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20040228
Posted
2/28/2004 05:09:40 PM
Microsoft places bet on Whitehorse | CNET News.com
Boring FUD? Playing catch up with the seasoned modelers? Perhaps.
This caught my attention, though:
With Whitehorse, Microsoft is looking to streamline both the development and implementation phases of an application. The tool provides a common XML-based language, called System Definition Model, for sharing information, such as an application's hardware requirements and the constraints that network designers put on their physical infrastructure. For example, a designer can test whether the security settings on an application under development match the security requirements of a particular server, as specified by the network administrator.
Tying the architect, developer and administrator together through XML sounds like a very good thing to me.
Posted
2/28/2004 12:45:37 PM
i think that everyone should put up mini-retrospectives periodically.
yes, everyone. i will fight to the death for my totalizing proposition.
Posted
2/28/2004 09:28:00 AM
Inventing Evangelicalism
"The most important intellectual influence on Henry was Gordon Clark, a Presbyterian theologian, who emphasized propositional truth and the rationality of belief in God."
Articles, like this one, that track the history of a movement through recounting the life decisions of the nascent movement's early thought leaders fascinate me. A movement's impact always begins as a series of simple decisions that play themselves out over time in a certain manner.
It is impossible to simply repeat the sentence quoted above with regard to the morphing face of the Abrahamic tradition in our day. While the rational proposition will never leave us it's centrality has long been eclipsed by internetworked system thinking.
What decisions are being made today that will spawn an article such as this in 100 years?
20040227
Posted
2/27/2004 12:08:13 PM
White House To Seek Ban On Gay Sex On The Moon
via boingboing
Worried by flagging poll numbers, a deteriorating situation in Iraq, and a sluggish economy, President Bush called on Congress today to approve a constitutional amendment that would ban gay sex on the Moon. Republican leaders hailed the move as a bold step to unite the country in a bold and forward-looking strategy to spread family values across the solar system, and protect the legacy of the Apollo missions.
On a more series note: Loose Democracy: Are we Sodom?
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20040224
Posted
2/24/2004 11:49:13 AM
MiTAC Mio 168
 I like GPS as a standard feature. If this had 802.x and Bluetooth I wouldn't mind that it doesn't have a CF slot. Without the former or the later it is a device that is sexy at first, but difficult to love.
Posted
2/24/2004 11:37:49 AM
I have been asked by a number of people recently about Trevor and Beate's situation. Much has taken place behind the scenes over the last few months with regard to their complaint against the Department of Homeland Security.
As we have come to expect from the federal government, the investigation into this has been fraught with, what can only be described as, either crass incompetence, bureaucratic CYA activity or, most likely, a bit of both.
Trevor has recently scanned many of the letters he has received from various senators, the DHS and the INS posting them to the Land Of The Free? blog.
Posted
2/24/2004 11:12:46 AM
 i really enjoyed our game of jacks last night. there is a diversity and honesty at work in our camaraderie that is rare and precious. there are few places open to such configurations: a recently post-atheist ex-christian fundamentalist, an agnostic jew, a post-evangelical, a third-culture muslim and two third-culture (fill in the blank)s (and one more upstairs writing her four papers to be handed in today). or slicing the cube another way: two editors, a scientist, a UI designer, a mercenary, a programmer (and a florist-student). or queried with a different parameter: two writers, an artist, a statesman, two (whatever we are) (and a designer).
enough of my flawed community analytics.
the warm fire (and periodic chirping), silent Romeo & Juliet on the big screen, Over the Rhine quietly padding a swirl of words and questions and inadequacy openly presented as gifts to the friends sharing the wine and the bread--or orange martinis and chips; or water and fishy pretzels; or smores and wet rods--made for an apt context to consider the impossible.
for the last time?
i hope not.
Posted
2/24/2004 10:30:51 AM
{this is, again, for my personal archive. comments are the fragile conversations of the web.}
From comments on Echo Chambers
> Is this just the general question: what can we
> do to embrace what we would otherwise tend to
> avoid or be isolated from?
Good question. There seem few good answers beyond the standard one: Exposure--at whatever levels we are capable of negotiating at any given moment.
> "How do we get beyond the ([?post-]modern
> version of) our provincialism?"
Perhaps we don't. Perhaps we forever live as "poor existing individuals" (Kierkegaard) hoping for enough humility to evolve when the rough edges of our provincialism meet those of another.
I am a provincialist. My trans-culture childhood has contributed to an outlook that privileges certain rhymes of life; certain expectations of hospitality, of justice; a certain cadence of social engagement. These expectations on my part, while very different from some traditional definitions of village provincialism are no less idiosyncratic.
Just as I am unable to locate a position from which to see with objectivity, so I am without the experience to live without provincialism.
My one word definition of postmodernity is humility. To me, the recognition of contingency seems appropriately lived out in a stance of courageous humility. Perhaps this is one area that distinguishes my postmodern provincialism from the provincialism of my ancestors: that the large projects of Truth, Objectivity and Civilization have been exchanged for the open projects of internetworked knowledge, living and co-existence.
Posted by: Dan Hughes on February 23, 2004 07:30 PM
...
Dan, to your endorsement of humility I'd only add a wet kiss on the check of ambiguity. "To be moral is to be ambivalent" is my motto.
Posted by: David Weinberger on February 23, 2004 09:26 PM
20040223
Posted
2/23/2004 04:08:25 PM
Israel seeks return of Temple artifacts looted by the Romans during the destruction of the second Temple in 70 AD/CE.
...two rabbis could also seek to buy back a candelabrum that came from the Temple. It is believed to be held in the Vatican's vast treasure caves.
The menorah was the most important symbol of the Temple after the Ark of the Covenant. The image of the biblical menorah is the symbol of the modern state of Israel.
_____
In other Israel news:
Noam Chomsky, A Wall as a Weapon
Posted
2/23/2004 03:42:54 PM
{this is for my personal archive. comments are rather ephemeral.}
responding to: Sociological Wrappers?
yes, jason.
this new consideration of gospel hinges on the movement across an amorphous distinction between believing in the cross of another and actually taking up our own.
our theologies have spiraled from the heady days of god and neighbor-intoxicated discipleship to the obtuse precision that would have us in a position of veneration of hierarchy and ecclesiastical mediation when it is the bloody work of cross bearing--in all of its literal and figurative senses--that is the stuff of gospel in the message of Jesus.
walking this distinction is the beginning of reconsideration, imho. in a less confessional idiom this distinction, is in large measure, that between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. A distinction that must haunt any who would do theology under the banner of the Christ.
peace.
Posted by: dan at February 23, 2004 09:37 PM
_____
current mp3:
Death::Empty.Words
Posted
2/23/2004 03:22:44 PM
"You will realise that doctrines are the invention of the human mind, as it tries to penetrate the mystery of God. You will realise that scripture itself is the work of humans recording the example and teaching of Jesus. Thus it is not what you believe (in your head) that matters; it is how you respond with your heart and your actions. It is not believing in Christ that matters, but becoming like him."
Pelagius
Celtic Theologian
c. 4th cent. / 5th cent.
via Jason Clark
"Holy history is not utopian history -- the age of the Bible was not a 'golden age' that we are trying to reproduce in utopian terms. It is rather an affirmation that these are the conditions and people that provide the stuff of salvation. The biblical story, from beginning to end, is told in terms of the social, cultural, political, and ethical world as it is. God's revelation is not imposed from without, the rendition of a moral and spiritual utopia that descends into our midst, which we can then enter. God's kingdom works from the inside, taking whatever is given at any one time as stuff to reveal God's presence and will. Morality is not a precondition for holiness or salvation."
-Eugene Peterson
Commentary on First and Second Samuel
via One House via Jordon Cooper
Posted
2/23/2004 01:15:14 PM
Poindexter's 'Total Information Awareness' Lives On
WASHINGTON -- Despite an outcry over privacy implications, the government is pressing ahead with research to create powerful tools to mine millions of public and private records for information...
"The whole congressional action looks like a shell game," said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. "There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing."
...Poindexter had envisioned software that could quickly analyze "multiple petabytes" of data. The Library of Congress has space for 18 million books, and one petabyte of data would fill it more than 50 times. One petabyte could hold 40 pages of text for each of the world's more than 6.2 billion people.
ARDA said its software would have to deal with "typically a petabyte or more" of data. It noted that some intelligence data sources "grow at the rate of four petabytes per month." Experts said those probably are files with satellite surveillance images and electronic eavesdropping results.
Posted
2/23/2004 12:29:27 PM
I'll be in Central Texas in March for SXSW enjoying Austin's superb level of free wifi.
The new wiMAX 802.16 technology and other broad range wireless protocols just around the corner make the idea of free metropolitan-wide wireless networks a more practical undertaking.
You can begin now by supporting the many free 802.11 wifi hotspots in your area. If you want to set up your own the tools are free and relatively simple.
Posted
2/23/2004 11:59:00 AM
Echo Chamers
Dave asks: "How do we methodically and systematically overcome the tendency for echo chambers to form and self-perpetuate?" I'm still stuck on the prior question: Are there echo chambers? Are they what we think they are? Are they common? Does their existence mean that participants have closed their minds, or are they conversations that serve a different, but legitimate, social purpose?
What I liked most about last year's BloggerCon was that it brought together a great bunch of people who shared an enthusiasm for blogging. A conference devoted to openly debating the topic "Blogs: Pro and Con" might also be useful, but it wouldn't diminish the value of BloggerCon. We believers need a chance to get together, too. Sure, BloggerCon permits contrary points of view, but it's distinguishable from the "Pro or Con" conference in tone and topic. And that's a good thing. BloggerCon helps build community and advance thought by letting us be passionate, without having to back off, argue for fundamental principles with which we already agree, and persuade others of the legitimacy of our enthusiasm.
That's exactly what many alleged "echo chambers" do. And it is not only a good thing but is a requirement for building social groups.
20040222
Posted
2/22/2004 01:59:44 PM
Slashdot | Largest Lens Ever Discovered
A team of Astronomers have found a natural lens capable of resolving details as fine as 10 microarcseconds across - equivalent to seeing a sugar cube on the Moon, from Earth. The lens comprises of a cloud of interstellar gas, and works on the principle of scintillation; where the clumpiness inside a cloud of gas creates a density change thus bending and focusing the light. This technique, dubbed 'Earth-Orbit Synthesis', will be first used to study black holes in distant quasars
Posted
2/22/2004 10:37:28 AM
 The marriage of personal area networking technology like Bluetooth and hardware-based data services like GPS break open many possibilities that have been available to the geeky among us for years, but now are at the cusp of real commercial viability.
Just as wifi is now a bathroom rather than an offering in many independent and progressive national chains (not the dominate Borders and Starbucks of the T-Mobile rape-you-for-bandwidth offering) so commodity location aware services could soon be offered.
For example, setting up an open Bluetooth GPS system in Panera Bread locations, especially when coupled with already free wifi, would allow people to bring minimal hardware (any device with the appropriate PAN/wifi capabilities) and immediately be both online and locatable. Pulling a Lat/Long reading from an open Bluetooth GPS at such a location would allow the user's device to ping a secure server out in the cloud that could create an audit trail of stops throughout the day or do a buddy list search for the positions of friends in the vicinity or give a location token as one more piece of data useful in digital security procedures.
I love this stuff.
If you want a Bluetooth GPS check out GPSPassion's Bluetooth GPS Shoot-out.
Posted
2/22/2004 12:33:35 AM
I have not written much of late. Most of what has been written has been in emails. So here are two recent messages that may be of broader interest:
...thank you for your email regarding the pastoral calling and the fashion and politics of such work. it was a pleasure to hear your well crafted words and know that others are vexed about such things.
i think that at bottom (dare i claim an end point... ;-) it seems that people are always already longing to be led well. all of us. this is not a class thing: a class of leaders and a class of followers. we are all mesmerized by one who leads well; one who gives us gifts of vision and idiom in which to reevaluate our lives that too often seem stuck in the morass of outmoded truisms and the lifestyles that go with them. whether by book or pastor or friend or film we relish the moments of masterfully tamed upheaval that are the work of the leader as much as we enjoy the moments of masterfully untamed upheaval that are the work of the artist.
the pastoral calling seems inevitably fixed between a cadence of the pundit and that of the interlocutor. the teacher, at best, is both a purveyor of sweeping horizon and deep detail and the starter of ongoing conversation; and in those rare moments of connected musing and cogent synchronicity, lifelong conversation.
blessings,
d
____
...It was a pleasure having you spend some time here with us in Dallas.
As for your question regarding the distinction between science and faith: I am likely not the best person to ask for such source material as I do not believe in the distinction. We all work within systems of plausibility that themselves define what it is to know. The scientific method is a label that signifies a gaggle of such agreements on how we know (by experimentation, by peer-reviewed publishing, by repeatability, etc.), but it is not the only set of agreements on how we know. We know people, love, children according to more intuitive, relational arrangements. Attempting to know love according to a scientific method would likely be impossible as the event of love is not captured by the lense of repitition, experimentation, etc. There is something singular about love that requires that we know it according to agreements that are held more loosely and yet more intimately as they have to do with the very chemistry of our existence.
Basically, the science/religion binary needs to be busted and in many circles of inquiry already has been (post-secular thinking).
The formal areas that your question lives within are epistemology (how we know what we know) and hermeneutics (how we go about interpreting what we think we know). Any good intro on these would be useful in addressing this question you pose. I loved this book while in college.
This book is also excellent
Both are somewhat jargon-prone and I am at a loss for alternate suggestions.
Hope this helps.
Blessings,
d
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