i prefer pi

From “The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World” by Tim Keller:

I remember one woman, years ago, and I was trying to evangelize her who said “This is scary, this idea, that everyone is saved by sheer grace. This is scary.” And I said “Why is it so scary?” And she said, “Well, if I was saved by my works, I’d have some control.” “What do you mean?” I asked. She said, “If I was saved by my works, then I’m like a taxpayer; I’ve paid my dues, and there’s a limit to what he can ask of me. I have rights! And I’ve worked very hard, and he can’t ask just anything of me. But if I’m saved by sheer grace,” she said, “there’s no limit to what he could ask of me.”

You know the movie, The Bible, the movie? Where they’re depicting, I guess, it’s George C. Scott playing Abraham? I don’t like almost any other part of the movie, but at the very end, what’s very moving is watching Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac, when Isaac, the little boy Isaac, is sitting on, is laying there, getting ready to be sacrificed, and he’s bound up, and he realizes what his father is doing. It’s a little extra-biblical, but it still moves me. Isaac looks up at him and realizes what’s going on, and says “Father, is there nothing he cannot ask of thee?” And George C. Scott says, “Nothing.”

The title has a lot of words, but it’s one of the best messages I’ve heard.

It turns out that I’m not the only one who Googles for Nightwish videos.

Here are a few blogs that I’ve begun to track in the past six months or so, in rough order of signal-to-noise ratio (increasing):

• IKEA Hacker — Just linked to this today from LifeHacker. I like DIY stuff, so it looks good for ideas, if nothing else.
• Starbucks Gossip — Unofficial bits and snippets from Starbucks and culture and Starbucks culture. The comments are mostly angsty baristas, but there are sometimes some good insights into what it’s like to be “on the inside”. Interesting note: many people at Starbucks want to be at a Starbucks in Seattle.
• Indexed — Infographic comics drawn on 3×5″ index cards. It’s as much fun as it sounds!
• Get Rich Slowly — A bit of generally-good personal finance advice and money-saving tips. It seems that they’re just getting off their feet, and I wonder how long they can go before exhausting the material available (see Fontleech), recycling, or contradicting themselves.
• The Budget Wino — I actually don’t drink wine that much, but I’d like to think that there’s a ten-dollar bottle out there better than the communion wine at WPC. Caveat: I haven’t taken action on any of his reviews.  Only posts once or twice a week.
• Credit Score Tips & Advice — A veteran from a non-profit credit repair agency shares inside knowledge of credit information and advice.  The author only posts every few days, so the quality and volume are great.
• Mike Harsh’s Blog — Interesting samples and news about codename WPF/E, the technology that I work on at Microsoft. It’s a shameless plug, I know.

P.S. Silence for a long time, and then both Matt and Alex post on the same day. Coincidence? I think not.

“The thing that cracks me up about these things is the unabashed faith that people have in computer modeling, much of which enables us to speculate blindly at high rates of speed.”

— Douglas Wilson, “Shoot, Follow the Money” (accessed 21 Feb 2007)

“You are about to learn about computer programming, which is like talking to an incredibly fast idiot who does exactly what you tell him — nothing more, nothing less. It can be quite frustrating.”

– Bjarne Stroustrup, before an introductory lecture to
first-semester computer engineering students (January 2004)

Okay, I admit it, I like old-people music. Additionally, I secretly enjoy “A Prairie Home Companion“, Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio variety hour on NPR. If any of that means anything to you, you might be glad to hear that “The News from Lake Woebegone” is now available as a free podcast / download. You also might be glad to hear that they have a page compiling their classical music parodies. My favorites are the wonderfully white-bread odes to Norman Olson (set to “Nessun Dorma” in North Dakota) and the heartfelt version of “O Sole Mio”, now endorsing Bella Amorosa, the “pizza of passionate romance”. They’re all quite good, if you can overlook the fact that you need RealPlayer to listen.

An aside: I was surprised to discover that Puccini’s Turandot, the source of the famous “Nessun Dorma” aria, is still under copyright.

*Ahem*

billgatesforpresident.net

Hey, why not?

Laura is the best girlfriend and caretaker ever in the history of the world.  I know, I know, you may have objections — your wife, your girlfriend, your mom — but I assure you that they are all vain posturing: Laura Cherry defeats them all.

Arg — Verizon’s service operators only work from 8 AM to 5 PM, Eastern Standard Time.  What, no one on the West coast needs to do anything after 2:00 in the afternoon?

First, I introduce you to ninjawords.com, a super-fast (like a ninja!) online dictionary from my friend Phil Crosby. Second, I give you a list of words that I’ve needed definitions for lately but haven’t had on-hand:

prosaic

(adj) : relating to prose; Straightforward or dull

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antinomianism

(n) : the theological doctrine that by faith and God’s grace a Christian is freed from all laws (including the moral standards of the culture)

synonyms: theological doctrine

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homily

(n) : a sermon, especially concerning a practical matter; a tedious moralizing lecture

synonyms: sermon, discourse, preaching

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homiletics

(n) : the art of preaching; the branch of theology that deals with sermons and homilies

synonyms: theology, divinity, art, artistry

Penultimately, I produce a link for all of the words on one page, and finally, I note that I wasn’t aware of the pejorative connotation of “homily”.

I upgraded the blog to use Wordpress 2.1 recently. If anything looks completely whacked, please let me know.