Syzygy

I’m not so sure motion sensor lights in bathrooms are a good idea.

I read an interesting article over at Wired News yesterday. Apparently, Google News is facing some complex issues. I’ve been wondering for a while why it’s still considered beta even though it hasn’t changed much since I stumbled across it almost a year ago.

The answer is simple: it’s not generating any revenue for Google. Since they are culling their news from thousands of third-party sites who they are not contracted with, if they were to throw any advertising up they would probably be hit with a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit.

It’s really a shame, as I think their idea is an extremely good one. I’ve been using it as my only news source for several months now.

Spread Firefox has started a new campaign to get 10,000 users signed up to help spread the word.

If you haven’t signed up, yet, get your butt in gear!

I’m seriously considering a switch to WordPress, but I’m not sure I’m ready to take the plunge, yet. I’ve installed a test at joeyday.com/wp so I can try it out. It’s very different from MT.

What I like about it is that pages are generated entirely with PHP and MySQL. No Perl/CGI is used at all, meaning pages are truly dynamic. In addition, WP is open source (MT recently went commercial, offering a hard-to-find free version with limited allowable use).

I’ll keep you posted on my decision to switch.

[EDIT: The test site listed above was originally linked, but I've made the switch now so I removed the link.]

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had frequent and long-lasting nosebleeds, always from the left nostril. Since I lived in Kentucky, I’ve also had mild allergies. In the last four or five years I can’t remember having a cold without being sick for at least three weeks — I usually develop a sinus infection from the congestion.

My Otorhinolaryngologist (ear, nose & throat) is pretty sure that these symptoms are due to a deviated nasal septum, and has recommended surgery (i.e. septoplasty) to correct the problem.

Continue reading “Under the Knife” →

This article is the first in a three part review of the book A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times by Kim Riddlebarger. This book changed my perspective of eschatology dramatically.

The word “eschatology” comes from the greek word “eschatos” (εσξατοσ : “the last”), and means the study of last things. It can be used in a personal sense when talking about final states such as heaven and hell, but is also used in a general sense when speaking of the events associated with Christ’s second coming and the culmination of the world as we know it.

Continue reading “A Case for Amillennialism, Part 1” →

I turned in my application for full-major status in the Computer Science program today. What a relief. I’ve been putting that off for several semesters now, and I’m not really sure why. I’m glad that I’ve finally turned it in, but a bit apprehensive about whether they’ll actually accept me or not. Time will tell…

Anybody wishing they had a Gmail account? If so, let me know. I’ve got 6 invites. I’m not sure why I have them, considering the fact that I haven’t even been using my account, but whatever.

Shoot me an email and I’ll shoot you back an invite (on a first come first served basis of course).

If nobody wants ’em within a month, I’ll probably send ’em to the Gmail Invite Spooler or to RobinMonks’ Gmail Project in support of Firefox.

Edit Jan. 17, 2005: Google gave me more invites. I’m up to 10 now. I’ll be glad to give them to whoever wants ’em.

Edit Mar. 16, 2005: Now Google has given me (and lots of other people, apparently) 50 invites. Looks like they’re gearing up to leave beta.

When I first started using Movable Type I decided the fastest way to learn the system was to start from scratch building my own templates, rather than relying on their prebuilt ones (which are all boring, anyway). Consequently, I was very late to adopt some of the more useful features. It took me a while to figure out trackback pings and category archives, and I still have yet to create a master archive index, prefering to list my category and monthly archives on the sidebar. I’ve been especially slow to add RSS/Atom syndication feeds, partly because I don’t understand it, and partly because I never saw the usefulness of it.

Continue reading “Avocation Enters the 21st Century” →

I had good-natured conversation about a month ago with a good friend of mine who is LDS. He asked me an open-ended and honest question: “How do you interpret John 3:5?” I gave him a short answer then, but I thought the subject deserved further scrutiny, so here’s my long answer.

Continue reading “Baptism and John 3:5” →