/2007 1:33 PM

8 Comments:

About Dillons–you are missing the point. It’s not that they WANT to hurt you, or that they want NOT to hurt you. Whichever helps their bottom line, they would prefer. Do you, or does Jerusha, spend more money on groceries when you do the shopping? Then that is the person with the musical preference to which they would prefer to acquiesce.

And no, I’m not (quite) a cynic. There is, like, 1/2 mm on the scale between the actual cynic and me.
Posted 3/3/2007 4:45 PM by miracles_start_now

I agree about the grocery store. Why does food shopping have to be such a terrible experience? I like it fine when I do it with Jerusha and just have to talk with Melissa and push her in the cart, but it’s a different story when I have to do it for myself. After spending your whole life learning to invest in permanent rather than temporary things, you find yourself compelled to pour money into things which you know will have either been consumed or spoiled withing a week. And all in an atmosphere reminiscent of Home Depot. Can’t you at least make me feel good about loosing my money? Recently I did have one contrary experience. I stopped by a high-end import and natural food grocery store. All the fruit look great. They had a whole section devoted to chocolate. A large one devoted to import cheeses. The store smells nice. The food all looks beautiful and fun to eat. Shopping was so much fun. But alas, the financial damages are even more severe. So I continue to shop at the 24hr Wal-Mart Community store…
Posted 3/5/2007 8:32 AM by novisigothsorkangaroos

I missed something. If the word of God is like the spoon, where does “there is no spoon” come in? (I thought the spoon=reality. There is no reality; it is your mind that you bend. Postmodern worldview.) Can you explain again?
Posted 3/7/2007 1:02 PM by Godseeker23

Okay, I’m curious: how do you decide whether or not to give eprops? I can’t draw a line between when you do and when you don’t give them. Explain?
Posted 3/7/2007 1:38 PM by Godseeker23

Not real to us, but I think you were on to something when you talked about God being outside of time as we know it. (Like the Dilbert cartoon: “To you, is time a linear stream of events or a trail of endless possibilities?” “To me Time is a magazine. Now ask me about ‘Life.’”) Like Shakespeare wasn’t limited to Romeo and Juliet’s timeline; he lived outside it. And the analogy does break down: Unlike us, Romeo and Juliet didn’t have any choice on what they did, so there was no room for chance. (Which makes God that much better because he works it out for good to people who love him in spite of what sinful people choose.) Are we arguing or agreeing?
Posted 3/10/2007 4:10 PM by Godseeker23

“Are we arguing or agreeing?”

Yes.
Posted 3/12/2007 8:31 AM by ThinkingOnTheEdge

Yeah, I think it just went from one side of my hand to the other, and maybe just a little through my forearm. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t grounded anywhere else, as I was sitting on carpet. Definitely dangerous enough to prevent me from repeating it though.
Posted 3/13/2007 2:50 PM by madhatterb78

Oh and a typo. I was adjusting a belt, not a bolt
Posted 3/13/2007 2:53 PM by madhatterb78

We all know about Fred Phelps. I think if I were to label anyone anti-Christ (Martin Luther got to do it, why can’t I?) it would be him.

I do like to keep track of the nuts though. There is a new one I had not heard of before, his name is Darwin Fish. I’d never even heard of him before, but that really is his name (and it has nothing to do with fish with legs on them, just an apparent joke of fate on him). He is really quite a guy. You can read about him (from an opposing side) here. He is against everyone, and really doesn’t leave a side to stand on. It is fun to read really.

Anyway, one reason I like to watch these people is because sometimes when I find myself out on the edge of the mainstream, or the tried and true, I know that I haunt the same dark passages that these guys live in. I very much do not want to “go there” if you know what I mean.

However, the instant I pulled up his site, it was so obvious. Fear and hate. It just drips from the site.

Sorry guys, “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate is the path to the dark side” And, so, yet another “want to be taken seriously” movement struck down at the first checkpoint.

Never do anything motivated by or that motivates fear and hate.

Now, lest you think I’ve just pinned myself up as impenetrable, I know I am not. Even ask I get irked at the likes of Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson, I know that I can easily fall into the same trap of hate and anger.

Ah well, what can we do? It was God’s decision to submit Himself to the humiliation of having His name carried exclusively by we fallible humans. If it makes us sad to see what people do with His name, how do you think it makes God feel?

I also like to read these people, because the error is so blatant, that sometimes I can find the end results of some of my own lines of thinking before I get there. Kind of a shortcut to learning if an idea is going to turn out to lead to a dead end. For instance, I don wonder sometimes if you can still go to heaven, even if your theology is flawed, and if so, how flawed can it be? David Fish makes it clear that you cannot go to heaven if your theology is flawed, and his Biblical defense of his position clearly proves that he is wrong.

I also enjoy reading the blatant misuse of scripture by crazy people. Why? Because I was subjected to it for several years myself. It just underlines for me the fact that, yes, just because the Bible “says it” does not make it true. You probably cannot understand how much I still battle with ideas in my head that, because of some obscure scripture or example in the Bible, I am condemning myself and my family to hell, or at least hell on earth, by my current actions (like listening to Lawrence Welk music).

Currently Listening to New Magnetic Wonder by Apples in Stereo

I was commenting on Godseeker23’s Xanga, and suddenly it hit me. I am really annoyed that God is not obvious. I mean, it is totally frustrating to me that if He is so big and so amazing and so powerful, how come we can’t see Him?

Then it it me. Wow, duh!

The amazing thing is that we cannot see Him. Imagine, an all powerful, trans-dimensional being that extends across all of the time and space of our universe, and yet, somehow, He keeps a low profile.

Think about it. When is the last time that God accidentally tripped over the cord and pulled the plug on something important like gravity or electrostatic attraction? Not in my memory. Now, of course, maybe he just goes back in time an wipes up His messes, but, well, I kind of doubt it.

What I mean is this. I DO believe that God is involved in our lives. He intervenes in human affairs, and yet. And yet, He never really shows up. I don’t mean things like hidden angle’s having their bodies crushed between cars to soften the impact. I mean things like praying for hope, or for changed lives and hearts and then how it happens. Not like some love potion from Shrek (”Now we’re SEXY!”) but slowly, steadily and hidden from view, so that years later you look back on the time and it seems distant and strange. Did time heal the wound, the hurt and the pain? No, time doesn’t do that, only God does. Like a road doesn’t take us to a destination, a car does, so time doesn’t heal, God does, but we travel over time in the process.

You look out your window and you don’t see God, but imagine this huge all-powerful trans-dimensional being that extends across (and beyond) all of the time and space of our universe secretly moving through every atom of the world you live in.

It is, quite frankly, amazing that he is so smooth that He never shows up, either physically though some odd anomalies in space/time that weird us out or meta-physically through people suddenly making drastic unexplainable changes in their outlook and behavior. I know the second does happen, sometimes, but not as often as we would like. Maybe that is the point, God doesn’t work that way. He stays hidden. After all, God told Moses he would die if he looked at Him. Maybe God is really saving our lives by staying hidden. Hidden both physically and meta-physically.

Maybe that is what all that empty space inside of all of the atoms is for. Even a smooth operator like God needs a little room to operate.

Posted 2/15/2007 11:58 AM

4 Comments:

Well said.

Although, what if God actually is obvious? What if all the things we call “natural” are really miraculous, and we just don’t see them that way because we’re so accustomed to them?
Posted 2/16/2007 7:16 AM by jonathan_camenisch

I agree about the space inside the atoms that is never actually traveled through by the molecules. Good thought.

Since I’m a different kind of learner than perhaps you are, I do find God to rather visible and obvious. I tend to be very auditory, and so being in constant conversation with him tends to make me aware of his presence- which often then manifests itself visually. Like sometimes he points funny or beautful things out to me in my surroundings, and so I see him there. Sometimes I see him playing with animals or children, or helping mothers, or working with men. I think the place I have seen him the most however, is in the clouds-the giant cumlionimbus of the oustreatched Florida sky. His majestic court in all its grandure and size seems to rest rather compfortably in the colorful and colosal sky. But an imagination can do that better than the senses can- so my observation is probably not fair.

Another way I’ve seen Him a lot lately (and this is more solid) is in studying physical geography. Even though we understand most of the forces and laws that govern the scientific rhelm, there are still things that rely completely on “chance” or the choice of God. For example, we can look at an analysis of the atmosphere, with all of the pressure gradients, cloud systems, teperature movements, convective cells, tides, jets stremes, fronts, etc, each of which operate under predictable laws like coriolis effect, gravity, Latent heat levels etc, and even when all the numbers fit into the equation, we cannot be totally sure which way a storm system will travel. This becomes incredibly amazing when you spend weeks studying the complete depth to which humans understand these concepts- it really seems like we should be able to predict- and yet for completely unexplainable reasons, we can’t. That is the hand of God- and if you look out your window with a birds eye view you will see it.

Also, Jared and I have talked about seeing the hand of God in statistics. For some reason there are a certain amount of car accidents a year- no more and no less, and this number remains almost constant- so WHY?! There is absolutely no reason why- other than because God said so. I mean, man has some control over how many air bags work, or seat belts are worn, or speed is driven, but how many times a year- a month even- do you avoid a total