/mirror/pub/var/log/knowledge-junkie

GUINS WIN!

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:34:45 GMT

GUINS WIN!

Hooray for Pittsburgh!

Let's go Pens!

Stanley Cup champs 2009!

w00!

Now and in the hour of our deaths

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:35:49 GMT

Please pray for local fellow-workers at YWAM -- 2 Killed in shooting at YWAM training facility. I don't know anyone there personally, but have crossed paths with YWAM folks many times. They do a lot of good work in their own inimitable style.

Also remember New Life Church, where there's been another shooting incident today as well.

And in film news...

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:00:16 GMT

As a semi-pro historian, I invite you all to enjoy an actual historian remark on the upcoming ''Beowulf'' ''film'': http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2007/11/beowulf-footwear.html

Yeah, thats-a the good stuff, eh?

Bloat

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:10:23 GMT

Today I wish simply to observe that the complete installer for OpenOffice 2.3 is smaller than the third Service Pack for MS-Office 2003.

And the former spits out PDFs, too, if you want to do that without spending a kajillion bucks.

Down, not across.

For a rare rainy day...

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:28:04 GMT

Once again, I give you DA's "Bakersfield":

These down-payment dreamers
of small flat-roofed houses
and harsh vacant lots full of milkweed and dust
stinkbugs and rust
animal excrement
and murder evidence...

While Scully hangs over the freeways
Scully's ignoring the new age

I won't go back to Bakersfield
My friend died there, I loved him too much
See the nomads wandering in the desert moonlight
the Chosen Ones moving like great ancient turtles
They're going in circles with their holy referrals
eating manna from Wendy's
and God is with them
but I won't be there
God is with them
but I won't be there

though it's the same as any other place,
there's too much smog around my face
and I won't cry there
no I won't die there

oh, good...

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:46:29 GMT

A bit of a weight off my mind, really, considering some of the options...

You’re St. Justin Martyr!

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.

Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

That's m' boy!

O! brave new world!

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:07:21 GMT

Lo, I bring you this mighty deed of contemporary intertextuality: [musical goodness] in the hopes of making a better world. Or something.

Microsoft message of the day (so far)

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:10:51 GMT

I kid you not:

Some downloads are made available only after users have validated their versions of Microsoft Windows. Firefox and Netscape Navigator browser users may install a helper program, the Windows Genuine Advantage plug-in, to enhance their download experience.

Obviously, I have not been hitting the cheap gin hard enough lately.

the true North?

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:39:26 GMT

Today, I learned that Denver is in Canada, and I'm Canadian -- thanks to Dell! The "cart", which is the cruddy method I have to use to send quote requests to their salesdrones and resellers, is geb0rkt, and insists I wish to look around their lame site in its little Canadian box.

H8.

back from .SG

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:49:35 GMT

Back from my little trip to Singapore -- a few photos are up on Flickr, let me know if you'd like to see them, and I'll set you up as a contact etc.!

Pax.

Wesley? [meme]

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 08:26:42 GMT

Great hymns and stuff, but what're they doing in my soup?

One order of Brunner, easy on the Barth -- no Tillich, thanks mmkay?

You scored as Neo orthodox. You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God's most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

</td>

Neo orthodox

79%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

71%

Roman Catholic

68%

Reformed Evangelical

68%

Emergent/Postmodern

57%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

57%

Classical Liberal

39%

Fundamentalist

36%

Modern Liberal

25%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

Not a bad quiz, even if it skips yer foundational Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox positions altogether. Guess Wesleyan/Catholic is one way to describe Anglicanism, sort of. -Ish. -Like. Maybe one day I'll read some PT Forsyth, too...

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:49:48 GMT

Conditions outdoors at lunchtime: 1 °F / -17 °C

Yeah, think I'll eat at my desk today, thanks...

mmm, tasty...

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 04:03:49 GMT

My lemming meme for the day, courtesy of Der Doktorvater himself...

<tbody><tr><td colspan="2">What Kind of Reader Are You?

Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm

You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.

</td></tr><tr><td>Dedicated Reader</td><td>

</td></tr><tr><td>Book Snob</td><td>

</td></tr><tr><td>Literate Good Citizen</td><td>

</td></tr><tr><td>Fad Reader</td><td>

</td></tr><tr><td>Non-Reader</td><td>

</td></tr></tbody>

scary quote o' the day...

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 02:01:05 GMT

Now there's a challenge:

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

-- William Morris

ecclesiology in the key of maudlin...

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:49:57 GMT

Yes, The Smiths as hymnologists...

I would rather not go
Back to the old house
I would rather not go
Back to the old house
There's too many
Bad memories
Too many memories
There ...
Oh, there ...
There ...

When you cycled by
Here began all my dreams
The saddest thing I've ever seen
And you never knew
How much I really liked you
Because I never even told you
Oh, and I meant to

Are you still there ?
Or have you moved away ?
Or have you moved away ?
Away ...
Oh ...

I would love to go
Back to the old house
But I never will
I never will ...
I never will ...

In the aftermath of All Saints' and Reformation Day (and inevitable ignorant moaning about its outcomes), I often feel this way. This year, the feast of All Saints doesn't even fall on Nov. 1 in my church's local calendar, leaving me twice bereft...

(thanks for the lyrics)

Basic play styles...

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 16:10:44 GMT

I think that there's basically just the three gameplay styles, and they break down something like this:

In A World Where...
This Is A Tale Of...
Your Challenge Will Be...

And so different interests are described by those different hooks; some people want to know what the challenge will be and how they'll overcome obstacles for their ultimate reward. Others want themes of import: betrayal, family loyalty, wanderlust, revenge, true love... Some of us are all 'let a hundred flowers bloom' for expressing 'In a world where..."

The Simulationist heartbreaker is to speak "In A World Where..." in such a way that the theme of the Tale and the Challenge contain the seeds of their own expression...

d,na

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:34:22 GMT

I hate fsckin' ZF-Jvaqbjf: "Warning! Using this remote administration tool will do something totally irrational, and completely the opposite of making the change locally! Decline to be rectally wirebrushed? [No] [Yes]"

And people wonder why I joke about not having grey hairs before I went into this business...

mmm, apocalypse

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 04:14:06 GMT

Tonight, went off to try the first episode of Bible study with the Orthodox. Noticed, more strongly than ever before, a kooky resemblance, forcing me to ask: Separated at birth? This guy -- and this guy? Spooky, no? Since the phrase "already / not yet" figures prominently in this book...!

So tonight it was Apocalypse! With the Orthodox!

This is quite as much fun as you might think it (okay, probably more...). But it was quite a straightforward reading an interpretation of the text. In fact, it was much more like a proper Bible study than anything I've seen at any church I've been at since St. S. Ev. Lutheran... 15+ years ago...

And really, though Protestants like to talk about being Biblical, the real church emphasis is on so-called "sharing", topical discussion out of Protestant tertiary/quaternary sources, and "culture wars" / values / moralism, rather than straightforward exposition of Biblical texts. While some of those things might have a place in church life (some, and small), they must not displace the confrontation with the questions basic to Christian teaching: First, what does it say?, and second, what does it mean?

By no coincidence, this was emphasized tonight, which is why I'm all "w00" about it, instead of despairing. I did refrain from pointing how how foundational this grounding in the literal sense of the Scriptural text was for Luther, however...

And next time, I'm bringing our Greek/English NT!

eat more rage -- it puts a fire in your belly!

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 02:48:31 GMT

When you're a sysadmin by practice (irrespective of title), you find that God gives the gift of rage every day. It is a fire which may come down and consume all at any time. the fire staves off despair, and throws the followers of falsehood (vendors, spammers, misbehaving hardware) into confusion and panic.

Today's occasion for rage is the TO DO function of Ybghf Abgrf, synced with a Cnyz, via Ybghf RnflFlap. Now, a TO DO list is surely not rocket science. In fact, it's probably one of the earliest functions of the "personal" computer: A stored list, ordered and sorted to push work from the brain to the machine. Practically what the jolly things there for, what?

But no. Despite running mucho $LOCALCURRENCY to rent ("license") and operate, and having the proprietary Ybghf RnflFlap software widget to wrangle the oh-so-elaborate TO DO from Cnyz-speak to Ybghf Abgrf -talk, the list, viewed in the utterly krep! client view so characteristic of Ybghf Abgrf, is trashed. Imagine chavs ransacking a house for spare change to buy pot or some alcoholic swill like Bud Light, and you'll have a picture of the TO DO list's end state: disordered, messy, inverted, garbage from months ago strewn across the screen. Let's just say I don't go for that white trash trailerpark look.

Obviously, this list, besides being useless to me in this state, is utterly unsuited to being printed out and used for a discussion with my unP-HB about my work tasks and priorities. Bah.

So... How about the native Cnyz software that should work with the gadget? Yeah, I bet you think you're clever. Fear not: Ybghf RnflFlap now intercepts all TO DO data, and diverts it from the native software, leaving the Cnyz software with a list as old as the day you installed RnflFlap. Unless you're daft enough to present the boss with a list that says you've tracked nothing (or done nothing) the last 5 months, it's Ybghf Abgrf holding you hostage. Kill it! Kill it with fire!

On a Tuesday following the Monday where the car died, forcing us to push it out of the middle of the apartment complex parking lot (uphill, of course!) until I could return to climb into the hood and scrub the battery terminal until the happy sparks returned, and in which I spent all morning talking about how we (werk) are likely going to hand off the mega-project of our org's data revamp to a (thankfully rather clueful) contractor, giving me a serious case of envy... Yeah, the rage is your friend. The fire is fuel, it keeps us warm as night closes in...

'people in this world, they have no place to go'

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:31:33 GMT

Did the Orthodox thing again today -- think I'll vote to stick with it, since the perfect church hasn't mysteriously washed up on our block... Am continuing to decipher my relationship to Orthodoxy, since I take my own dogmatic stances as seriously as they take theirs.

And since life has finally slowed down a bit, I'm watching football and reading. It's a little bit of back-to-basics with Carl E. Braaten*:

Some of us have said it so often that it hardly bears repeating: Lutheranism is not essentially a church but a movement. It is not essentially an independent church in competition with other denominational churches. It is a confessional movement that exists for the sake of reforming the whole church of Christ by the canon of the gospel. The ecclesiastical, organizational structures of Lutheranism are interim measures, ready to go out of business as soon as their provisional aims are realized.

The Lutheran-Orthodox ecumenical exchanges have always been a disappointment to me; the Orthodox always seem to regard us as a crypto-Papist advance force which must be disarmed and stripped of distinctives. For the Lutheran part, there's an embarrassing tendency to use the Orthodox to score points on the Papists (and Anglicans), while also trying to replay the Reformation so as to get a better outcome. Hilariously (by which I mean sadly), every couple centuries there's a round of this, and the same mutual incomprehension occurs...

And so it goes.

In football news, in the 3rd quarter of the Cowboys/Redskins game, and it is utterly clear that "T.O." cam neither make the big play, not take the big hit. Color me unsurprised! Also: GO STILLERZ!

* = Principles of Lutheran Theology (Fortress, 1983), Ch. 3 "The Ecumenical Principle", p. 46.

eschatology in a nutshell...

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:31:08 GMT

I think I know how this one happened...

You scored as Moltmannian Eschatology. Jürgen Moltmann is one of the key eschatological thinkers of the 20th Century. Eschatology is not only about heaven and hell, but God's plan to make all things new. This should spur us on to political and social action in the present.

</td>

Moltmannian Eschatology

75%

Amillenialist

70%

Left Behind

40%

Premillenialist

40%

Preterist

40%

Postmillenialist

35%

Dispensationalist

30%

What's your eschatology?
created with QuizFarm.com

Yes... Yes, I do think it had something to do with reading all the Moltmann in highschool, in fact.

Plus, pre-trib rapture is a cop-out.

And all those other points are because I won't deny the existence of any literal meanings whatsoever. Yes, I'm a lousy fundy, and of course I don't think Luther is disappointed...

h/t to Western Orthodoxy.

they say it's the quiet ones...

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:13:35 GMT

"I want to be a Lion Tamer!"

My Personality


Neuroticism	56
Extraversion	17
Openness To Experience	13
Agreeableness	65
Conscientiousness	46

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

MySpace Surveys, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

You are introverted, reserved, and quiet with a preference for solitude and solitary activities. Your socializing tends to be restricted to a few close friends. Stressful and frustrating situations can often be upsetting to you, but you are sometimes able to get over these feelings and cope with these situations. As a practical person you like to think in plain and simple terms. Others describe you as down-to-earth, practical, and conservative. You have some concern with others' needs, and are generally pleasant, sympathetic, and cooperative. You are reasonably reliable, organized, and self-controlled.

11% -- that's a lot less than half-empty...

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 00:48:07 GMT

Some of you people may or may not believe this one...

You have a 11% chance of going postal!

Congrats! You're not going to shoot up a strip mall anytime soon. You're so well-adjusted, it's creepy.

How Likely Are You to Go Postal?
Create Your Own Quiz

Still, creepily well-adjusted is good... right?

the impact of ideas, a passing thought...

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 05:38:50 GMT

As something of an idealist myself, I have never really realized what I'm just beginning to understand: People are impacted (yes, DMills, it's a terrible verb, I know) by ideas, yes, everyone is -- but the interaction of ideas and people is generally more like a pool game than a hailstorm. *Click* *clack*... *bump*. *Pause* *Tick, tick, *phoomp*.

A handful of interactions with ideas might naturally happen in a year for most people; no more books can be read, or novel concepts explored, amongst the realities of life, without deliberate saturation in them. And most people don't go out of their way to get struck by cue balls.

For idealists, ideas run in a stream, like a creek down a hillside; for well-adjusted people, ideas are particles, discrete, noticeable. But who counts the drops of water in a river?

I think this is one of the things behind Dean RM's remarks on the great impact possible in seminary ministry: during this time, the student is, if not an intellectual dousing the mind with buckets of ideas, at least closer to Animal House mode.

GKC compares socialism to the present age

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 00:19:21 GMT

Not a creative post, I just want to quote a large swath of Chesterton for general consumption:

The world we want is much more different from the existing world than the existing world is different from the world of Socialism. Indeed, as has been already noted, there is not much difference between the present world and Socialism; except that we have left out the less important and more ornamental notions of Socialism, such additional fancies as justice, citizenship, the abolition of hunger, and so on. We have already accepted anything that anybody of intelligence ever disliked in Socialism. We have everything that critics used to complain of in the desolate utility and unity of Looking Backward. In so far as the world of Wells or Webb was criticized as a centralized, impersonal, and monotonous civilization, that is an exact description of existing civilization. Nothing has been left out but some idle fancies about feeding the poor or giving rights to the populace. In every other way the unification and regimentation is already complete. Utopia has done its worst. Capitalism has done all that Socialism threatened to do. The clerk has exactly the sort of passive functions and permissive pleasures that he would have in the most monstrous model village. I do not sneer at him; he has many intelligent tastes and domestic virtues in spite of the civilization he enjoys. They are exactly the tastes and virtues he could have as a tenant and servant of the State. But from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep again, his life is run in grooves made for him by other people, and often other people he will never even know. He lives in a house that he does not own, that he did not make, that he does not want. He moves everywhere in ruts; he always goes up to his work on rails. He has forgotten what his fathers, the hunters and the pilgrims and the wandering minstrels, meant by finding their way to a place. He thinks in terms of wages; that is, he has forgotten the real meaning of wealth. His highest ambition is concerned with getting this or that subordinate post in a business that is already a bureaucracy.

-- G. K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, IV: On A Sense Of Proportion.