Nature’s paint brush
October 31, 2005
This morning I turned my walk into a stroll, camera in hand, enjoying the annual splash of color along the route. Here are some of the scenes that caught my eye. Let’s start with our neighbor’s front yard,
then turning west on Maine Street toward St. Peter’s,
and down the brick sidewalk along Madison Park,
jogging south and taking a look down York Street,
heading south on tree-lined 22nd Street,
and finally paying homage to the fire bush at 22nd and Aldo on the way back.
Galatians 4:17-20
October 30, 2005
4:17 They court you eagerly, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you would seek them eagerly. 4:18 However, it is good to be sought eagerly for a good purpose at all times, and not only when I am present with you. 4:19 My children–I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you! 4:20 I wish I could be with you now and change my tone of voice, because I am perplexed about you.
The thought that the Galatian Christians were turning from what Paul had taught them to false teaching was almost more than he could stand. God had once responded to Paul’s “birth pains” by causing Christ to be formed in them, and now it seems that it will have to be done all over again.
It is in the nature of Christian life for Christian teachers and preachers to sometimes agonize over the spiritual progress of their flock, but the results of their labors are surely in God’s hands alone. -sdg-
Trolley wreck coming?
October 29, 2005
Every now and then an article comes along based on nothing more than the writer’s hunch, but one that somehow rings pretty true. This one by Peggy Noonan leaves me with wondering.
I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can’t be fixed, or won’t be fixed any time soon.
Now, I’ve lived long enough to know that such feelings of impending doom are rarely accurate, but Noonan’s intuition does resonate with some of my own observations. Are we living in a time when the mighty U.S. of A. is slowly coming apart at its seams? Or is this just a reaction to today’s headlines?
It’s beyond, “The president is overwhelmed.” The presidency is overwhelmed. The whole government is. And people sense when an institution is overwhelmed. Citizens know. If we had a major terrorist event tomorrow half the country–more than half–would not trust the federal government to do what it has to do, would not trust it to tell the truth, would not trust it, period.
You’ll just have to make up your own mind on this one.
Have a good day.
Dave, at the end of the day, still optimistic.
The ghost of Ma Bell returns to life
October 28, 2005
In 1983, courtesy of the Justice Department, big, bad AT&T was dismembered, leaving a remnant and seven Regional Bell Operating Companies.
Twenty-two years later, one of the surviving RBOCs, SBC, has gobbled up Ma and will continue the AT&T name. Judge Harold H. Greene must be rotating in his grave.
WSJ.com - SBC Decides to Stick With AT&T Brand Name
The AT&T brand name will live on.
SBC Communications Inc. announced that it will adopt AT&T Corp.’s moniker once its $16 billion takeover of the company is complete.
The SBC name is little known outside the San Antonio, Texas, company’s 13-state territory, but company executives said AT&T’s notoriety is world-wide.
Reading this brought on a wave of nostalgia, a malady that is becoming chronic with me. I was born during the time that Ma Bell was busy demonstrating a new technology called television, inaugurating transpacific telephone service, and winning Nobel prizes for probing the internal workings of the electron.
While I was in college, Bell Labs invented the transistor. The television age matured, perhaps not a Good Thing. They also invented the concept of cellular telephone in 1947, and you know what that led to.
For all of us in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, Ma Bell was the owner of our telephones and the massive switching system behind them. And our (their) telephones always worked.
For you technophobes, the Unix operating system was developed by Bell Labs in 1971. It eventually became the underlying language of the Internet, making it possible for me to write and publish this article.
So, the Ma Bell story isn’t over, and I am feeling older.
Dave, still being amazed at the growth of things technical.
Google Me!
October 27, 2005
Here is a good op ed piece from the WSJ about the authors vs. Google controversy.
The plaintiffs argue that Google’s actions infringe copyright because it is essentially copying books when it scans them without paying copyright holders. Yet scanning itself creates no revenue for Google and doesn’t deprive copyright holders of income. It is only when a reader purchases a book that Google derives revenue, and in that situation it has announced plans to pay the copyright holder a royalty. Thus, its scanning ought to be protected by the “fair use” doctrine.
This argument is very sound and gets to the original rationale for copyrights. It will be interesting to see how these suits get resolved.
Dave, Google fan.
World wants control of Internet
October 26, 2005
Internet News Article | Reuters.com
Countries including Brazil and Iran want an international body to oversee the addressing system that guides traffic across the Internet, which is currently overseen by a California nonprofit body that answers to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The European Union withdrew its support of the current system last month, and the issue is expected to come to a head at a U.N. summit meeting in Tunisia in November.
The Bush administration has made clear that it intends to maintain control.
If a settlement is not reached, Internet users in different parts of the globe could potentially wind up at different Web sites when they type an address into their browsers.
In a perfect world, control of Internet address space should be under international control. For now, though, the present system of assigning Internet addresses should be maintained, because it works very well and has received little meddling from the U.S. Government. The United Nations has not demonstrated that they are able to provide even-handed oversight of much of anything.
Dave, saying hands off ICANN.
Rock paper scissor tournament
October 25, 2005
Better than the World Series?
TheStar.com - Canuck wins Rock Paper Scissor gold
Bergel had never played in a professional Rock Paper Scissors tournament until he won Saturday’s title.
After six hours of play and far too many beverages, Bergel used an array of trash talk and psyche-out skills to beat out 494 competitors who had travelled to the tournament from as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom.
No entrants from the USA? Anyhow, this tournament sounds like the perfect antidote for addiction to professional sports, though I doubt it would make good TV.
Dave, looking for an opponent to train with.
Another look at intelligent design
October 24, 2005
An article in Sci-Tech Today sheds some light on the argument for Intelligent Design as science.
Sci-Tech Today: Tension Mounts on Intelligent Design
Since teaching creationism is banned in secular schools as unconstitutional, my suspicious nature suggests that intelligent design may be primarily an attempted end run around the law. The article admits that both creationism and intelligent design argue for a supernatural origin of life. Here are a few quotes from the article.
Intelligent design theory proposes that the “irreducible” complexity of fundamental natural mechanisms cannot have emerged through accidental evolution. Like creationism, it argues for a supernatural origin of life and the universe. Unlike creationism, the teaching of which is banned as unconstitutional in the secular U.S. public school system, intelligent design claims a basis in science, not religion.
Among the hundreds of thousands of scientists at accredited U.S. colleges and universities, intelligent-design proponents are rare, and mostly concentrated at a few dozen Bible colleges, according to experts on American higher education.
No scientist has published an article in a peer-reviewed journal propounding the idea, according to Alan Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, based in Washington.
What you believe about the origin of life on the planet boils down to a matter of faith, or more to the point, the object of your faith. If you believe that earth and mankind were supernaturally created, the object of your faith is God the Creator. If you believe one of the scientific theories about how the earth and mankind came about, the objects of your faith are the scientists who proposed the theory.
The intelligent design vs. creationism battle is mostly an internal argument among Christians.
Dave, loving science but leery of some scientists.
Galatians 4:13-16
October 23, 2005
Personal Appeal of Paul
4:13 But you know it was because of a physical illness that I first proclaimed the gospel to you, 4:14 and though my physical condition put you to the test, you did not despise or reject me. Instead, you welcomed me as though I were an angel of God, as though I were Christ Jesus himself! 4:15 Where then is your sense of happiness now? For I testify about you that if it were possible, you would have pulled out your eyes and given them to me! 4:16 So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
Nobody knows for sure what Paul suffered from, although there is no shortage of guesses - like eye disease, epilepsy, even a nagging wife. The point is that the Galations took loving care of him, showing true agape love. They not only accepted the gospel but forgot their own needs as they ministered to Paul in his need.
So what happened? Is Paul now an enemy because he tells them the truth?
The point for me here is that if the truth makes me squirm, it is very likely my problem and that I should pay closer attention. -sdg-
e-Meddling
October 22, 2005
International bureaucrats and assorted countries are struggling to wrest control of “Internet governance” from that old unilateralist bogeyman, the United States. There’s one big problem with this picture: Cyberspace isn’t “governed” by the U.S. or anyone else, and that’s the beauty of it. But if the United Nations gets its way in the coming month, the Web will end up under its control. Uh-oh is about right.
Internet governance, such as it is, currently falls under the purview of a California-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Better known as Icann, it was created by the U.S. Commerce Department in 1998 to administer the “root zone file,” the master list of all Web addresses world-wide, which the U.S. has kept since the creation of the Internet in the 1970s. Ensuring that any given Web address, or domain name, is assigned to only one Web site is a key reason why the Internet has become such a powerful tool.
This one bears watching, given the politician’s propensity to fix things that ain’t broke. Even this old fogey can see that the incredible usefulness of the Internet is primarily due to the lack of regulation. Let the Chinese do what they will; let us keep our meddling political fingers out of the Internet pie.
Dave, Internat fan to the core.
