listen to one of our many satisifed customers

Bringing the early issues of The King’s Business online is a boon to
historians of American religion and culture. It was among the major
voices of conservative Protestantism, and its location on the west coast
gave it an unique perspective on the cultural issues at stake during the
first half of the twentieth century. Quite simply, there is nothing else
online like it for scholars and others interested in historical
materials. This venture is terribly important for increasing both the
religious and historical literacy of today’s citizens, who are more
computer savvy than they are knowledgeable about the great events and debates that created the world we live in. The King’s Business online
will doubtless prove helpful to both research and teaching, as it will
no doubt find its way into classrooms across the country once its
existence is advertised. Extending its offerings through the next couple
of decades will only serve to expand its already considerable usefulness.

—Philip Goff
Director, Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies
Editor, “Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation”

I’m not the only one who thinks what I’m doing is cool. Good to know.

twenty-two

Sugar is not my mood-altering agent of choice. Still, fun party.

More intensely cool stuff about Portland. Check it out; there are amazing photos.

I decided it would make more sense to manage my book list in my blog instead of separate pages. Maybe I’ll comment on books as I finish them.

just messin

Got some new looks in the house.

This makes me really want to go back to Portland...

Also, scary stuff is happening Removing the right to trial is not something that should happen lightly, especially when the benefits are so dubious. Search warrants are a good idea.

always prepared for adventure....

Apparently the Google Maps thingy I set up doesn’t play nicely with Windows. I changed it so the Google key points to the permalink instead of the index page. It might help.

Update: the Google Maps problem is probably that you’re visiting www.philisha.net instead of philisha.net. Look closely. Is this site called “www.philisha.net” in any place? No… it is not. It is called philisha.net, and that is what you are supposed to use. (You could blame me for setting it up so they both point to the same place, but that would be silly. Anyway, they don’t any more.) Thank you.

Alisha got me the first season of Macgyver on DVD! I’m not normally one to watch any television, but Macgyver is pretty much the best. As a child I revered him as a great role model, and even though many years have passed, I still hold his amazing skills in high regard.

something that is not funny

Hey everyone: what do you call it when a Ruby hacker wears a Perl shirt?

Ancestor veneration.

Oh man, I crack myself up some times.

I really wish I had a hi-resolution version of this

two-way street

The last time I contributed to a Free Software project it was pretty trivial. This time it’s nothing to get too excited about, but it’s a contribution with actual code content. I added inline commenting like I had on my old blog system, and it seems to work pretty well. It was just a quick lunch-break hack, but that’s just because Rails makes things so easy.

Also, I reverted back to the default theme when I got the latest version of Typo. I equate using the default theme with an acceptance of defeat; I must have something custom that truly exhibits my mad skills. (Right.) I’ve decided my next design will step away from the whole cloud thing, but am still seeking inspiration.

Let me know what you think of the new comments system. I was having trouble with using it in The Worst Browser, but I think that was actually the Google Maps code. Whatever.

In closing, the Firefox 1.1 Alpha is really fast. I’ve temporarily switched back from Galeon, and we’ll see how it goes. No crashes yet.

two cinema-related thoughts

Just saw War of the Worlds. Too many Half-life 2 flashbacks; make it stop! (Complete with a Father-Grigori-esque character.) I would sum it up as a good telling of a poor story. H.G. Wells is depressing. I feel like I should go read Perelandra to cleanse my mind.

Planet Zacchaeus now is hooked up to my custom La Mirada Dollar Theatre feed. The idea is that there are a bunch of movies I’ve been putting off seeing until they Dollar Theatre, but it is really easy to not notice when they start showing there and miss them entirely.

bierce

SATAN, n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sackcloth and ashes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I should like to ask,” said he.

“Name it.”

“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”

“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul—you ask for the right to make his laws?”

“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”

It was so ordered.

—The Devil’s Dictionary

Blind Guardian is fairly cool.

And Wikimedia has some great stuff by Gustave Doré.

I recently thought to myself “This is the coolest thing since Zork 404,” but I can’t remember what it was about which I had thought that. I’m not entirely sure if the sentence structure on that last one is correct, but I’m going with it.

dont you want to hire me?t you want to hire me?

I’ve been sprucing up Technomancy, my online portfolio/resume. For one, it really needed it, but the opening on the Hula Project really got my attention. It’s definitely a long-shot, but working on Hula would be an amazing opportunity. Hula is an open-source webmail, calendar, and contacts system. Imagine GMail with a rockin’ calendar, only you can take it and create your own installations of it, (so you don’t have to rely on the good will of Google) poke at the internals, and break the 2GB quota.

On an unrelated note, this quotation sums up a lot of what Free Software is really all about:

I had a flash of insight and suddenly the entirety of Python’s Unicode support became clear to me. I coded madly for several hours until it faded. It’s entirely possible that that’s just the LSD talking, but thanks to the magic of open source, everyone can now share in my good trip.

—Mark Pilgrim

The GNU Public License: sharing a good trip since 1989.

above all, make it fun

The agenda for RubyConf ‘05 has been revealed and contains no less than three talks on Rails.

[...]

So you should come. Certainly if you’re doing or interested in Ruby. Absolutely if you’re in, or getting into, Rails. Most of the core group is going to be there as well as plenty more. This RubyConf is the first where Rails will have “come of age” and people will be swapping all those juicy real-life stories.

Thus, I insist on seeing you in San Diego from October 14th through 16th at RubyConf 2005.

-DHH from Loud Thinking

Well, you don’t have to say it twice. I’m there.

Anybody have any experience with Abe Books? I ordered The Pragmatic Programmer from them twice recently. The first time I got the wrong book, and the second time I had to wait a month for the book to ship, (it never did) after which I cancelled my order and bought it straight from the publisher. (They shipped it to me in 4 days with a nice bonus: it was autographed in the front cover by the author.) I had heard good things about Abebooks from friends, but my own experience was very poor.

Any guesses as to what this photo depicts?

it takes 30 days for the do-not-call list to take effect

“Hello, you’ve reached the home of Phil and Alisha Hagelberg. We aren’t available to talk at the moment because nobody we want to talk to has our telephone number. You can say your name and number at the sound of the click, but we’ll never get back to you. Thanks for calling.”

“Hello? Who is this? Oh, I think you have the wrong number. No, you’re confusing me with someone who is foolish enough to buy something from an unsolicited telephone call. Bye.”

Ray Smuckles
is hilarious: “They got that Russian alphabet all goin’ on, where it’s like they took the American alphabet and commissioned a smartass to make fun of our letters.”

Also, I can really relate to Leiningen now. Freaking ants!

look, its Biola!

(Unfortunately it only works on the splash page because they only authorize each API key for use under a single URL, and separate Rails actions count as different URLs even though they are not. (That's why a truly Free solution would obviously be better.) Still, coolness.)

monkey trial

Today I stumbled upon a re-enactment of the Scopes trial. Now the Scopes trial is one of those things about which is very difficult to get an unbiased account. (Not even hardcore naturalists will defend Inherit the Wind as factual.) But here Nat Friedman had culled the actual transcripts from the trial into something short and readable.

On May 25, 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted in this
county for violating what is generally known as the anti-evolution
statute. The statute is Chapter 27 of the acts of 1925, which makes it
unlawful to teach in the universities, normals and all other public
schools of the state, which are supported in whole or in part by the
public school funds of the state, any theory that denies the story of
Divine creation of man as taught in the Bible and teach instead
thereof that man descended from a lower order of animals.

Apart from the silly first few paragraphs, it seems that he took pains to make it factually accurate. What surprised me when I read it was that nobody really seemed to be in the right. The defense pleads not guilty, then his lawyer openly admits Scopes did what the law prohibited a few pages later. But even the prosecution… well, let me explain.

The arguments in defense are laughably bad: firstly that the Biblical account is meant to be allegorical does nothing to answer the charges in question. He admittedly taught that “man descended from a lower order of animals.” The second argument of the defense is that Scopes taught that man was descended from monkeys, and monkeys are not “a lower order of animals” according to evolution. I hope the lunacy of this is clear—if man is descended from monkeys, what are monkeys descended from? It’s hard to have any sympathy for the bloke.

On the other hand, Darrow brings up a good question later on: what good does it do to hide from difficult ideas? Evolution at that point was a troubling threat on the horizon, and America banned it in response. (This shows a disturbing lack of insight into the minds of children, who are guaranteed to latch on to a thing once it has been prohibited.) Is that the way to combat ideas? By bullying them? Censorship of opposing ideas is a tactic only suitable for those whose ideas are too weak to stand on their own merit. Case in point: today the tables are turned, and only with great struggle is there any chance to teach the controversy.

no, no, no!

I’ve blogged before about the shame associated with Star Wars merchandising, but the Slave Leia Pet Costume is too ridiculous! And “Choose the dark side”?!!! What the devil? The dark side is evil, remember? I thought they could sink no lower.

This fellow sums it up well.