the singularity of being and nothingness
existdissolve
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Posts by existdissolve
Adobe's Spry Framework, Part Second
Sep 17th
A couple days ago, I posted an example of how Adobe's Spry Framework allows one to easily and quickly incorporate XML datasets into an application, allowing for a great alternative to page-to-page navigation and data mining.
One of the limitations I pointed out was the initial amount of coding involved. Well, that was because I'm an idiot.
While I've used Spry's Spry.Data.XMLDataSet() many times before, I literally had no idea how powerful it is, nor that it could interact with dynamically generated XML files, such as I was doing with ColdFusion components in my last example. However, such is not the case. Not only does this method allow me to do everything I was doing before, it involves a heck of lot less code. The entire invoke for the datasets here is:
var dsCities = new Spry.Data.XMLDataSet("getlocations.cfc method=getCities", "cities/city");var dsLocations = new Spry.Data.XMLDataSet("getlocations.cfc?method=getLocations&cityID={dsCities::@id}", "locations/location");
Two lines of javascript! Now of course, there is more to handle some of the behaviors…but I have effectively cut out about 100 lines from what I was doing before. Pretty cool!
Finally, the best part about this is it allows me to take full advantage of the framework's "spry:state". With this, one can set different "states" that will fire in relation More >
CD Review - Sarah Blasko's "What The Sea Wants The Sea Will Have"
Sep 13th
The perrenial liability of pop music is the tendancy of over-produced, singles'-charts-minded arrangements to betray lyrical meaning, as the value of words is sacrificed on the alter of commercial viability. Such a depraved environment craves seriousness, originality and a disavowal of the all-too-great temptation to jettison thought, form and artistry for air-play.
In many ways, Sarah Blasko's What The Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have is a strong beacon admist the stormy, churning seas of the burned-over homogeneity of pop music. Hailing from Austraila, Blasko offers a mature and sobering collection of songs in her second album. The beauty of What The Sea Wants finds its terminus in its utter simplicity in exceptional diversity. Although the arrangements extend from complete orchestral sections on songs like "[explain]" to the innovative usage of steel drums on "Planet New Year," they are incorporated seamlessly into the thoughtful melancholy of Blasko's artistry without pretension and without ever feeling as if the production is trying too hard. Deep and brooding, what this produces, musically, is the perfect backdrop for Blasko's penetrating songwriting which is matched only by her hauntingly beautiful and intoxicatingly melodic arrangements. Here, joy, pain, love, loss and hope are fused with a realism that embraces, More >
Web 2.0 Goodness - Adobe's Spry Framework
Sep 12th
Ok, so as everyone who reads this blog knows (or should know…), I am a web designer/web developer. On the development side, I am best at ColdFusion , one of the under-appreciated programming langugages out there. While ColdFusion is awesome, one of the drawbacks of it (as well as of PHP, .NET, etc.) is that it is a server-side technology, meaning (surprise, surprise) that all of the code processing done is accomplished on the server. So, any of the cool Web 2.0 stuff out there, like asynchronous form submission, has to use Javascript.
While ColdFusion 8 has some seriously cool AJAX features built into it that handle alot of this kind of thing with ease, it is not free and wonderful hosting companies (like GoDaddy) are slow to upgrade their servers to the newest version. Therefore, the onus is upon the developer to utilize the various work-arounds until ColdFusion 8 is firmly entrenched.
One tool that makes life significantly easier is Adobe's Spry Framework . While Spry includes a lot of the cool effects of other Javascript frameworks, one of the best parts of it is the easy way in which it allows Spry to make server-side calls to allow applications to harness More >
Peacocke Wednesday - Interconnected
Sep 12th
In the first chapter, "What is There," Peacocke examines the shift in metaphorical language about the nature of reality that has been necessitated by advances in understanding of the physical universe, most particularly the insights gleaned from quantum mechanics. While humans tend to think of space and time as isolated, irreducible "things" (e.g., this "lamp" and "my childhood"), the quantum world reveals not only an incessant fluxuation in the nature of space/time, but even more importantly a reducibility of all "things" as metaphors to their irreducible constituent elements. Rather than viewing ourselves and our actions as something that exists "in" space/time or "over-and-against" space/time, the quantum world reveals that who and what we are-in terms of reducibility-are themselves partakers of the fabric of space/time as opposed to alient substances existing therein.
One obvious conclusion of these observations is that it remains no longer possible to speak of reality (people, events, weather, solar systems, etc.) as a series of potentially related, yet closed "systems." No matter how small or seemingly significant something may be, its existence comes to bear on the whole of all else that exists-the butterfly in Cuba disturbing the air effects change in the weather patters in Los More >
Peacocke Monday - The Start of Something New
Sep 10th
Over the next few weeks (hopefully not too many of them!), I will be making my way through Arthur Peacocke's Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming — Natural, Diving and Human. During this time, I hope to leave some brief thoughts on Peacocke's conclusions, commenting about the significance which his writings have for many of the discussions that are currently engaging the hearts and minds of the Church.
I have long been fascinated by the relationship between theology and science, and over the course of my past research into these issues, Peacocke's writings have factored heavily in the development of my tentative conclusions. While many of Peacocke's writings focus on exploring the meaningfulness of theology and science on specific levels (e.g., evolutionary theory), this work seeks to establish a more fundamental link between the two. In a nutshell, Peacocke argues that as both the sciences and theology engage many of the same properties of the human search for significance, knowledge and meaning, so too are they inextricably related to one another. To the chagrin of many antagonists, Peacocke argues that the notion that each pursuit operates within easily bifurcated realms of discussion is the height of naivety and More >
CD Review - Suzy Bogguss' "Sweet Danger"
Sep 5th
In the mid-90's, Suzy Bogguss was a powerhouse name in country music, garnering a half-dozen top-ten singles, numerous awards, and even the coveted Academy of Country Music's award for Top New Female Vocalist. However, as with all things, time and age took their toll. After a brief hiatus from the music scene to raise her family, Bogguss returned to an ambivalent audience of listeners who had seemingly moved on from her tender style of song writing.
For those who may have moved on, however, Sweet Danger represents a modest redefinition of Bogguss as a singer, songwriter and musician. To begin, it is difficult to classify this album as "country." While there are certainly discernible country roots underlying the melodies, tracks like "The Bus Ride" and "It's Not Gonna Happen" are delightfully steeped in soft washes of jazz, transforming Bogguss' voice from country-twanger to smoky-club crooner. Yet on songs such as "Sweet Danger" and "Chain Lover", the subdued jazz tones are seamlessly exchanged for intoxicatingly gritty and indefatigable blues' themes. However, lest this album be seen as a manufactured attempt at personal redefinition, the transformation is short of total-the listener is quickly reminded of Bogguss' country roots on cuts like the melodically mesmerizing More >
CD Review - Caedmon's Call "Overdressed"
Aug 29th
Boasting a career spanning over a decade and a half, Caedmon's Call is, without question, one of Christian alternative music's most successful and beloved never-to-go-mainstream bands. Overdressed, the eighth full-length release from the band, continues the band’s legacy of folk-inspired alternative rock and welcomes back Derek Webb who left the band in 2003 to pursue three solo records.
While not particularly musically innovative, Caedmon's Call has been a consistently compelling band because of the depth and thoughtfulness of their lyricism. In a scene glutted with sterilized and genericized musical platitudes about faith, love and hope, Caedmon's Call infused their writing with penetrating intensity and poignant, unapologetically (and sometimes offensively) prophetic insight. The depth of this commitment to writing can be perhaps seen best in 2004's Share the Well, in which the band applied their talents to tackle issues of poverty and injustice they had personally witnessed on trips to India, Ecuador and Brazil.
Overdressed, like other Caedmon's Call releases, is an enjoyable collection of the band’s now standard unassuming folk-driven rock united to thought-provoking lyrics. However, after 15 years of a practically unchanged format, Overdressed leaves the longtime listener with much to be desired. True enough, the songs—in typical Caedmon's Call fashion-are certainly catchy and More >
landscape-expressions.com Receives Design Kudos
Aug 22nd
Okay, more gratuitous self-aggrandizement.
The site which I recently finished, landscape-expressions.com , has been featured on the following design sites:
cssclip.com
mostinspired.com
epreo.com
Hooray.
/end self-congratulatory post
CD Review - Over the Rhine's "The Trumpet Child"
Aug 22nd
Over 17 years in the making, The Trumpet Child—the 13th studio album from Cincinnati-based husband and wife duo (Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist) Over the Rhine —is a late-coming, albeit welcome and invigorating redefinition of the band’s sound. Known for their gritty emotionalisim and often dark aesthetic, The Trumpet Child is a sort of reawakening for OTR. Infusing an infectious blend of trumpets, trombones and saxophones to their standard acoustic set, The Trumpet Child sounds brighter and airier, as if the non-chalaunt freedom of the horns have liberated the band from an acoustically ethereal purgatory.
But despite the radically care-free sound of The Trumpet Child, the infectious lyrical pathos for which OTR is beloved remains, albeit translated in a new direction. A song like "Trouble," although saucy and sassy, wittily explores while thoughtfully deconstructing the vagrancies of infatuation and love. Yet later on, "Let's Spend the Day in Bed" celebrates the simplicity of life and love in the bright and equally ordinary images of everyday life.
But The Trumpet Child is not all light and air. The darker lyrical directions for which the band is known force their way to the surface periodically. The plodding, incessantly melancholic melody of "Nothing is Innocent" conjures meanings More >
Mohler v. Boteach on Human Sexuality
Aug 21st
Last night on CNN I watched a special with Roland S. Martin entitled "God, Sex and Greed" which featured, among others,"America's Rabbi," Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (he has his own bobble-head, which is pretty cool) and Dr. Albert Mohler (he really needs a bobblehead). Both these men were asked about what some feel to be the over-sexed nature of American culture, what their opions of it were, and what they thought could be done. Honestly, I thought both their answers were very interesting.
Rabbi Boteach began by suggesting that rather than being "over-sexed," American culture is actually suffering from a lack of genuine, intimate sexuality that is the ideal of human relatedness. The sex crisis in America, according to Boteach, is not sexual, but pornographic. To Boteach, the perversion in American sexuality stems from the fact that like all other areas of American society, sexuality and human relationships in general have become one more commodity to be bought and sold between individuals. In such a scenario, human persons become objectified and commoditized and sexuality loses any meaning as it lacks the vulnerability and celebration that marks the nature of healthy, non-objectified human relationships.
Mohler, on the other hand, objectified the problem of sexuality in America, not More >
