Sunday, 14 March 2010
Saturday, 13 March 2010
links for 2010-03-13
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Writeup on using Notational Velocity as Mac desktop app and syncing across multiple Macs and WriteRoom for iPhone through Jesse Grosjean's SimpleText web app/service.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Unbridled
God doesn’t give us solutions, he gives us a savior.
A lot of the time, I wish it was the other way around. To be honest with you, sometimes a solution feels more manageable. I can control and understand a solution. I can bend and tweak a formula to my own needs. Christ on the other hand, our savior, isn’t like that at all.
He’s messy. And counterintuitive and uncontrollable. Grace and mercy are two of the most puzzling things on the planet. They’re raw and unbridled and out of control and intertwined with love we can’t possibly understand or earn.
Tuesday, 09 March 2010
links for 2010-03-09
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Three really nice high-res shots. Love the lightcycle one.
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Tron fan site devoted to the search for Kevin Flynn.
Waste of time
So my question to you is, are you a slave to a jury of your peers? Do you always have to explain why you are right? How much do you care what religious people think of you? When somebody else is wrong, do you jump in quickly to tell them so, making yourself feel righteous? My answer to these questions is yes, I do. Doesn’t that stink?
I think we would be a bit more emotionally stable to understand self-righteousness gets us nowhere, and the jury of our peers is neither an accurate or authoritative judge. It really is a waste of your time to defend yourself to anybody but God Himself. And it’s even more of a waste of time to claim any defense other than Christ crucified.
Really good read.
[Wave of the phin to Brent for the link.]
Tuesday, 09 March 2010
More satisfying
“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” —G.K. Chesterton
Monday, 01 March 2010
links for 2010-03-01
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"The guide does exactly what it says: outlines the surveillance services the software company will perform for law enforcement agencies on its online platforms. These include its email services, such as Hotmail, MSN, Messenger, Office Live, Windows Live, and even Xbox Live."
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Hurtling Down the Road to Serfdom
Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn’t just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit.
F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote “The Road to Serfdom” in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom.
[…]
Hayek meant that governments can’t plan economies without planning people’s lives. After all, an economy is just individuals engaging in exchanges. The scientific-sounding language of President Obama’s economic planning hides the fact that people must shelve their own plans in favor of government’s single plan.
At the beginning of “The Road to Serfdom,” Hayek acknowledges that mere material wealth is not all that’s at stake when the government controls our lives: “The most important change … is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people.”
This shouldn’t be controversial. If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, can’t help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society.
According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest?
Monday, 15 February 2010
Washington’s Birthday
Surely it is a sign of Providence that my best friend shares a birthday celebration with our first President.
As friend of The Patriot, Matthew Spalding, a Heritage Foundation scholar, reminds: “Although it was celebrated as early as 1778, and by the early 19th Century was second only to the Fourth of July as a patriotic holiday, Congress did not officially recognize Washington’s Birthday as a national holiday until 1870. The Monday Holiday Law in 1968 — applied to executive branch departments and agencies by Richard Nixon’s Executive Order 11582 in 1971 — moved the holiday from February 22 to the third Monday in February. Section 6103 of Title 5, United States Code, currently designates that legal federal holiday as ‘Washington’s Birthday.’ Contrary to popular opinion, no action by Congress or order by any President has changed ‘Washington’s Birthday’ to ‘Presidents’ Day.’”
In honor of and with due respect for our first and (we believe) greatest president, arguably our nation’s most outstanding Patriot, we include two quotes from George Washington which best embody his dedication to liberty and God. The first from his First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789, and the second from his Farewell Address, September 19, 1796.
“The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American People.”
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness — these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.”
[Emphasis added. —R]
Hey, everyone, it’s Brent’s birthday…
…so let’s all celebrate by:
- jamming out to Social Distortion, Pennywise, Son Volt, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana
- having a good laugh while watching stupid-funny movies
- diving into a good book
- passionately teach a group of high schoolers how much God loves them, and how they can love Him
- show off our family through Proud Dad & Uncle Alerts
- fill up a journal with our innermost thoughts and secrets, even if we never share them with anyone else
- do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God
Happy birthday, bro. Love ya.
Tuesday, 02 February 2010
ATPM 16.02
The February issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Mark laments how the technology of his employer isn’t quite there when it comes to telecommuting when the weather’s bad. Then he laments how his home entertainment technology isn’t quite where he’d like it to be, either. Mark also ponders if anyone still cares about the browser wars.
Ed updates the Next Actions master list. If you can’t find something on there to help you get things done, then I suppose you’re content with pen and paper. (And there’s nothing wrong with that.) ATPM reader Stanley Jayne was kind enough to share with us his first experience with the Mac, which began with, well, the first Mac.
Yours truly is responsible for this month’s desktop pictures, which come from our trip to New England in May of 2006. At Weiser Graphics, Chad deals with a finicky printer and the changes in technology, while there appears to be an irrepressible march toward “green products” no one’s heard of. Or may need.
Finally, Sky King Chris has a pair of iPhone-related reviews, checking if the Element iPhone Stand and i.Tech’s SolarCharger 906 can measure up.
As always, About This Particular Macintosh is available in a variety of formats for your enjoyment:
Thanks for reading ATPM!
Monday, 01 February 2010
Thanksgiving 2009, part 1
So I’m finally getting around to doing some photo processing. For Thanksgiving this past year, we spent the week with my parents at their home in the Birmingham, Alabama, area.
Click on Samuel sitting in my old high chair to see the full set.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Shootout at the Allen Corral
Our son Davis’ hockey team was invited to hold a shootout during intermission between the first and second periods of Friday night’s (1/29/10) Allen Americans hockey game.
Davis is the sixth shooter, skating at the 2:15 mark.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
links for 2010-01-26
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Filing for future reference.
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Shooters, free targets, mostly in PDF format. You'll have to use larger sized paper than 8.5 x 11 for some.
It’s the Enemy, Stupid
The laws of war are the rule of law. They are not a suspension of the Constitution. They are the Constitution operating in wartime. The Framers understood that there would be wars against enemies of the United States—it is stated explicitly in the Constitution’s treason clause (Art. III, Sec. 3). The American people understand that we have enemies, even if Washington sees them as political “engagement” partners waiting to happen. Americans also grasp that war is a political and military challenge that the nation has to win, not a judicial proceeding in which your enemies are presumed innocent. The rule of law is not and has never been the rule of lawyers—especially lawyers we can’t vote out of office when they say we must let trained terrorists move in next door.
As for privacy, Americans are not as self-absorbed as ACLU staffers—who, by the way, reserve the right to search your bags before you enter their offices. If you fret about privacy, it’s Obamacare that ought to give you sleepless nights. The lefties who’ve told us for nearly 40 years since Roe v. Wade that the government can’t come between you and your doctor are now saying you shouldn’t be able to get to a doctor except through the government, which will decide if you’re worth treating—that is an invasion of privacy. Penetrating enemy communications, on the other hand, is what Americans think of as self-defense. It’s what we’ve done in every war in our history. It’s what common sense says we must do to win. And when America goes to war, Americans want to win.
And our reputation in the international community? Reputation with whom? Sharia states where they stone adulterers, brutalize homosexuals, and kill their own daughters in the name of honor? Rogue regimes where exhibitions of American weakness are taken as license to mutilate? Euro-nannies who rely on us for protection because they’re without the will and the resources to do the job themselves? They ought to worry about their own reputations. In the United States, only the blame-America-first crowd gives an Obama-dollar what they think. That crowd does not include about 80 percent of Americans who look around at their country, look at the teeming masses trying to get into it, and figure this is a pretty good place after all.
Silent encroachments
“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788
I would posit the encroachments have been not-so-silent these past 80 years.
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