David Eagle’s blog

Plurk is Twitter-meets-IRC on a timeline with a "karma" system (leveling up?  Leveling up on a WEBSITE?  I'm meellttinnnggg...)

Anyway, after seeing Plurk, I see no reason to Twitter.  Sign up with my referral code so I can ding:

http://plurk.com/redeemByURL?from_uid=1480920&check=-403405402&s=1

Just wanted to let you guys know that NerdCore is awesome.  If you can keep up with half of this, give yourself a gold star.  If you get all of it, swing by for the job interview on Monday.

"Push through the summer for the wintergreen,
Won't stand for delays like the Vista team
Microeconomics keep the cash flow typical
it's minimally visible to the astrophysical

My brain is a structure exploding novas,
it's tougher than clusters of open Mosix
Execute Kiddiez who know they can't hang
Change mode +x, start with the (??)

--

The lights green which means I got a connection
flows me through the air like wireless receptions
can't capture what this kid spits with Kismet,
Each packet I send is encrypted with Trip-DES

And I'll keep flowin' till the mic goes off
You get a virus cough, you kids are Microsoft
and I'm hard like OpenBSD Internals
Excuse me, I need to make a call to the Kernel

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Impress the President, split the dychotomy,
Quickness of elliptic curve cryptography
Plus, Quantum Pyshics has the world surrounded
but I change the definition by talkin about it."

Abby and I went to Borders on the way home from the Optometrist today.  We stopped for AC mostly, but we also both love books, so it was a two-fer!

At the front of the store they arrange more popular books on tables.  On one side of the second table was "Non-Fiction" and on the other side was "Fiction".  Someone had moved both stacks of Barack Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope", to the Fiction side of the table.

I chuckled.

I've decided to move a lot of my posts to my site, which had sort of fallen by the wayside.  Vox doesn't do anything for me in search engines, and I'd rather have the content building value for a personal site, which I can use to link to other sites.

So add my RSS to your googly readers!

http://www.davideagle.net/

We're sitting in Starbucks.  It's approximately one hundred and six million degrees (centigrade) outside.  Kim is working on thank-you notes for her various baby showers (hopefully, before the baby comes, but it's not looking too good).  I'm reflexively pressing "Refresh" on Dell's Order Status page.

There was a table full of people sitting just on the other side of the floor to ceiling glass window.  They were, at a maximum, three feet away from us.  Outside, in the heat.  The woman in the party stared at me as I took my laptop out of the bag.  Then she stared at Kim for about five minutes.  I guess not everyone knows how glass works, but unless you're at a police station, any time you can see people through glass they can pretty much see you (incidentally, this applies to you idiots in raised trucks and lowered Honda's, and guys wearing sunglasses.  Seriously guys.  Seriously.)

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I've decided I'm going to try to live blog the labor and delivery (thanks, iPhone).  Because updates of that nature will likely be small, I will be doing it via Twitter.com.  Any major updates I will Vox and link in my Twitter stream.  I honestly don't know how far I'll go with this.  For instance, you probably won't see one that says "Crowning", but I bet I can get to 10cm. ;)

Twitter can be found here: http://twitter.com/cdeagle 

Add it to your RSS readers of choice and be prepared for a stream of Twittery, birthy goodness.

The hospital room we were in 2 weeks ago had pretty good Cell phone signal, and I could surf on my phone well.  Hopefully we'll get another good one whenever the baby decides to come out.  Otherwise I'll have to use RFC 1149, the infamous "IP over Avian" protocol.

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Age of Conan:  I'm interested.  It has my attention, you know?  But I LIKE auto-attack.  I give it 10 months before they release a re-worked combat system.  Trust me, Feats and specials are enough without having to press an EXTRA button every x*!

I guess my desire to BE that stygian assassin is overhwelming, but not in the context of any specific video game.  There's just no more effective way of living out the fantasy.  Strange, if I were 15 years younger I'd just put on all black clothes and sneak up on people, today I get on the internet with a bunch of friends and force my computer to do ridiculous amounts of math.

*: X = weapon speed - Haste Modifier.

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I was listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and thinking about the "Shelf life" of music.  Sure, some things are basically immortal, but nothing is eternally current, is it?  I'm looking at everything that I listen to today, and I wonder, when my daughter is my age, if I'm still listening to this stuff, what will it sound like to her?  Will it sound cheesy, overproduced?  Slow and boring?  "Like music from the '00's, ddaaad.  Ugh!"

And what will it sound like, to me?  Probably the same.  Just thinking about it makes me feel old.  And maybe that isn't so bad, after all.

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We saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian last night.  It was a decent adaptation of a good book.  C.S. Lewis really has a gift for pulling from major mythologies.  Myths, legends, creation stories, stories about God and the Heroes that shaped the world.  I guess it's all archetypal stuff that he pulls together.  It's cohesive because the themes are similarly idealistic. 

I think of the fantasy genre as something that has existed, really passionately existed, since the early 40's...You know, The Hobbit (1937)...little people and dwarves and elves and trolls and ogres and orcs...all that delicious, fantastic stuff.  But Tolkien didn't invent it, did he?  Fantasy isn't a relatively new genre, though we may be more voracious for it than we were a hundred years ago, Fantasy is older than time.  I mean, really.  Look at the greeks and their interpretations of the constellations.  Look at the Egyptian's gods, the entire jewish Tanakh, and the New Testament in the Christian bible.  A hero with power comes in mans darkest hour, overmatches the enemy, defeats him, casts him out.  Or frees the people from him.  I guess that part is less relevant. 

Lewis, who was good friends with Tolkien, wrote "Narnia" not (as we so arrogantly claim) allegorically about Christianity.  Aslan may or may not be like Jesus, but according to Lewis himself, the Lion is NOT Jesus.  And the stone table?  Lewis says that the "creator sacrificing himself for the creation" is a classic mythical formula.  He'd know, he taught that stuff at Cambridge. 

What's all that got to do with the movie?  I said in a comment on Jon G's blog that the problem with movies is that to be successful they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  Where books are sold one-off to people that "like that sort of thing", you've got to pack a theater to the gills.  In two weeks, basically.  A lot of the meaningful parts of a truly great book have to be eviscerated if you're making that book into a "fantasy action" movie.

It was entertaining, but it wasn't a Lewis book, anymore.  Score was not memorable.  Special effects were good.  It was a little long, but pacing was not bad.

I think the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was a better adaptation, but the most important elements of that book were built into the plot, so they couldn't adapt them out as "boring bits".

Incidentally, Eddie Izzard is good in everything.  Seriously.

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"Poses" by Rufus Wainwright just played on the Starbucks radio.  Now it's like, Pavarotti.  Or some crap. Come on Starbucks!  You were doing so well a minute ago!  I remember when Starbucks radio was powered by CD's.  But there it is again: when you have to appeal to the masses you can't do what you did when your only job was to be loved by a certain subset of society.  Is that bad?  Well, for me, yes.  But I hate Pavarotti.  It's probably good for someone.

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Kim has done 7 thank you notes.  If you're waiting by the mail box...you should probably go inside.

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Dell makes laptops.  I ordered one of them.  They gave me a shipping estimate of May 30th.  That's more than two weeks from the day I placed my order.  I called and asked what the deal with that was, and was told to suck it up, essentially.  I mentioned that the amount of information being provided to me was scandalously thin.  Really embarassing.  Honestly.  The guy told me that they dealt with MILLIONS of orders a day (I doubt that).  Which is fine.  But I doubt their order volume is higher than Amazon.com's, and Amazon actually knows 1. where my stuff is, 2., when it's going to ship, and 3. why it's NOT going to ship until then.

Dell, your order process, and your acquisition of parts needed to service those orders, all happens on computers.  Take 5 guys off of the Dell.com site and get them working on a program that pulls all of that information together.  I promise it wouldn't take them more than a month if they aren't idiots, and I'd love to feel like your Customer Support reps actually know what's happening.

The last thing is, if you MUST send me to a support center in India, that's fine.  But don't give your support reps fake names.  I know I'm American, but I think I can handle a tough pronunciation or two.  Calling everyone "Sally" and "Brian" is totally disingenuous, and you thinking that it makes me less annoyed about your order process is insulting on several levels.

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That's all I've got for you, Internets.  I'll let you know when the baby decides to come out.  Stay tuned.

Front page of the May 11th, 2008 issue of the OC Register carries a post from a blog called "The Orange Punch".  It reads as follows (from http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2008/05/09/next-installment-of-global-warming-deniers-kooks-and-crooks/):

Lawrence Solomon’s book on global warming “deniers” shows they aren’t the kooks and crooks they are made out to be.

In fact, the book, “The Deniers, The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution and fraud,” presents page after page of evidence showing:

“. . . conclusively that many of the greatest experts in the field are deeply skeptical of the Gore & co. version of global warming.”

Regarding the since-completely-refuted “hockey stick” chart that purported to show dramatic historic increases in global temperatures coinciding with increases of manmade greenhouse gases, Solomon notes that not only was it flat wrong:

“. . . the mistakes . . .  made were ones that would have been fairly obvious to a top-notch statistician. . . a basic error that ‘may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology’.”

Incidentally, the IPCC, which had cited the hockey stick as central to its evidence of manmade global warming, quietly dropped any mention of it once folks like Dr. Edward Wegman demolished its credibility. So who is this “denier?” 

“Denier” Wegman repeatedly has been honored by his peers, is a member of the Board of The American Statistical Association, past president of the International Association of Statistical Computing and past chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Science.

But Gore and company would have you believe deniers are flat earthers. Right.

Also, the Lakers need to play Better...but wow, nice shot by Bryant with 2.3 seconds to go at the bottom of the first half.  Woo!

If you are not continually finding in yourself shortcomings, I believe you are not growing.  This is not to say that one must be perpetually frustrated to be growing as a person, because you needn't be upset by your shortcomings.  You should be aware that they exist, have a good idea of what they are, and a desire to resolve them.  

The weaknesses that I struggle with today are much less visible, externally, than the ones that I struggled with 5 years ago.  I won't say that they are less "bad", or "severe", because my understanding of what is permissible in my own heart has changed in the intervening period.

I've been struggling recently with the depth of my faith.  Faith, the belief in things unproved, or unseen, or unknowable.  I guess I should start at the very beginning.

The problem that I have with Christianity is the lack of "skill indicator".  There is no visible metric for success!  How do I know if I'm a good Christian?  I can't compare myself to Bob, because Bob is not Jesus, and Jesus is my measure.  I'll never reach Messianic levels of goodness and/or mercy, so comparing myself to Jesus can be, at times, frustrating.  Indeed, this problem only gains complexity when you add an extra dimension: one of the signs of my success as a believer ought to be the appearance of a set of character traits.  I should be growing as a person, and displaying more of these attributes:

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.

How can I tell if I have more peace, joy, love and patience than I did last year?  Who's to say I've become more faithful or self controlled?  Am I more good?  Heh.  Well that one should be easy, as I was hardly good at all to begin with.  Alright, so I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out if I have these character attributes that a good Christian should have, and generally speaking I don't.  I'm also spending time trying to figure out how I can develop them, and what I can do to get better at these areas that I struggle in.  How I can put away the sins of the heart and abandon the places that my mind keeps returning to, unbidden.

That's when it hit me, for the 10th time this year.  I am a fixer, it's in my nature to find solutions.  There is no solution that I can implement to make myself more like Christ, except spending more time getting to know Him.  I sometimes catch myself doing something that John Cusack did in a movie that I watched a hundred times.  I'd like to catch myself doing what God wants me to do.  But this realization is old and worn out.  So why is it worth writing about?

Hold that thought.

If Philosophy is the practice of thinking about thinking, and I love it as much as I do, why wouldn't I apply those principles to my own way of thinking about religion?  I perpetually fall into this trap, trying to figure out how I can earn my relationship with Christ, and shut it off until I feel I'm "good enough" to participate in it again.  That's my nature, but what is at the root of that functional collapse of reason?

And what about my faith?  I have faith that God will provide for me, materially.  I am pretty unflappable when it comes to financial emergencies, and I know experientially that trusting God pays off.  I also know that I've been richly blessed, in spite of my treachery.  I have seen the hand of God play out in my physical life, and yet, when the time comes to rely on him for my spiritual growth, I consistently return to this pointless struggle against my own flesh, by the power of my own flesh.

Despite all I've been given, all I've seen and experienced, I am a man of little faith if I cannot believe that God, who blesses me in the wake of my infidelity, cannot, or is unwilling to, carry on a relationship with me, in the state that I'm in.

My realization: It isn't a sin to try to do well, it is a sin to think that God is not Able.  My shortcoming all of these years has not been in the attempt to improve myself, to act better or do the things that a Good Man would do, but in my inability to trust that God would like to be near me, during those times. 

It is a subtle difference, but a very important one.  On the one hand, I fell away because I counted myself unholy and left.  On the other hand, I counted God too little to join me, wherever I decided to take my fool self off to.  The latter is the far greater offense.

I'm finally starting to understand what David meant, in Psalm 51.  He had broken the law, committed adultery with a married woman, and murdered.  And what does he say?  "Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight".  It isn't that breaking the law meant nothing, but that the primary shortcoming was not failing to comply to the law, but failing to obey God, who is the reason for law.

And what will I do with this?  Already...already I feel myself worrying at this new problem.  "What can I do to build more faith in God so that I'm worthy to follow him?" 

What a fool am I.  I hope you're amused, I certainly am.

There are so many titles in songs.  So many great...feelings in lyrics.  I couldn't tell you, if I had all the words and knew precisely how to use them, just how much I love music.  How much music means to me. 

But it does.  And if you don't love music, you must love something the way that I love music.  You may not have a lyrical soul, but you must...have a soul...that is effected by things.  That longs for things.  That is built up by things which are beautiful.

What on earth do you love?  What can you never get enough of?  What speaks to you the way a clever turn of phrase and a melody speaks to me?

It's about halfway through.  Maybe a little more.  Here's the thing, though...this kitty, it was playing.  Imagine if there had been serious bloodlust involved.

http://www3.thestar.com/cgi-bin/star_static.cgi?section=plus&page=/Videos/080319_lion_tackle.html

We live in concrete and glass fortresses.  Thrust into the sky, standing tall against wind and sun and the ravages of time.  We commute in steel cages so advanced that, in them, we can survive collisions that occur at speeds faster than the fastest land animal can travel.

We have the technology to replace one of the organs most central to our survival, prolonging lives that would have been forfeit less than 100 years ago.

All of the advancements that we as humans have made invite hubris.  Pride is casual, almost unavoidable.  And why wouldn't we be proud?  As a species, we are virtually indestructable.

But this is reality: a lion could bite your face off.  Your entire face.  Right off.  One bite. 

No lie.