existdissolve.com
the singularity of being and nothingness
A New Blog About Yummy Stuff :)
Aug 11th
My sister-in-law has recently launched a new blog about food, which is awesome, because I just so happen to love to eat food.
The blog is called The Fresh Fridge, and covers lots of ground, from 20-minute meals, to appetizers, to wine reviews.
If you’re hungry, or have already eaten and are already looking for some inspiration for your next meal, check it out
I’m Probably Getting Ready to Dump Firefox
Aug 10th
Anyone who knows me knows that I have long been a big supporter of Firefox. Back in the day, Firefox was the breath of fresh air in the otherwise olfactory-oppressing wasteland of an IE-dominated interwebs. Firefox was fast, innovative, and, best of all, let you add stuff on to it.
Add cool stuff. Like Pay-Pal plugins. Like RSS readers. Like Firebug.
It was the bees’ knees, and looked like it was going to gobble up all the stragglers that IE left in its “who cares about the experience” attitude toward the internet.
But then Chrome came along. It was sleek. It was fast. And best of all, it brought some fresher-than-Firefox ideas to browsing.
Better, fresher ideas. Like tabs-on-top. Like better architecture for faster…everything. Like not-having-to-upgrade-every-2.5-seconds.
So I’ve been using Chrome alot lately. Sure, it’s different. But what I’ve found is that it’s better. Sure, it doesn’t have Firebug (which is probably the only reason whatsoever that I continue to use Firefox). But every version gets better. And faster. And awesomer.
And Firefox? Perhaps its my groaning, Vista-laden PC, but Firefox hates everything. It’s slow, it freezes, it crashes…and very few of the plugins that I depend on for Firefox to be awesome can keep up with the More >
Two Swords and an Interpretive Dilemma
Aug 6th
Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered.
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’[b]; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”
The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.” “That is enough,” he replied.
(Luke 22:35-38)
If you’ve ever studied this passage from Luke 22, you’re sure to have come away with, at the very least, a modicum of uncertainty and perhaps a fair amount of confusion as well. While it’s quite simple in its construction, the ridiculously large number of interpretations that are assigned to it makes it a troubling passage from an exegetical perspective.
What makes this passage so difficult to interpret, however, is not the obscurity of its words, but rather the ends to which different interpreters press the passage. Principally, this passage is used by many to advocate something of a justification of Christian violence-through-self-defense, while others use the passage More >
ColdFusion Query Parameter Weirdness
Aug 3rd
You can file this one under either “huh, that’s kinda cool” or “that’s terrible…don’t ever do it!”…or maybe both.
As of ColdFusion 9, it’s now possible to execute queries in 100% cfscript. This is awesome for me ‘cuz I just happen to prefer to do as much in cfscript as possible.
Anyway, if you’ve worked with the cfscript version of cfquery, you’ll know that mimicking the behavior of cfqueryparam is pretty straightforward. Something like the following should do the trick:
// create new query services
qs = new query();
// set attributes of service
qs.addattributes(datasource="mydb",name="thequery");
// set sql
qs.setsql("select title from posts where isawesome = ?);
// set queryparam for dynamic query
qs.addparam(value="Awesome",cfsqltype="varchar");
...rest of processing...
Easy enough. I got to wondering if it would be possible to use a ternary operator as the “value” of the queryparam. Turns out, you can
// set queryparam for dynamic query using ternary operator
qs.addparam(value=form.isawesome==true ? 'Awesome' : '',cfsqltype="varchar");
Here, if a form variable (“isawesome”) is set to true, the value of the parameter will be “Awesome”; otherwise, it will be set to empty string.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. On a certain level, it’s cool that it works. However, it feels kind of hacky to More >
“Son of the Morning,” by Oh, Sleeper
Aug 3rd
This outstanding track by Oh, Sleeper can be found on the new Tooth and Nail Solid State Sampler (just click on “Free Sampler”).
To me, this is one of those tracks that epitomizes how lyrical meaning can be radically extended by the medium in which it is delivered. While I think the lyrics on their own merits are pretty profound, their execution against the shrill guitars and angst of the vocal performance infuse them with a level of intensity and meaning that could not be captured otherwise. This is definitely one of my new favorite songs.
SynopsisThis song is basically a conversation between Satan and the crucified Christ, or rather a monologue from two radically different perspectives.
Throughout the song, the devil exults in his apparent victory over the “weak forgiver,” the supposed savior who has been vanquished by the devil’s hand in the grave. Satan continues by mocking the dead Christ, intimating that he should have used his power to save himself, rather than “wasting power on grace.” And having triumphed over Christ in death, the devil promises that the same end which now enfolds the body of the redeemer will be that toward which he will lure all those Christ came to More >
Quick Update
Aug 2nd
I like the free, hosted wordpress.com site I have, but I need something a bit more customizable. Therefore, I’ll probably be pretty silent over the next couple of days while I upgrade my WordPress to a real install on my own hosting account. But don’t worry, I’ll be back
Some More on Apologetics
Jul 31st
In my last post on the subject of apologetics, I argued the true spirit of apologetics should be focused on laying out the place of Christian beliefs within the context of the life and community of faith. Instead of trying to “convince” non-believers about the “reasonableness” of the historicity or phenomenology of some point of doctrine, I suggested that the “reasonableness” of Christian belief can only be fully realized in the articulation of these doctrines as emerging from the experience of the faithful themselves. In this way, then, beliefs about the Incarnation, resurrection, etc. are not “truths” that necessarily exist independently of the profession of faith of the community of believers, but rather find their truthfulness and meaningfulness from the mission and identity of the body of Christ within the kingdom of God in the world.
I suggest that the purpose of apologetics was never intended to be about converting others to one’s way of thinking through logic and argumentation. Rather, to recall the famous Petrine passage, Christians are to give an answer “…to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15). The words in bold are important, for they frame the course More >
CFScript Alternative to CFContent
Jul 29th
Ran into this issue today. At work, data returned from CFCs have a bunch of content pre-pended. In regular tag-flow coding, this is super-simple to overcome:
<cfcontent type="text/plain" reset="true" /> <cfreturn mycontent />
Using the cfcontent tag, I can “[discard] output that precedes call to cfcontent” (from the docs ). This strips out all the garbage that I don’t want, and returns only the awesome data that I need.
Since we’re getting ready to upgrade to CF9, however, I’ve been playing around with writing my ColdFusion components in the new 100% script-based syntax. One problem, though: there is no cfscript version of cfcontent, so I’m back to the original problem.
Fortunately, there is a solution. By tapping into the underlying Java methods that are exposed, we can easily recreate similar functionality. Here’s all it takes:
remote any function getdata() {
getpagecontext().getcfoutput().clearall(); �
return supersweetdata;
}
Nothing to it. And for future reference, take 5 minutes to dump out getpagecontext(). You can see all the nice methods that are available…who knows, you might just find something useful
Farewell Napster, Hello MOG
Jul 22nd
For about 4 years now, I have had a premium membership with Napster (no, not the Napster that you remember from college…:)). My $15-odd dollars a month granted me access to millions of songs that I could stream over the internet, or download for quicker playback on up to 3 personal computers. Additionally, I could sync tracks to an MP3 player (up to 3 of them), allowing me to take my music on the road…it only required an annoying license-refresher-sync every month or so.
This worked pretty well for me for a long time. I was too cheap to buy an iPod, , so the 5GB (?) Creative Zen that I mooched off my little brother was the perfect fit. Then it broke (sorry Jared). And then Vista started hating the Napster software. And then all my favorite songs started showing up as only available in 30-second clips. And then I got my iPhone which, of course, isn’t compatible with most of ANYTHING that Napster does. It was time for a change.
So the other night I came across on article on Mashable about the launch of a brand-spanking-new app, a gateway app to the MOG music service.
Well, this was the first I had More >
Some Thoughts on Apologetics
Jul 21st
Recently, I’ve been visiting a variety of apologetics-focused blogs and forums (super exiting, right? ). During my readings and interactions with the bloggers associated with these sites, I’ve started asking some hard questions about the usefulness of apologetics within the life of faith and mission or the Church.
Given my background (B.S., Pastoral Ministries, M.A. Theological Studies), I’m definitely no stranger to the “logic” of apologetics. Based on the famous Petrine passage, the ultimate purpose of apologetics, as a discipline, is to “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15). From 2nd century Justin Martyr’s Apologies, to McDowell’s famous Evidence That Demands A Verdict, to Strobel’s Case for Christ, there is a long, varied, and rich tradition of apologetics within Christian theology. While motivations and level of expertise have varied in the execution, the ultimate goal of each work has been, I think, to show the Christian faith as something “reasonable,” to defend the faith on intellectual grounds.
While this is in itself a noble goal, I think something that is far too often overlooked is the interplay of philosophy, theology and biblical interpretation that happens between the apologist More >
